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Posted by Samir Franciscus at 8:12 PM Categories: History and Heritage, Islamic scholars, Multimedia
He was one of history's greatest engineers. He invented the crankshaft and some of the first mechanical
clocks, driven by water and weights. Among his 50 other inventions was the combination lock.
He was called Al-Jazari after the area where he was born, Al-Jazira, which is the traditional Arabic name
for northern Mesopotamia (in modern-day Syria and Iraq, between the Tigris and the Euphrates).
Al-Jazari is credited with creating the earliest forms of a programmable humanoid robot in 1206. Al-
Jazari's automaton 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 operated the percussion. The drummer could be made to play different
rhythms and different drum patterns if the pegs were moved around. [1]
Muslim contributions to engineering
Studies made during the past fifty years demonstrate that the Muslims made substantial contributions to
developments in engineering and that some of their accomplishments were passed on to the Europeans
through Spain, Italy and the Crusades.
Many of the achievements made in engineering and technology in the Islamic world in earlier centuries
are not well known. Two main reasons for this were suggested by Ludlow and Bahrani [2]:
1. During that period, engineers and technologists were practical rather than literary people. They carried
out their work competently but did not write down or publish their discoveries and achievements. Their
skills and knowledge were passed on from master to pupil without being recorded. The extent of their
ability and skill can now be judged from the few articles and instruments they made which still survive in
some museums.
2. In the few cases where the engineers and technologists did write down an account of their work and
observations, their manuscripts have been mislaid or destroyed.
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