AL-JAZARI
And the History of the
Water Clock
1- Al-Jazari’s life
and environment
Al-Jazari’s full name
is given at the start of his book[1] He was al-Shaykh Ra’is
al-A’mal Badi’ al-Zaman Abu al-‘Izz ibn Isma’il ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari The
first three titles indicate that he was a chief engineer (Ra’is al-A’mal),
and was unique and unrivalled, (Badi’ al-Zaman). The al-shaykh was a title of honour
indicating that he was a learned and a dignified person.
The word ‘Al-Jazari’ indicates that his family came from Jazirat ibn ‘Umar
in Diyar Bakr. We do not know the date of his birth and our information about
his life is obtained from his book.
Al-Jazari was in the service of three Artuqid rulers: Nur al-Din Muhammad
ibn Arslan (570-581/ 1174-1185), Qutb al-Din Sukman ibn Muhammad (681-697/
1185-1200) and Nasir al-Din Mahmud ibn Muhammad (597-619/ 1200-1222.).
It was in response to the request of Nasir al-Din Mahmud that al-Jazari
wrote his book. He says in his introduction that he started his service at the
Artuqid court in the year 570/1174, and that when he started writing the book
he had already spent twenty five years in the service of Nur al-Din Muhammad,
the father, and Qutb al-Din Sukman, the brother. From this information we
conclude that probably al-Jazari started writing his book in the year 595/1198,
two years before Nasir al-Din became king. From the Oxford manuscript we learn
that al-Jazari finished writing his book on 4 Jumada the Second, 602/ 16
January 1206. The oldest extant copy (Topkapi Sarayi Libray, Ahmet III, 3472)
was completed by Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn ‘Uthman al-Haskafi at the end of
Sha’ban 602/ 10 April 1206. From al-Haskafi’s colophon we learn that al-Jazarī
was not living at this date. We conclude besides, that he died in the year
602/1206, just few months after he had completed his work.
Āmid, that is called
now Diyar Bakr [2],
was on the left bank of the Tigris. Travellers who visited the city during the
11th century admired its buildings, its walls and its affluence. In
438/1046, Nasir-i Khusraw visited the city and wrote: ‘ I have seen many cities and fortresses at the
extremities of the world in the lands of the Arabs, Persians, Indians and
Turks, and yet I have never seen anything comparable to Āmid anywhere in the world; nor have I heard
anyone claim that he had seen any place matching this glorious city’ [3]
During this period Āmid was prosperous, and it enjoyed a period of
peace and stability. Thus al-Jazari lived in the court of the Artuqid kings
under conditions favourable for the invention and construction of his machines
and for writing.
2- Al-Jazari’s book:
The title of the oldest
manuscript of al-Jazari’s book is: al-Jamiʿ bayn al-ʿilm wa ʿamal, al-nafiʿ
fi sinaʿat al-hiyal الجامع بين العلم و العمل النافع في صناعة الحيل (A Compendium on the Theory and
Practice of the Mechanical Arts). The Arabic edition (of al-Hassan) carries
this title. The English translation of Hill carries the title Book of
Knowledge of Mechanical Devices.[4] This translation was
based mainly on MS Graves 27 of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, where the Arabic
title is Kitab fi maʿrifat al-hiyal al-handasiyya.كتاب في معرفة الحيل الهندسية Between
1915 and 1921, Wiedemann and Hauser published in German a series of seven
articles in which they covered the six categories using the Bodleian copy. [5]
The book describes in
detail fifty devices (ashkal), which are grouped into six categories (anwaʿ,
singular nawʿ ). These are: 1) ten water and candle clocks; 2), ten
vessels and figures suited for drinking sessions; 3), ten pitchers and basins
for phlebotomy (faṣd ) and washing before prayers; 4), ten fountains
that change their shape alternately, and machines for the perpetual flute; 5),
five water raising machines; 6), five miscellaneous devices.
Each device or shakl is described in simple Arabic that is
easy to understand, and each is accompanied by a general drawing. There are
fifty of these and are numbered by the letters of the Arabic alphabet from one
to fifty. For the complicated devices al-Jazari gave detailed drawings for the
components of a device or for subassemblies so that the operation can be
understood. There are a total of 174 drawings. An alphabet letter marks each
part in a device. The text explains the construction of the device with the aid
of the letters so that the reader can understand the device by reading the text
and referring to the illustrations.
The published Arabic text enumerates fifteen manuscripts of al-Jazari’s
book in world libraries with one only probably in private hands. One is a Persian
translation.[6] The best five manuscripts were used in arriving at the final printed text.
The main one, however, was MS Ahmet III 3472 in the Topkapi Sarayi Librarary,
Istanbul. This is the closest copy to the time when al-Jazari completed his
writing in 602/1206.
3- The
history of water clocks and ingenious devices before and after al-Jazari
The first water clocks
in their simplest form were used by the ancient civilizations of Babylonia and
Egypt.[7]
About the developments
that followed we have two historical reports. The known one in the histories of
science is that of Vitruvious who said that Ctesibius, an Egyptian engineer and
craftsman who worked in Alexandria about 250 BC, improved the design of the
water clock.[8]
The second report came
from Ridwan ibn al-Sa’ati in his book and is not known to historians of
science. Ridwan mentioned in his book that a man called Hormuz invented the
mechanisms of the water clock that were used by his father in the construction
of the Damascus clock. He says further that
“the design [of Hormuz] continued in the land of Fars for a long time, and was
transmitted from there to the land of the Greeks, and its construction spread
out in the land until it was transmitted to Damascus, where it was constructed
up to the days of the Byzantines and after that in the days of Banu Umayya,
according to what is mentioned in the histories. This clock attributed to
Hormuz continued to be reproduced by one man after another on this pattern, and
it was in the shape that we described above” [9]
The report of Ridwan
seems credible, since he links the development of the water clock with both
Iran and the Hellenistic world. His story is of great historical importance and
it deserves the attention of research workers. We should remark here that the
practice of water clocks was limited to the cities of Syria and Mesopotamia in
the early centuries of Islam which gives support to Ridwan’s account.
The only public water
clock known before Islam was erected in a public square in Gaza in the fifth
century AD.[10]
Automata in general
were known before Islam. The first musical automaton is attributed to Ctesibius
of Egypt. In Asia Minor, Philon of Byzantium who was a contemporary of
Ctesibius, wrote the first major treatise on ingenious devices. Philon’s work
was continued and extended by Heron of Alexandria, who flourished in the middle
of the first century AD.
The tradition of water
clocks and ingenious devices of pre-Islamic lands was further developed under
Islam. Monumental water clocks in Islamic cities continued to be installed. The
Abbasid Caliphs were interested in clocks and ingenious devices. The story of
the clock that was presented by Harun al-Rashid (170-193/786-809) to Charlemagne in 807 AD is well known.[11] It is
reported also that the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mutawakkil (d. 247/861) was so
obsessed with moving machines (Ālāt mutaḥarrika), that he
favoured the Banu Musa[12] who wrote
their famous book al-Hiyal during this period.
In Kiitab al-hayawan,
al-Jahiẓ (160-253/776-867 AD) when discussing the measurement of time, says:
“Our kings and scientists use the astrolabe by day and the binkamat
(water clocks) by night” [13]
Al-Khazini (flourished
515/1121) reported that Ibn al-Haytham (354/965 - 450/1038) who was a noted
engineer as well as a great scientist, described a water clock.[14] In the same period
historians reported that Nasir al Dawla of Diyar Bakr (d. 453/1061 AD)
constructed a public binkam (water clock) for the city of Mayyafariqin
in the year 414/1012.[15] This is 200
years before al-Jazari.
The technology of
clock- making was transferred to Muslim Spain and to Al-Maghrib. About the year
442/1050 AD, al-Zarqali constructed a large water clock on the banks of the
Tagus River at Toledo in Spain. The clock was still in operation when the
Christians occupied the city in 1085 AD. A treatise describing Andalusian
monumental clocks was written in the eleventh century by Ibn Khalaf
al-Mururadi. Water clocks were constructed for public places in al-Maghrib. The
remains of two public water clocks in Fās from the fourteenth century AD can
still be seen.[16]
An Arabic treatise of
unknown date and authorship describes a monumental water-clock. It is
attributed to a Pseudo-Archimedes but it is not listed among Archimedes works
in any history of science. Hill thinks that part of it may be of Greek origin,
but most of it being written by Arabic writers.[17] Both Ridwan and
al-Jazari mentioned it.
In Damascus,
Muhammad al-Khurasani al-Sa’ati (the clock-maker) built a monumental clock around
556/1160. Ridwan ibn al-Sa’ati re-built the clock of his father and gave a
detailed description of its construction in 600/1203. Al-Jazari was writing his
book in Āmid at the same time.
The skills in
constructing clocks and ingenious devices were also established in the eastern
lands of Islam. We should remember that Muúammad al-Sa’ati who
constructed the monumental clock in Damascus came from Khurasan in 549/1154 and
started constructing the clock shortly after his arrival. He was considered unrivalled
in his skills in clock making[18]. It is reported that
the noted astronomer ʿAlī Qūshjī (d. 1474) who was in Maragha, wrote a treatise (tadhkira)
on spiritual (or ingenious) machines[19].
The last
important writer on the same subject was Taqi al-Din ibn Maʿrūf who wrote a book on
water clocks and ingenious machines in 1552 [20] and another on
mechanical clocks in 1556. [21]
4- Evaluation of al-Jazari’s
work
Al-Jazari’s book deals
with a whole range of devices and machines, with a multiplicity of purposes.
What they have in common is the considerable degree of engineering skill
required for their manufacture, and the use of delicate mechanisms and
sensitive control systems. Many of the ideas employed in the construction of
ingenious devices were useful in the later development of mechanical
technology.
About al-Jazari’s book Sarton says that “this treatise is the most
elaborate of its kind and may be considered the climax of this line of Moslem
achievement.” [22] Hill concludes also that “until modern times there is no other
document, from any cultural area, that provides a comparable wealth of
instructions for the design, manufacture and assembly of machines” .[23]
Al-Jazari inherited the knowledge of his predecessors, but he improved on
their designs and added devices of his own invention. The merit of his book is
that it was the only book to discuss such a large variety of devices and to
present them with text and illustrations and dimensions so that a skilled
craftsman is able to construct any device on the basis of al-Jazari’s
description. In the World of Islam Festival in 1976 it was possible to
construct three of al-Jazari’s machines under Hill’s supervision. [24]. They worked perfectly well. One was a monumental water clock which is
exhibited now in the Natuuurmuseum
Asten in the Netherlands.[25] [The toy machine shown below, incorporates several principles: the
use of water power and a water raising saqiya at the same time. An
actual machine like this from the thirteenth century, was supplying water from Nahr
Yazid in Damascus to Ibn al-‘Arabi’s mosque until recently, and can be seen
until now. ]
Fig. 1
Many of al-Jazari’s components and techniques were useful in the
development of modern mechanical engineering. These include the static
balancing of large pulley wheels; calibration of orifices; use of wooden
templates; use of paper models in design; lamination of timber to prevent
warping; the grinding of the seats and plugs of valves together with emery
powder to obtain a watertight fit; casting of brass and copper in closed mold
boxes with greensand; use of tipping buckets that discharge their contents
automatically; and the use of segmental gears.
Al-Jazari’s double acting piston pump is unique (Fig. 2). It is remarkable
for three reasons:1) it incorporates an effective means of converting rotary
into reciprocating motion through the crank-connecting-rod mechanism [26]; 2) it makes use of the double-acting principle and 3) it is the
first pump known to have had true suction pipes.[27].
Fig. 2
Al-Jazari occupies an important place in the history of automata, automatic
control, robotics and automated musical theaters. His pioneering work is duly
acknowledged in most histories.
The inventions of
al-Jazari are a source of inspiration to modern designers such as the use of
rolling balls to sound the hours on cymbals and operate automata. This concept
is currently used in toys and other devices and their makers had registered
patents in their names.[28]
Al-Jazari described a
combination lock.[29] There are now in world
museums three combination locks that were made in the same period of al-Jazari [30]. Although
they are simpler than the lock of al-Jazari yet they follow the same
principle. Two were made around 597/1200 AD by Muhammad b. Hamid al-Asturlabi
al-Isfahani and are located in Copenhagen and Boston. The third is in Maastricht. The
first combination lock in Europe was described by Buttersworth in 1846 and the
wheels of this lock are strikingly similar to the discs of al-Jazari.[31]
All illustrations in al-Jazari’s book are in colour, and among the fifty
main drawings are miniatures that are of great artistic merit. This resulted in
the disappearance of some of these paintings from the manuscripts and they
found their way to the international museums of art or to private collections.
Historians of art are
of the opinion that there existed at the court of the Artuqids in Āmid a school
of painting that produced narrative paintings of great value [32]Three of the existing
al-Jazari’s manuscripts were illustrated by members of this school.
The illustrations of
the book enable historians to study the clothing styles of men and women in
Diyar Bakr in the thirteenth century, and some of their living habits. See the
illustration below (Fig. 3) of the automated girl serving drinks.
Fig. 3
References
Einhard and Notker
|
Einhard and Notker the Stammerer, Two Lives of Charlemagne, Trans.
With intr. By Lewis Thorpe, Penguin, 1969.
|
Al-Hassan 1976
|
al-Hassan, Ahmad Y., Taqi al-Din and Arabic Mechnical Engineering;
with Kitab al-Turuq al-saniyya fi al-Alat al-ruhaniyya,
Institute for the History of Arabic Science, Aleppo, 1976.
|
Hill 1981
|
Hill, D. R., Arabic Water Clocks, Institute for the History of
Arabic Science, Aleppo, 1981
|
Hill 1998
|
Hill, D. R., Studies in Medieval Islamic Technology, edited by
David King, Ashgate, 1998.
|
Ibn Abi Usaybi’a
|
‘Uyun al- anba’ fi tabaqat al-atibba’ ,عيون الانباء في طبقات الاطباء ed. Nizar Rida, Beirut, n.d.
|
Ibn Shaddad
|
Al-A’laq al-kha‹tira, الاعلاق
الحطيرةvol. III, part one, edited by Yahya Abbara, Damascus,1978
|
Al-Jaḥiẓ
|
Kitab al-Hayawan, كتاب الحيوانVol II, Beirut, 1992
|
Al-Jazari 1979
|
al-Hassan, Ahmad Y.
ed., الجامع بين العلم و العمل النافع في صناعة الحيل (A Compendium on the Theory and
Practice of the Mechanical Arts) Institute for the History of Arabic
Science, Aleppo, 1979. Fuat Sezgin had produced in 2003 an offset copy with colours of MS
Ahmet III 3472 of the Topkapi Sarayi Librarary.
|
Al-Jazari 1974
|
Hill, D. R., translator and editor, The Book of Ingenious Mechanical
Devices, (كتاب في معرفة الحيل الهندسية ), Dodrecht, 1974
|
Al-Khazini
|
Kitab mizan al-hikma, كتاب
ميزان الحكمةed. Hashim al-Nadwa, Hyderabad, 1940. Quoted
by Hill 1981.
|
Nasir-i Khusraw
|
Safar Nama, Arabic translation by
Yahya al-Khashshab, Cairo, 1945.
|
Price
|
Price, Derek de Solla, ‘Mechanical Water Clocks of the 14th
Century in Fez, Morocco’, Proceedings of the Xth International Congress of
the History of Science, Ithaca, N.Y. and Philadelphia, 1962.
|
Raby
|
Raby, Julian, ed., The Art of Syria and the Jazira, Oxford
University Press, 1985.
|
Ridwan
|
Ibn al-Sa’ati,
Ridwan, ‘Ilm al-sa’at wa al-‘amal biha كتاب علم الساعات والعمل بها, Gotha MS 1348, quoted by Hill 1981; edited and published by
Muhammad Ahmad Dahman, Damascus, 1981.
|
Sarton 1959
|
Sarton, George, A History of Science: Hellenistic Science and Culture
in the Last Three Centuries, Harvard University Press, 1959.
|
Sarton 1975
|
Sarton, George, Introduction to the History of Science, vol.II,
Krieger, New York, 1975.
|
Tekeli
|
Tekeli, Sevim, The Clocks in Ottoman Empire in 16th
Century, And Taqi al-Din’s ‘The Brightest Stars for the Construction of
the Mechanical Clocks’, Ankara University, 1966. This book contains the
Arabic text.
|
Wiedemann and Hauser
|
Wiedemann, E and Hauser, F., ‚Uber die Uhren im Bereich die Islamischen
Kultur’, in Nova Acta Abh. der Kaiserl. Leop. Carol. Deutschen Akademie der Naturforscher, 100, Halle, 1915, pp. 1-272.
For other articles covering the remaining categories of al-Jazari’s book
in German, see al-Jazari 1979, p. 60.
|
[25]
Other working models are exhibited also in the museum established by Fuat
Sezgin at his institute in Frankfurt; other models were established by the
UNESCO at the exhibition of Islamic science and technology that is housed at
the Institute of la Monde Arabe in Paris. Other models ere exhibited at the
Institute of the History of Arabic Science in Aleppo, Syria.
[26] See
the article: The Crank-Connecting Rod System in a continuously Rotating
Machine, in the Brief Notes on this web site
[30]
Raby, article by Francis Maddison ‘ Al-Jazari’s Combination Lock: Two
Contemporary Examples’, pp.141-157.
[32]
Raby, article by Rachel Ward ‘ Evidence for a School of Painting at the Artuqid
Court’, pp. 69-83.
Artikel ini berkaitan dengan seorang tokoh sarjana
Islam yang terkenal dalam bidang
kejuruteraan. Beliau adalah al-Shaykh Ra’is al- A’mal Badi’ al-Zaman Abu
al-‘Izz ibn Isma’il ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari atau lebih dikenali sebagai
al-Jazari. Al-Shaykh Ra’is al- A’mal Badi’ al-Zaman merupakan gelaran yang
diberikan kerana ketokohan beliau sebagai ketua jurutera (Al-Shaykh Ra’is
al- A’mal) manakala gelaran Badi’ al-Zaman diberikan kerana beliau
merupakan satu-satunya tokoh yang tiada bandingannya pada zamannya. Al-Jazari
pula diambil bersempena nama tempat
kelahirannya iaitu al-Jazira di Diyar Bakr, Turki. Beliau mendapat ilmu
berkaitan dengan sains dan teknologi melalui bapanya yang pernah berkhidmat
sebagai ketua jurutera. Beliau telah
menhabiskan hidupnya dengan menulis sebuah buku yang memakan masa 25 tahun
(595H/1198M-602H/1206M). Litab yang mashur ditilas al-Jazari ialah al-Jamiʿ bayn al-ʿilm
wa ʿamal, al-nafiʿ fi sinaʿat al-hiyal الجامع بين العلم و العمل النافع
في صناعة الحيل (A
Compendium on the Theory and Practice of the Mechanical Arts). Kemudian kitab
ini diterjemahkan kedalam bahasa Inggeris yang berjudul Book of Knowledge of
Mechanical Devices.
Buku ini menerangkan secara
terperinci lima puluh alat(ashkal), yang
dikumpulkan ke dalam enam kategori (anwa ʿ, singular
naw ʿ). Ini
adalah: 1) 10 jam air dan lilin; 2),
sepuluh kapal dan
tokoh-tokoh yang sesuai untuk sesi minum; 3),
sepuluh pitchers dan
lembangan untuk proses
mengeluarkan darah (faṣd) dan
basuh sebelum solat; 4), sepuluh air pancut yang
mengubah bentuk mereka seli , dan mesin untuk seruling
kekal; 5), lima mesin
menaikkan air; 6),
lima alat pelbagai. Buku tulisan
al-Jazari juga mudah untuk difahami. Ini kerana setiap alat
atau shakl yang digunakan dalam ciptaannya diterangkan dalam bahasa Arab mudah yang mudah difahami, dan setiap daripada itu disertai oleh lukisan umum.
Untuk peranti rumit
al-Jazari akan memberikan lukisan yang lebih terperinci untuk komponen alatan tersebut atau untuk subpemasangan supaya
operasi boleh difahami.
Terdapat sejumlah 174 lukisan didalam bukunya.
Ciptaan jam air oleh al-Jazari merupakan hasil inovasi yang diambil
daripada tamadun terdahulu sebelumnya seperti Babylon dan Mesir Purba. Namun
begitu jam hasil ciptaan al-Jazari lebih hebat berbanding dengan ciptaan
terdahulu. Jam ini mencatat jam waktu yang berlalu, yang mana kadar aliran
perlu diubah setiap hari untuk memadankan jangka masa siang yang berubah-ubah
sepanjang tahun. Untuk itu, jam ini ada dua tangki, iaitu tangki atas yang
disambung dengan mekanisme penandaan masa dan tangki bawah yang disambung
dengan pengatur kawalan aliran. Pada dasarnya, pada waktu fajar, pili
dibuka dan air mengalir dari tangki atas ke tangki bawah melalui pengatur
apungan yang memastikan kemalaran tekanan dalam tangki bawah.
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