Ulugh Beg
the grandson of Timûr, or Tamerlane; governed western Turkestan as regent for his father Shah Rokh, while the latter was employed in regulating the affairs of the S. half of the empire, and succeeded in 1447 to the imperial throne on his father's death. He was a successful warrior, as every ruler of this period had to be, but happened, unfortunately, to conceive suspicions of the loyalty of his eldest son, suspicions founded only on astrological indications.
The offended and injured prince rebelled, defeated and captured his father, and soon after caused him to be put to death, thus fulfilling the prediction, 1449.
Ulugh Beg is known to posterity as the founder of the observatory at Samarcand, as the liberal patron of astronomers, and as himself a most diligent observer. The astronomical tables which bear his name, in all probability compiled by himself and his fellow laborers, enjoy a high reputation for accuracy. The astronomical works of Ulugh Beg were written in Arabic, afterward translated into Persian, and thence into Latin by Greaves, who followed with a Latin version of the geographical part in 1652.