List of inventions in the medieval Islamic world

A significant number of inventions were developed 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. Many of these inventions had direct implications for Fiqh related issues.

According to Bernard Lewis in What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response:

"In English we use the word “Islam” with two distinct meanings, and the distinction is often blurred and lost and gives rise to considerable confusion. In the one sense, Islam is the counterpart of Christianity; that is to say, a religion in the strict sense of the word: a system of belief and worship. In the other sense, Islam is the counterpart of Christendom; that is to say, a civilization shaped and defined by a religion, but containing many elements apart from and even hostile to that religion, yet arising within that civilization."

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 (direction to Mecca), Salah prayers, etc.

Analog computers

• Equatorium: Invented by Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī (Arzachel) in Islamic Spain circa 1015, it was a mechanical analog computer device for finding the longitudes and positions of the Moon, Sun, and planets, without calculation using a geometrical model to represent the celestial body's mean and anomalistic position.
• Saphaea: The first universal latitude-independent astrolabe, invented by Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī (Arzachel) in 11th century Islamic Spain. Unlike its predecessors, it did not depend on the latitude of the observer, and could be used anywhere on the Earth.
• Fixed-wired knowledge processing machine: Produced by Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī in the early 11th century.
• Mechanical lunisolar calendar computer: Featured a gear train and gear-wheels, and was invented by Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī.
• Mechanical geared astrolabe: Invented by Ibn Samh (c. 1020).
• Mechanical geared astrolabe with calendar computer: Invented by Abi Bakr of Isfahan in 1235.
• Plate of Conjunctions: A computing instrument used to determine the time of day at which planetary conjunctions will occur, and for performing linear interpolation, invented by al-Kashi in the 15th century.
• Planetary computer: The Plate of Zones, a mechanical planetary computer which could graphically solve a number of planetary problems, was invented by al-Kashi in the 15th century. It could predict the true positions in longitude of the Sun and Moon, and the planets in terms of elliptical orbits; the latitudes of the Sun, Moon, and planets; and the ecliptic of the Sun. The instrument also incorporated an alhidade and ruler.

The spherical astrolabe was invented by Muslim astronomers. This is the earliest surviving example from the 14th century.

Globes

Several different types of globes and armillary spheres were invented by Muslim astronomers and engineers:

• Celestial globes: These were used primarily for solving problems in celestial astronomy, and the oldest dates back to the 11th century. The altitude of the Sun and the right ascension and declination of the stars could be calculated with these by inputting the location of the observer on the meridian ring of the globe.
• Portable celestial globe: In the 12th century, Jabir ibn Aflah (Geber) was "the first to design a portable celestial sphere to measure and explain the movements of celestial objects."
• Seamless celestial globe: Considered one of the most remarkable feats in metallurgy, it was invented in Kashmir by Ali Kashmiri ibn Luqman in 998 AH (1589-90 CE), and twenty other such globes were later produced in Lahore and Kashmir during the Mughal Empire. Before they were rediscovered in the 1980s, it was believed by modern metallurgists to be technically impossible to produce metal globes without any seams, even with modern technology. These Mughal metallurgists pioneered the method of lost-wax casting while producing these seamless globes.
• Spherical astrolabe: First produced in the Islamic world by the 14th century.
• Terrestrial globe: See Navigational technology below.

Mural instruments

The first sextant was built in Ray, Iran by Abu-Mahmud al-Khujandi in 994. The earliest surviving sextant is Ulugh Beg's mural "Fakhri Sextant" constructed in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, during the 15th century, pictured above.

• Quadrant and mural instrument: Invented by Al-Khwarizmi in 9th century Baghdad, Iraq.
• Almucantar quadrant: Invented in the medieval Islamic world. It employed the use of trigonometry. The term "almucantar" is itself derived from Arabic.
• Horary quadrant: For specific latitudes, by al-Khwarizmi in 9th century Baghdad.
• Sine quadrant: For astronomical calculations, by al-Khwarizmi in 9th century Baghdad.
• Quadrans Vetus: Meaning "Old Quadrant", this was a universal horary quadrant which could be used for any latitude and at any time of the year to determine the time, as well as the times of Salah, invented by al-Khwarizmi in 9th century Baghdad. This was the second most widely used astronomical instrument during the Middle Ages after the astrolabe. One of its main purposes in the Islamic world was to determine the times of Salah prayers.
• Quadrans Novus: An astrolabic quadrant invented in Egypt in the 11th century or 12th century, and later known in Europe as the "Quadrans Novus" (New Quadrant).
• Sextant (astronomical): The first sextant was constructed in Ray, Iran, by Abu-Mahmud al-Khujandi in 994. It was a very large sextant that achieved a high level of accuracy for astronomical measurements, which he described his in his treatise, On the obliquity of the ecliptic and the latitudes of the cities. In the 15th century, Ulugh Beg constructed the "Fakhri Sextant", which had a radius of approximately 36 meters. Constructed in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, the arc was finely constructed with a staircase on either side to provide access for the assistants who performed the measurements.

Other instruments

• Alhidade: Invented in the Islamic world. The term "alhidade" is itself derived from Arabic word al-idhâdah "ruler".
• Astrolabic clock: Ibn al-Shatir in the early 14th century.
• Astrometric devices: Produced in Islamic Spain around 1015.
• Astronomical compass: The first astronomical uses of the magnetic compass is found in a treatise on astronomical instruments written by the Yemeni sultan al-Ashraf in 1282. This was the first reference to the compass in astronomical literature.
• Compendium instrument: A multi-purpose astronomical instrument, first constructed by the Muslim astronomer Ibn al-Shatir in the 13th century. His compendium featured an alhidade and polar sundial among other things. Al-Wafa'i developed another compendium in the 15th century which he called the "equatorial circle", which also featured a horizontal sundial. These compendia later became popular in Renaissance Europe.
• Highly accurate astronomical clocks: See Astronomical clocks below.
• Shadow square: An instrument used to determine the linear height of an object, in conjunction with the alidade for angular observations, invented by Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī in 9th-century Baghdad.

Aviation

Minaret of the Great Mosque at Córdoba, where Abbas Ibn Firnas flew from in the 9th century.

Main article: Islamic geography

• Parachute: In 9th century Islamic Spain, Abbas Ibn Firnas (Armen Firnas) invented a primitive version of the parachute. 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."

• Controlled flight: Abbas Ibn Firnas was the first to make an attempt at controlled flight, as opposed to earlier gliding attempts in ancient China which were not controllable. Ibn Firnas 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. According to Philip Hitti in History of the Arabs: "Ibn Firnas was the first man in history to make a scientific attempt at flying."

• 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.

• Artificially-powered aicraft and 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.

Astronautics

Main article: Islamic astronomy

• Human spaceflight, space dock, and space station: 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 docks (the Cosmos 186 and Cosmos 188) and space stations (the Salyut and Mir series).

• Biomedical research in outer space: In 2007, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor from Malaysia travelled to the International Space Station 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.

Chemical industries

Main article: Alchemy and chemistry in Islam

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.

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."

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."

Chemical processes

The following chemical processes were invented by Muslim chemists:

• Pure distillation (al-taqtir): Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan) was the first to fully purify chemical substances with the alembic in the 8th century.
• Filtration (al-tarshih): Invented by Geber.
• Crystallization (al-tabalwur): Invented by Geber.
• Dry distillation
• Destructive distillation: Invented by Muslim chemists in the 8th century to produce tar from petroleum.
• Steam distillation: Invented by Avicenna in the early 11th century for the purpose of producing essential oils.
• Water purification
• Solution (al-tahlil), sublimation (al-tas'id), amalgamation (al-talghim), ceration (al-tashmi), and a method of converting a substance into a thick paste or fusible solid.

Geber invented the alembic, the first still with a retort, and the first distillation device to fully purify chemical substances.

Laboratory apparatus

• Alembic, still, and retort: Jabir ibn Hayyan (Geber) invented the alembic in the 8th century. This was the first still with a retort, and the first distillation device to fully purify chemical substances.
• Conical measure: Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī in the 11th century.
• Hydrostatic balance and steelyard: Al-Khazini in 1121.
• Laboratory flask and pycnometer: Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī.
• Thermometer and air thermometer: Abū Alī ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) in the 11th century.
• Tools for drug preparation: Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes) first described the following tools for the preparation of drugs (li-tadbir al-aqaqir): cucurbit and still with evacuation tube (qar aq anbiq dhu-khatm), receiving matras (qabila), blind still (without evacuation tube) (al-anbiq al-ama), aludel (al-uthal), goblets (qadah), flasks (qarura or quwarir), rosewater flasks (ma wariyya), cauldron (marjal aw tanjir), earthenware pots varnished on the inside with their lids (qudur aq tanjir), water bath or sand bath (qadr), oven (al-tannur in Arabic, athanor in Latin), small cylindirical oven for heating aludel (mustawqid), funnels, sieves, and filters.

Chemical substances

• Aqua regia, alum, and the salts and spirits of mercury: Isolated by Geber.
• Arsenic, alkali, alkali salt, borax, and purified sal ammoniac: Isolated by Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan) in the 8th century.
• Derivative and artificial chemical substances: In the 10th century, Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi wrote that he and his Muslim predecessors (Calid, Geber and al-Kindi) invented the following derivative and artificial substances: lead(II) oxide (PbO), red lead (Pb3O4), tin(II) oxide (Isfidaj), copper acetate (Zaniar), copper(II) oxide (CuO), lead sulfide, zinc oxide, bismuth oxide, antimony oxide, iron rust, iron acetate, Daws (a contituent of steel), cinnabar (HgS), arsenic trioxide (As2O3), alkali (al-Qili), sodium hydroxide (caustic soda), and Qalimiya (anything that separates from metals during their purification).
• Lead carbonatic, arsenic, and antimony: Discovered by Geber.
• Mercury, pure: Isolated by Geber.
• Nitric and sulfuric acids, alkali, the salts of mercury, antimony, and bismuth: Isolated by Geber.
• Sal nitrum and vitriol: Discovered by Geber.
• Sulfur, pure: Isolated by Geber.
• Ethanol, sulfuric acid, and purified ammonia: Isolated by Arabic chemists.
• Potassium nitrate, pure: Isolated by Hasan al-Ramah in the 1270s.

Chemical substances invented for use in the chemical industries include:

• Cheese glue and plated mail: Invented by Geber.
• Essential oil: Invented by Abū Alī ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) in the 11th century.
• Kerosene and kerosene lamp: Invented by Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi in the 9th century.
• Medicinal substances: Muslim chemists discovered 2,000 medicinal substances.
• Mineral acids: The mineral acids—nitric acid, sulfuric acid, and hydrochloric acid— were first isolated by Geber.
• Petrol: Invented by Muslim chemists.
• Rosewater: First produced by Muslim chemists in the medieval Islamic world through the distillation of roses, for use in the drinking and perfumery industries.
• Sulfuric acid: Originally coined as oil of vitriol it was discovered by Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan).
• Uric acid and nitric acid: Isolated by Jabir ibn Hayyan (Geber) in the 8th century.
• Vitriol and aqua regia: Discovered by Geber.

Drinking industry

• Coffee: Produced by Khalid in Kaffa, Ethiopia, in the 9th century.
• Distilled water and purified water: Purified by Muslim chemists.
• Drink syrups: Muslims produced recipes for drink syrups that can be kept outside the refrigerator for weeks or months.
• Pure distilled alcohol and ethanol: First isolated by Al-Kindi (Alkindus) in the 9th century. 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."
• Sherbet and sharab: These were the first juiced carbonated soft drinks, and originated in the Islamic world.

Glass industry

• Artificial gemstone: Geber (d. 815) first described the production of high-quality coloured glass cut into artificial gemstones.

• Artificial pearl, and purification of pearls: In his Kitab al-Durra al-Maknuna (The Book of the Hidden Pearl), Jabir described the first recipes for the manufacture of artificial pearls and for the purification of pearls that were discoloured from the sea or from grease.

• Clear, colourless and high-purity glass: The earliest examples of clear, colourless and high-purity glass were produced by Muslims in the 9th century, such as the quartz glass invented by Abbas Ibn Firnas. The Arabic poet al-Buhturi (820-897) describes the clarity of such glass as follows: "Its colour hides the glass as if it is standing in it without a container."

• Coloured stained glass windows: Muslim architects in Southwest Asia were the first to produce stained glass windows using coloured glass rather than stone producing a stained glass-like effect, as was the case in early churches. In the 8th century, the Arab chemist Geber scientifically described 46 original recipes for producing high-purity coloured glass in Kitab al-Durra al-Maknuna (The Book of the Hidden Pearl), in addition to 12 recipes inserted by al-Marrakishi in a later edition of the book.

• Concave, convex and spherical mirrors: Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) gave the earliest accurate descriptions of concave and convex mirrors in both cylindrical and spherical geometries, and he also gave the earliest accurate desciption of spherical mirrors.

• Dying and artificial colouring of gemstones and pearls: In The Book of the Hidden Pearl, Geber described the first recipes for the dying and artificial colouring of gemstones and pearls.

• Glass factory: The first industrial complex for glass and pottery production was built in Ar-Raqqah, Syria, in the 8th century. Extensive experimentation was carried out at the complex, which was two kilometres in length, and a variety of innovative high-purity glass were developed there. Two other similar complexes have also been discovered, and nearly three hundred new chemical recipes for glass are known to have been produced at all three sites. The first glass factories were thus built by Muslim craftsmen in the Islamic world. The first glass factories in Europe were later built in the 11th century by Egyptian craftsmen in Corinth, Greece.

• Quartz glass and Silica glass: The production of glass from stone (including quartz) and sand, was pioneered by Abbas Ibn Firnas in the 9th century.

• Refracting parabolic mirror: Invented by Ibn Sahl in the 10th century. These observations were repeated by Ibn al-Haytham in his Book of Optics (1021).

Pottery industry

Main article: Islamic pottery

• Albarello: An albarello is a type of maiolica earthenware jar originally designed to hold apothecaries' ointments and dry drugs. The development of this type of pharmacy jar had its roots in the Islamic Middle East. Brought to Italy by Hispano-Moresque traders, the earliest Italian examples were produced in Florence in the 15th century.

• Hispano-Moresque ware: This was a style of Islamic pottery created in Islamic Spain, after the Moors had introduced two ceramic techniques to Europe: glazing with an opaque white tin-glaze, and painting in metallic lusters. Hispano-Moresque ware was distinguished from the pottery of Christendom by the Islamic character of it decoration.

• Lustreware: Invented by Geber, who applied it to ceramic glazes in the 8th century. The technique soon became popular in Persia from the 9th century, and lusterware was later produced in Egypt during the Fatimid caliphate in the 10th-12th centuries. While the production of lusterware continued in the Middle East, it spread to Europe—first to Al-Andalus, notably at Malaga, and then to Italy, where it was used to enhance maiolica.

• Pottery factory: The first industrial complex for glass and pottery production was built in Ar-Raqqah, Syria, in the 8th century. Extensive experimentation was carried out at the complex, which was two kilometres in length. Two other similar complexes have also been discovered.

• Stonepaste ceramic: Invented in 9th-century Iraq, it was a vitreous or semivitreous ceramic ware of fine texture, made primarily from non-refactory fire clay.

• Tin-glazing: The tin-glazing of ceramics was invented by Muslim potters in 8th-century Basra, Iraq. Tin-opacified glazing was one of the earliest new technologies developed by the Islamic potters. The first examples of this technique can be found as blue-painted ware in 8th-century Basra.

• Tin-glazed pottery: The earliest tin-glazed pottery appears to have been made in Iraq in the 9th century, the oldest fragments having been excavated during the First World War from the palace of Samarra about fifty miles north of Baghdad. From there, it spread to Egypt, Persia and Spain, before reaching Italy in the Renaissance, Holland in the 16th century, and England, France and other European countries shortly after.

Civil engineering

The Qutab Minar, 72.5 meters tall and built in the 12th century, was the tallest minaret until the 20th century, and remains the tallest brick and stone minaret in the world.

The city of Shibam, regarded as the "Manhattan of the desert", was the first city built on the principle of vertical construction urban planning in the 16th century.

The first high-rise apartment buildings and tower blocks were built in Shibam in the 16th century. They remain the tallest mudbrick buildings in the world.

• Arabesque: An elaborative application of repeating geometric forms often found decorating the walls of mosques. Geometric artwork in the form of the Arabesque was not used in the Middle East or Mediterranean Basin until the Islamic Golden Age. Euclidean geometry as expounded on by Al-Abbās ibn Said al-Jawharī (ca. 800-860) in his Commentary on Euclid's Elements, the trigonometry of Aryabhata and Brahmagupta as elaborated on by Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī (ca. 780-850), and the development of spherical geometry by Abū al-Wafā' al-Būzjānī (940–998) and spherical trigonometry by Al-Jayyani (989-1079) for determining the Qibla (direction to Mecca) and times of Salah prayers and Ramadan, all served as an impetus for the art form that was to become the Arabesque.

• 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.

• Central heating through underfloor pipes: The hypocaust heating system used by the Romans continued to be in use around the Mediterranean region during late Antiquity and by the Umayyad caliphate. By the 12th century, Muslim engineers in Syria introduced an improved central heating system, where heat travelled through underfloor pipes from the furnace room, rather than through a hypocaust. This central heating system was widely used in bath-houses throughout the medieval Islamic world.

• Cobwork: The earliest appearance of cobwork (tabya) dates back to 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.

• 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.

• Girih tiles, quasicrystal patterns, and self-similar fractal quasicrystalline tilings: Geometrical quasicrystal patterns were first employed in the girih tiles found in medieval Islamic architecture dating back over five centuries ago. In 2007, Professor Peter Lu of Harvard University and Professor Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University published a paper in the journal Science suggesting that girih tilings possessed properties consistent with self-similar fractal quasicrystalline tilings such as the Penrose tilings, predating them by five centuries.

• High-rise apartment buildings and tower blocks, and vertical construction urban planning: 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 11 storeys high, with each floor being an apartment occupied by a single family. The city has the tallest mudbrick buildings in the world, with some of them being over 100 feet high (over 30 meters), thus being the first high-rise (which need to be at least 75 feet or 23 meters) apartment buildings and tower blocks.

• Minaret: The minaret is a distinctive architectural feature of Islamic architecture, especialy mosques, dating back to the early centuries of Islam. Minarets are generally tall spires with onion-shaped crowns, usually either free standing or much taller than any surrounding support structure. The tallest minaret in pre-modern times was the Qutub Minar, which was 72.5 meters (237.9 ft) tall and was built in the 12th century, and it remains the tallest brick and stone minaret in the world. The tallest minaret in modern times is the one at Hassan II Mosque, which is 210 metres (689 ft) tall and was built in 1986.

• Prefabricated home and movable structure: 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.

• Skyscrapers, tallest: 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. 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. The world's tallest twin towers, the Petronas Twin Towers, was also built in Malaysia in 1998.

• Street lighting and litter collection facilities: The first street lamps were built in the Arab Empire, especially in Cordoba, which also had the first facilities and waste containers for litter collection.

• Surveying instruments: 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.

• Ventillator: The first ventillators were invented in Islamic Egypt and were widely used in many houses throughout Cairo during the Middle Ages. These ventillators were later described in detail by Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi in 1200, who reported that almost every house in Cairo has a ventillator, and that they cost anywhere from 1 to 500 dinars depending on their sizes and shapes. Most ventillators in the city were oriented towards the Qibla (the direction of Mecca), as was the city in general.

Clock technology

Astronomical clocks

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

• Timekeeping astrolabe: In the 10th century, al-Sufi described over 1,000 different uses of an astrolabe, including timekeeping, particularly for the times of Salah prayers and Ramadan.
• Mechanical lunisolar calendar computer: Featured a gear train and gear-wheels, and was invented by Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī in the 11th century.
• Mechanical astrolabe: Featured a calendar computer and gear-wheels, and was invented by Abi Bakr of Isfahan in 1235.
• Quadrans Vetus: A universal horary quadrant which could be used for any latitude and at any time of the year to determine the time, as well as the times of Salah, invented by Al-Khwarizmi in 9th century Baghdad. This was the second most widely used astronomical instrument during the Middle Ages after the astrolabe.
• Monumental water-powered astronomical clocks: Al-Jazari invented monumental water powered astronomical clocks which displayed moving models of the Sun, Moon, and stars. His largest astronomical clock displayed the zodiac and the solar and lunar orbits. Another innovative feature of the clock was a pointer which travelled across the top of a gateway and caused automatic doors to open every hour.
• Observational clock measured in seconds: See Mechanical clocks below.
• Spring-powered astronomical clock: See Mechanical clocks below.

Dials

• Universal sundial: A universal sundial for all latitudes, used for timekeeping and for the determination of the times of Salah, was produced in 9th-century Baghdad.
• Navicula de Venetiis: A universal horary dial used for accurate timekeeping by the Sun and Stars, and could be observed from any latitude, invented in 9th century Baghdad. This was later considered the most sophisticated timekeeping instrument of the Renaissance.
• Polar-axis sundial: The ancient subdials were nodus-based with straight hour-lines, they indicated unequal hours—also called temporary hours—that varied with the seasons, since every day was divided into twelve equal segments; thus, hours were shorter in winter and longer in summer. The idea of using hours of equal time length throughout the year was the innovation of Ibn al-Shatir in 1371, based on earlier developments in trigonometry by Muhammad ibn Jābir al-Harrānī al-Battānī (Albategni). Ibn al-Shatir was aware that "using a gnomon that is parallel to the Earth's axis will produce sundials whose hour lines indicate equal hours on any day of the year." His sundial is the oldest polar-axis sundial still in existence. The concept later appeared in Western sundials from at least 1446.
• Compass dial: A timekeeping device incorporating both a universal polar-axis sundial and a magnetic compass, invented by Ibn al-Shatir in the 14th century.

The elephant clock from Al-Jazari's manuscript in 1206. This was the earliest clock to employ an automaton, flow regulator, and closed-loop system.

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.

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.

Mechanical clocks

• Geared, weight-driven and mercury escapement mechanical clocks: 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. 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. 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. 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.

• Weight-driven and water-powered scribe clock: In 1206, 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. Al-Jazari's famous water-powered scribe clock was reconstructed successfully at the Science Museum (London) in 1976.

• Mechanical alarm clock: The first mechanical alarm clock was invented by Taqi al-Din in 1559. He described the alarm clock in his book, The Brightest Stars for the Construction of Mechanical Clocks (Al-Kawākib al-durriyya fī wadh' al-bankāmat al-dawriyya), published that year. His alarm clock was capable of sounding at a specified time, which was achieved by means of placing a peg on the dial wheel to when one wants the alarm heard and by producing an automated ringing device at the specified time.

• Spring-powered astronomical clock: In The Brightest Stars for the Construction of Mechanical Clocks, Taqi al-Din invented the first astronomical clock to be powered by springs. This was also one of the first spring-powered mechanical clocks in general, developed around the same time as Peter Henlein in 1556.

• Spring-powered pocket watch measured in minutes: Taqi al-Din also developed one of the first spring-powered pocket watches, shortly after the first such watch was developed by Peter Henlein in 1524. Taqi al-Din's watch, however, was the first to measure time in minutes, by having three dials for the hours, degrees and minutes.

• Observational clock measured in seconds: Taqi al-Din invented the "observational clock", which he described as "a mechanical clock with three dials which show the hours, the minutes, and the seconds." This was the first clock to measure time in seconds, and was used for astronomical purposes, specifically for measuring the right ascension of the stars. This is considered one of the most important innovations in 16th century practical astronomy, as previous clocks were not accurate enough to be used for astronomical purposes. He further improved his observational clock, using only one dial to represent the hours, minutes and seconds, describing it as "a mechanical clock with a dial showing the hours, minutes and seconds and we divided every minute into five seconds."

Cosmetics

A number of hygienic cosmetics were developed by Muslim chemists and cosmetologists.

• Chemical depilatory for hair removal: In the 9th century, Ziryab taught women in Al-Andalus "the shaping of eyebrows and the use of depilatories for removing body hair".
• Bangs: In the 9th century, Ziryab introduced a new hairstyle for women in Al-Andalus: a "shorter, shaped cut, with bangs]] on the forehead and the ears uncovered."
• Beauty parlour and cosmetology school: In the 9th century, Ziryab opened the first beauty parlour and “cosmetology school” for women near Alcázar, Al-Andalus."

Hygiene

• Shampoo: The earliest documented evidence of shampoo dates back to the Bengali Muslim entrepeneur Sake Dean Mahomet. He opened a shampooing bath known as 'Mahomed's Indian Vapour Baths' in Brighton, England, in 1759. His baths were like Turkish baths where clients received an Indian treatment of champi (shampooing) or therapeutic massage. His service was appreciated; he received the high accolade of being appointed ‘Shampooing Surgeon’ to both George IV and William IV.
• Soap: The soap now used in modern times is made of vegetable oils (such as olive oil) with sodium hydroxide and aromatics (such as thyme oil). This formula was invented by Muslim chemists, and differed from the earlier soap-like detergents used in ancient times. Sodium lye (al-soda al-kawia), perfumed and colored soaps, and liquid and solid soaps, were also produced by Muslim chemists.
• Soap bar: The first hard soaps were produced by Muslim chemists. They gave recipes for soaps made from sesame oil, potash, alkali, lime, and molds, leaving hard soap.
• Under-arm deodorant: In the 9th century, Ziryab invented under-arm deodorants in Al-Andalus.

Perfumery

Perfume usage was recorded in the Arabian Peninsula since the 7th century, and Muslims made many advances in perfumery in the proceeding centuries. This included the extraction of numerous fragrances, as well as the cheap mass-production of incenses. Muslim scientists such as Al-Kindi elaborated a vast number of recipes for a wide range of perfumes, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

• Perfume industry: Established by Geber (Jabir) (b. 722, Iraq) and Al-Kindi (b. 801, Iraq). Jabir developed many techniques, including distillation, evaporation and filtration, which enabled the collection of the odour of plants into a vapour that could be collected in the form of water or oil. Al-Kindi carried out extensive research and experiments in combining various plants and other sources to produce a variety of scent products.

• Extraction of fragrances through steam distillation: Introduced by Abū Alī ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) in the 11th century.

• Ghaliya: The preparation of a perfume called ghaliya, which contained musk, amber and other ingredients, and the use of various drugs and apparatus, was produced by al-Kindi.
• Musk and floral perfumes: Produced in the 11th-12th centuries in the Arabian Peninsula.

• Jasmine and citrus perfumes: Muslims introduced new raw ingredients in perfumery, which were produced from different spices, herbals, and other fragrance materials, which are still used in modern perfumery. These included jasmine from South and Southeast Asia, and citrus fruits from East Asia.

Industrial milling

Further information: Muslim Agricultural Revolution

• Bridge mill: The bridge mill was a unique type of water mill that was built as part of the superstructure of a bridge. The earliest record of a bridge mill is from Cordoba, Spain in the 12th century.

• Factory milling installation: The first factory milling installations were built by Muslim engineers throughout every city and urban community in the Islamic world. For example, the factory milling complex in 10th century Baghdad could produce 10 tonnes of flour every day. The first large milling installations in Europe were built in 12th century Islamic Spain.

• Geared and wind powered gristmills with trip hammers: The first geared gristmills were invented by Muslim engineers in the Islamic world, and were used for grinding corn and other seeds to produce meals, and many other industrial uses such as fulling cloth, husking rice, papermaking, pulping sugarcane, and crushing metalic ores before extraction. Gristmills in the Islamic world were often made from both watermills and windmills. In order to adapt water wheels for gristmilling purposes, cams were used for raising and releasing trip hammers to fall on a material. The first wind-powered gristmills driven by windmills were built in what are now Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran in the 9th and 10th centuries.

• Hydropowered finery forge: The first forge to be driven by a hydropowered water mill rather than manual labour, also known as a finery forge, was invented in 12th century Islamic Spain.

• 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. Water was conducted from the back of the dam through a large pipe to drive a water wheel and water mill.

• Paper mill: Paper was introduced into the Muslim world by Chinese prisoners after the Battle of Talas. Muslims made several improvements to papermaking and built the first paper mills in Baghdad, Iraq, as early as 794. Papermaking was transformed from an art into a major industry as a result.

• Spiral scoop-wheel: The spiral scoop-wheel is a device which raises large quantities of water to ground level with a high degree of efficiency. This was invented in 12th century Baghdad and is still commonly used in modern Egypt.

• Sugar refinery: The first sugar refineries were built by Muslim engineers. They were first driven by water mills, and then windmills from the 9th and 10th centuries in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.

• Underground mill: Other innovations that were unique to the Islamic world include the situation of water mills in the underground irrigation tunnels of a qanat and on the main canals of valley-floor irrigation systems.

• Water turbine: The first water turbine, which had water wheels with curved blades onto which water flow was directed axially, was first described in a 9th century Arabic text for use in a watermill.

• Windmill: The first Windmills were built in Sistan, Afghanistan, sometime between the 7th century and 9th century, as described by Muslim geographers. These were vertical axle windmills, which had long vertical driveshafts with rectangle shaped blades. The first windmill may have been contructed as early as the time of the second Rashidun caliph Umar (634-644 AD), though some argue that this account may have been a 10th century amendment. Made of six to twelve sails covered in reed matting or cloth material, these windmills were used to grind corn and draw up water, and used in the gristmilling and sugarcane industries. The first horizontal windmills were built in what are now Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran in the 9th and 10th centuries. They had a variety of uses, such as grinding grain, pumping water, and crushing sugar-cane. A small primitive wind wheel operating an organ is described as early as the 1st century AD by Hero of Alexandria, marking probably the first instance of a wind powering machine in history. Horizontal axle windmills of the type generally used today were developed in Northwestern Europe in the 1180s.

Institutions

A number of important economic, educational, legal and scientific institutions previously unknown in the ancient world have their origins in the medieval Islamic world, which include:

• Academic degree-granting university: If the definition of a university is assumed to mean an institution of higher education and research which issues academic degrees at all levels (bachelor, master and doctorate) like in the modern sense of the word, then the medieval Madrasahs known as Jami'ah ("university" in Arabic) founded in the 9th century would be the first examples of such an institution. The University of Al Karaouine in Fez, Morocco is thus recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest degree-granting university in the world with its founding in 859 by the princess Fatima al-Fihri. Also in the 9th century, Bimaristan medical schools were founded in the medieval Islamic world, where medical degrees and diplomas were issued to students of Islamic medicine who were qualified to be a practicing Doctor of Medicine. Al-Azhar University, founded in Cairo, Egypt in 975, was a Jami'ah university which offered a variety of post-graduate degrees (Ijazah), and had individual faculties for a theological seminary, Islamic law and jurisprudence, Arabic grammar, Islamic astronomy, early Islamic philosophy, and logic in Islamic philosophy.

• Agency and Aval: The first agencies were the Hawala, mentioned in texts of Islamic jurisprudence as early as the 8th century. Hawala itself later influenced the development of the agency in common law and in civil laws such as the Aval in French law and the Avallo in Italian law. The words Aval and Avallo were themselves derived from Hawala. The transfer of debt, which was "not permissible under Roman law but became widely practiced in medieval Europe, especially in commercial transactions", was due to the large extent of the "trade conducted by the Italian cities with the Muslim world in the Middle Ages." The agency was also "an institution unknown to Roman law" as no "individual could conclude a binding contract on behalf of another as his agent." In Roman law, the "contractor himself was considered the party to the contract and it took a second contract between the person who acted on behalf of a principal and the latter in order to transfer the rights and the obligations deriving from the contract to him." On the other hand, Islamic law and the later common law "had no difficulty in accepting agency as one of its institutions in the field of contracts and of obligations in general."

The first observatories to serve as research institutes were built by Muslim astronomers. The most famous was the Maragheh observatory, pictured above.

• Observatory as a research institute: As opposed to a private observation post as was the case in ancient times, the astronomical observatories in the Islamic world were the first to function as research institutes, like modern observatories. The Islamic observatory was the first specialized astronomical institution with its own scientific staff, director, astronomical program, large astronomical instruments, and building where astronomical research and observations are carried out. Islamic observatories were also the first to employ enormously large astronomical instruments in order to improve the accuracy of their observations. Famous examples include the observatory at Baghdad, the Maragheh observatory, Ulugh Beg's observatory at Samarqand, and the Istanbul observatory of al-Din.

• Public library and lending library: A number of distinct features of the modern library were introduced in the Islamic world, where libraries not only served as a collection of manuscripts as was the case in ancient libraries, but also as a public library and lending library, a centre for the instruction and spread of sciences and ideas, a place for meetings and discussions, and sometimes as a lodging for scholars or boarding school for pupils. The concept of the library catalogue was also introduced in medieval Islamic libraries, where books were organized into specific genres and categories.

• Restaurant and three-course meal: The earliest restaurants came into existence throughout the Islamic world from the 10th century, shortly before restaurants appeared in China in the 11th century. The Islamic world had "restaurants where one could purchase all sorts of prepared dishes." These restaurants were mentioned by Al-Muqaddasi (born 945) in the late 10th century. Restaurants in medieval Islamic Spain served three-course meals, which was earlier introduced in the 9th century by Ziryab, who insisted that meals should be served in three separate courses consisting of soup, the main course, and dessert.
• Trust institution and charitable trust: The Waqf in Islamic law, which developed in the Islamic world from the 7th to 9th centuries, were the first charitable trust. Every waqf was required to have a waqif (founder), mutawillis (trustee), qadi (judge) and beneficiaries. Under both a waqf and a trust, "property is reserved, and its usufruct appropriated, for the benefit of specific individuals, or for a general charitable purpose; the corpus becomes inalienable; estates for life in favor of successive beneficiaries can be created" and "without regard to the law of inheritance or the rights of the heirs; and continuity is secured by the successive appointment of trustees or mutawillis."

Medical institutions

Main articles: Bimaristan, Islamic medicine, and Islamic psychology

• Apothecary, drugstore, and pharmacy: The first drugstores and pharmacies were opened by Muslim pharmacists in Baghdad in 754, while the first apothecary shops were also founded by Muslim practitioners at the time.
• Medical school: The Islamic Bimaristans were not only hospitals, but also the first medical schools and universities to issue diplomas. The first of these institutions was opened in Baghdad during the time of Harun al-Rashid. They then appeared in Egypt from 872 and then in Islamic Spain, Persia and the Maghreb thereafter. Physicians and surgeons at Islamic hospital-universities gave lectures to medical students and diplomas were issued to students who completed their education and were qualified to be doctors of medicine.
• Psychiatric hospital: The first psychiatric hospitals were built in the medieval Islamic world. The first of these were built built in Baghdad in 705, Fes in the early 8th century, and Cairo in 800.
• Public hospital: The Islamic Bimaristans were the first free public hospitals, and replaced the healing temples and sleep temples found in ancient times. They were hospital in the modern sense, an establishment where the ill were welcomed and cared for by qualified staff. In this way, Muslim physicians were the first to make a distinction between a hospital and other different forms of sleep and healing temples, hospices, assylums, lazarets and leper-houses, all of which in ancient times were more concerned with isolating the sick and the mad from society "rather than to offer them any way to a true cure." The medieval Bimaristan hospitals are thus considered "the first hospitals" in the modern sense of the word.

Mechanical technology

Diagram of a water device from a book by Al-Jazari.

• Agricultural devices: The early Muslim Arab Empire was ahead of its time regarding domestic water systems such as water cleaning systems and advanced water transportation systems resulting in better agriculture, something that helped in issues related to Islamic hygienical jurisprudence. Al-Jazari invented a variety of machines for raising water in 1206, as well as water mills and water wheels with cams on their axle used to operate automata in the late 12th century.

• Artificial thunder, lightning and weather simulation: Abbas Ibn Firnas invented an artificial weather simulation room, in which spectators saw stars and clouds, and were astonished by artificial thunder and lightning, which were produced by mechanisms hidden in his basement laboratory.

• Complex segmental and epicyclic gearing: Segmental gears ("a piece for receiving or communicating reciprocating motion from or to a cogwheel, consisting of a sector of a circular gear, or ring, having cogs on the periphery, or face.") and epicyclic gears were both first invented by the 11th century Arab engineer Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi from Islamic Spain. He employed both these types of gears in the gear trains of his mechanical clocks. Simple gears have been known before him, but this was the the first known case of complex gears used to transmit high torque. Segmental gears were also later employed by al-Jazari in 1206. Professor Lynn Townsend White, Jr. wrote: "Segmental gears first clearly appear in Al-Jazari, in the West they emerge in Giovanni de Dondi‘s astronomical clock finished in 1364, and only with the great Sienese engineer Francesco di Giorgio (1501) did they enter the general vocabulary of European machine design."

• Crankshaft-connecting rod mechanism: Al-Jazari's invention of the crankshaft (and the crank mechanism) is considered the most important single mechanical invention after the wheel, as it transforms continuous rotary motion into a linear reciprocating motion, which is central to much of the machinery in the modern world, including the internal combustion engine and steam engine. The connecting rod was also invented by al-Jazari, and was used in a crank and connecting rod system in a rotating machine he developed in 1206, in two of his water raising machines.

• Crankshaft-driven screw and screwpump: In ancient times, the screw and screwpump were driven by a treadwheel, but from the 12th and 13th centuries, Muslim engineers operated them using the crankshaft invented by al-Jazari.

File:Al-jazari pump.png

The reciprocating suction piston pump with a valve and crankshaft-connecting rod mechanism, from a manuscript of Al-Jazari, considered to be a "father of modern day engineering".

• Double-action reciprocating suction piston pump: In 1206, al-Jazari demonstrates the first conversion of rotary to reciprocating motion, the first suction pipes and suction piston pump, the first use of double-action, and one of the earliest valve operations, when he invented a twin-cylinder double-action reciprocating suction piston pump, which seems to have had a direct significance in the development of modern engineering. This pump is driven by a water wheel, which drives, through a system of gears, an oscillating slot-rod to which the rods of two pistons are attached. The pistons work in horizontally opposed cylinders, each provided with valve-operated suction and delivery pipes. The delivery pipes are joined above the centre of the machine to form a single outlet into the irrigation system. This pump is remarkable for three reasons: (1) The earliest known use of a true suction pipe in a pump, (2) The first application of the double-acting principle, (3) The first conversion of rotary to reciprocating motion through the crankshaft-connecting rod mechanism.

• Flywheel-driven chain pump and noria: A flywheel is used to smooth out the delivery of power from a driving device to a driven machine. The mechanical flywheel was first invented by Ibn Bassal (fl. 1038-1075) of Islamic Spain, who pioneered the use of the flywheel in the chain pump (saqiya) and noria.

• Reservoir fountain pen: The earliest historical record of a reservoir fountain pen dates back to the 10th century. In 953, Al-Muizz Lideenillah, the caliph of Egypt, demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes, and was provided with a pen which held ink in a reservoir and delivered it to the nib via gravity and capillary action. As recorded by Qadi al-Nu'man al-Tamimi (d. 974) in his Kitdb al-Majalis wa 'l-musayardt, al-Mu’izz commissioned the construction of the pen instructing: "‘We wish to construct a pen which can be used for writing without having recourse to an ink-holder and whose ink will be contained inside it. A person can fill it with ink and write whatever he likes. The writer can put it in his sleeve or anywhere he wishes and it will not stain nor will any drop of ink leak out of it. The ink will flow only when there is an intention to write. We are unaware of anyone previously ever constructing (a pen such as this) and an indication of ‘penetrating wisdom’ to whoever contemplates it and realises its exact significance and purpose’. I exclaimed, ‘Is this possible?’ He replied, ‘It is possible if God so wills’."

• Mechanical musical instrument and hydropowered organ: The Banū Mūsā brothers invented "the earliest known mechanical musical instrument", in this case a hydropowered organ which played interchangeable cylinders automatically. According to Charles B. Fowler, this "cylinder with raised pins on the surface remained the basic device to produce and reproduce music mechanically until the second half of the nineteenth century."

• Metal block printing and printed amulet: Printing was known as tarsh in Arabic. After woodblock printing appeared in the Islamic world, which may have been adopted from China, a unique type of block printing was invented in Islamic Egypt during the 9th-10th centuries: print blocks made from metals such as tin, lead and cast iron, as well as stone, glass and clay. The first printed amulets were invented in the Islamic world, and were printed with Arabic calligraphy using metal block printing. This technique, however, appears to have had very little influence outside of the Muslim world, since metal and other non-wooden forms of block printing were unknown in China, which later developed metal movable type printing instead. Though Europe adopted woodblock printing from the Muslim world, the technique of metal block printing was also unknown in Europe. Block printing later went out of use in Islamic Central Asia after movable type printing was introduced from China.

• Metronome: According to Lynn Townsend White, Jr., the Andalusian polymath Abbas Ibn Firnas was the inventor of an early metronome in the 9th century.

• On/off switch: The on/off switch, an important feedback control principle, was invented by Muslim engineers between the 9th and 12th centuries, and it was employed in a variety of automata and water clocks. The mechanism later had an influence on the development of the electric on/off switch which appeared in the 1950s.

• Six-cylinder 'Monobloc' pump: In 1559, Taqi al-Din invented a six-cylinder 'Monobloc' pump. It was a hydropowered water-raising machine incorporating valves, suction and delivery pipes, piston rods with lead weights, trip levers with pin joints, and cams on the axle of a water-driven scoop-wheel.

• Steam-powered and self-rotating spit, snd smoke jack: In 1551, the Egyptian engineer Taqi al-Din described the first practical steam turbine as a prime mover for the first steam-powered and self-rotating spit, known as a smoke jack.

• Steam turbine, impulse: In the 1st century, Hero of Alexandria's aeolipile may have possibly been a reaction steam turbine, but it was essentially a toy with no practical applications. In 1551, Taqi al-Din invented the first impulse steam turbine and described the first practical applications for it as a prime mover for rotating a spit, predating Giovanni Branca's later impulse steam turbine from 1629. In his book, Al-Turuq al-saniyya fi al-alat al-ruhaniyya (The Sublime Methods of Spiritual Machines), completed in 1551 AD (959 AH), Taqi al-Din wrote: "Part Six: Making a spit which carries meat over fire so that it will rotate by itself without the power of an animal. This was made by people in several ways, and one of these is to have at the end of the spit a wheel with vanes, and opposite the wheel place a hollow pitcher made of copper with a closed head and full of water. Let the nozzle of the pitcher be opposite the vanes of the wheel. Kindle fire under the pitcher and steam will issue from its nozzle in a restricted form and it will turn the vane wheel. When the pitcher becomes empty of water bring close to it cold water in a basin and let the nozzle of the pitcher dip into the cold water. The heat will cause all the water in the basin to be attracted into the pitcher and the [the steam] will start rotating the vane wheel again."

Drawing of the self-trimming lamp in Ahmad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir's Arabic treatise on mechanical devices.

In the 9th century, the Banū Mūsā brothers invented a number of automata (automatic machines) and mechanical devices, and they described a hundred such devices in their Book of Ingenious Devices. Some of their original inventions include:

• Automatic control
• Feedback controller
• Fail-safe system
• Float chamber
• Hurricane lamp
• Gas mask
• Grab and Clamshell grab
• Trick drinking vessels
• Self-feeding lamp and self-trimming lamp: Invented by the eldest brother Ahmad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir.
• Valve and float valve

In The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (1206), Al-Jazari also described over fifty mechanical devices in six different categories, most of which he invented himself, along with construction drawings. Along with his other mechanical inventions described above, some of the other mechanival devices and construction methods he first described include: combination locks, hand washing device, accurate calibration of orifices, lamination of timber to reduce warping, static balancing of wheels, use of paper models to establish a design, casting of metals in closed mould boxes with green sand, phlebotomy measures, linkage, water level, and devices able to elevate water from shallow wells or flowing rivers.

Medical products

Main article: Islamic medicine

File:Avicenna Persian Physician.jpg

Avicenna, considered the father of modern medicine and the father of momentum, described various anesthetics and medical and therapeutic drugs in his Canon of Medicine.

Drugs and medications

Muslim physicians pioneered a number of drugs and medications for use in medicine, including:

• Alcohol as an antiseptic: The application of pure alcohol to wounds as an antiseptic agent, and the use of alcohol as a solvent and antiseptic, was introduced by Muslim physicians and surgeons in the 10th century.

• Cancer therapy, pharmacotherapy, and Hindiba: Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine (1025) attempted the earliest known treatments for cancer. One method he discovered was the "Hindiba", a herbal compound drug which Ibn al-Baitar later identified as having "anticancer" properties and which could also treat other tumors and neoplastic disorders. Avicenna wrote a separate supplement treatise dedicated to the pharmacotherapy of Hindiba, giving details on the drug's properties and uses, and he then gives instructions on its preparation as medication. After recognizing its usefulness in treating neoplastic disorders, Hindiba was patented in 1997 by Nil Sari, Hanzade Dogan and John K. Snyder.

• Chemotherapeutic drugs: Pioneered by Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes), who introduced the use of chemical substances such as vitriol, copper, mercuric and arsenic salts, sal ammoniac, gold scoria, chalk, clay, coral, pearl, tar, bitumen and alcohol for medical purposes.

• Clinical pharmacology, clinical trial, randomized controlled trial, and efficacy test: The origins of clinical pharmacology date back to Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine in 1025. His emphasis on tested medicines laid the foundations for an experimental approach to pharmacology. The Canon laid out the rules and principles for testing the effectiveness of new drugs and medications, which still form the basis of clinical pharmacology and modern clinical trials, randomized controlled trials and efficacy tests.

• Drugs, foods, herbs, plants and substances: In antiquity, Dioscorides listed about 500 plants in the 1st century. Muslim botanists, chemists and pharmacists dicovered many more during the Middle Ages. For example, Al-Dinawari described more than 637 plant drugs in the 9th century, and Ibn al-Baitar described at least 1,400 different plants, foods and drugs, 300 of which were his own original discoveries, in the 13th century. In total, at least 2,000 medicinal substances were discovered by Muslim botanists, chemists and pharmacists.

• Medicinal-grade alcohol: Produced through distillation. These distillation devices for use in chemistry and medicine were manufactured on a large scale in the 10th century.

• Parasitology: Parasites were first discovered by Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar), when he discovered the cause of scabies. He recommended specific substances to destroy microbes, and the application of sulfur topically specifically to kill the scabies mite.

• Pharmacopoeia: The first pharmacopoeia books were written by Muslim physicians. These included Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine and other pharmacopoeia books by Abu-Rayhan Biruni in the early 11th century, Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) in the 12th century (and printed in 1491), and Ibn al-Baitar in the 14th century.

• Phytotherapy, Taxus baccata, and calcium channel blocker: Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine introduced the medicinal use of Taxus baccata L. He named this herbal drug as "Zarnab" and used it as a cardiac remedy. This was the first known use of a calcium channel blocker drug, which were not used in the Western world until the 1960s.

• Sexual dysfunction and erectile dysfunction drugs: Muslim physicians identified the issue of sexual and erectile dysfunction, and they were the first to prescribe medication for the treatment of the problem. They developed several methods of therapy for this issue, including the single drug method where a drug is prescribed, and a "combination method of either a drug or food." These drugs were also occasionally used for recreational drug use to improve male sexuality in general by those who did not suffer from sexual dysfunctions. Most of these drugs were oral medication, though a few patients were also treated through topical and transurethral means. Sexual dysfunctions were being treated with tested drugs in the Islamic world since the 9th century until the 16th century by a number of Muslim physicians and pharmacists, including al-Razi, Thabit bin Qurra, Ibn Al-Jazzar, Avicenna (The Canon of Medicine), Averroes, Ibn al-Baitar, and Ibn al-Nafis (The Comprehensive Book on Medicine).

Surgical instruments

A wide variety of surgical instruments and techniques were invented in the Muslim world, as well as the refinement of earlier instruments and techniques. In particular, over 200 surgical instruments were listed by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis) in the Al-Tasrif (1000), many of which were never used before by any previous surgeons. Hamidan, for example, listed at least twenty six innovative surgical instruments that Abulcasis introduced.

• Adhesive bandage and plaster: Introduced by Abulcasis.

• Bone saw: Invented by Abulcasis.

• Cancer surgery: Another method for treating cancer first described by Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine was a surgical treatment. He stated that the excision should be radical and that all diseased tissue should be removed, which included the use of amputation or the removal of veins running in the direction of the tumor. He also recommended the use of cauterization for the area being treated if necessary.

• Cataract extraction, hypodermic needle, injection syringe, and suction: In circa 1000, the Muslim ophthalmologist Ammar ibn Ali of Mosul was the first to successfully extract cataracts. He invented a hollow metallic syringe hypodermic needle, which he applied through the sclerotic and successfully extracted the cataracts through suction.

• Catgut, use of: The use of catgut for internal stitching was introduced by Abulcasis.

• Ligature: Introduced by Abulcasis in the Al-Tasrif, for the blood control of arteries in lieu of cauterization.

• Cotton dressing and bandage: The earliest known use of cotton (derived from the Arabic word qutn) as a dressing for controlling hemorrhage, was described by Abulcasis.

• Curette, retractor, surgical spoon, sound, surgical hook, and surgical rod: Invented by Abulcasis in his Al-Tasrif (1000).

• General anaesthesia, General anaesthetic, oral anesthesia, inhalational anaesthetic, and narcotic-soaked sponge: Surgeries under inhalant anesthesia with the use of narcotic-soaked sponges which were placed over the face, were introduced by the Muslim anesthesiologists, Abu al-Qasim and Ibn Zuhr, in Islamic Spain. Sigrid Hunke wrote: "The science of medicine has gained a great and extremely important discovery and that is the use of general anaesthetics for surgical operations, and how unique, efficient, and merciful for those who tried it the Muslim anaesthetic was. It was quite different from the drinks the Indians, Romans and Greeks were forcing their patients to have for relief of pain. There had been some allegations to credit this discovery to an Italian or to an Alexandrian, but the truth is and history proves that, the art of using the anaesthetic sponge is a pure Muslim technique, which was not known before. The sponge used to be dipped and left in a mixture prepared from cannabis, opium, hyoscyamus and a plant called Zoan."

• Tracheotomy, correct description of: While tracheostomy may have possibly been portrayed on ancient Egyptian tablets, the first correct description of the tracheotomy operation for suffocating patients was described by Ibn Zuhr in the 12th century.

Military technology

Further information: Alchemy and chemistry in Islam

The first reference to gunpowder is probably a passage in the Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe, a Taoist text tentatively dated to the mid-800s. After the spread of early gunpowder from China to the Muslim world, Muslim chemists and engineers developed compositions for explosive gunpowder (naft in Arabic) and their own weapons for use in gunpowder warfare.

A picture of a 15th century Andalusian Arab cannon from the book Al-izz wal rifa'a.

The bronze Dardanelles cannon, used by the Ottoman Turks in the siege of Constantinople in 1453, was the first supergun.

• Autocannon and multi-barrel gun: Fathullah Shirazi (c. 1582), a Persian-Indian polymath and mechanical engineer who worked for Akbar the Great in the Mughal Empire, invented the autocannon, the earliest multi-shot gun. As opposed to the polybolos and repeating crossbows used earlier in ancient Greece and China, respectively, Shirazi's rapid-firing gun had multiple gun barrels that fired hand cannons loaded with gunpowder.

• Ballistic war machine: In the 12th century, the Seljuqs had facilities in Sivas for manufacturing war machines. Ballistic weapons were manufactured in the Muslim world since the time of Kublai Khan in the 13th century. According to Chinese sources, two Muslim engineers, Alaaddin and Ismail (d. 1330), built machines of a ballistic-weapons nature before the besieged city of Hang-show between 1271–1273. Alaaddin's weapons also played a major role in the conquest of several other Chinese cities. His son Ma-ho-scha also developed ballistic weapons. Ismail (transliterated as I-ssu-ma-yin) was present in the Mongol siege of Hsiang-yiang, where he built a war machine with the characteristics of a ballistic weapon. Chinese sources mention that when this war machines were fired, the earth and skies shook, the cannons were buried seven feet into the ground and destroyed everything. His son Yakub also developed ballistic war machines.

• Counterweight trebuchet and mangonel: The first clearly written record of a counterweight trebuchet comes from Mardi bin Ali al-Tarsusi, who wrote a military manual for Saladin circa 1187. He describes a hybrid trebuchet that he said had the same hurling power as a traction machine pulled by fifty men due to "the constant force [of gravity], whereas men differ in their pulling force." (Showing his mechanical proficiency, Tarsusi designed his trebuchet so that as it was fired it cocked a supplementary crossbow, probably to protect the engineers from attack.) In his book, Medieval Siege, Jim Bradbury extensively quotes from Mardi ibn Ali concerning mangonels of various types, including Arab, Perisan and Turkish, describing what could be trebuchets, but not quoted as above. In On the Social Origins of Medieval Institutions, more detailed quotes by Mardi ibn Ali may be found on the various types of trebuchets.

• Damascus steel: One of the most famous steels produced in the medieval Near East was Damascus steel used for swordmaking, and mostly produced in Damascus, Syria, in the period from 900 to 1750. This was produced using the crucible steel method, based on the earlier Indian wootz steel. This process was further refined in the Middle East using locally produced steels. The exact process remains unknown, but allowed carbides to precipitate out as micro particles arranged in sheets or bands within the body of a blade. The carbides are far harder than the surrounding low carbon steel, allowing the swordsmith to make an edge which would cut hard materials with the precipitated carbides, while the bands of softer steel allowed the sword as a whole to remain tough and flexible. A team of researchers based at the Technical University of Dresden that uses x-rays and electron microscopy to examine Damascus steel discovered the presence of cementite nanowires and carbon nanotubes. Peter Paufler, a member of the Dresden team, says that these nanostructures give Damascus steel its distinctive properties and are a result of the forging process.

• Dissolved talc: Egyptian soldiers at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 were the first to smear dissolved talc (from Arabic talq) on their hands, as forms of fire protection from gunpowder.

• Explosive gunpowder: The ideal composition for explosive gunpowder used in modern times is 75% potassium nitrate (saltpetre), 10% sulfur, and 15% carbon. Several almost identical compositions were first described by the Arab engineer Hasan al-Rammah as a recipe for the rockets (tayyar) he described in The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices in 1270. Several examples include a tayyar "rocket" (75% saltpetre, 8% sulfur, 15% carbon) and the tayyar buruq "lightning rocket" (74% saltpetre, 10% sulfur, 15% carbon). He also states recipes for fireworks and firecrackers made from these explosive gunpowder compositions. He states in his book that many of these recipes were known to his father and grandfather, hence dating back to at least the late 12th century. Compositions for an explosive gunpowder effect were not known in China or Europe until the 14th century. Medieval French reports suggest that Muslim armies also used explosives against the Sixth Crusade army led by Ludwig IV, Landgrave of Thuringia in the 13th century.

• Gunpowder cartridge: Gunpowder cartridges were first employed by the Egyptians, for use in their fire lances and hand cannons against the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260.

• Hand cannon, handgun, and portable firearm: The first portable hand cannons (midfa) loaded with explosive gunpowder, the first example of a handgun and portable firearm, were used by the Egyptians to repel the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, and again in 1304. The gunpowder compositions used for the cannons at these battles were later described in several manuscripts in the early 14th century. According to Shams al-Din Muhammad (d. 1327), the cannons had an explosive gunpowder composition (74% saltpetre, 11% sulfur, 15% carbon) again almost identical to the ideal compositions for explosive gunpowder used in modern times.

Tipu Sultan invented the first iron-cased and metal-cylinder rocket artillery in Mysore, India, alongside his father Hyder Ali, in the 1780s.

• Iron-cased and metal-cylinder rocket artillery: The first iron-cased and metal-cylinder rocket artillery were developed by Tipu Sultan, a Muslim ruler of the South Indian Kingdom of Mysore, and his father Hyder Ali. He successfully used these metal-cylinder rockets against the larger forces of the British East India Company during the Anglo-Mysore Wars. The Mysore rockets of this period were much more advanced than what the British had seen, chiefly because of the use of iron tubes for holding the propellant; this enabled higher thrust and longer range for the missile (up to 2 km range). After Tipu's eventual defeat in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War and the capture of the Mysore iron rockets, they were influential in British rocket development and were soon put into use in the Napoleonic Wars. According to Stephen Oliver Fought and John F. Guilmartin, Jr. in Encyclopedia Britannica (2008): "Hyder Ali, prince of Mysore, developed war rockets with an important change: the use of metal cylinders to contain the combustion powder. Although the hammered soft iron he used was crude, the bursting strength of the container of black powder was much higher than the earlier paper construction. Thus a greater internal pressure was possible, with a resultant greater thrust of the propulsive jet. The rocket body was lashed with leather thongs to a long bamboo stick. Range was perhaps up to three-quarters of a mile (more than a kilometre). Although individually these rockets were not accurate, dispersion error became less important when large numbers were fired rapidly in mass attacks. They were particularly effective against cavalry and were hurled into the air, after lighting, or skimmed along the hard dry ground. Hyder Ali's son, Tippu Sultan, continued to develop and expand the use of rocket weapons, reportedly increasing the number of rocket troops from 1,200 to a corps of 5,000. In battles at Seringapatam in 1792 and 1799 these rockets were used with considerable effect against the British."

• Purified potassium nitrate: Muslim chemists were the first to purify potassium nitrate (saltpetre; natrun or barud in Arabic) to the weapons-grade purity for use in gunpowder, as potassium nitrate needs to be purified to be used effectively. This purification process was first described by Ibn Bakhtawayh in his al-Muqaddimat in 1029. The first complete purification process for potassium nitrate is described in 1270 by the Arab chemist and engineer Hasan al-Rammah of Syria in his book al-Furusiyya wa al-Manasib al-Harbiyya (The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices, a.k.a. the Treatise on Horsemanship and Stratagems of War). He first described the use of potassium carbonate (in the form of wood ashes) to remove calcium and magnesium salts from the potassium nitrate. Bert S. Hall, however, disputes the efficacy of al-Rammah's formula for the purification of potassium nitrate.

• Siege cannon: The use of cannons as siege machines dates back to Abu Yaqub Yusuf who employed them at the siege of Sijilmasa in 1274 according to Ibn Khaldun.

• Supergun: The first supergun was the Great Turkish Bombard, used by the troops of Mehmed II to capture Constantinople in 1453. It had a 762 mm bore, and fired 680 kg (1500 lb) stones. The chief architect for the supergun was a Hungarian named Urban. Though his religion is unknown, he lived and worked in the Islamic world.

• Torpedo: The invention of torpedoes occurred in the Muslim world, and were driven by a rocket system. The works of Hasan al-Rammah in Syria in 1275 shows illustrations of a torpedo running on water with a rocket system filled with explosive materials and having three firing points.

Navigational technology

Main article: Islamic geography

The caravel was invented by Muslim navigators in 13th-century Islamic Spain.

• Baculus: The baculus, used for nautical astronomy, originates from Islamic Spain and was later used by Portuguese navigators for long-distance travel.

• Caravel: The origins of the caravel ship, used for long distance travel by the Spanish and Portuguese since the 15th century, date back to the qarib used by explorers from Islamic Spain in the 13th century.

• Cartographic grids: Invented 10th-century Baghdad.

• Cartographic Qibla instruments: These were brass instruments with Mecca-centred world maps and cartographic grids engraved on them. They were invented in 17th-century Iran.

• Cartographic Qibla instrument with sundial and compass: This was a Qibla instrument with a sundial and compass attached to it, and was invented by Muhammad Husayn in the 17th century.

• Compass dial: In the early 14th century, Ibn al-Shatir invented the compass dial, a timekeeping device incorporating both a universal sundial and a magnetic compass. He invented it for the purpose of finding the times of Salah prayers.

• Compass rose: The Arabs invented the 32-point compass rose during the Middle Ages.

• Dry compass (Mariner's compass): In 1282, the Yemeni sultan Al-Ashraf developed an improved compass for use as a "Qibla indicator" instrument in order to find the direction to Mecca. Al-Ashraf's instrument was one of the earliest dry compasses, and appears to have been invented independantly of Peter Peregrinus. The dry compass is commonly known as the "Mariner's compass".

• Navigational astrolabe: Invented in the Islamic world, it employed the use of a polar projection system.

• Orthographical astrolabe: Invented by Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī in the early 11th century.

• Terrestrial globe: The first terrestrial globe of the Old World was constructed in the Muslim world during the Middle Ages, by Muslim geographers and astronomers working under the Abbasid caliph, Al-Ma'mun, in the 9th century.

• Treasure ship: The treasure ship was a type of large nine-masted wooden vessel commanded by the Chinese Muslim admiral Zheng He on seven voyages in the early 15th century. Zheng He's treasure ships were mammoth ships with nine masts, four decks, and were capable of accommodating more than 500 passengers, as well as a massive amount of cargo. Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta both described multi-masted ships carrying 500 to 1,000 passengers in their translated accounts. Niccolò Da Conti, a contemporary of Zheng He, was also an eyewitness of ships in Southeast Asia, describing five-masted junks weighing about 2,000 tons.

Optical instruments

Further information: Islamic physics

File:Ibn haithem portrait.jpg

Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), the "father of optics" and pioneer of the modern scientific method, invented the camera obscura, pinhole camera, and magnifying glass.

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". 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.

• Observation tube: The "observation tube" (without lens) was invented by al-Battani (Albatenius) (853-929) and first described by al-Biruni (973-1048). These observation tubes were later adopted in Europe, where they influenced the development of the telescope.

• Pinhole camera: Ibn al-Haytham first described pinhole camera after noticing the way light came through a hole in window shutters.

• Camera obscura: 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.

• Magnifying glass: The earliest evidence of "a magnifying device, a convex lens forming a magnified image," dates back the Book of Optics published by Ibn al-Haytham in 1021. The Latin translation of his work was instrumental to the later inventions of eyeglasses, the telescope, and the microscope.

• Telescope: A rudimentary telescope was invented by Taqi al-Din, as described in his Book of the Light of the Pupil of Vision and the Light of the Truth of the Sights around 1574. He describes it as an instrument that makes objects located far away appear closer to the observer. He further states that the instrument helps to see distant objects in detail by bringing them very close. He also states that he wrote another earlier treatise explaining the way this instrument is made and used, suggesting that he invented it some time before 1574. However, it is not known whether he employed the instrument for his later astronomical observations at the Istanbul observatory of al-Din from 1577.

Robotics

Mark E. Rosheim summarizes the advances in robotics made by Arab engineers as follows:

"Unlike the Greek designs, these Arab examples reveal an interest, not only in dramatic illusion, but in manipulating the environment for human comfort. Thus, the greatest contribution the Arabs made, besides preserving, disseminating and building on the work of the Greeks, was the concept of practical application. This was the key element that was missing in Greek robotic science."

"The Arabs, on the other hand, displayed an interest in creating human-like machines for practical purposes but lacked, like other preindustrial societies, any real impetus to pursue their robotic science."

• Mechanical singing bird automata: Caliph al-Mamun had a silver and golden tree in his palace in Baghdad in 827, which had the features of an automatic machine. There were metal birds that sang automatically on the swinging branches of this tree built by Muslim engineers at the time. The Abbasid Caliph al-Muktadir also had a golden tree in his palace in Baghdad in 915, with birds on it flapping their wings and singing.

• Programmable automatic flute player: The Banu Musa invented an automatic flute player which appears to have been the first programmable machine.

The programmable humanoid robot band of al-Jazari, considered to be a "father of robotics".

• Programmable humanoid robot band: Al-Jazari (1136-1206) created the first recorded designs of a programmable humanoid robot in 1206, as opposed to the non-programmable automata in ancient times. Al-Jazari's robot was originally a boat with four automatic musicians that floated on a lake to entertain guests at royal drinking parties. His mechanism had a programmable drum machine with pegs (cams) that bump into little levers that operate the percussion. The drummer could be made to play different rhythms and different drum patterns if the pegs were moved around. According to Charles B. Fowler, the automata were a "robot band" which performed "more than fifty facial and body actions during each musical selection."

• Hand washing automaton with flush mechanism: Al-Jazari invented a hand washing automaton incorporating a flush mechanism now used in modern flush toilets. It features a female humanoid automaton standing by a basin filled with water. When the user pulls the lever, the water drains and the female automaton refills the basin.

• Peacock fountain with automated humanoid servants: Al-Jazari's "peacock fountain" was a more sophisticated hand washing device featuring humanoid automata as servants which offer soap and towels. Mark E. Rosheim describes it as follows: "Pulling a plug on the peacock's tail releases water out of the beak; as the dirty water from the basin fills the hollow base a float rises and actuates a linkage which makes a servant figure appear from behind a door under the peacock and offer soap. When more water is used, a second float at a higher level trips and causes the appearance of a second servant figure — with a towel!"

• Other automata: In 1206, al-Jazari, along with his inventions above, also designed and constructed a number of other automata, such as home appliances and musical automata powered by water (see one of his works at The Automata of Al-Jazari).

Other inventions

Fielding H. Garrison wrote in the History of Medicine:

"The Saracens themselves were the originators not only of algebra, chemistry, and geology, but of many of the so-called improvements or refinements of civilization, such as street lamps, window-panes, firework, stringed instruments, cultivated fruits, perfumes, spices, etc."

Other inventions from the Islamic world include:

• Airmail system utilizing homing pigeons by the Fatimid Caliph Aziz, the foundations of modern optics by Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), and advances in musical theory (see Arabic music) and irrigation techniques (see Muslim Agricultural Revolution).

• Cryptanalysis and frequency analysis: In cryptology, the first known recorded explanation of cryptanalysis was given by 9th-century Arabian polymath, Al-Kindi (also known as "Alkindus" in Europe), in A Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages. This treatise includes the first description of the method of frequency analysis. It has been suggested that close textual study of the Qur'an first brought to light that Arabic has a characteristic letter frequency. Its use spread, and similar systems were widely used in European states by the time of the Renaissance.

• Graph paper, and orthogonal and regular grids: The first known use of graph paper dates back to the medieval Islamic world, where weavers often carefully drew and encoded their patterns onto graph paper prior to weaving. Islamic quadrants used for various astronomical and timekeeping purposes from the 10th century also introduced markings with orthogonal and regular grids that are still identical to modern graph paper.

• Persian carpet and cheque system

Disputed inventions

These are disputed inventions with uncertain origins, hence they may or may not have been first invented in the Islamic world, with some scholars suggesting they were, and others suggesting they were invented in contemporary or earlier civilizations, such as China, Greece, India, Rome, or pre-Islamic Egypt, Mesopotamia or Persia.

Some of the technologies which were invented in the Islamic world independantly of other civilizations are also listed here, as well as innovations from the Islamic world which some consider to be improvements or refinements rather than completely original inventions.

Astrolabes

Main article: Islamic astronomy

Muslim astronomers made significant improvements to the astrolabe which originally appeared in the Hellenistic world, and they produced a variety of different innovative variations. Some of these variations include:

• Uses of astrolabe: In the 10th century, Al-Sufi first described over 1000 different uses of an astrolabe, including uses in astronomy, astrology, horoscopes, navigation, surveying, timekeeping, Qibla, Salah, etc.
• Saphaea: The first universal astrolabe developed for all latitudes, invented by Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī (Arzachel).
• Zuraqi: A heliocentric astrolabe where the Earth is in motion rather than the sky, by al-Sijzi in the 11th century.
• Linear astrolabe ("staff of al-Tusi"): Invented by Sharaf al-Dīn al-Tūsī in the 12th century.

Chemical technology

Main article: Alchemy and chemistry in Islam

Chemical processes

• Liquefaction, purification, oxidisation and evaporation (tabkhir) by Geber.
• Assation (or roasting), cocotion (or digestion), ceration, lavage, solution, mixture, and fixation.
• Calcination (al-tashwiya).

Chemical substances

• Dyestuff by Muslim chemists.
• Rice vinegar by Geber.
• The classification of all seven classical metals: gold, silver, tin, lead, mercury, iron, and copper, by Geber.
• Camphor, pomades, and syrups.

Laboratory apparatus

• Al-Razi (Rhazes), in his Secretum secretorum (Latinized title), first described the following tools for melting substances (li-tadhwib): hearth (kur), bellows (minfakh aw ziqq), crucible (bawtaqa), the but bar but (in Arabic) or botus barbatus (in Latin), tongs (masik aq kalbatan), scissors (miqta), hammer (mukassir), file (mibrad).

Many of these tools are required, in some form or another, to melt metals and prepare alloys such as bronze and brass. Tongs, hammers, scissors, and files are similarly ancient.

Hang glider

Abbas Ibn Firnas possibly built the first hang glider, though there were earlier instances of manned kites being used in ancient China. Knowledge of Firman and Firnas' flying machines spread to other parts of Europe from Arabic references.

Industrial mills

Further information: Muslim Agricultural Revolution

A variety of industrial mills were possibly first invented in the Islamic world, including fulling mills, gristmills, hullers, paper mills, sawmills, stamp mills, steel mills, sugar mills, and windmills. By the 11th century, every province throughout the Islamic world had these industrial mills in operation, from al-Andalus and North Africa to the Middle East and Central Asia. These advances made it possible for many industrial operations that were previously driven by manual labour in ancient times to be driven by machinery instead in the Islamic world. The transfer of these technologies to medieval Europe later laid the foundations for the Industrial Revolution in 18th century Europe.

• Shipmill: The shipmill was a unique type of watermill powered by water wheels mounted on the sides of large ships moored in midstream. These were first employed along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in 10th century Iraq, where shipmills could produce 10 tons of flour from corn every day for the granary in Baghdad. However, an earlier version of this device, where water wheels were attached to small boats, was earlier known at Rome in 547 AD, when Belisarius was beseiged there.

• Tide mill and tidal powered machine: The earliest documented description of the tide mill, the first machine driven by tidal power, dates back to Muslim sources in 10th century Basra. It was first described by al-Muqaddasi in 990. Similar tide mills later appear in medieval France. However, the Nendrum Monastery mill, recently excavated on an island in Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland, was a tide mill dating from 787.[2] Its millstones are 830mm in diameter and the horizontal wheel is estimated to have developed 7/8HP at its peak. According to Rob Spain, tide mills may have also possibly existed in the Roman Empire.

Mechanical technology

• Automatic gate: Al-Jazari invented automatic gates which were driven by hydropower. He also created automatic doors as part of one of his elaborate water clocks. However, Hero of Alexandria is believed to have invented an earlier version of such a device to open temple doors.

• Epicyclic gearing: Segmental and epicyclic gearing were invented by the 11th century Arab engineer Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi in Al-Andalus. However, it has been claimed that epicyclic gearing may have also been employed in the Antikythera mechanism.

• Hodometer: Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī invented a hodometer in the 11th century. His invention was an early example of a fixed-wired knowledge processing machine. It is uncertain, however, whether his hodometer was closer to the modern surveyor's wheel or the ancient odometer used in the Han Dynasty and Roman Empire. The ancient odometer dates back to Archemedes' lost manuscript On Sphere-Making, as can be seen from a commentary by Pappus of Alexandria, and is also mentioned by Zhang Heng, Pliny the Elder, Strabo and Vitruvius.

• 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.

Medical technology

Main article: Islamic medicine

Medical treatments

Muslim physicians pioneered a number of medical treatments, including the medical procedure of inoculation in the medieval Muslim world, later followed by the first smallpox vaccine in the form of cowpox, invented in Turkey in the early 18th century.

Other medical treatments believed to have been developed by Muslim physicians include:

• Medical and anesthetic use of Opium by Avicenna.
• Utilization of special methods for maintaining antisepsis prior to and during surgery by surgeons in Islamic Spain.
• Specific protocols for maintaining hygiene during the post-operative period, in Córdoba, Spain.
• Drug therapy and medicinal drugs for the treatment of specific symptoms and diseases, and the use of practical experience and careful observation, by Avicenna, al-Kindi, Ibn Rushd, Abu al-Qasim, Ibn Zuhr, Ibn Baytar, Ibn Al-Jazzar, Ibn Juljul, Ibn al-Quff, Ibn al-Nafis, Al-Biruni, Ibn Sahl.

Surgical instruments

• Forceps by Abulcasis in the Al-Tasrif (1000), for extracting a dead fetus.
• Scalpel and specula by Abulcasis.
• Surgical needle by Abulcasis in his Al-Tasrif.

Military technology

Gunpowder

Most sources credit the discovery of gunpowder to China alchemists in the 9th century searching for an elixir of immortality. The discovery of gunpowder was probably the product of centuries of alchemical experimentation. Saltpetre was known to the Chinese by the mid-1st century AD and there is strong evidence of the use of saltpetre and sulfur in various largely medicinal combinations. A Chinese alchemical text from 492 noted that saltpeter gave off a purple flame when ignited, providing for the first time a practical and reliable means of distinguishing it from other inorganic salts, making it possible to evaluate and compare purification techniques.

While it is commonly held that gunpowder was invented in China, it has been argued that gunpowder may have possibly been invented by Muslims first. Potassium nitrate was known to earlier Arab chemists, and was described many times. The earliest description is by Khalid ibn Yazid (635-704), and was later described and used many times, for example by Jabir ibn Hayyan (722-815) to make nitric acid and by al-Razi and others. Saltpeter was called "natrun" but also had other names indicating its ore origins, for example, (Shabb Yamani or "Yemeni alum") and (thalj al-Sīn, or "Chinese snow," as Muslims got the ore from China, among other places). Muslims went beyond the use of the impractical ore material, and began purifying it. George Sarton states in that Muslims were the first to purify saltpeter and he shows that black slaves were purifying saltpeter in Basra, Iraq and that those slaves rebelled in (869)

The earliest Arabic manuscripts with gunpowder recipes are two undated manuscripts, but one of them (the al-Karshuni manuscript) was dated by Berthelot and Duval to be from the ninth to the eleventh century, both manuscripts mention saltpeter, charcoal and sulphur as the sole ingredients of gunpowder. We can find the first book dedicated for gunpowder and its uses in the works Hasan al-Rammah's Al-furusiyyah wa al-manasib al-harbiyya (The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices), written in the 1270s, which included the first gunpowder recipes to approach the ideal composition for explosive gunpowder used in modern times (75% saltpetre (KNO₃), 10% sulfur, 15% carbon), such as the tayyar "rocket" (75 parts saltpetre, 8 sulfur, and 15 carbon, by weight) and the tayyar buruq "lightning rocket" (74 parts saltpetre, 10 sulfur, 15 carbon). He states in his book that many of these recipes were known to his father and grandfather, hence dating back to at least the late 12th century.

Guns and firearms

A commonly held view is that the first firearms were invented in China, but some scholars such as Reinuad and Fave argue that the first firearms may have possibly been invented by Muslims first. Encyclopædia Britannica also states that some time before 1300, the Arabs "had developed the first real gun, a bamboo tube reinforced with iron, which used a charge of black powder to fire an arrow."

The use of saltpeter in military applications by the Arabs dates back to the 10th century. The three ingredients of gunpowder were used, often with the addition of naphtha to make "tubes of incendiaries," which were thrown by catapults, and some Arabic greekfire receipts contained saltpeter, Shawar vizier of the Fatimid Caliph Al-'Āḍid's used 20,000 tubes of incendiaries and 10,000 lighting bombs in the year 1168, by 1916, Bahjat and Gabriel had gathered dozens of nearly intact ceramic grenades of different types, and fragments of hundreds more. and in the 1940s those ceramics caught the attention of yet another French scientist Maurice Mercier where he noticed that those that had the strongest walls and the most aerodynamic designs often had their tops broken off, while the rest of the body was intact. Only a powerful internal explosion, he reasoned, could have caused such clean, sharp fractures. He had a number of the pots carefully examined and discovered that they contained traces of nitrates and sulfur, essential ingredients of gunpowder. Many now on display in the Cairo Museum and the Louvre, the components of the grenades were volatile jelly of kerosene, potassium nitrates and sulfur.

Another early use of gunpowder in military applications in al-Andalus (modern Spain) is as early as 1118, later in 1248 it was used in the defence of Seville and such devices were called "Thunderers", another early use was in 1250 by the Mamluks against the Franks led by Louis IX in Battle of Al Mansurah, and the explosive hand cannons first used by the Mamluks to repel the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260. There were four different gunpowder compositions used for the cannons at the battle, with the most explosive cannon having a gunpowder composition (74% saltpetre, 11% sulfur, 15% carbon) again almost identical to the ideal composition for explosive gunpowder.

A primitive gun that shoots bullets may have been developed in the 12th century and the Anatolian Turkish Beyliks were later using guns which fire audible bullets using springs. Later, the Nesri Tarihi in the 15th century states that the Ottoman army were regularly using guns and cannons from at least 1421-1422. The famous Janissary corps of the Ottoman army were using matchlock muskets as early as the 1440s, though the Chinese were using them several decades earlier.

Fireproof clothing

Egyptian soldiers at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 were arguably the first to wear fireproof clothing, to which gunpowder cartridges were attached. However, it has been claimed that Asbestos cloth may have also been used as fireproof clothing by the ancient Chinese and Greeks.

Navigational technology

Main article: Islamic geography

• Kamal: Muslim navigators are believed to have invented a rudimentary sextant known as a kamal, used for celestial navigation and for measuring the altitudes and latitudes of the stars. However, some believe an early version of the kamal was known in ancient India.

• Three-masted merchant vessel: According to John M. Hobson, Muslim sailors introduced the large three-masted merchant vessels around the Mediterranean Sea, though they may have borrowed the three-mast system from Chinese ships. However, Howard I. Chapelle argues that some ancient Roman ships may have also been three-masted cargo ships, though Kevin Greene writes that three-masted ships were not developed until the 15th century.

• Lateen sail: The lateen sail was previously believed to have been introduced from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea by Muslim sailors in the 9th century. However, recent scholarship suggests that the lateen sail may have been known even earlier in the Mediterranean since at least the 4th century.

See also

• Muslim Agricultural Revolution
• Islamic Golden Age
• Islamic science
• Timeline of Muslim scientists and engineers
• Timeline of invention

References

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