The observatory or the hospital?
A sultan holds money enough for one great building: an observatory measuring the stars and correcting the calendar, the qibla and the times, or a hospital treating the sick and teaching the doctors? The decision: the learning that heals forever, or the medicine healing today?
The positions
the observatory party
the stars rule the times, the travel, the seasons; measuring them is need
The evidence
observatories were built and corrected the astronomical tables for generations
Sources: concept/astronomyplace/baghdad
the hospital party
man before sky; healing the sick is the nearer good
The evidence
the hospitals treated the sick and taught doctors without distinction
Sources: place/damascusperson/ibn-sina
You decide
Which building would your money have deserved as sultan? Write your reason.
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