Astrology, often dismissed today, played a significant role in the statecraft of the Ottoman Empire, with official astrologers (munajjims) integral to political and scientific discourse from 1450 to 1600, particularly after Mehmed II’s conquest of Constantinople. A. Tunc Sen’s book, Forgotten Experts, challenges the narrative that science declined in the Ottoman period, illustrating how astrology intertwined with mathematics and astronomy, and how its significance fluctuated with rulers, as seen in the founding of the Suleymaniye Mosque and the eventual destruction of Istanbul’s observatory under Murad III. The complex relationship between astrology and science highlights active debates and controversies in a dynamic pre-modern context, countering simplistic historical interpretations.
