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A chronicler of the time wrote that "From the time of Adam until this day no age, period, cycle or moment can be indicated in which people
enjoyed such peace and tranquility." Under their patronage, music, calligraphy, Persian miniature painting, literature, and various scientific pursuits flourished.
Ulugh Beg, who ruled over the empire during the two years between his father's death and his own, was one of the greatest astronomers that the
world has ever seen. He built a magnificent observatory in Samarkand and the calculations that he made with it gained him fame in Europe as an eminent scholar. Unfortunately, he was
murdered in 1449 by his son Abdul Latif, who was alarmed at the secular pursuits of his father. A year after the murder, Abdul Latif also died. In 1452, Abu Sa'id (1424-1469), a grandson of
Miran Shah, brought the Timurid domains, still consisting of Transoxiana, Afghanistan and northern Persia, under his control. He was followed by Sultan Hussein Bayqara (1438-1506), a
grandson of Umar Shaykh, who began his rule of nearly four decades in 1468. "It was under his beneficient direction that Herat achieved the zenith of its glory as a center of art,
literature and scholarship." It was at Husayn's court that the poet Mir Ali Shir Nava'i, who popularized Chagatay, the classical Turkic language, as a literary medium, rose to
prominence, along with the miniature painter Bihzad and
the poet Jami. However, at the same time, the ruler also continued the pursuit of pleasure which had been a mark of most of the Timurid dynasty and which had resulted in more than a few of Timur's descendants dying from too much alcohol or other forms of debauchery.
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