List of inventions in the medieval Islamic world

Physicians employing a surgical method. From Şerafeddin Sabuncuoğlu's Imperial Surgery (1465)

The following is a list of inventions made in the medieval Islamic world, especially during the Islamic Golden Age, as well as in later Islamic Gunpowder Empires such as the Ottoman and Mughal empires.

The Islamic Golden Age was a period of cultural, economic and scientific flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 14th century, with several contemporary scholars dating the end of the era to the 15th or 16th century. This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (786 to 809) with the inauguration of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, where scholars from various parts of the world with different cultural backgrounds were mandated to gather and translate all of the world's classical knowledge into the Arabic language and subsequently development in various fields of sciences began. Science and technology in the Islamic world adopted and preserved knowledge and technologies from contemporary and earlier civilizations, including Persia, Egypt, India, China, and Greco-Roman antiquity, while making numerous improvements, innovations and inventions.

List of inventions

Early Caliphates

8th century

• Arabesque: The distinctive Arabesque style was developed by the 11th century, having begun in the 8th or 9th century in works like the Mshatta Facade.
• Bowed string instrument, fiddle, rabāb: The Arabic rabāb, also known as the spiked fiddle, is the earliest known bowed instrument and the parent of the medieval European rebec.

  

  A giraffe from Kitāb al-Hayawān(Book of the Animals) by al-Jāḥiẓ.

• Checkmate: In early Sanskrit chess (c. 500–700), the king could be captured and this ended the game. The Persians (c. 700–800) introduced the idea of warning that the king was under attack (announcing check in modern terminology). This was done to avoid the early and accidental end of a game. Later the Persians added the additional rule that a king could not be moved into check or left in check. As a result, the king could not be captured, and checkmate was the only decisive way of ending a game.
• Check reading: The medieval Muslim world developed a method of reproducing reliable copies of a book in large quantities known as check reading, in contrast to the traditional method of a single scribe producing only a single copy of a single manuscript. In the check reading method, only "authors could authorize copies, and this was done in public sessions in which the copyist read the copy aloud in the presence of the author, who then certified it as accurate." With this check-reading system, "an author might produce a dozen or more copies from a single reading," and with two or more readings, "more than one hundred copies of a single book could easily be produced."
• Chemical elements and equivalents: The work of Jabir ibn Hayyan gave the seeds of the modern classification of elements into metals and non-metals as could be seen in his chemical nomenclature. The origins of the idea of chemical equivalents might be traced back to Jabir, in whose time it was recognized that "a certain quantity of acid is necessary in order to neutralize a given amount of base.
• Cryptology: David Kahn notes in The Codebreakers that the field of cryptology originates from the Muslim Arabs, the first people to systematically document cryptanalytic methods. Al-Khalil (717–786) wrote the Book of Cryptographic Messages.
• Damascus steel: Damascus blades were first manufactured in the Near East from ingots of wootz steel that were imported from India.
• Geared gristmill: Geared gristmills were built in the medieval Near East and North Africa, which were used for grinding grain and other seeds to produce meals.
• General hospital: The earliest general hospital was built in 805 in Baghdad by Harun Al-Rashid.
• Jury: An early example of a jury trial system was the Lafif in the Maliki school of classical Islamic law and jurisprudence, which was developed between the 8th and 11th centuries in the medieval Islamic world, specifically in North Africa, Islamic Spain and the Emirate of Sicily. The Islamic Lafif was a body of twelve members drawn from the neighbourhood and sworn to tell the truth, who were bound to give a unanimous verdict, about matters "which they had personally seen or heard, binding on the judge, to settle the truth concerning facts in a case, between ordinary people, and obtained as of right by the plaintiff."
• Lusterware: Some scholars see this as a purely Islamic invention originating in Fustat.
• Oud and lute: The Arabic oud in Islamic music was the direct ancestor of the European lute.
• Paper mill: Scholars have identified paper mills in Abbasid-era Baghdad during 794–795.
• Paper bookbinding: In the 8th century Arabs learned the arts of papermaking from the Chinese and were then the first to bind paper into books at the start of the Islamic Golden Age.
• Papermaking with trip hammers: The Muslims introduced the use of trip hammers in the production of paper, replacing the traditional Chinese mortar and pestle method. In turn, the trip hammer method was later employed by the Chinese.
• Permutations and combinations: The Book of Cryptographic Messages written by Al-Khalil (717–786) contains the first use of permutations and combinations to list all possible Arabic words with and without vowels.
• Pointed arch: The pointed arch as an architectonic principle was first clearly established in Islamic architecture. As an architectonic principle, the pointed arch was entirely alien to the pre-Islamic world.
• Probability and statistics: Forms of probability and statistics were developed by Arab mathematicians studying cryptology between the 8th and 13th centuries, dating back to the Book of Cryptographic Messages written by Al-Khalil (717–786). The earliest writing on statistics was found in the 9th-century book Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages by Al-Kindi. In his book, Al-Kindi gave a detailed description of how to use statistics and frequency analysis to decipher encrypted messages. This text laid the foundations for statistics and cryptanalysis.
• Proto-evolution and natural selection:The al-Hayawan is an encyclopedia of seven volume of anecdotes, poetic descriptions and proverbs describing over 350 varieties of animals. Al jahiz in his famous Book Kitab al-Hayawan (Book of the Animals): "The rat goes out for its food, and is clever in getting it, for it eats all animals inferior to it in strength", and in turn, it "has to avoid snakes and birds and serpents of prey, who look for it in order to devour it" and are stronger than the rat. Mosquitos "know instinctively that blood is the thing which makes them live" and when they see an animal, "they know that the skin has been fashioned to serve them as food". In turn, flies hunt the mosquito "which is the food that they like best", and predators eat the flies. "All animals, in short, can not exist without food, neither can the hunting animal escape being hunted in his turn. Every weak animal devours those weaker than itself. Strong animals cannot escape being devoured by other animals stronger than they. And in this respect, men do not differ from animals, some with respect to others, although they do not arrive at the same extremes. In short, God has disposed some human beings as a cause of life for others, and likewise, he has disposed the latter as a cause of the death of the former."
• Pulp mill: The use of water-powered pulp mills, for preparing the pulp material used in papermaking, dates back to Samarkand in the 8th century.
• Retort: The alchemist Jābir ibn Hayyān developed the process of distillation into what it is today by inventing several basic laboratory equipment, one of which was the retort.
• Rib vault: Its introduction dates back to Islamic architecture in the eight century.
• Sal ammoniac: Substance discovered by Arab chemists.
• Sharbat and soft drink: The origins of soft drinks lie in the development of fruit-flavored drinks. In the medieval Middle East, a variety of fruit-flavoured soft drinks were widely drunk, such as sharbat, and were often sweetened with ingredients such as sugar, syrup and honey. Other common ingredients included lemon, apple, pomegranate, tamarind, jujube, sumac, musk, mint and ice. Middle Eastern drinks later became popular in medieval Europe, where the word "syrup" was derived from Arabic.
• Synthetic life: Also called Takwin, this was first independently mentioned in the Kitāb Al-Tajmi as a hypothesis.
• Tin-glazed pottery: The earliest tin-glazed pottery appears to have been made in Abbasid Iraq/Mesopotamia in the 8th century, fragments having been excavated during the First World War from the palace of Samarra about fifty miles north of Baghdad.
• Tin-glazing: The tin-glazing of ceramics was invented by potters in 8th-century Basra, Iraq. The oldest fragments found to-date were excavated from the palace of Samarra about 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Baghdad.
• Windmill and panemone windmill: The earliest recorded windmill design found was Persian in origin, and was invented around the 7th–9th centuries.
• Wind-powered automata: In the mid-8th century, the first wind powered automata were built, "statues that turned with the wind over the domes of the four gates and the palace complex of the Round City of Baghdad". The "public spectacle of wind-powered statues had its private counterpart in the 'Abbasid palaces where automata of various types were predominantly displayed."

9th century

• Alcohol distillation: The medieval Arabs used the distillation process extensively, including the distillation of alcohol (which comes from the Arabic word al-kohl). Al-Kindi gave the first unambiguous description of the true distillation of wine in the 9th century.
• Algebra: Al-Khwarizmi is considered the father of algebra. Algebra comes from the Arabic الجبر (al-jabr) in the title of his book Ilm al-jabr wa'l-muḳābala. While algebraic equations had existed before, he was the first to treat algebra as an independent discipline in its own right. His treatise The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing (c. 813–833) popularised algebra, and presented the first systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations. Static equation-solving algebra, where the objective is to find numbers satisfying certain relationships, was first decisively established by Al-Khwarizmi, with his introduction of generalized algorithmic processes for solving algebraic problems.
• Algebraic reduction and balancing, cancellation, and like terms: Al-Khwarizmi introduced reduction and balancing in algebra. It refers to the transposition of subtracted terms to the other side of an equation, that is, the cancellation of like terms on opposite sides of the equation, which the term al-jabr (algebra) originally referred to.
• Algorism: The algorism system of rules was developed by Al-Khwarizmi, with the words "algorism" and "algorithm" derived from his name.
• Ammonium carbonate: Knowledge of the ammonium carbonate date back to Arabic texts circa 875.
• Automatic controls: The Banu Musa's preoccupation with automatic controls distinguishes them from their Greek predecessors, including the Banu Musa's "use of self-operating valves, timing devices, delay systems and other concepts of great ingenuity."
• Chess manual: The oldest known chess manual was in Arabic and dates to 840–850, written by Al-Adli ar-Rumi (800–870), a renowned Arab chess player, titled Kitab ash-shatranj (Book of Chess). During the Islamic Golden Age, many works on shatranj were written, recording for the first time the analysis of opening moves, game problems, the knight's tour, and many more subjects common in modern chess books.
• Completing the square: One of Al-Khwarizmi's principal achievements in algebra was his demonstration of how to solve quadratic equations by completing the square, for which he provided geometric justifications.
• Automatic crank: The non-manual crank appears in several of the hydraulic devices described by the Banū Mūsā brothers in their Book of Ingenious Devices. These automatically operated cranks appear in several devices, two of which contain an action which approximates to that of a crankshaft, anticipating Al-Jazari's invention by several centuries and its first appearance in Europe by over five centuries. However, the automatic crank described by the Banu Musa would not have allowed a full rotation, but only a small modification was required to convert it to a crankshaft.
• Conical valve: A mechanism developed by the Banu Musa, of particular importance for future developments, was the conical valve, which was used in a variety of different applications.
• Control valve: The Banu Musa brothers are credited with the first known use of conical valves as automatic controllers.
• Cryptanalysis and frequency analysis: In cryptology, the first known recorded explanation of cryptanalysis was given by Al-Kindi (also known as "Alkindus" in Europe), in A Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages. This treatise includes the first description of the method of frequency analysis. It was the most significant cryptanalytic advance until World War II.
• Double-seat valve: It was invented by the Banu Musa, and has a modern appearance in their Book of Ingenious Devices.
• Ethanol: The Persian physician, alchemist, polymath and philosopher Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (854–925) is credited with the discovery of ethanol.
• Glider: Abbas ibn Firnas is credited with the first description, design and first attempt at a manned glider flight.
• University: Fatima bint Muhammad Al-Fihriya Al-Qurashiya was an Arab Muslim woman who is credited for founding the oldest existing, continually operating and first degree-awarding educational institution in the world, The University of Al Quaraouiyine in Fes, Morocco, in 859. The University of Al Quaraouiyine is considered to be the oldest degree-granting university.
• Lusterware: Lustre glazes were applied to pottery in Mesopotamia in the 9th century; the technique soon became popular in Persia and Syria. Earlier uses of lustre are known.
• Hard soap: Hard toilet soap with a pleasant smell was produced in the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age, when soap-making became an established industry. Recipes for soap-making are described by Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (854–925), who also gave a recipe for producing glycerine from olive oil. In the Middle East, soap was produced from the interaction of fatty oils and fats with alkali. In Syria, soap was produced using olive oil together with alkali and lime. Soap was exported from Syria to other parts of the Muslim world and to Europe.
• Mental institute: In 872, Ahmad ibn Tulun built a hospital in Cairo that provided care to the insane, which included music therapy.
• Kerosene: The process of distilling crude oil/petroleum into kerosene, as well as other hydrocarbon compounds, was first written about in the 9th century by the Persian scholar Rāzi (or Rhazes). In his Kitab al-Asrar (Book of Secrets), the physician and chemist Razi described two methods for the production of kerosene, termed naft abyad ("white naphtha"), using an apparatus called an alembic.
• Kerosene lamp: The first description of a simple lamp using crude mineral oil was provided by Persian alchemist al-Razi (Rhazes) in 9th century Baghdad, who referred to it as the "naffatah" in his Kitab al-Asrar (Book of Secrets).
• Lyra, rebec, violin: The Arabic rabāb is the ancestor of all European bowed instruments, including the rebec, the Byzantine lyra, and the violin.
• Madrasa, ijazah, academic degree, doctorate: The ijazah, issued in Islamic madrasahs since the 9th century, is considered an early form of academic degree or doctorate. Historians such as George Makdisi, Devin J. Stewart, Josef W. Meri and Shawkat Toorawa have stated that the ijazah was an early type of academic degree or doctorate issued in early medieval madrasahs, similar to that which later appeared in European medieval universities.
• Minaret: The first known minarets appeared in the early 9th century under Abbasid rule.
• Music sequencer and mechanical musical instrument: The origin of automatic musical instruments dates back to the 9th century, when Persian inventors Banū Mūsā brothers invented a hydropowered organ using exchangeable cylinders with pins, and also an automatic flute playing machine using steam power. These were the earliest mechanical musical instruments.
• Nitric acid and aqua regia: First mentioned in the works of Arabic alchemists such as Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi.
• Observatory and research institute: The oldest true observatory, in the sense of a specialized research institute, was built in 825, the Al-Shammisiyyah observatory, in Baghdad, Iraq.
• Pediatrics book: Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi wrote the first pediatrics book.
• Peer review and clinical peer review: The first documented description of a peer review process is found in the Ethics of the Physician written by Ishāq ibn ʻAlī al-Ruhāwī (854–931) of Al-Raha, Syria. His work, as well as later Arabic medical manuals, states that a visiting physician must always make duplicate notes of a patient's condition on every visit. When the patient was cured or had died, the notes of the physician were examined by a local medical council of other physicians, who would review the practicing physician's notes to decide whether his or her performance met the required standards of medical care. If their reviews were negative, the practicing physician could face a lawsuit from a maltreated patient.
• Petroleum distillation: Crude oil was often distilled by Arabic chemists, with clear descriptions given in Arabic handbooks such as those of Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes).
• Polyalphabetic cipher: Al-Kindi (801–873) described the first cryptanalytic techniques, including some for polyalphabetic ciphers, cipher classification, and Arabic phonetics and syntax. Al-Qalqashandi (1355–1418), based on the earlier work of Ibn al-Durayhim (1312–1359), gave the first clear description of a polyalphabetic cipher, in which each plaintext letter is assigned more than one substitute.
• Programmable automatic flute player: The Banū Mūsā brothers invented a programmable automatic flute player and which they described in their Book of Ingenious Devices.
• Sine quadrant: A type of quadrant used by medieval Arabic astronomers, it was described by Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī in 9th century Baghdad.
• Spherical astrolabe: The spherical astrolabe, a variation of both the astrolabe and the armillary sphere, was invented in the Islamic Middle East.
• Spherical trigonometry: Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī was a pioneer in spherical trigonometry. While earlier mathematicians had dealt with spherical triangles, Al-Battani and Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī are credited with developing spherical trigonometry into its present form.
• Statistical inference: Al-Kindi made the earliest known use of statistical inference in his work on cryptanalysis and frequency analysis.
• Sulfuric acid: Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (854–925) is credited with being the first to produce sulfuric acid.
• Sugar mill: Sugar mills first appeared in the medieval Islamic world. They were first driven by watermills, and then windmills from the 9th and 10th centuries in what are today Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
• Syringe: The Iraqi/Egyptian surgeon Ammar ibn Ali al-Mawsili invented a syringe in the 9th century using a hollow glass tube, providing suction to remove cataracts from patients' eyes.
• Throttling valve: It appears for the first time in the Banu Musa's Book of Ingenious Devices.
• Trigonometric functions: All six trigonometric functions appeared together for the first time in Islamic mathematics. While the sine and cosine functions were earlier known in Indian mathematics, the other four trigonometric functions were discovered by Islamic mathematicians. Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī produced accurate sine and cosine tables, and the first table of tangents. In 830, Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi produced the first table of cotangents. Muhammad ibn Jābir al-Harrānī al-Battānī (Albatenius) (853–929 AD) discovered the reciprocal functions of secant and cosecant, and produced the first table of cosecants for each degree from 1° to 90°.
• Trigonometry: Previous trigonometric works were translated and expanded in the medieval Islamic world by Muslim mathematicians of mostly Persian and Arab descent, who enunciated a large number of theorems which freed the subject of trigonometry from dependence upon the complete quadrilateral, as was the case in Hellenistic mathematics due to the application of Menelaus' theorem. According to E. S. Kennedy, it was after this development in Islamic mathematics that "the first real trigonometry emerged, in the sense that only then did the object of study become the spherical or plane triangle, its sides and angles." The Persian polymath Nasir al-Din al-Tusi has been described as the creator of trigonometry as a mathematical discipline in its own right. Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī was also the first to treat trigonometry as a mathematical discipline independent from astronomy.
• Variable structure control: Two-step level controls for fluids, a form of discontinuous variable structure controls, was developed by the Banu Musa brothers.
• Wind-powered gristmill: The first wind-powered gristmills were built in the 9th and 10th centuries in what are now Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
• Windpump: Windpumps were used to pump water since at least the 9th century in what is now Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.

10th century

• Binomial theorem: The first formulation of the binomial theorem and the table of binomial coefficient can be found in a work by Al-Karaji, quoted by Al-Samaw'al in his "al-Bahir".
• Decimal fractions: Decimal fractions were first used by Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi in the 10th century.
• Fountain pen: An early historical mention of what appears to be a reservoir pen dates back to the 10th century. According to Ali Abuzar Mari (d. 974) in his Kitab al-Majalis wa 'l-musayarat, the Fatimid caliph Al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah demanded a pen that would not stain his hands or clothes, and was provided with a pen that held ink in a reservoir, allowing it to be held upside-down without leaking.
• Girih: The earliest form of girih on a book is seen in the frontispiece of a Koran manuscript from the year 1000, found in Baghdad.
• Law of sines: The spherical law of sines was discovered by Abu al-Wafa' Buzjani in the 10th century. Ibn Muʿādh al-Jayyānī's The book of unknown arcs of a sphere in the 11th century contains the general law of sines.
• Muqarnas: The origin of the muqarnas can be traced back to the mid-tenth century in northeastern Iran and central North Africa, as well as the Mesopotamian region.
• Pascal's triangle: The Persian mathematician Al-Karaji (953–1029) wrote a now lost book which contained the first description of Pascal's triangle.It was later repeated by the Persian poet-astronomer-mathematician Omar Khayyám (1048–1131); thus the triangle is also referred to as the Khayyam triangle in Iran.
• Planisphere: Invented by Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī.
• Sextant and mural instrument: The first known mural sextant was constructed in Ray, Iran, by Abu-Mahmud al-Khujandi in 994.
• Snell's law: The law was first accurately described by the Persian scientist Ibn Sahl at the Baghdad court in 984. In the manuscript On Burning Mirrors and Lenses, Sahl used the law to derive lens shapes that focus light with no geometric aberrations.
• Speed of light: Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī (973-1048) believed that light has a finite speed, and he was the first to discover that the speed of light is much faster than the speed of sound.
• Arabic numerals: The modern Arabic numeral symbols originate from Islamic North Africa in the 10th century. A distinctive Western Arabic variant of the Eastern Arabic numerals began to emerge around the 10th century in the Maghreb and Al-Andalus (sometimes called ghubar numerals, though the term is not always accepted), which are the direct ancestor of the modern Arabic numerals used throughout the world.
• Vertical-axle windmill: A small wind wheel operating an organ is described as early as the 1st century AD by Hero of Alexandria. The first vertical-axle windmills were eventually built in Sistan, Persia as described by Muslim geographers. These windmills had long vertical driveshafts with rectangle shaped blades. They may have been constructed as early as the time of the second Rashidun caliph Umar (634–644 AD), though some argue that this account may have been a 10th-century amendment. Made of six to twelve sails covered in reed matting or cloth material, these windmills were used to grind grains and draw up water, and used in the gristmilling and sugarcane industries. Horizontal axle windmills of the type generally used today were later developed in Northwestern Europe in the 1180s.

11th century

The structure of the human eye according to Ibn al-Haytham. Note the depiction of the optic chiasm. —Manuscript copy of his Kitāb al-Manāẓir (MS Fatih 3212, vol. 1, fol. 81b, Süleymaniye Mosque Library, Istanbul)

• Camera obscura box: While the pinhole camera effect was known earlier, starting with Ibn al-Haytham (965–1039) the effect was used in dark rooms. He described a 'dark chamber' and did a number of trials and experiments with small pinholes and light passing through them. One such experiment consisted of three candles in a row and seeing the effects on the wall after placing a cutout between the candles and the wall. He also analyzed the rays of sunlight and concluded that they make a conic shape where they meet at the hole, forming another conic shape reverse to the first one from the hole to the opposite wall in the dark room. Al-Haytam's writings on optics became very influential in Europe through Latin translations since circa 1200. Among those he inspired were Witelo, John Peckham, Roger Bacon, Leonardo Da Vinci, René Descartes and Johannes Kepler.
• Clinical trial and drug trial: Persian physician Avicenna, in The Canon of Medicine (1025), first described use of clinical trials for determining the efficacy of medical drugs and substances.
• Experimental method: The earliest methodical approach to experiments in the modern sense is visible in the works of the Arab mathematician and scholar Ibn al-Haytham, who introduced an inductive-experimental method for achieving results.
• Integration function: In the Middle East, Hasan Ibn al-Haytham, Latinized as Alhazen (c. 965 – c. 1040 CE) derived a formula for the sum of fourth powers. He used the results to carry out what would now be called an integration of this function, where the formulae for the sums of integral squares and fourth powers allowed him to calculate the volume of a paraboloid. This is a precursor to integral calculus.
• Magnifying glass and convex lens: A convex lens used for forming a magnified image was described in the Book of Optics by Ibn al-Haytham in 1021.
• Mercuric chloride (formerly corrosive sublimate): used to disinfect wounds.
• Methods of agreement, difference and concomitant variation: In The Canon of Medicine (1025), Avicenna was also the first to describe what is essentially methods of agreement, difference and concomitant variation which are critical to inductive logic and the scientific method.
• Modern intromission theory: Ibn al-Haytham (965–1040) was the first person to explain that vision occurs when light bounces on an object and then is directed to one's eyes.
• Proof by contradiction: Ibn al-Haytham (965–1039) developed the method of proof by contradiction.
• Rose water distillation: The process of creating rose water through steam distillation was developed by Persian and Arab chemists in the medieval Islamic world which led to more efficient and economic uses for perfumery industries.
• Scientific method: Ibn al-Haytham (965–1039), also known as Alhazen, was an Iraqi polymath who is considered by some to be the father of modern scientific methodology, due to his emphasis on experimental data and reproducibility of its results. The Persian scientist Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī introduced early scientific methods for several different fields of inquiry during the 1020s and 1030s. He also developed an early experimental method for mechanics. Al-Biruni's methods resembled the modern scientific method, particularly in his emphasis on repeated experimentation.
• Steel mill: By the 11th century, much of the Islamic world had industrial steel watermills in operation, from Al-Andalus and North Africa to the Middle East and Central Asia.
• Water-powered paper mill: Donald Hill has identified a reference to a water-powered paper mill in Samarkand, in the 11th-century work of the Persian scholar Abu Rayhan Biruni. This is seen by Leor Halevi as evidence of Samarkand first harnessing waterpower in the production of paper.
• Weight-driven clock: Arabic engineers invented water clocks driven by gears and weights in the 11th century.

12th century

• Classical mechanics: Hibat Allah Abu'l-Barakat al-Baghdaadi adopted and modified Avicenna's theory on projectile motion. In his Kitab al-Mu'tabar, Abu'l-Barakat stated that the mover imparts a violent inclination (mayl qasri) on the moved and that this diminishes as the moving object distances itself from the mover. According to Shlomo Pines, al-Baghdaadi's theory of motion was "the oldest negation of Aristotle's fundamental dynamic law [namely, that a constant force produces a uniform motion], [and is thus an] anticipation in a vague fashion of the fundamental law of classical mechanics [namely, that a force applied continuously produces acceleration]."
• Function: The idea of a function in mathematics first began emerging with Sharaf al-Dīn al-Tūsī.
• Hybrid trebuchet: The term Al-Ghadban (The Furious One) was applied to the hybrid trebuchet, though the usage of the term was not consistent and may have taken on a broader meaning. The first record of a counterweight trebuchet was in the 12th century from Mardi ibn Ali al-Tarsusi while talking of the conquests of Saladin.
• Local analysis, maxima, derivative function: Sharaf al-Dīn al-Tūsī introduced local analysis, the study of maxima, and the notion of a derivative function, a precursor to differential calculus.

13th century

• Fritware: It refers to a type of pottery which was first developed in the Near East, beginning in the late 1st millennium, for which frit was a significant ingredient. A recipe for "fritware" dating to c. 1300 AD written by Abu’l Qasim reports that the ratio of quartz to "frit-glass" to white clay is 10:1:1. This type of pottery has also been referred to as "stonepaste" and "faience" among other names. A 9th-century corpus of "proto-stonepaste" from Baghdad has "relict glass fragments" in its fabric.
• Girih tiles: By the 13th century, Islamic architects discovered a new way to construct tile mosaic due to the development of arithmetic calculation and geometry—the girih tiles.
• Naker: Arabic nakers were the direct ancestors of most timpani, brought to 13th-century Continental Europe by Crusaders and Saracens.
• Ogee: Ogee windows and arches were introduced to European cities from the Middle East, probably via Venetian Gothic architecture. Ogee arches became a feature of English Gothic architecture by the late thirteenth century.
• Penrose tiling: The physicists Peter J. Lu and Paul Steinhardt have presented evidence that a Penrose tiling underlies some examples of medieval Islamic geometric patterns, such as the girih (strapwork) tilings at the Darb-e Imam shrine in Isfahan.
• Quasicrystal: Quasiperiodical structures were first observed in some decorative tilings devised by medieval Islamic architects. For example, Girih tiles in a medieval Islamic mosque in Isfahan, Iran, are arranged in a two-dimensional quasicrystalline pattern.
• Sample size: An important contribution of Ibn Adlan (1187–1268) was the concept of sample size for use of frequency analysis. He believed that the cryptogram "should be at least 90 letters long and that each of the 28 letters of Arabic should be represented at least three times".
• Symbolic algebra: Symbolic algebra is where full symbolism is used. Early steps toward this can be seen in the work of several Islamic mathematicians such as Ibn al-Banna (13th–14th centuries) and al-Qalasadi (15th century).

14th century

• Polar-axis sundial: Early sundials were nodus-based with straight hour-lines, indicating unequal hours (also called temporary hours) that varied with the seasons, since every day was divided into twelve equal segments; thus, hours were shorter in winter and longer in summer. The idea of using hours of equal time length throughout the year was the innovation of Abu'l-Hasan Ibn al-Shatir in 1371, based on earlier developments in trigonometry by Muhammad ibn Jābir al-Harrānī al-Battānī (Albategni). Ibn al-Shatir was aware that "using a gnomon that is parallel to the Earth's axis will produce sundials whose hour lines indicate equal hours on any day of the year." His sundial is the oldest polar-axis sundial still in existence. The concept later appeared in Western sundials from at least 1446.
• Substitution cipher and transposition cipher: The work of Al-Qalqashandi (1355–1418), based on the earlier work of Ibn al-Durayhim (1312–1359), contained the first published discussion of the substitution and transposition of ciphers.

Al-Andalus

9th-12th centuries

• Antiseptics: Were in use as early as the 10th century in hospitals of Islamic Spain. Special protocols, in Al Andalus, were used to keep hygiene before and after surgery.
• Botany: Spanish botanists, like Ibn al-Baitar, created hundreds of works/catalogs on the various plants in not only Europe but the Middle East, Africa and Asia. In these works many processes for extracting essential oils, drugs as well as their uses can be found.
• Brass type movable printer press/first printing device in Europe: First invented in Muslim Spain 100 years prior to the invention of printing press, by Johannes Gutenburg of Germany, in 1454.
• Inheritance of traits: First proposed by Abu Al-Zahrawi (936–1013) more than 800 years before Austrian monk, Mendel. Al-Zahrawi was first to record and suggest that hemophilia was an inherited disease.
• Inhalation anesthesia: Invented by al-Zahrawi and Ibn Zuhr. Used a sponge soaked with narcotic drugs and placed it on patients face. These Muslim physicians were the first to use an anaesthetic sponge.
• Ligatures: Described in the work of al-Zarawi (936–1013), Kitab al-Tasrif, one of the most influential books in early modern medicine. Describes the process of performing a ligature on blood vessels.
• Metronome: Invented by Ibn Firnas (9th century)
• Mercuric oxide: First synthesized by Abu al-Qasim al-Qurtubi al-Majriti (10th century).
• Migraine surgery: First performed by al-Zahrawi (936–1013).
• Modern surgery: Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (936–1013), better known in the west as Albucasis, is regarded as the father of modern surgery and is the most quoted surgeon of all times. Albucasis invented over 200 tools for use in surgery – many still in use today.
• Pathology: Various Muslim physicians in Spain were crucial in the development of modern medicine. Pathology, obviously was an important development in medicine. The first correct proposal of the nature of disease was described by al-Zahrawi and Ibn Zuhr.
• Speed of sound: Was proposed by the Cordoba scholar Ibn Hazm (994–1064). Ibn Hazm argued and calculated the speed of sound by echoes in the Mosque of Cordoba. He is also credited as being the first to propose that thunder was a production of lightning.
• Spherical Earth: Theory by Ibn Hazm (994–1064).
• Water and weight driven mechanical clocks: By Spanish Muslim engineers sometime between 900–1200. According to historian Will Durant, a watch like device was invented by Ibn Firnas.

11th century

• Equatorium: The inventor of the equatorium, Al-Zarqali, was an Arab Muslim instrument maker, mathematician, and leading astronomer at the time. Al-Zarqali based the equatorium on the universal astrolabe, but made it more accurate and specialized.
• Geared clock: The first geared clock was invented in the 11th century by the Arab engineer Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi in Islamic Iberia; it was a water clock that employed a complex gear train mechanism, including both segmental and epicyclic gearing, capable of transmitting high torque. The clock was unrivalled in its use of sophisticated complex gearing, until the mechanical clocks of the mid-14th century.
• Mechanical flywheel: The mechanical flywheel, used to smooth out the delivery of power from a driving device to a driven machine and, essentially, to allow lifting water from far greater depths (up to 200 metres), was first employed by Ibn Bassal (fl. 1038–1075), of Al-Andalus.
• Steam distillation: Ibn Sīnā developed steam distillation to produce essential oils such as rose essence, which he used as aromatherapeutic treatments for heart conditions.
• Universal astrolabe and azafea: Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī invented the first universal astrolable, also called the azafea or saphea, which proved very popular and was widely used by navigators until the 16th century.

12th century

• Bridge mill: The bridge mill was a unique type of watermill that was built as part of the superstructure of a bridge. The earliest record of a bridge mill is from Córdoba, Spain in the 12th century.
• Guitar: The guitar has roots in the four-string oud, brought to Iberia by the Moors in the 8th century. A direct ancestor of the modern guitar is the guitarra morisca (Moorish guitar), which was in use in Spain by 1200. By the 14th century, it was simply referred to as a guitar.
• Torquetum: Invented by Jabir ibn Aflah.

13th century

• Essential oil: The earliest recorded mention of the techniques and methods used to produce essential oils is believed to be that of Ibn al-Baitar (1188–1248), an Al-Andalusian (Muslim-controlled Spain) physician, pharmacist and chemist.
• Mercury clock: A detailed account of technology in Islamic Spain was compiled under Alfonso X of Castile between 1276 and 1279, which included a compartmented mercury clock, which was influential up until the 17th century. It was described in the Libros del saber de Astronomia, a Spanish work from 1277 consisting of translations and paraphrases of Arabic works.
• Mariotte's bottle: The Libros del saber de Astronomia describes a water clock which employs the principle of Mariotte's bottle.

14th century

• Hispano-Moresque ware: This was a style of Islamic pottery created in Arab Spain, after the Moors had introduced two ceramic techniques to Europe: glazing with an opaque white tin-glaze, and painting in metallic lusters. Hispano-Moresque ware was distinguished from the pottery of Christendom by the Islamic character of its decoration.
• Pharmacopoeia: During the 14th century, the physician from Malaga, Ibn Baytar, wrote a pharmacopoeia (book of medicine) naming over 1400 different drugs and their uses in medicine. This book was written 200 years before the supposed first pharmacopoeia was written by German scholar in 1542.

Sultanates

12th century

• Counterweight trebuchet: The earliest known description and illustration of a counterweight trebuchet comes from a commentary on the conquests of Saladin by Mardi ibn Ali al-Tarsusi in 1187.
• Tadelakt: The history of the material dates back to the 12th century, in the Almoravid and Almohad dynasties.

13th century

• Automated moving peacocks: Invented by Al-Jazari in 2016.
• Bayonet mount: The first documented use of this type of fitting (without the name "bayonet") may be by Al-Jazari in the 13th century, who used it to mount candles into his candle-clocks.
• Camshaft: The camshaft was described by Al-Jazari in 1206. He employed it as part of his automata, water-raising machines, and water clocks such as the castle clock.
• Candle clock with dial and fastening mechanism: The most sophisticated candle clocks known were those of Al-Jazari in 1206. It included a dial to display the time.
• Crankshaft: Al-Jazari (1136–1206) is credited with the invention of the crankshaft. He described a crank and connecting rod system in a rotating machine in two of his water-raising machines. His twin-cylinder pump incorporated a crankshaft, including both the crank and shaft mechanisms.
• Crank-slider: Ismail al-Jazari's water pump employed the first known crank-slider mechanism.
• Cotton gin with worm gear: The worm gear roller gin was invented in the Delhi Sultanate during the 13th to 14th centuries.
• Design and construction methods: English technology historian Donald Hill wrote, "We see for the first time in al-Jazari's work several concepts important for both design and construction: the lamination of timber to minimize warping, the static balancing of wheels, the use of wooden templates (a kind of pattern), the use of paper models to establish designs, the calibration of orifices, the grinding of the seats and plugs of valves together with emery powder to obtain a watertight fit, and the casting of metals in closed mold boxes with sand."
• DIY manual: The style of Al-Jazari's Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices resembles that of a modern DIY manual.
• Draw bar: The draw bar was applied to sugar-milling, with evidence of its use at Delhi in the Mughal Empire by 1540, but possibly dating back several centuries earlier to the Delhi Sultanate.
• Hand cannon: According to Arabic military treatises of the 13th and 14th centuries, hand cannon were used by the Mamluk-Egyptian side at the 1260 Battle of Ain Jalut to frighten the Mongol armies, making this the earliest known battle where hand cannon were used. The compositions of the gunpowder used in these cannon were also given in these manuals.
• Hand washing automaton: In 1206, Al-Jazari invented a hand-washing automaton.
• Minimising intermittence: The concept of minimising the intermittence is first implied in one of Al-Jazari's saqiya devices, which was to maximise the efficiency of the saqiya.
• Programmable analog computer: The castle clock, a hydropowered mechanical astronomical clock invented by Ismail al-Jazari in 1206, was the first programmable analog computer.
• Programmable humanoid robot: In 1206, Al-Jazari invented a programmable humanoid automata band. According to Charles B. Fowler, the automata were a "robot band" which performed "more than fifty facial and body actions during each musical selection."
• Segmental gear: A segmental gear is "a piece for receiving or communicating reciprocating motion from or to a cogwheel, consisting of a sector of a circular gear, or ring, having cogs on the periphery, or face." Professor Lynn Townsend White, Jr. wrote, "Segmental gears first clearly appear in al-Jazari".
• Sitar: According to various sources, the sitar was invented by Amir Khusrow, a famous Sufi inventor, poet, and pioneer of Khyal, Tarana and Qawwali, in the Delhi Sultanate. Others say that the instrument was brought from Iran and modified for the tastes of the rulers of the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire.
• Torpedo: The concept of a torpedo existed many centuries before it was later successfully developed. In 1275, Hasan al-Rammah described "...an egg which moves itself and burns".

14th century

• Cotton gin with crank handle: The incorporation of the crank handle in the cotton gin, first appeared in either the late Delhi Sultanate or the early Mughal Empire.

18th century

• Iron-cased rockets: The Mysore rockets of this period (from the Mysore Sultanate) were much more advanced than what the British had seen, chiefly because of the use of iron tubes for holding the propellant; this enabled higher thrust and longer range for the missile (up to 2 km range). In contrast, rockets in Europe were not iron-cased and their range was far less than their Mysorian counterparts. The Congreve rocket was later based on Mysorean rockets.

Ottoman Empire

14th century

• Modern standing army: The first modern standing armies were the Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire, formed in the fourteenth century.

15th century

• Coffee: Stories exist of coffee originating in Ethiopia, but the earliest credible evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears in the middle of the 15th century, in the Sufi monasteries of the Yemen in southern Arabia. It was in Yemen that coffee beans were first roasted and brewed as they are today. From Mocha, coffee spread to Egypt and North Africa, and by the 16th century, it had reached the rest of the Middle East, Persia and Turkey. From the Muslim world, coffee drinking spread to Italy, then to the rest of Europe, and coffee plants were transported by the Dutch to the East Indies and to the Americas.
• Dardanelles Gun: The Dardanelles Gun was designed and cast in bronze in 1434 by Munir Ali. The Dardanelles Gun was still present for duty more than 340 years later in 1807, when a Royal Navy force appeared and commenced the Dardanelles Operation. Turkish forces loaded the ancient relics with propellant and projectiles, then fired them at the British ships. The British squadron suffered 28 casualties from this bombardment.
• Iznik pottery: Produced in Ottoman Turkey as early as the 15th century AD. It consists of a body, slip, and glaze, where the body and glaze are "quartz-frit." The "frits" in both cases "are unusual in that they contain lead oxide as well as soda"; the lead oxide would help reduce the thermal expansion coefficient of the ceramic. Microscopic analysis reveals that the material that has been labeled "frit" is "interstitial glass" which serves to connect the quartz particles.
• Matchlock: David Nicolle noted that the Janissary corps of the Ottoman army were using matchlock firearms from the 1440s onwards.
• Standing army with firearms: The Ottoman military's regularized use of firearms proceeded ahead of the pace of their European counterparts. The Janissaries had been an infantry bodyguard using bows and arrows. During the rule of Sultan Mehmed II they were drilled with firearms and became "the first standing infantry force equipped with firearms in the world."

16th century

• Firearm kneeling position: At the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the Janissaries equipped with 2000 tüfenks (usually translated as musket) "formed nine consecutive rows and they fired their weapons row by row," in a "kneeling or standing position without the need for additional support or rest." The Chinese later adopted the Ottoman kneeling position for firing.
• Marching band and military band: The marching band and military band both have their origins in the Ottoman military band, performed by the Janissary since the 16th century.
• Matchlock volley fire: Volley fire with matchlocks was first implemented in 1526 when the Ottoman Janissaries utilized it during the Battle of Mohács.
• Parallel rulers: Invented by Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf and used at the Constantinople Observatory of Taqi ad-Din (1577-1580).
• Practical impulse steam turbine: A practical impulse steam turbine was first described in 1551 by Taqi al-Din, a philosopher, astronomer and engineer in 16th century Ottoman Egypt, who described a method for rotating a spit by means of a jet of steam playing on rotary vanes around the periphery of a wheel. A similar device for rotating a spit was also later described by John Wilkins in 1648.
• Steam jack: A steam-powered roasting jack was first described by the Ottoman polymath and engineer Taqi al-Din in his Al-Turuq al-samiyya fi al-alat al-ruhaniyya (The Sublime Methods of Spiritual Machines), in 1551 CE (959 AH). It was an impulse steam turbine with practical applications as a prime mover for rotating a spit, predating Giovanni Branca's later impulse steam turbine from 1629.

Mughal Empire

16th century

A detailed portrait of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir holding a globe probably made by Muhammad Saleh Thattvi.

• Hookah or water pipe: according to Cyril Elgood (PP.41, 110), the physician Irfan Shaikh, at the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar I (1542–1605) invented the Hookah or water pipe used most commonly for smoking tobacco.
• Kulfi: The dessert originated from the Mughal Empire in the 16th century. Ain-i-Akbari, a detailed record of the Mughal emperor Akbar's administration, mentions use of saltpeter for refrigeration as well as transportation of Himalayan ice to warmer areas.
• Metal cylinder rocket: In the 16th century, Akbar was the first to initiate and use metal cylinder rockets known as bans, particularly against war elephants, during the Battle of Sanbal.
• Multi-barrel matchlock volley gun: Fathullah Shirazi (c. 1582), a Persian polymath and mechanical engineer who worked for Akbar, developed an early multi-shot gun. Shirazi's rapid-firing gun had multiple gun barrels that fired hand cannons loaded with gunpowder. It may be considered a version of a volley gun. One such gun he developed was a seventeen-barrelled cannon fired with a matchlock.
• Pehlwani: A style of wrestling developed in the Mughal Empire by combining Indian malla-yuddha with influences from Persian varzesh-e bastani.
• Seamless celestial globe: It was invented in Kashmir by Ali Kashmiri ibn Luqman in 998 AH (1589–1590), and twenty other such globes were later produced in Lahore and Kashmir during the Mughal Empire. Before they were rediscovered in the 1980s, it was believed by modern metallurgists to be technically impossible to produce metal globes without any seams.

17th century

• Roller mill: Sugar rolling mills first appeared in the Mughal Empire, using the principle of rollers as well as worm gearing, by the 17th century.

See also

• Islamic Golden Age
• Timeline of science and engineering in the Islamic world
• Science in medieval Islam
• Science in the medieval Islamic world
• Islamic attitudes towards science
• Medicine in the medieval Islamic world
• Islamic arts
• Islamic economics
• Islamic literature
• Islamic philosophy
• Islamic technology
  • Islamic pottery
  • Arab Agricultural Revolution
• Gunpowder Empires
  • Mughal Empire
  • Science and technology in the Ottoman Empire
  • Safavid dynasty

External links

• Qatar Digital Library – an online portal providing access to previously digitised British Library archive materials relating to Gulf history and Arabic science
• 1001 Inventions: Discover The Muslim Heritage In Our World
• "How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs" by De Lacy O'Leary