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Abbas Ibn Firnas (810 – 887 A.D.), also known as Abbas Qasim Ibn Firnas and العباس بن فرناس (Arabic language), was an Arabic-speaking Berber,12 born in Izn-Rand Onda, al-Andalus (today's Ronda, Spain), who lived in the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba in al-Andalus. He was a polymath, aviator, chemist, engineer, humanitarian, inventor, musician, physician, physicst, poet, astronomer and technologist.3

Contents

Inventions

Ibn Firnas designed a water clock called Al-Maqata, devised a means of manufacturing colorless glass, made corrective lenses ("reading stones"), developed a chain of rings that could be used to display the motions of the planets and stars, and developed a process for cutting rock crystal that allowed Spain to cease exporting quartz to Egypt to be cut.

Another one of his inventions was an artificial weather simulation room in which spectators saw and were astonished by stars, clouds, artificial thunder, and lightning which were produced by mechanisms hidden in his basement laboratory.34 It is unknown how he produced the artificial thunder and lightning and whether or not any electricity was involved. According to Lynn Townsend White, Jr., Ibn Firnas was also an inventor of "some sort of metronome."3 Ibn Firnas also built and made an attempt to fly a rudimentary glider.

Aviation

Ibn Firnas once asked himself in a personal ledger:

"What man-made machine will ever achieve the complete perfection of even the goose's wing?"5

In 875, at age of 65 years, and perhaps inspired by the earlier attempt at flight by Armen Firman, Ibn Firnas made his first attempt at flight using a rudimentary glider and launched from the Mount of the Bride (Jabal al-'Arus) in the Rusafa Area, near Córdoba, Spain. However, it ended in a crash and he injured his back. This failure left critics saying he hadn't taken proper account of the way birds land and that he had provided neither a tail, nor a means for landing.65

Ibn Firnas died twelve years later in 887, at the age of 77.

Eyewitness accounts

Several eye witnesses reported the event. Ibn Firnas stated the following, moments before he flew:

"Presently, I shall take leave of you. By guiding these wings up and down, I should ascend like the birds. If all goes well, after soaring for a time I should be able to return safely to your side."5

One of the witnesses reported:7

"Having constructed the final version of his glider, to celebrate its success he invited the people of Cordoba to come and witness his flight. People watched from a nearby mountain as he flew some distance, but then the glider plummeted to the ground causing him to injure his back..."

Another account states:

"We thought ibn Firnas certainly mad ... and we feared for his life!"5

Another witness, the poet Mu'min Ibn Said (d. 886), reported:

"He flew faster than the phoenix in his flight when he dressed his body in the feathers of a vulture."65

Based on these and other eyewitness accounts, the early 17th-century historian Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari described the event as follows:

"Among other very curious experiments which he made, one is his trying to fly. He covered himself with feathers for the purpose, attached a couple of wings to his body, and, getting on an eminence, flung himself down into the air, when according to the testimony of several trustworthy writers who witnessed the performance, he flew a considerable distance, as if he had been a bird, but, in alighting again on the place whence he had started, his back was very much hurt, for not knowing that birds when they alight come down upon their tails, he forgot to provide himself with one."6

Legacy

"Ibn Firnas was the first man in history to make a scientific attempt at flying."
—Philip Khuri Hitti, History of the Arabs.

Ibn Firnas' flight was apparently the inspiration for Eilmer of Malmesbury, more than a century later, who would fly in England for about 200 meters using a glider circa 1010.8

As Westerners teach their children about Sir George Cayley, Lilienthal and Santos-Dumont the Islamic countries tell theirs about Ibn Firnas, a thousand years before their time. The Libyans produced a postage stamp honoring him. The Iraqis built a statue in his memory on the way to Baghdad International Airport, and the Ibn Firnas Airport to the north of Baghdad is named for him. The Ibn Firnas crater on the Moon is also named in his honor.

According to Paul Lunde, "had he lived in the Florence of the Medici, Abbas ibn Firnas would have been a Renaissance man."9

References

  1. ^ « Ibn Firnas ('Abbâs) » by Ahmed Djebbar, Dictionnaire culturel des science, by Collective under the direction of Nicolas Witkowski, Du Regard Editions, 2003, ISBN 2-84105-128-5.
  2. ^ "'Abbas Ibn Firnas". John H. Lienhard. The Engines of Our Ingenuity. NPR. KUHF-FM Houston. 2004. No. 1910. Transcript.
  3. ^ a b c Lynn Townsend White, Jr. (Spring, 1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study of Technological Innovation, Its Context and Tradition", Technology and Culture 2 (2), p. 97-111 [100]:

    "Ibn Firnas was a polymath: a physician, a rather bad poet, the first to make glass from stones (quartz), a student of music, and inventor of some sort of metronome."

  4. ^ Imamuddin, S. M. (1981), Muslim Spain 711-1492 A.D., Brill Publishers, p. 166, ISBN 9004061312 
  5. ^ a b c d e First Flights, Saudi Aramco World, January-February 1964, p. 8-9.
  6. ^ a b c Lynn Townsend White, Jr. (Spring, 1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study of Technological Innovation, Its Context and Tradition", Technology and Culture 2 (2), p. 97-111 [100-101]
  7. ^ Witness accounts to his gliding flight: [1]
  8. ^ Lynn Townsend White, Jr. (1978). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, An Eleventh Century Aviator", Medieval Religion and Technology, Chapter 4. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
  9. ^ Paul Lunde, Science in Al-Andalus, Saudi Aramco World, July 2004, pp. 20-27.

Bibliography

  • J. Vernet, Abbas Ibn Firnas. Dictionary of Scientific Biography (C.C. Gilespie, ed.) Vol. I, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970-1980. pg. 5.
  • Salim T.S. Al-Hassani (ed.), Elisabeth Woodcock (au.), and Rabah Saoud (au.). 2006. 1001 Inventions. Muslum Heritage in Our World. Manchester: Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation. See pages 308-13. (ISBN-13: 978-0-9555035-0-4)

See also
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