Al-Jazari

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Jazari

by kdavis • 12 years ago

286 122 12 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

Zaheer• 12 years ago

For the curious, book available at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/200133822/The-Book-of-Knowledge-of...

vdfs4• 12 years ago

In the gold old days, Tricks science was what we know now as Mechanics. This was a smart naming for this new science field, so people won't link it with Magic, which is forbidden in Islam.

oblio2• 12 years ago

Please continue posting such links. I know some people would like only links about "hacking" (i.e. coding), but such articles really make me understand the "we are standing on the shoulders of giants" quote.

Especially about lesser advertised cultures such as the Islamic one.

ekianjo2• 12 years ago

Especially about lesser advertised cultures such as the Islamic one.

The idea of a singular entity called "Islamic culture" is something very recent in History though, Pan-Islamism. That's from the 19th century at best.

crystaln• 12 years ago

I highly recommend picking up a book covering the history of invention and thought rather than waiting for such posts to hit meme status at random moments on HN.

oblio2• 12 years ago

Who said that I don't read those? Your reply is a bit condescending. The stages of learning include total ignorance, when you don't know that you don't know something (or that the thing you don't know would interest you). We're social animals for several reasons - one of them is that we can teach each other. HN is quite a knowledgeable community, so the advice/pointers are in general more useful than just random Google searches or sifting through Amazon reviews, for example.

w1ntermute3• 12 years ago

What alphabet is used for the letters in the diagrams[0]? It's not Arabic, and it looks sort of like Greek (or maybe Phoenician), but different.

0. Such as this one: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Al-jazari...

amiraliakbari• 12 years ago

It is Arabic, for example "من بین الحوضین" on the beginning of the first line means "between the two tanks".

w1ntermute3• 12 years ago

I don't mean the caption at the top. I'm referring to the letters on the diagram itself: http://i.imgur.com/Bj31AxJ.jpg

KhalilK5• 12 years ago

It is Arabic, Islamic calligraphy[0] can be confusing, I'll reckon that.

0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_calligraphy

peteretep2• 12 years ago

He's asking about the symbols against the diagram itself, not the preface.

DanBC• 12 years ago

I have no idea. While searching for an answer I found this which is too interesting to not post. Especially the "table of alphabets". Perhaps some of the "old Hebrew" characters fit?

http://www.gentlewisdom.org/qaya/academic/hebrew/Phoenician....

MaysonL• 12 years ago

Seems like an alchemical alphabet such as:

http://www.925-1000.com/alchemy.html

http://alchemylab.com/download_fonts.htm

nimir• 12 years ago

I think they are numbers, more specifically showing device dimensions & others may refer to some formulas .

The Arabic notation for numbers as we know it now (1,2,3 ..etc) wasn't yet formed! i suppose!!

You will find most of the mentioned symbols in this image showing the developing of numbers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals#mediaviewer/Fil...

Note: (in the image the development in vertical, first line lists numbers from 1 to 10)

bbayer• 12 years ago

There are numerous number of Muslim scientists who contributes a lot to modern mathematics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu%E1%B8%A5ammad_ibn_M%C5%ABs%C...

KhalilK5• 12 years ago

I remember learning all about Al Jazari (and all of the other Muslim scientists, philosophers and doctors at that time) back in primary school. As an Arab I can't help but feel both proud, of such achievements, and yet so sad, because of the state of decline the Islamic contribution to the scientific advancement has known.

rikacomet3• 12 years ago

my brother, that is a bit out of context. Don't be sad about it. Success passes on to those, who work hard for the greater cause. One should have rivals, but no enemies ;)

nayefc3• 12 years ago

Once we replace "Islamic contribution" with "Arab contribution", we will move forward.

vdfs4• 12 years ago

That is not true. Can you give me the name of a scientist before Islam?

nraf6• 12 years ago

This isn't a very fair or accurate statement given that many of the greatest scholars of Islam weren't Arab (a large number were Persian for example). There were multiple centres of scientific endeavor throughout Islamic history including (but not limited to) Baghdad, Damascus, Al-Andalus (i.e. Islamic Spain) and Africa.

Much of the Islamic scholarship at the time revolved around gaining a greater understanding of the creation of God as a means to draw nearer to God.

In addition a lot of scholars in the major Islamic centres weren't even Muslim. For example, the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (welcomed by the local Jewish population) ushered in a Jewish Golden Age which produced Maimonides, one of the greatest Jewish scholars of the time.

dvdhsu• 12 years ago

I was reading Why Nations Fail, recently, and came across a similar sentiment:

While the Egyptians were building the great pyramids of Giza around 2500 BC, the English constructed their most famous ancient monument, the stone circle at Stonehenge. Not bad by English standards, but not even large enough to have housed one of the ceremonial boats buried at the foot of King Khufu’s pyramid. England continued to lag behind and to borrow from the Middle East and the rest of Europe up to and including the Roman period.

So, the Great Pyramid of Giza: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza, versus Stonehenge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge.

Now it's completely different. The Middle East (largely), is far behind western civilization. What's happened since then? It's hard to comprehend how quickly nations and cultures can fall, as well how quickly they can rise.

The y-intercept generally doesn't matter. The slope does.

This reminds me of pg's Black Swan Farming: http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html. Black swans (e.g. Gutenburg's printing press) are the driving force for advancement in society. Since black swans beget more black swans (since one black swan in a certain society -> society supporting more of them), the effect is cumulative, and societies can rise and fall quickly. What does that mean today? Will Africa have their own black swans? Will South America?

GuiA• 12 years ago

You can only connect the dots looking backward. How do we know that our society won't be viewed 500 years from now the same way we view the Roman empire or Egyptian kingdom?

selimthegrim4• 12 years ago

For some reason, this guy never gets any love.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Shatir

rikacomet3• 12 years ago

Yes, I know of him due to Tusi Couple, which I briefly read about when I was going through Copernicus's work.

selimthegrim4• 12 years ago

Oldie but goodie: http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~dduke/models.htm

The Tusi couple is like halfway down and the link right above it allows you to compare and contrast models.

rikacomet3• 12 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avicenna

The first to use Cannula to help a choking patient. Also contributed to the foundation of Unani (Greek-Arab) Medicine system.

davidgerard• 12 years ago

Avicenna is awesome, the equivalent of the greatest of the ancient Greeks. His name comes up these days mostly courtesy alternative medicine woo pushers, which is way worse than he deserves.

Nux• 12 years ago

The Islamic Golden Age is pretty fantastic, not the first time I heard about it and usually a cause of pride among my muslim friends (and for good reason).

Too bad we're witnessing the Islamic Dark Ages right now.

rodgerd• 12 years ago

One would like to think, along with the slow disintegration of Western Rome, that it might serve as an object lesson to people who naively assume that progress is inevitable and will solve all our problems.

frozenport• 12 years ago

Seems like they have been going for the last 700 years.

Which makes me feel that the feelings of pride my Muslim friends feel are unjustified as they have very little in common with the world that made al-Jazari. Or perhaps more importantly, the rest of the world has advanced in 700 years, but they have staid behind.

lotsofpulp• 12 years ago

Generally, I don't completely get why do humans feel pride for things they didn't have anything to do with? Probably has something to do with ego.

otakucode3• 12 years ago

To use strokes so broad that any historian would like to harm me... what happened was basically that the Islamic world came up against the Crusades, and with Catholics murdering them with terrible savagery, they decided to seal themselves off from the world. And in that seclusion they missed out on the most important development in human history - The Enlightenment. Possible the greatest achievement of The Enlightenment was driving a wedge between religion belief and beliefs about the material world. Prior to The Enlightenment, these two things were the same thing - a concept which is VERY difficult for people from post-Enlightenment cultures to understand. Seeing gravity as an expression of a gods will? Thinking it sensible to look for religious explanations to solve mechanical problems? No belief in an afterlife, but belief that the material world was a thing skin over the supernatural world which actually controlled everything? These things just don't make sense to post-Enlightenment folks.

Those ideas are absolutely and totally required to support the idea of coexistence of peoples of different faiths. Otherwise, religious ideas about eternity and salvation trump any concerns. There is nothing which can outweigh the importance of eternity. And in their isolation, concerns for eternity (and self preservation) consumed the Islamic world. The division between modern 'moderate' Islamists and 'fundamentalist' Islamists is this exact divide solved by The Enlightenment.

And the outcome is by no means a foregone conclusion. People are going to have to choose to believe that their religious beliefs are "just religious" and have no serious relevance to the material world (the exact notion their religion decries as the ultimate heresy) and join the modern world... or cling to their pre-Enlightenment system and be exterminated through violence by the rest of the world. Coexistence with pre-Enlightenment people in a world where technology gives individuals so much power of different kinds simply is not possible.

infinitone2• 12 years ago

I see where you're coming from, but your conclusion is incorrect. Monotheistic religions, atleast the unfabricated, do not profess the idea that this material world is wholly bad. It professes balance, between the material and the spiritual, and that if you lose balance and become too materialistic (as what we see in today's 'depression' cases) you will fall astray.

I think this idea is very true, and we see that both religious people and non-religious have tipped the balance too far on either side.

Scriptor• 12 years ago

Catholics murdering them with terrible savagery

I see what you're trying to get at, but you make it sound as though the Islamic world was brutally traumatized by the Crusades. The savagery was no more terrible than any war of that time. And they didn't really "seal themselves off from the world". They did, however, seal themselves off from Europe culturally and intellectually. Politically and economically there was still plenty of engagement.

What the Crusades did do was to further hamper the adoption of European ideas in the Islamic World. While the Crusaders were happy to adopt both goods and knowledge from the Middle East, Arabs and Turks saw little reason to embrace any European customs and ways of thought. The Crusaders were invaders in their own lands and for that reason alone a typical Arab's perception of Europeans would've been much worse than a typical Frank's perception of "Saracens".

Amin Maalouf gives an example towards the end of "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes" (decent book, by the way, though I liked "Arab Historians of the Crusades" better). As the Crusades progressed and Europe entered the high middle ages peasants in the West started to gain more rights and privileges as the feudal system continued to weaken. However, none of this was seen in the Middle East, where local lords ruled their holdings with an iron grip and peasant rights barely improved.

4891• 12 years ago

The Enlightenment is a direct consequence of the Protestant Reformation that preceded it a few centuries prior. The key ideas of Protestantism was that faith should be a) based on reason and b) involve a direct communion with God, without intervening priests, ritual or hierarchy.

If this sounds appealing to you, you are basically a Protestant, possibly a post-God Protestant aka "atheist"/"agnostic"/"secular". In Catholicism, as with most religions, God (or gods or spirit) is intertwined with every aspect of life. The idea that religion is purely about beliefs is a Protestant idea - for most people, their religion is about community, ritual, and accessing deep emotions or altered states of consciousness. Protestantism rejected most of this in favour of a purely 'rational' faith, from where it's baby steps towards giving up faith entirely in favour of pure reason. (Evidence: atheism flourished in the traditionally Protestant countries of Northern Europe and the Anglosphere).

"People are going to have to choose to believe that their religious beliefs are "just religious" and have no serious relevance to the material world (the exact notion their religion decries as the ultimate heresy) and join the modern world"

Has no relevance to the material world === "not real"; in other words, people are going to have to give up their religions.

"Those ideas are absolutely and totally required to support the idea of coexistence of peoples of different faiths."

I.e., for people of different faiths to co-exist they have to give up their faiths (in favour of 'secularism' or 'moderate-ism' aka Protestantism).

Much more on this idea here: http://unqualifiedreservations.wordpress.com/2007/09/26/how-...

Related point: the West has 'Protestant-ised' several world faiths (in fact the concept of 'world religion' is arguably the creation of 19th century Protestant missionaries and scholars).

e.g. Buddhism: http://meaningness.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/protestant-buddh...

And Hinduism: http://mitrailleuse.net/2014/08/08/the-westernization-of-hin...

scottlocklin• 12 years ago

"what happened was basically that the Islamic world came up against the Crusades, and with Catholics murdering them with terrible savagery..."

I think you mean the Mongols. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_%281258%29

davidw• 12 years ago

Another take on why Europe surged ahead economically:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Long-Divergence-Islamic-Middle/dp/...

"Timur Kuran argues that what slowed the economic development of the Middle East was not colonialism or geography, still less Muslim attitudes or some incompatibility between Islam and capitalism. Rather, starting around the tenth century, Islamic legal institutions, which had benefitted the Middle Eastern economy in the early centuries of Islam, began to act as a drag on development by slowing or blocking the emergence of central features of modern economic life--including private capital accumulation, corporations, large-scale production, and impersonal exchange."

sspiff• 12 years ago

I think the crusades weren't as bad for Islamic development as we like to believe. The Mongol invasions which happened around the time of the last serious Crusades in the Middle East probably did more lasting damage.

The cultured Islamic states were basically conquered by nomadic pagan hordes, while at the same time being battered by the crusades. For instance, look at the sack of Baghdad by Genghis Khan - a major center of science and learning at that time.

Eventually the nomads - Mongols and Turkic tribes - eventually settled down and converted, but a lot was lost and the focus on discovery and science never reached the same level again.

(Note: this is not historical revisionism where I'm trying to minimize the evil that were the crusades. I'm not saying the crusades weren't really really bad, they were. I'm just saying the Muslims were capable of repelling the Christian invasions and retake lost territories without being damaged beyond repair. At the same time, a lot of those who fell to Mongol expansion were wiped of the map for good or reduced to tributary kingdoms.)

guard-of-terra• 12 years ago

Islamic world was heavily based on trade. As such, it never sealed itself from customers.

My take is - their world was destroyed by railroads, mass production, steam ships. Their skill set at hauling wares using camels and bazaars was no longer in demand, and trade routes went elsewhere.

thesz• 12 years ago

How was it possible for them to seal themselves from outside world where they controlled territory much bigger than Europe?

I cannot agree with your attribution of Islam turn to itself to Crusades.

I think that it is an inherent property of Islam. The only science allowed is one that prove existence of Allah. As most sciences are not concerned with existence of Allah, they gradually get shut down and only theology remains.

ofeida_h• 12 years ago

And in that seclusion they missed out on the most important development in human history - The Enlightenment.

Two wrong conclusions in one sentence. Neither were the islamic world secluded (they were expanding beyond spain even after the crusades) nor did they 'miss' the so called enlightenment. In fact it can be argued that the european enlightenment was a result of the interaction of the dark age europeans with golden age of islamic spain (and other centers of learning during this time in the islamic world).

So instead of religion being a hindrance to the "light of enlightenment" to the human race, religion had everything to do with it. Especially if enlightenment is given a broader meaning than just ways of acquiring material capabilities and means of pleasure.

nailer• 12 years ago

'Catholics' didn't murder anyone, since they didn't exist yet. The third crusade was hundreds of years before the protestant reformation. The Crusaders were simply Christians.

arjn2• 12 years ago

Interesting, thanks for posting. I new about semi-automatons created for the Turkish rulers for entertainment but not about Al Jazari.

I would like to add that the Persian, Arab and Turkish empires benefited greatly from Chinese, Indian, Roman and Greek math, technology and science that had been developed much earlier. This frequently gets glossed over or completely ignored.

nraf6• 12 years ago

I wouldn't say it gets completely ignored. Pretty much everything I read about the subjects mentions how the Muslims translated into Arabic, expanded upon, corrected and were influenced by the work of earlier cultures.

vdfs4• 12 years ago

The Banū Mūsā brothers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban%C5%AB_M%C5%ABs%C4%81

"The most popular of their publications was the Kitāb al-Ḥiyal (The Tricks Book), which was mostly the work of Aḥmad, the middle brother, was a book filled with one hundred mechanical devices. There were some real practical inventions in the book including a lamp that would mechanically dim, alternating fountains, and a clamshell grab. Eighty of these devices were described as "trick vessels" that showed a real mastery of mechanics, with a real focus on the use of light pressure. Some of the devices seem to be replications of earlier Greek works, but the rest were much more advanced than what the Greeks had done."

walterbell3• 12 years ago

We need vcs/git fork graphs for historical inventions and improvements, including tracking of multiple "upstream" candidates when origins are disputed. HN members in different cultures could help curate the dependency graphs on github.

Related: Project Gitenberg, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8214564

vdfs4• 12 years ago

Ibn Tufail the writer of "Hayy ibn Yaqdhan", the first Arabic novel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayy_ibn_Yaqdhan

"Hayy ibn Yaqdhan had a significant influence on Arabic literature, Persian literature, and European literature, and went on to become an influential best-seller throughout Western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. The work also had a "profound influence" on both Islamic philosophy and modern Western philosophy. It became "one of the most important books that heralded the Scientific Revolution" and European Enlightenment, and the thoughts expressed in the novel can be found "in different variations and to different degrees in the books of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Isaac Newton, and Immanuel Kant."George Sarton considered the novel "one of the most original books of the Middle Ages."

why-el• 12 years ago

Of equal importance to HN readers is work by both Ibn Khaldun [1] and Ibn Rushd (Latinized as Averroes) [2]. There are more accessible to Western readers, as both were champions of Aristotelian (analytic) philosophy. Ibn Khaldun is rightly being labeled by some as the founder of systematic sociology.

One of the great Muslim intellectual rivalries was the one between Averros and Al Ghazali [3], one that I won't spoil for anyone but it's a sublime look into efforts by Averroes to inject pure rationality and reason into discussions of the theological.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Khaldun [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averroes [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ghazali

tzs2• 12 years ago

Another interesting Arab from that general period is Ahmad al-Tifashi [1]. He was a poet, writer, and anthologist, mainly known for his anthology "Promenade of the Hearts" of poetry, jokes, and anecdotes of an erotic nature or about sexual practices.

An English translation of the gay chapters is available: "The Delight of Hearts: Or What You Will Not Find in Any Book" [2]. I've got it, and it is an amusing, entertaining, and eye-opening read.

For a very very long time, I've had a little puzzle on my website. Someone is caught with the following items:

   1. A large needle and thread
   2. A roll of paper
   3. Three small pebbles
   4. A small bag of fine-grained dust
   5. A small empty waterskin
   6. A pair of scissors
   7. A canteen full of cream
   8. A fur cap
   9. A purse full of counterfeit coins
   10. A raw egg

What are they planning?

For the first time, I will give a hint: the answer is in "The Delight of Hearts".

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_al-Tifashi

[2] http://www.amazon.com/The-Delight-Hearts-What-Will/dp/094056...

selimthegrim4• 12 years ago

In the same vein, Abu Nuwas did a lot more than clown around for Harun al-Rashid in the Arabian Nights

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Nuwas

walterbell3• 12 years ago

Can anyone recommend books on the cross-cultural history of mathematics? I've found these:

1) Georges Ifrah, "Universal History of Numbers", http://www.amazon.com/Universal-History-Numbers-Prehistory-I...

"the first complete account of the invention and evolution of numbers the world over ... Dubbed the "Indiana Jones of numbers," Georges Ifrah traveled all over the world for ten years to uncover the little-known details of this amazing story. From India to China, and from Egypt to Chile, Ifrah talked to mathematicians, historians, archaeologists, and philosophers."

2) Paul Calter, "Squaring the Circle: Geometry in Art & Architecture", http://www.amazon.com/Squaring-Circle-Geometry-Art-Architect...

"the combination of the subject knowledge of design, architecture, art, geometry, philospohy, music theory, and mathematics ... Calter includes the basic lessons and explanations of a regular Geometry course in his book, but then he interweaves an integrated classical curriculum (based on deductive reasoning)"

askar_yu• 12 years ago

slightly OT, but I've enjoyed N J Wildberger's lectures on History of Math:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW8Cy6WrO94&list=PL55C7C83781...

It's a good coverage of fundamental theorems in Math with well balanced historical touch.

JonnieCache• 12 years ago

You'd certainly find something to interest you in the Ascent Of Man documentary series, although it covers many other areas.

Cosmos was based on it. Potentially the greatest television programme ever IMO.

walterbell3• 12 years ago

Thanks for the pointer. Civilization looks good too.

dobbsbob• 12 years ago

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8350.html Princeton Companion to Mathematics

dmix• 12 years ago

There is a 13min video with Sir Ben Kingsley as Al-Jazari on Youtube "1001 Inventions and The Library of Secrets":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZDe9DCx7Wk

tzs2• 12 years ago

Interesting coincidence (?)...right now (6 PM PDT), "History 2" channel is showing season 3, episode 2 of "Ancient Discoveries", "Machines of the East": "Examining the inventions of Arab engineer Al-Jazari, who lived in what is now modern Turkey in the 13th century, whose designs included a water clock and a variety of geared mechanisms".

michaelsbradley• 12 years ago

The medieval polymaths were a fascinating bunch! Hildegard of Bingen[1] was a contemporary of al-Jazari, and one of the most influential European women of the late Middles Ages.

In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI named her a Doctor of the Church[2] – a title given by the Catholic Church to only 35 people over the past 2,000 years!

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen

[&] http://www.hildegard-society.org/p/academic-sources.html

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_the_Church

acqq2• 12 years ago

But I don't see that she did any engineering, which is why al-Jazari is potentially interesting.

Regarding al-Jazari, the question is only how significant he really was, compared to the centuries older Greek engineers like those that produced, for example, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

MisterBastahrd2• 12 years ago

Importance is a matter of influence, I suppose. I'm sure there have been repeat discoveries in the past which have been lost to the ages due to a variety of factors. The ones that remained a part of stable civilizations are the ones we remember.

molixiaoge• 12 years ago

great

peteretep2• 12 years ago

Why does it lead by describing him as a Muslim? I don't see anything else in the article that refers to that - he's not noted as a Imam or a Koran scholar or anything similar. Wouldn't it make more sense to simply say he was from an area that today is Turkey?

infinitone2• 12 years ago

Not sure what Turkey has to do with him. But it makes sense to attribute someone to country/empire at the time he lived in. Which is the Islamic Empire. So saying he was Muslim, is as much as saying a scientist today residing in the US is American.

Contrary to popular western belief, Islam is one of the main enablers for these great scientists... as many were "influenced by the Quranic injunctions and hadiths, such as "the ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr," that stressed the value of knowledge.'" But more than that, is the amount of government funding and salaries these guys would get (in some cases, what would amount to today's pro athletes'). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age

deciplex• 12 years ago

I think it's using 'Muslim' as an ethnicity, which is of course incorrect. This would explain why his religious stuff isn't noted anywhere else. I encourage you to amend the article :-)

projectramo• 12 years ago

By this point, most threads on anything vaguely arab have descended into flame wars and what not. I can't believe Hacker News has managed to keep the discussion (over 87%) civil. I am in awe.

Al-Jazari

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