A geopolitical region that has at various times extended
from Spain and Africa in the west to Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent in
the east. The inventions listed here were developed during the medieval Islamic
world, which covers a period from the early Caliphate to the later Ottoman,
Safavid and Mughal empires. In particular, the majority of inventions
here date back to the Islamic Golden Age, which is traditionally dated from the
8th to the 13th centuries.
During this period, artists, engineers, scholars, poets,
philosophers, geographers and traders in the Islamic world contributed
to agriculture, the arts, economics, industry, islamic law, literature,
navigation, philosophy, sciences, sociology, and technology, both by preserving
earlier Greco-Roman philosophy, inventions and discoveries, then by adding
inventions and innovations of their own.
Food
production
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.
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.
had long vertical driveshafts with rectangle shaped blades. 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 corn and draw up water, and used in the gristmilling and
sugarcane industries. Horizontal axle windmills of the type generally used today,
however, were developed in Northwestern Europe in the 1180s.
Coffee:
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.
Hookah
or waterpipe: according to Cyril Elgood the physician Irfan Shaikh,
at the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar I (1542- 1605 AD) invented the Hookah
or waterpipe used most commonly for smoking tobacco.
Cryptanalysis and
frequency analysis: In cryptology, the first known recorded
explanation of cryptanalysis was given by 9th-century Arabian polymath,
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
Pottery
Albarello:
An albarello is a type of maiolica earthenware jar originally designed to hold
apothecaries' ointments and dry drugs. The development of this type of pharmacy
jar had its roots in the Islamic Middle East.
Fritware:
It refers to a type of pottery which was first developed in the Near East,
where production is dated to the late 1st millennium AD through the second
millennium AD 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.
Hispano-Moresque
ware: This was a style of Islamic pottery created in Islamic 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.
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.
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.
Tin-glazing:
The tin-glazing of ceramics was invented by Muslim potters in 8th-century
Basra, Iraq. The first examples of this technique can be found as blue-painted
ware in 8th-century Basra. The oldest fragments found to-date were excavated
from the palace of Samarra about fifty miles north of Baghdad.
Military
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.
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.
Early
Torpedoes: Syrian Al-Hassan er-Rammah's manuscript "The Book
of Fighting on Horseback and With War Engines"(1280) includes the first
known design for a rocket driven torpedo.
Music
Guitar:
the modern guitar is thought to have developed from the earlier Arabic
instrument "Oud." Introduced through medieval Spain, the guitar was
initially referred to as guitarra moresca (moorish guitar) in the 12th century
Lute:
while pre-Islamic Arabs had similar instruments, the Lute is thought
to have been invented in the 11th century, and spread from Iraq to other areas
under Muslim provinces
