My search really started many years ago when on a visit to Spain I saw in the museum of Madrid an astrolabe made by Al-Zarqoli of Cordova (1029-1087), with the label mentioning that this great man had been to Lahore to learn the craft of metallurgy.

That information got stuck in some remote corner of my brain, and just last week I came across a book published by the Punjab Small Industries Corporation on the 'Crafts of Lahore' in the office of old family friends Hasnain and Jawad Almakky. All my efforts to borrow the book failed, but I did manage to read an interesting chapter on the 'astrolabes of Lahore'.

This set me off on a search for the 'astrolabe makers of Lahore'. I remember searching for a brass craftsman in Kot Abdul Malik to get a brass machinery part made a few years ago, and spent two hours talking to Hafiz Majeed. It was there that he told me that he was the last of the 'astrolabe' makers of Lahore. Luckily he has a few 'shagirds' – pupils – who still carry on the ancient tradition of Lahore.

Let me start this piece with the reason Lahore has always been known, even in pre-Moghal times, as the city of learning, of poets and of gardens. The basis of all knowledge is to have a logical mind, and with the ability to communicate. For logic we need mathematics and for communication we need languages. Both are critical.

In our youth we were forced to rote mathematical tables sitting on a mat under a tree in the Thal desert. My father had learnt Urdu, English, Punjabi, Persian and Arabic, plus he could, in a flash, tell me what 2.5 multiplied by 7.5 added up to. This is a great tradition we have ignored to our peril.

If you understand the way in which 'mohallahs', 'kuchas' and 'baithaks' are named in the old walled city, you will come across names like Kucha Musauwaran, Kucha Rangrezan, Kucha Kamangaram, Baithak Katiban, Suttar Bazaar, Kasera Bazaar or Suha Bazaar – the list is endless – all of which identify the profession of the people who lived there.

There is a Mohallah Kaftgar, where steel, gold or silver metallurgists lived and excelled in producing leavened metals. The science of metallurgy was well and alive in Lahore almost a thousand years ago. I was going through the website of the magazine 'Science Today' and an article by Mendenhall on 'Understanding Copper Alloys' pointed out to the amazing high-zinc brass that was produced in Lahore in the 15th century. Europe was then in the 'dark ages'. He reproduced a table from that age that amazed me, and I must reproduce its contents before I continue my story.

In the manufacture of 'astrolobes' a high-zinc brass is needed. By the early 16th century a table on how to achieve this metallurgy was written in Lahore by Sheikh Allahdad Langas, who put down on paper, using a diagram using the Euclidian plain, the manner in which brass was to be heated till 1083 degrees and then he came up with we today know as the Cu-Zu Phase Diagram. At 900 degrees the weight drops by 32 per cent and then the beta aspect is calculated. The exact crystal structure of the alloy and its composition are given. It was no wonder, given the high intellectual skill of our metallurgists in those days, that Al-Zarqoli of Cordova wanted to come to Lahore.

The manufacture of these medieval astronomical instruments in Lahore was known the world over even in the 16th century. I was looking up material to locate ancient Lahore astrolabes only to find that a Spanish Muslim had used 'planispheric astrolobes' from Hind – maybe from Lahore – to guide the discoverer Columbus. But that is another subject, for a Muslim Chinese had landed in America 80 years before him.

What is an astrolabe? It is a two-dimensional instrument to measure the zodiac circle. With the use of analytical geometry, and centering a map of the equator and with a measure of the horizon, one can measure distances. There are two types of astrolobes; one is planispheric, while the other is celestial. For celestial measurements the use of spherical geometry is used. The Al-Zarqoli 'arzachel' in Madrid is a horizontal projector.

My searches set me going to consult a book considered an authority on astrolabes. It is R.T Gunther's book: 'The Astrolabes of the World'. In this detailed compilation every astrolabe that exists in the world has been traced. Also the renowned astrolabe makers have been traced, and mentioned in great detail. It will come as a surprise to many, as it surely did to me, that almost 54 per cent of all astrolabes that exist in various museums and known private collections have been manufactured in Lahore. This set me on the track of the famous family that made them, and traces of whom I have not been able to establish.

In Mohallah Langar Khaini inside Lohari Gate lived the family of Sheikh Allahdad Asturlabi Humayuni Lahori. I did considerable walking through the streets of the old walled city, and managed to find some track of this family and their old workshop in Mohallah Kaftgar just near Kucha Kamangaran inside Mochi Gate. But there is a puzzle in this, because the walls of the old walled city moved outwards to include Mochi in the times of Akbar the Great. Did the family have a furnace outside the city in earlier times?

It is possible because even today almost all the old furnaces are outside the walled city to the southern side. Much more research is needed into this aspect of the old astrolabe makers. For five generations this 'asturlabi' family worked on being experts in metallurgy and astrolabe making. The last of the greats was Ziauddin Muhammad Astarlabi, who was the son of Qayyum Astralabi. His father was the truly great Mulla Isa Muhammad Astralabi, whose works can be seen in the museums of Berlin and in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The works of Sheikh Allahdad can be seen in many private collections.

The Lahore Museum has a collection of some excellent 'astrolabes', naturally those belonging to the famous family of Lahore that made them. The mathematical precision needed to determine exact astronomical and topographical relationships call for a high degree of theoretical knowledge, what to speak of mathematical excellence. Lahore had all of these qualities. Among other well-known Lahore astrolabe makers were Lala Sohnu Mal, Ustad Pir Bakhsh and Sheikh Allahdad Langas. Among the last of the greats was Allama Syed Sulayman Nadvi and Jodshee Dharm Chand.

Of recent Lahore has seen an upsurge in the study of mathematics and languages, thanks mainly to educationists like Prof Dr Khalid Aftab, the just retired vice-chancellor of Government College University. Students from Lahore have again asserted themselves as among the best mathematicians, just as Abdus Salam did almost half a century ago. The age of astrolabes has gone, but in the nearby town of Kot Abdul Malik, the master 'astralabi' maker Hafiz Majeed toils away, as do his pupils. May his work be acknowledged, for he is the inheritor of a great tradition that seems 'almost' lost.