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Inventions in the Muslim world

A significant number of inventions were produced in the Muslim world, many of them with direct implications for Fiqh related issues. Most of these inventions were invented in the Middle Ages, especially during the Islamic Golden Age.

Astronomical instruments

Main article: Islamic astronomy

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.

Astrolabes

Analog computers

Armillary spheres

Mural instruments

Other instruments

Aviation technology

Parachute

In 9th century Islamic Spain, Abbas Ibn Firnas (Armen Firnas) invented a primitive version of the parachute.[25][26][27][28] 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."[29]

Hang glider

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.[25][26]

According to Philip Hitti in History of the Arabs:

"Ibn Firnas was the first man in history to make a scientific attempt at flying."

Flight controls

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.[30][31]

Artificial wings

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.[32]

Artificially-powered manned rocket

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.[32]

Camera technology

Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), the "father of optics" and pioneer of the modern scientific method, invented the camera obscura and pinhole camera.
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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".[33] 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.[34]

Pinhole camera

Ibn al-Haytham first described pinhole camera after noticing the way light came through a hole in window shutters.[34]

Camera obscura

Ibn al-Haytham worked out that the smaller the hole, the better the picture, and set up the first camera obscura,[34] a precursor to the modern camera.

Chemical technology

Main article: Alchemy (Islam)
Jabir ibn Hayyan (Geber), the father of chemistry, invented the alembic still and many chemicals, including distilled alcohol, and established the perfume industry.
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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.[35]

Chemical processes

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."[41]

Laboratory apparatus

Chemical industries

Chemical substances invented by Muslims for use in the chemical industries include:

Will Durant wrote in The Story of Civilization IV: The Age of Faith:

"Chemistry as a science was almost created by the Moslems; for in this field, where the Greeks (so far as we know) were confined to industrial experience and vague hypothesis, the Saracens introduced precise observation, controlled experiment, and careful records. They invented and named the alembic (al-anbiq), chemically analyzed innumerable substances, composed lapidaries, distinguished alkalis and acids, investigated their affinities, studied and manufactured hundreds of drugs. Alchemy, which the Moslems inherited from Egypt, contributed to chemistry by a thousand incidental discoveries, and by its method, which was the most scientific of all medieval operations."[42]

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."[58]

Drinking industry

Glass industry

Hygiene industries

Perfumery industry

Al-Kindi invented a wide variety of scent and perfume products, and is considered the father of the perfume industry.
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Al-Kindi invented a wide variety of scent and perfume products, and is considered the father of the perfume industry.

Civil engineering

Bridge dam

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.[64]

Cobwork

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.[65]

Diversion dam

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.[64]

Milling dam

The milling dam was used to provide additional power for milling, which Muslim engineers called the Pul-i-Bulaiti. The first was built at Shustar on the River Karun, Iran, and many of these were later built in other parts of the Islamic world.[64]

Clock technology

Astronomical clocks

Muslim astronomers and engineers constructed a variety of highly accurate astronomical clocks for use in their observatories.[39]

Candle clocks

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.[66]

Dials

The elephant clock from Al-Jazari's manuscript.
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The elephant clock from Al-Jazari's manuscript.

Elephant clock with automaton, regulator, and closed loop

Main article: Elephant clock

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.[71]

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.[7]

Mechanical clocks

The first mechanical clocks driven by weights and gears were invented by Muslim engineers.[72][73] 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.[7] 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.[39]

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.[74][75] Al-Jazari's famous water-powered scribe clock was reconstructed successfully at the Science Museum (London) in 1976.

Striking clock

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.[76]

Watch

According to Will Durant, Abbas Ibn Firnas invented a watch-like device in the 9th century which kept accurate time.[39]

Water clocks

While simple water clocks were known since ancient China and India, Muslim engineers desgined 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.[7]