Al-Jazar "Father of Robotics"

The Engineer

Al-Jazari was an engineer and inventor who created many inventions during his time. Before he wrote the book he worked at artuqid court, where he was a chief engineer just like his father. Under the service of Nasir Al-Din he wrote the book of “The knowledge of ingenious mechanical devices”. This was one of the first books to write about the inventions of the world and explain on things should be put together so others could recreate his work.

In the book it talks about 50 of his inventions. The muslim heritage divide it into 6 different categories; water and candle clocks, vessels and figures suited for drinking sessions, phlebotomy and washing before prayers, fountains that change their shape, water raising machines, and other devices. Many of these invention he would get from his predecessors and improve upon them. From some of these inventions he would be known as the father of robotics. He is talked about in an article by Atlantic where they talk about artificial intelligence and they list his machine that played music and served drinks as the first automation machine. Donald Hill who translated the book says the effect of Al-Jazari’s inventions can still be felt in the modern era “The impact of Al- Jazari's inventions is still felt in modern contemporary mechanical engineering.”(Hassani)  his inventions have had an impact on the transportation and the development of the modern world. Some of his inventions include measuring blood lost during phlebotomy sessions, water raising device, and machine to serve drinks.  

The modern technology that everyone knows today would be crankshaft. Al-Jazari is credited with developing the first crankshaft and gears. You can see the examples of his gears and camshaft on many of his creations one of them being the water raising device,Al-Jazari created 5 water raising devices, where the gears rotate to lift the water and then empty it out. The gears move with the animal rotating one gear which in order moves another part into motion. The gears move from the energy of water, air, or animals.  

Al-Jazari is also responsible for creating the first automated machine because of this he is also known as the father of robotics. He made total of 10 machines for drinking and they were automated. One of the drinking machines had five different levels and is in a shape of a citadel. In the bottom level it has a concubine serving with a glass and a bottle. The level above has singers and dancers, level above that has two doors, and on the top there is a horse. “This automat was taken to meetings and put on the floor”(Unat) and it decided on who would be drinking next. The machine had an interval of 20 minutes.

The Drawing of The Elephant clock. 

Though Al-Jazari has contributed many things to the world of mechanics but one thing that most people are fascinated by is the creation of the Elephant Clock. One of the reason people were fascinated was because it represented different cultures. “The seven meters high clock uses Greek water raising technology, an Indian elephant, an Egyptian phoenix, Arabian figures, Persian carpet, and Chinese dragons, to celebrate the diversity of the world.”(1001 inventions) In the short film “1001 Inventions & the Library of Secrets” a kid summarizes the clock as a clock for the united nations. The organization 1001 inventions has also created many working models of the clock and one of them resides in a mall in dubai.

The elephant clocked worked by filling up a bucket with water and in the center of that bucket is a bowl with a hole in the middle. The bowl takes half an hour to fill up. There are strings attached to the bowl and while the bowl is being filled up the strings are pulled. Those strings are attached to a mechanism that drops a ball into the mouth of the dragon which moves the elephant operator for showing its been half an hour or full hour. Strings are also attached to the operator which raise the sunken bowl from the bucket. The process starts over here.

From this process you could see how he had created automation. He had made a machine where a human was only needed to reload the balls and everything else was automatic. He had created a robot that would make a sound every thirty minutes. Only human component of the machine was refilling. “This appears to be the earliest example of a closed-loop system in a mechanism. The clock functioned as long as there were metal balls in its magazine.”(Hassani) These were some of the first machines that made it so that people did not have to put in a lot work.

Al-Jazari has had a great impact on engineering with his inventions and the book he wrote. It was one of the first books to show how a design should be laid out. Al-Jazari used his painting skills to draw out the plans for machines and you could easily see how his machines were built. In the book he had fifty devices that others could recreate by just looking at his drawings. Without him creating a crankshaft we would not have had been able to move trains and many other machines that use the same method.  

Works Cited

Al-hassani, Salim. "800 Years Later: In Memory of Al-Jazari, A Genius Mechanical Engineer." 800 Years Later: In Memory of Al-Jazari, A Genius Mechanical Engineer | Muslim Heritage. Muslim Heritage, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2017. <http://muslimheritage.com/article/800-years-later-memory-al-jazari-genius-mechanical-engineer>.

"Al-Jazari's 800 Year Old Automatic Elephant Clock | 1001 Inventions." 1001Inventions. 1001 Inventions, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2017. <http://www.1001inventions.com/media/video/clock>.

Unat, Yavuz. "Overview on Al-Jazari and His Mechanical Devices." Overview on Al-Jazari and His Mechanical Devices | Muslim Heritage. Muslim Heritage, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2017. <http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/overview-al-jazari-and-his-mechanical-devices>

Saladin

Saladin: Conquest of Crusaders and Restoration of Ayyubid Rule

Saladin or Salah ad-Din Yusuf Ibn Ayyub was a crucial player during the medieval times and Crusades throughout Egypt and Syria. Saladin fought Crusaders out of Egypt and Syria while claiming territory in the name of Sunni Islam. Saladin is considered a hero to Islam and was immortalized in poems of his victories, while also a subject of study for 18th and 19th century English Scholars (Robinson 165). His accomplishments throughout the 12th century united a large amount of people and culture during the better part of the 12th century. In the work Islamic Civilizations In Thirty Years the author Chase F. Robinson discusses the impact Saladin has had on Egypt, Syria, and Western Europe. This era of Islamic civilization is best described through Saladin because of his military successes uniting the large territories of Egypt and Syria under Ayyubid rule.

Not much information was available about Saladin’s early life other than that he grew up in Baalbek which is now Lebanon (Robinson 165). As a teenager Saladin was put into the military service of Nur al-Din who was the leader of Northern Syria which he inherited after his father’s death. Saladin quickly rose up through the ranks of Nur al-Din’s army battling Crusaders from Western Europe in Egypt (Robinson 165). Soon he was only answering to Nur al-Din.

Understanding what happened in Egypt before Saladin is crucial to be able to see the extent of the changes Saladin brought to Egypt. The ruler of Egypt at the time before Saladin’s invasion was that of a Fatimid Caliphate who ruled because of divine right. The person who held the most power after that was the vizier, who over time stole much of the power from the Caliphate through military control. The rulers of Egypt during the time before Saladin were of Fatimid (Shi’ite) descent which the Sunni are against because of disagreement over the five pillars of Islam. Saladin became Egypt’s vizier by putting down the leaders of Egypt’s military while appointing his own upper ranking soldiers in charge of the rest of Egypt’s army (Dunn). Taking control of the military meant almost total control since the Caliphate did not have as much power as the vizier during this time. It is thought that Saladin possibly have poisoned the Fatimid Caliph in 1171 when he died leaving himself as the sole rightful leader of Egypt.

Saladin’s accomplishments throughout his lifetime reach farther than military victories against Crusaders and uniting Syrian cities under his control. Jimmy Dunn in his article “Saladin (Salah al-Din Yusuf Ibn Ayyub) and his Cairo” brings an interesting view of Saladin’s intentions for Egypt when he says, “Many historians have attributed Saladin's plan for Cairo to purely local or military considerations, but Saladin had what would now be called a world view. He was, in fact, trying to defend a whole culture as well as its territory, an ideology as well as a religion. He looked on Egypt as a source of revenue for his wars against Christian and European encroachments, and against the dissident Muslim sects who divided Islam at this time” (Dunn). What Saladin did after taking control of Egypt was the building of Madrasas which are Sunni schools of learning. Reeducating the people that lived in Cairo with Sunnism, Saladin safely made the transition of a Fatimid state to a Sunni state peacefully, and with little opposition.

With Saladin having so much more power, his master Nur al-Din began to assemble an army to take back Egypt because of Saladin’s campaigns in Palestine, Nubia, and Yemen. With the threat of war imminent, Nur al-Din died leaving his power to his eleven year old son. Seeing this as an opportunity for expansion Saladin quickly marched to Damascus where they arranged a peaceful exchange of power after which Saladin was declared the “Sultan of Egypt and Syria” (Robinson 166). The two greatest cities under Saladin’s control were Cairo, and Damascus. Inside both cities Saladin was loved by his people. His generosity was one of his greatest traits and why he was liked by a majority of his people. He built hospitals, hospices, mosques and many madrasas (Sunni schools for learning) in these two cities. These cities thrived in the economy and maintained their original culture because of the way Saladin ran the cities he ruled. He did not want rebellions, rather he wanted to preserve a world culture and Islam.

The next two cities that proved to be Saladin’s greatest accomplishments were Aleppo where the son of Nur al-Din, Saif al-Din, was in charge, and Jerusalem where the Christians had control. In the article “Saladin's Conquest of Syria, 1174-1185” the author J. Rickard gives a detailed account of the battles that took place during this time. Saladin had a number of skirmishes that took place between 1177 and 1187 but the two most important cities Saladin gained control of was Aleppo in 1183 (Rickard) and Jerusalem in 1187 (Dunn). Aleppo was under control by Imad al-Din when Saladin laid siege to the city but it was lack of resources for Imad al-Din that was the deciding factor for the city. Imad al-Din then surrendered the city to Saladin who now had control over most of Syria. After Saladin had the stronghold of Aleppo it was only a few short years until he took Jerusalem back.

Saladin’s success reached farther than just Syria. Dunn gives good insight into how Saladin had so much success when he states that, “Saladin left Cairo in 1182 to fight the crusaders in Syria, and he never returned. By the time he died in Damascus in 1193, he had liberated almost all of Palestine from the armies of England, France, Burgandy, Flanders, Sicily, Austria and, in effect, from the world power of the Pope, as well as establishing his own family in Cairo. In his battles against these European crusaders, he often had the aid of eastern Christians, who were as much the victims of the western armies as anybody else in the eastern lands. The Proud Georgians, for instance, preferred Saladin to the Pope, and so did the Copts of Egypt.” Now the only place left for Saladin to regain control of was the sacred sites such as Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. By 1187 when the siege at Jerusalem began Saladin had control of every crusader city in the areas surrounding and inside of Syria. Once Saladin’s forces had breached the wall surrounding Jerusalem surrender negotiations of the Crusaders began, and Saladin had control of one of Islam’s holy sites under control again.

Saladin died in Damascus in 1193 never getting to return back to Cairo. He died with very little money because it is said that he gave all his wealth to his closest people around him.  Saladin was the most revered general during this era and possibly ever in Islamic history. Not only did Europeans think highly of Saladin, but he was a subject of study by scholars such as Voltaire in the eighteenth century. Not to mention two biographies written about him, and many poems demonstrating his power in prose. Saladin was a hero to Sunni Islam who reclaimed the promised land through jihad tactics.

Image from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saladin



Saladin featured on a coin. Image by: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saladin

Saladin propoganda: Image by: https://article.wn.com/view/2017/02/17/Saladin_The_Powerful_General_Who_Pushed_Back_the_Might_of_th/

Saladin's citadel in Egypt (Rebuilt). Image by: http://www.willgoto.com/1/145951/liens.aspx

City of Damascus mosque. Photo by: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/20

More Links/Information:

Saladin during his time in Egypt:
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/saladin.htm


Saladin's battles, a descriptive list:
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_saladins_holy_war.html






Written by: Dalton Pizzuti

Ibn Rushd (Averroes)

by Blake Armas

Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Rushd, or Averroes as he is called in the West, was born in 1126 in Cordoba, Spain, and died in 1198 in Marrakech under the Almohad Empire (currently Morocco). Ibn Rushd is most renowned for his contributions to philosophy which fused Islamic traditions with Greek thought. He is also famously known for his commentaries on the works of Aristotle and Plato’s republic.

Ibn Rushd was fortunately born into a well respected family in the legal and public service sector. His grandfather, Abdul-Walid Muhammad (d.1126), was an influential chief judge of Cordoba during the Almoravid Dynasty, who specialized in legal methodology. His father, Abdul-Qasim Ahmad, was also a chief judge specializing in legal methodology, until the Almoravids were overtaken by the Almohad Dynasty in 1146 (Hillier 2017). 

He received a rather traditional education, studying subjects such as hadith, linguistics, jurisprudence, and scholastic theory. Although the early Muslim bibliographers did not heavily focus on his scientific and philosophical education, those in the west were extremely interested. It is believed that he received his education from prominent figures in each field. For example, bibliographers and historians believe he was once tutored in philosophy by Ibn Bajjah (Avempace), and had his medical education directed by Abu Jafar ibn Harun of Trujillo. Even though he is most known for his contributions to philosophy, he was also well versed in medicine, and can be referenced in Abu Marwan Ibn Ruhr's books, Kitab al-Kulyat fi al-Tibb (Generalities), and Kitab al-Taisir fi al-Mudawat wa al-Tadbir (Particularities), which were the primary medical texts for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim physicians (Hillier 2017).

Under Caliph ‘Abd al-Mu’min in Marrakesh (present-day Morocco), Ibn Rushd was most likely involved in the educational reform that took place. Working and being involved with such projects under the Almohad Dynasty, significant influenced his work. While living in Marrakesh between 1159 and 1169, Ibn Rushd befriended Ibn Tufayl (Abubacer), a philosopher, official physician, and counselor, to Caliph Abu Yaqui Yusuf, the son of ‘Abd al Mu’min. He was then introduced to the prince, who employed him as the chief judge in Seville, and a chief physician in Marrakesh (Pasnau 2011). Abu Yaqub Yusuf then commissioned him to write a series of commentaries on Aristotle’s texts, because he had trouble understanding the Greek philosophy. Because of this, Ibn Rushd owes his legacy as a commentator of Aristotle to Abu Yuqub Yusuf (Hillier 2017). 

These commentaries steered the Almohads towards a more liberal way of thinking, which prompted them to formally abandon the previously accepted Ibn Tumart’s theology, and accept Malikite law in 1229. However, the liberalization within the government ignited the negative public pressure towards Ibn Rushd, which led to the formal rejection/burning of his writings, and subsequent exile to the Jewish village of Lucena (outside Cordoba) in 1195. This exile was due to the Caliph’s desire to conserve religious figures, which did not fall in line with his ideology (Pasnau 2011). Two years later, he returned to Marrakesh where the Caliph was able to restore his position, but he died the next year in 1198. Even after his death, Islamic philosophers questioned his level of orthodoxy, but those of Christian and Jewish traditions found his writings of great interest (Hillier 2017).

Most of his philosophical career was spent on the commentaries of Aristotle’s writings, “producing both brief epitomes and exhaustive, line-by-line studies” (Pasnau 2011, para. 5). According to Pasnau (2011), Ibn Rushd’s controversial career is so intriguing due to the little influence he had on the Islamic world, despite his extraordinary success and brilliance in the West. Many of his writings do not exist in Arabic, but are preserved in the Latin and Hebrew translations.

His philosophies were considered to be quite controversial at the time, because of his tendencies to fuse philosophy and religion, under the belief that logic was the key to a true understanding of religion.  In Robert Pasnau’s article, The Islamic Scholar Who Gave Us Modern Philosophy, he outlines three reasons why Ibn Rushd was in a league of his own. First, he believed that both the Quran and philosophy support the notion that the world as always existed in some sort, and although God had the power to shape nature and the physical world, it has still always existed along with God himself. Second, he believed that our souls live after death, but our bodies do not, and cannot be resurrected. According to his philosophy, our souls can acquire new bodies in the next life, but they will never be the same as the ones we have now. He also denied the Quran’s mention of a garden of delights awaiting us after death. Third, he denied the idea that humans possess their own intellect. According to him, intellect is separate from souls, and is something we all share and can gain access to when we think (Pasnau, 2011).

All three of those points were considered to be extremely heretical by others, but he believed they fell in line with and were supported by religious teachings, and could be studied through the lens of Aristotle’s philosophy. Philosophy was extremely important to Ibn Rushd, and he communicated that through one of his most famous works, the Decisive Treatise, which argued in favor of the value of philosophy, and its necessity for a true understanding of religion. 

Ibn Rushd also countered the writings of  the renowned Abu Hamid al-Ghaali, who supported the notion that Muslims should adopt Sufi-influenced education programs of spiritual purification. Ibn Rushd argues that there can be no conflict between philosophy and faith, however he accepts that not everyone is meant to pursue the answers to such philosophical religious questions (Pasnau 2011). Following the example of al-Ghazali, Ibn Rushd enforced the differentiation between “the people of rhetoric” and “the people of “demonstration”. The majority of Muslims, the people of rhetoric, are meant to accept the teachings of the Quran at face value, while the people of demonstration are those who are well equipped to tackle and interpret the deep philosophical questions. The questioning and philosophical interpretation of the Quran is what Pasnau relates Ibn Rushd’s marginal success within Islamic philosophy to. 

Despite the unfavorable tone towards Ibn Rushd in the Islamic World, western interests from the newly established universities in Europe were very fond of his writings, because the philosophy taught was primarily that of Aristotle; and Ibn Rushd’s commentaries proved to be extremely helpful for interpretation. These institutions were also far more secular than those in the Islamic World, making them much more open to the “religion infused with philosophical thought” ideology. He became so popular that his commentaries were often preferred over those of the Christian tradition, and were even studied alongside Aristotle’s. (Pasnau 2011; Robinson 2016).

After his death, Ibn Rushd’s legacy was able to reach the new heights and extraordinary success in Europe that he was never able to experience in his homeland. Even so, he has still gone down in history as one of the last great Islamic philosophers. However, in the west, Ibn Rushd will always be remembered as a great philosophical mind that was able to further communicate Aristotle’s “vision of a religion grounded in rigorous philosophical thinking” (Pasnau 2011, para. 15), which changed the course of European academics forever. 

References

Hillier, Chad H. 2017. Ibn Rushd (Averroes). Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 

Pasnau, Robert, November/December 2011. The Islamic Scholar Who Gave Us Modern Philosophy. Humanities The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Vol. 32, No. 6. 

Robinson, Chase F 2016. Islamic Civilization in Thirty Lives the First 1,000 Years. pp. 169-177. University of California Press. Oakland, CA.

Links to Photos

http://www.iep.utm.edu/wp-content/media/Ibn_rushd.jpg 

https://kenanmalik.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/ibn-sina.jpg 

http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-ignorance-leads-to-fear-fear-leads-to-hate-and-hate-leads-to-violence-this-is-the-equation-averroes-58-99-71.jpg 

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http://www.booktopia.com.au/http_coversbooktopiacomau/big/9780801489754/averroes-on-plato-s-republic.jpg 

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http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/images/aristotle-17.jpg 

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Abu Bakr al-Razi

Owen Moore

Abu Bakr al-Razi

In present day, it is common for an individual to believe that the western world of modernity is, as Robinson puts it, is “disenchanted.” This disenchantment referred to the once magic filled, hardcore religious societies, becoming just the opposite. The once believed stories and myths told and heard around the globe have now been marked as irrational, and in other words, the beliefs once held by millions have become institutionalized. This stemmed from gaining knowledge on the world we live in. People began to start understanding the world on a different level once science and other subjects such as physics began advancing to new heights. However, “understanding the world did not necessarily entail losing God” (Robinson 91). Luckily, it did not defeat the entire belief of such a being, but it did however naturalize Him. It made Him seem more connected to us as human beings, and in a sense subjected him under the laws identified by man. As Robinson describes it, “all manner of criticisms can be made of this dichotomous and linear understanding of two spheres, the ‘secular’ and ‘religious’” (91). The fine line between the two defined under the circumstances on how us “moderns” experience the world. Al-Razi did not however fall in this way of thinking, he instead identifies the precursors of Enlightenment skepticism in in non-Christian contexts.

Abu Bakr al-Razi born around the year 865, lived during the era of the “free thinkers.” He lived in a once ancient and prosperous city called Rayy. He had many talents for he was always seeking knowledge. Around the age of thirty, he was put in charge of a hospital in Baghdad, until 907 when he returned to his hometown of Rayy. From then on, he only travelled when and where he thought was necessary. An alchemist who later turned into a physician, al-Razi’s works ranged from many subjects, including politics, logic, theology, alchemy, and medicine. Most of his works, in fact a third of them, involved philosophical problems. Unlike present day, where everything in religion has substantially been established, Razi’s era happened to be avant la lettre, or, before letters or concepts actually existed. This furthers his credibility, making his ideas and beliefs more original and authentic. In ancient times, only the literature that was thought of as valuable or those in which contained important knowledge worth passing on survived. The reason we do not have possession of Razi’s work is not because his works were thought of as non-credible or the knowledge they contained was not worth passing on. He had numerous amounts of students and followers, but they never formed into a school. “All this explains why we have been robbed of many biographical details and the great bulk of his written work, which may have amounted to as many as 200 titles” (Robinson 92). Unfortunately, researchers can only reconstruct his views from the works he took part on that did survive. 

The works that did survive displayed him devoting himself to running hospitals and teaching medicine. He believed that medical care should not be a luxury that is only exclusive to the wealthy, but should also be taught and spread to the poor, resulting in the writing of He Who Is Not Attended by a Physician, which acted as a medical handbook to the poor. He gained his medical knowledge from Greek, Sanskrit, and Syriac authorities. He also gained knowledge from observations he made himself, as he was well equipped to, considering the knowledge he contained. An observation he made on his own, for example, consisted of being the first to distinguish between smallpox and measles.

            Abu Bakr al-Razi devoted his life not only to medicine, but also philosophy. Philosophy, as Razi put it in his work Philosophical Way of Life, “is a way of imitating God, ‘the Creator’ and ‘Knower Who is not ignorant” (Robinson 95). He believed the philosophers role in life was to redeem the gift of knowledge that God had bestowed upon humankind. Robinson synopsizes Razi in which “his medicine is complemented by his philosophical skepticism, which led him, infamously and scandalously, to reject revelation and prophecy as sources of knowledge” (95). He strictly believed that although revelations were political and social functions in ordering society, they did not supply truths. Razi claimed to not have even believed in miracles, which at the time was a huge part of life for people of that time, considering they acted as confirmatory proofs of prophecy. He stood by the belief that contemplating philosophy was what would hold out the promise of salvation.

            The thoughts and beliefs that Razi held at the time were frowned upon by society. They contradicted almost every basic belief that the Islamic world held. “Al-Razi ‘was to become perhaps the single figure most frequently denounced and disapproved of as a heretic in the subsequent history of Islamic thought” (Robinson 96). It is believed he got away with his insane denial of beliefs due to the sacred knowledge he carried. In other words, he may had been let to believe what he did because of the fact that his knowledge was so valuable. Other reasons how he believed to get away with such thinking is that the time he lived in was considered a kind of “renaissance” and he was present among other “free thinkers,” which permitted such ways of believing.

            As he grew older, Razi faced problems that came with age. His eyesight depleted and he became paralyzed. This led to him relying on scribes to write down the knowledge he wanted to share orally. Being in such an education-thriving period, Abu Bakr al-Razi really stood out regarding his knowledge and beliefs. Although many smart scholars reigned the land at the time, Razi was definitely one to stand out, considering his beliefs. As I mentioned earlier, he may be thought of as a disapproved figure, however his works and knowledge found in those works have made a very significant difference in not only ancient times but even in today’s world. Al-Razi died in the year 925, and in those roughly 65 years of life dedicated his time to gaining as much knowledge as he possibly could and supporting the ill with that gained mastery.

                                                                       Work Cited

Robinson, Chase F. Islamic Civilization in Thirty Lives. N.p.: n.p., 2016. Print.