Ali Qushji (Ala al-Din Ali ibn Muhammad)

Ala al-Din Ali Qushji (1403–1474 CE) was trained by Ulugh Beg and Qadi Zada al-Rumi, succeeding as director of the Samarkand Observatory upon his master's assassination. After completing the *Zij-i Sultani*, he accepted an invitation from Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II (the Conqueror of Constantinople) to establish Ottoman imperial mathematics and astronomy at the Sahn-ı Seman Medrese of the Hagia Sophia.

In his treatise Concerning the Supposed Dependence of Astronomy upon Philosophy, Qushji broke with classical Aristotelian physics, arguing that astronomy must be an independent empirical and mathematical science. He concluded that empirical evidence does not contradict the daily rotation of the Earth on its axis.