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The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.(January 2008) Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. |
A significant number of inventions occurred in the Islamic world, a geopolitical region that has at various times extended from al-Andalus and Africa in the west to the Indian subcontinent and Malay Archipelago in the east.Refer to:
Muslim astronomers developed a number of astronomical instruments, including several variations of the astrolabe, originally invented by Hipparchus in the 2nd century BCE, but with considerable improvements made to the device in the Muslim world. These instruments were used by Muslims for a variety of purposes related to astronomy, astrology, horoscopes, navigation, surveying, timekeeping, Qibla, Salah, etc.
Several different types of globes and armillary spheres were invented by Muslim astronomers and engineers:
"There is no evidence for the Hellenistic origin of the spherical astrolabe, but rather evidence so far available suggests that it may have been an early but distinctly Islamic development with no Greek antecedents."
In 9th century Islamic Spain, Abbas Ibn Firnas (Armen Firnas) invented a primitive version of the parachute.Poore, Daniel. A History of Early Flight. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1952.Smithsonian Institution. Manned Flight. Pamphlet 1990.David W. Tschanz, Flights of Fancy on Manmade Wings, IslamOnline.net. Parachutes, Principles of Aeronautics, Franklin Institute. John H. Lienhard described it in The Engines of Our Ingenuity as follows:
"In 852, a new Caliph and a bizarre experiment: A daredevil named Armen Firman decided to fly off a tower in Cordova. He glided back to earth, using a huge winglike cloak to break his fall. He survived with minor injuries, and the young Ibn Firnas was there to see it.""\'Abbas Ibn Firnas". John H. Lienhard. The Engines of Our Ingenuity. NPR. KUHF-FM Houston. 2004. No. 1910. Transcript.
Shortly afterwards, Abbas Ibn Firnas built the first hang glider, which may have also been the first manned glider. Knowledge of Firman and Firnas\' flying machines spread to other parts of Europe from Arabic references.
According to Philip Hitti in History of the Arabs:
"Ibn Firnas was the first man in history to make a scientific attempt at flying."
Abbas Ibn Firnas was the first to make an attempt at controlled flight. He manuipulated the flight controls of his hang glider using two sets of artificial wings to adjust his altitude and to change his direction. He successfully returned to where he had lifted off from, but his landing was unsuccessful.Lynn Townsend White, Jr. (Spring, 1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study of Technological Innovation, Its Context and Tradition", Technology and Culture 2 (2), p. 97-111 [100-101].First Flights, Saudi Aramco World, January-February 1964, p. 8-9.
Ibn Firnas\' hang glider was the first to have artificial wings, though the flight was eventually unsuccessful. According to Evliya Çelebi in the 17th century, Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi was the first aviator to have made a successful flight with artificial wings between 1630-1632.Arslan Terzioglu (2007), "The First Attempts of Flight, Automatic Machines, Submarines and Rocket Technology in Turkish History", in The Turks (ed. H. C. Guzel), pp. 804-810.
According to Evliya Çelebi in the 17th century, Lagari Hasan Çelebi launched himself in the air in a seven-winged rocket, which was composed of a large cage with a conical top filled with gunpowder. The flight was accomplished as a part of celebrations performed for the birth of Ottoman Emperor Murad IV\'s daughter in 1633. Evliya reported that Lagari made a soft landing in the Bosporus by using the wings attached to his body as a parachute after the gunpowder was consumed, foreshadowing the sea-landing methods of astronauts with parachutes after their voyages into outer space. Lagari\'s flight was estimated to have lasted about twenty seconds and the maximum height reached was around 300 metres. This was the first known example of a manned rocket and an artificially-powered aircraft.
In the 20th century, Muslim rocket scientists from Soviet Central Asia were involved in research on astronautics and space exploration. Kerim Kerimov from Azerbaijan was one of the most important key figures in early space exploration. He was one of the founders of the Soviet space program, one of the lead architects behind the first human spaceflight (Vostok 1), and responsible for the launch of the first space stations (the Salyut and Mir series) as well as their predecessors (the Cosmos 186 and Cosmos 188).Peter Bond, Obituary: Lt-Gen Kerim Kerimov, The Independent, 7 April 2003.Betty Blair (1995), "Behind Soviet Aeronauts", Azerbaijan International 3 (3).
In 2007, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor from Malaysia travelled to ISS with his Expedition 16 crew aboard Soyuz TMA-11 as part of the Angkasawan program during Ramadan. He was both an astronaut and an orthopedic surgeon, and is most notable for being the first to perform biomedical research in space, mainly related to the characteristics and growth of liver cancer and leukemia cells and the crystallisation of various proteins and microbes in space.theStar (2007). Mission in space (English).
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), the "father of optics" and pioneer of the modern scientific method, invented the camera obscura and pinhole camera.
In ancient times, Euclid and Ptolemy believed that the eyes emitted rays which enabled us to see. The first person to realise that rays of light enters the eye, rather than leaving it, was the 10th century Muslim mathematician, astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), who is regarded as the "father of optics".R. L. Verma (1969). Al-Hazen: father of modern optics. He is also credited with being the first man to shift physics from a philosophical activity to an experimental one, with his development of the scientific method. The word "camera" comes from the Arabic word qamara for a dark or private room.
Ibn al-Haytham first described pinhole camera after noticing the way light came through a hole in window shutters.
Ibn al-Haytham worked out that the smaller the hole, the better the picture, and set up the first camera obscura, a precursor to the modern camera.
Jabir ibn Hayyan (Geber), the father of chemistry, invented the alembic still and many chemicals, including distilled alcohol, and established the perfume industry.
Early forms of distillation were known to the Babylonians, Greeks and Egyptians since ancient times, but it was Muslim chemists who first invented pure distillation processes which could fully purify chemical substances. They also developed several different variations of distillation (such as dry distillation, destructive distillation and steam distillation) and introduced new distillation aparatus (such as the alembic, still, and retort), and invented a variety of new chemical processes and over 2,000 chemical substances.
Geber first invented the following chemical processes in the 8th century:
Al-Razi invented the following chemical processes in the 9th century:
Other chemical processes introduced by Muslim chemists include:
Ahmad Y Hassan wrote:
"The distillation of wine and the properties of alcohol were known to Islamic chemists from the eighth century. The prohibition of wine in Islam did not mean that wine was not produced or consumed or that Arab alchemists did not subject it to their distillation processes. Jabir ibn Hayyan described a cooling technique which can be applied to the distillation of alcohol."Ahmad Y Hassan, Alcohol and the Distillation of Wine in Arabic Sources, History of Science and Technology in Islam.
Chemical substances invented for use in the chemical industries include:
Will Durant wrote in The Story of Civilization IV: The Age of Faith:
Insert the text of the quote here, without quotation marks.
Robert Briffault wrote in The Making of Humanity:
"Chemistry, the rudiments of which arose in the processes employed by Egyptian metallurgists and jewellers combining metals into various alloys and \'tinting\' them to resemble gold processes long preserved as a secret monopoly of the priestly colleges, and clad in the usual mystic formulas, developed in the hands of the Arabs into a widespread, organized passion for research which led them to the invention of distillation, sublimation, filtration, to the discovery of alcohol, of nitric and sulphuric acids (the only acid known to the ancients was vinegar), of the alkalis, of the salts of mercury, of antimony and bismuth, and laid the basis of all subsequent chemistry and physical research."Robert Briffault (1938). The Making of Humanity, p. 195.
"Ibn Firnas was a polymath: a physician, a rather bad poet, the first to make glass from stones (quartz?), a student of music, and inventor of some sort of metronome."
The bridge dam was used to power a water wheel working a water-raising mechanism. The first was built in Dezful, Iran, which could raise 50 cubits of water for the water supply to all houses in the town. Similar bridge dams later appeared in other parts of the Islamic world.Donald Routledge Hill (1996), "Engineering", p. 759, in (Rashed & Morelon 1996, pp. 751-95)
Cobwork (tabya) first appeared in the Maghreb and al-Andalus in the 11th century and was first described in detail by Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century, who regarded it as a characteristically Muslim practice. Cobwork later spread to other parts of Europe from the 12th century onwards.Donald Routledge Hill (1996), "Engineering", p. 766, in (Rashed & Morelon 1996, pp. 751-95)
The first diversion dam was built by medieval Muslim engineers over the River Uzaym in Jabal Hamrin, Iraq. Many of these were later built in other parts of the Islamic world.
The 16th-century city of Shibam in Yemen is regarded as the "oldest skyscraper-city in the world" and the "Manhattan of the desert." This is the earliest example of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction. Shibam was made up of over 500 tower houses, each one rising 5 to 9 storeys high, with each floor being an apartment occupied by a single family.Old Walled City of Shibam, UNESCO
In the 20th century, the Bangladeshi engineer Fazlur Khan, regarded as the "Einstein of structural engineering" and "the greatest architectural engineer of the second half of the 20th century" produced designs of structural systems that remain fundamental to all high-rise skyscrapers, which he employed in his constructions for the John Hancock Center and Sears Tower.Ali Mir (2001). Art of the Skyscraper: the Genius of Fazlur Khan. Rizzoli International Publications. ISBN 0847823709.
The Sears Tower remained the world\'s tallest building up until 2007, when the Burj Dubai, currently under construction in Dubai, surpassed its height as the world\'s tallest building.Burj Dubai surpasses the height of Sears Tower in Chicago The world\'s tallest twin towers, the Petronas Twin Towers, was also built in Malaysia in 1998.
The first prefabricated homes and movable structures were invented in 16th century Mughal India by Akbar the Great. These structures were reported by Arif Qandahari in 1579.Irfan Habib (1992), "Akbar and Technology", Social Scientist 20 (9-10), pp. 3-15 [3-4].
The first street lamps were built in the Arab Empire,Fielding H. Garrison, History of Medicine especially in Cordoba, which also had the first facilities and waste containers for litter collection.S. P. Scott (1904), History of the Moorish Empire in Europe, 3 vols, J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and London.
F. B. Artz (1980), The Mind of the Middle Ages, Third edition revised, University of Chicago Press, pp 148-50.
(cf. References, 1001 Inventions)
Muslim engineers invented a variety of surveying instruments for accurate levelling, including a wooden board with a plumb line and two hooks, an equilateral triangle with a plumb line and two hooks, and a "reed level". They also invented a rotating alhidade used for accurate alignment, and a surveying astrolabe used for alignment, measuring angles, triangulation, finding the width of a river, and the distance between two points separated by an impassable obstruction.Donald Routledge Hill (1996), "Engineering", pp. 766-9, in (Rashed & Morelon 1996, pp. 751-95)
Muslim astronomers and engineers constructed a variety of highly accurate astronomical clocks for use in their observatories.
Al-Jazari described the most sophisticated candle clocks known to date. These clocks were designed using a large candle of uniform weight and cross section, whose rate of burning was known, which was placed in a metal sheath with a fitted cap. The bottom of the candle rested on a shallow dish that had a ring on its side connected through pulleys to a counterweight. As the candle burned away, the weight pushed it upward at a constant speed, while an automaton was operated from the dish at the bottom of the candle.Donald Routledge Hill, "Mechanical Engineering in the Medieval Near East", Scientific American, May 1991, p. 64-69. (cf. Donald Routledge Hill, Mechanical Engineering)
The elephant clock described by al-Jazari in 1206 is notable for several innovations. It was the first clock in which an automaton reacted after certain intervals of time (in this case, a humanoid robot striking the cymbal and a mechanical bird chirping), the first mechanism to employ a flow regulator, and the earliest example of a closed-loop system in a mechanism.The Machines of Al-Jazari and Taqi Al-Din, Foundation for Science Technology and Civilization.
The float regulator employed in the clock later had an important influence during the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, when it was employed in the boiler of a steam engine and in domestic water systems.
The first mechanical clocks driven by weights and gears were invented by Muslim engineers. The first geared mechanical clocks were invented by the 11th century Arab engineer Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi from Islamic Spain. He employed gear trains with the earliest segmental and epicyclic gears used to transmit high torque in his mechanical clock. The first weight-driven mechanical clocks, employing a mercury escapement mechanism and a clock face similar to an astrolabe dial, were first invented by Muslim engineers in the 11th century. A similar weight-driven mechanical clock later appeared in a Spanish language work compiled from earlier Arabic sources for Alfonso X in 1277.Ahmad Y Hassan, Transfer Of Islamic Technology To The West, Part II: Transmission Of Islamic Engineering, History of Science and Technology in Islam. The knowledge of weight-driven mechanical clocks produced by Muslim engineers in Spain was transmitted to other parts of Europe through Latin translations of Arabic and Spanish texts on Muslim mechanical technology.
Al-Jazari invented some of the earliest mechanical clocks driven by both water and weights, including a water-powered scribe clock. This water powered portable clock was a meter high and half a meter wide. The scribe with his pen was synonymous to the hour hand of a modern clock. This is an example of an ingenious water system by al-Jazari.Donald Routledge Hill (1996), A History of Engineering in Classical and Medieval Times, Routledge, p.224.Ibn al-Razzaz Al-Jazari (ed. 1974) The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, Translated and annotated by Donald Routledge Hill, Dordrecht / D. Reidel, part II. Al-Jazari\'s famous water-powered scribe clock was reconstructed successfully at the Science Museum (London) in 1976.
Other monumental water clocks constructed by medieval Muslim engineers also employed complex gear trains, arrays of automata, and weight-drives, while the escapement mechanism was present in their mercury clocks and in the hydraulic controls they used to make heavy floats descend at a slow and steady rate.Donald Routledge Hill (1996), "Engineering", p. 794, in (Rashed & Morelon 1996, p. 751-95)
According to a 1202 manuscript written by Ridhwan al-Sa’ati, Abu \'Abdullah Muhammad b. Naser b. Saghir b. Khalid al-Kaysarani contructed the first striking clock in 1154 as part of a clock tower, similar to the Big Ben, near the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria.Abdel Aziz al-Jaraki (2007), When Ridhwan al-Sa’ati Anteceded Big Ben by More than Six Centuries, Foundation for Science Technology and Civilisation.
According to Will Durant, Abbas Ibn Firnas invented a watch-like device in the 9th century which kept accurate time.
While simple water clocks were known since ancient China and India, Muslim engineers designed complex water clocks with the a variety of innovations. One example is the 11th century Arab engineer Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi from Islamic Spain, who invented the first water clocks to be powered by water wheels, as well as water clocks run by both water power and gear trains.
Al-Jazari invented water clocks which employed automata to mark the passage of time, including mechanical birds which discharge pellets from their beaks onto cymbals, doors which opened to reveal humanoid robots, rotating Zodiac circles, humanoid robot musicians who strike drums or play trumpets, etc. He introduced pulley systems and tripping mechanisms as means of transmitting power from the prime movers to the automata.
The largest of his water clocks had a working clock face that was 11 feet high and 4.5 feet wide, and a drive which came from the steady descent of a heavy float in a circular reservoir. He introduced the use of a float chamber and the method of feedback control in order to maintain a constant outflow from the reservoir. Another innovative feature of the clock was how it recorded the passage of temporal hours, which meant that the rate of flow had to be changed daily to match the uneven length of days throughout the year. This was achieved with the use of a pipe leading from the float chamber into a flow regulator which was accurately calibrated using trial and error methods.
Al-Jazari invented another type of clock which incorporated a closed-loop system, where the clock worked as long as it was loaded with metal balls with which to strike a gong. Al-Jazari also invented water clocks with oil lamps and automatic clocks.
The bridge mill was a unique type of water mill that was built as part of the
