Abbas ibn Firnas

Abu al-Qasim Abbas ibn Firnas ibn Wirdas al-Takurini (809–887 A.D.), also known as Abbas ibn Firnas (Arabic: عباس بن فرناس‎), latinized Armen Firman,[1] was an Andalusian polymath:[2][3] an inventor, physician, chemist, engineer, Andalusian musician, and Arabic-language poet.[3] A pioneer of aviation,[4][5][6] Ibn Firnas built the first human carrying glider[7][8][9][10] and is reputed to have survived two successful flights.[11][12][13][14] His works led the late investigators to define and invent some of the basics of rational aircraft design. According to John Harding, Ibn Firnas' glider was the first attempt at heavier-than-air flight in aviation history.[15]

Abbas ibn Firnas
Statue of Ibn Firnas outside Baghdad International Airport
Born	810 Ronda, Takurunna province, Emirate of Córdoba
Died	887 Córdoba, Emirate of Córdoba
Known for	astronomy, engineering, medicine, invention

He was born in Ronda in the Takurunna province from Berber parents and lived in Córdoba.[16] Ibn Firnas made various contributions in the field of astronomy and engineering. He constructed a device which indicated the motion of the planets and stars in the Universe. In addition, Ibn Firnas came up with a procedure to manufacture colourless glass and made magnifying lenses for reading, which were known as reading stones. His method of cutting rock crystal enabled Spanish mines to cut quartz, instead of exporting stones. He also designed the al-Maqata, a water clock.[4]

A statue of Ibn Firnas was built near the Baghdad Airport. The crater Ibn Firnas on the Moon is named in his honor, and one of the bridges over the Guadalquivir river in Córdoba was also named after him.

Work

Abbas Ibn Firnas designed a water clock called al-Maqata, devised a means of manufacturing colorless glass, invented various glass planispheres, made corrective lenses ("reading stones"), devised a chain of things that could be used to simulate 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.[13][14] He introduced the Sindhind to al-Andalus,[16] which had important influence on astronomy in Europe.[17]

Aviation

Statue of Ibn Firnas outside Baghdad International Airport

Some seven centuries after the death of Firnas, the Algerian historian Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari (d. 1632) wrote a description of Firnas that included the following:[9]

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.[14]

Al-Maqqari is said to have used in his history works "many early sources no longer extant", but in the case of Firnas, he does not cite his sources for the details of the reputed flight, though he does claim that one verse in a 9th-century Arab poem is actually an allusion to Firnas's flight. The poem was written by Mu'min ibn Said, a court poet of Córdoba under Muhammad I (d. 886), who was acquainted with and usually critical of Ibn Firnas.[14] The pertinent verse runs: "He flew faster than the phoenix in his flight when he dressed his body in the feathers of a vulture."[9] No other surviving sources refer to the event.[18]

It has been suggested that Ibn Firnas's attempt at glider flight might have inspired the attempt by Eilmer of Malmesbury between 1000 and 1010 in England,[19] but there is no evidence supporting this hypothesis.[14]

Armen Firman

Armen Firman may be the Latinized name of Abbas Ibn Firnas.[20]

According to some secondary sources, about 20 years before Ibn Firnas attempted to fly he may have witnessed Firman as he wrapped himself in a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts and jumped from a tower in Córdoba, intending to use the garment as wings on which he could glide. The alleged attempt at flight was unsuccessful, but the garment slowed his fall enough that he only sustained minor injuries.[13]

However, there is no reference to Armen Firman in other secondary sources, all of which deal exhaustively with Ibn Firnas' flight attempt.[14][21][22] Armen Firman is not mentioned in al-Maqqari's account.[13]

As this story was recorded only in a single primary source, al-Maqqari,[14] and since Firman's jump is said to have been Ibn Firnas' source of inspiration,[13] the lack of any mention of Firman in al-Maqqari's account may point to synthesis, the tower jump later confused with Ibn Firnas' gliding attempt in secondary writings.[13]

See also

• Hezârfen Ahmed Çelebi
• History of aviation
• Ismail ibn Hammad al-Jawhari
• Lagâri Hasan Çelebi
• List of inventions in the medieval Islamic world
• Timeline of science and technology in the Islamic world

References

1. "Arabic and Islamic Names of the Moon Craters MuslimHeritage 9-28-07". Archived from the original on 16 October 2013. Retrieved 14 July 2009.
2. "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.
3. 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. Marshall Cavendish Reference. Illustrated Dictionary of the Muslim World. Marshall Cavendish, 2010 ISBN 9780761479291 p.106.
5. How Invention Begins: Echoes of Old Voices in the Rise of New Machines By John H. Lienhard
6. Sustainable Aviation by T. Hikmet Karakoc, C. Ozgur Colpan, Onder Altuntas, Yasin Sohret
7. A Brief Survey of Muslim Contribution to Science and Culture, by Muhammad Ashraf, University of California
8. The Bookmark, Volumes 19-20 University of Idaho Library, 1966
9. 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 [101]
10. 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 [101]:

    The Moroccan historian al-Maqqari, who died in 1632 A.D. but who used many early sources no longer extant, tells of a certain Abu'l Qasim 'Abbas b. Firnas who lived in Cordoba in the later ninth century. […] al-Maqqari cites a contemporary poem by Mu'min b. Said, a minor court poet of Cordoba under Muhammad I (d. 886 A.D.), which appears to refer to this flight and which has the greater evidential value because Mu'min did not like b. Firnas: he criticized one of his metaphors and disapproved his artificial thunder. […] We must conclude that b. Firnas was the first man to fly successfully, and that he has priority over Eilmer for this honor. But it is not necessary to assume that Eilmer needed foreign stimulus to build his wings. Anglo-Saxon England in his time provided an atmosphere conducive to originality, perhaps particularly in technology.

11. John Joseph Montgomery, 1858-1911: Father of Basic, Page 5, by Arthur Spearman, University of Santa Clara
12. Andalucia: A Cultural History, by John Gill, Page 109, Oxford University Press, 2008, ISBN 9780199704514
13. John H. Lienhard (2004). "'Abbas Ibn Firnas". The Engines of Our Ingenuity. Episode 1910. NPR. KUHF-FM Houston. Transcript.
14. 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 [100f.]
15. The Aviation History: New Aircraft I - Color by Relly Victoria Petrescu, Florian Ion Petrescu, Page 7, ISBN 9783848266395
16. Lévi-Provençal, E. (1986). "ʿAbbās b. Firnās". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam. I (2nd ed.). Brill publishers. p. 11.
17. Vernet, Juan (1981) [1970]. "Abbas Ibn Firnas". In Gillespie, C.C. (ed.). Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Volume 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 5.
18. 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 [101]:

    The Moroccan historian al-Maqqari, who died in 1632 A.D. but who used many early sources no longer extant, tells of a certain Abu'l Qasim 'Abbas b. Firnas who lived in Cordoba in the later ninth century. […] No modern historian can be satisfied with a source written 750 years after the event, and it is astonishing that, if indeed several eye-witnesses recorded Firnas's flight, no mention of it independent of al-Maqqari has survived. Yet al-Maqqari cites a contemporary poem by Mu'min b. Said, a minor court poet of Cordoba under Muhammad I (d. 886 A.D.), which appears to refer to this flight and which has the greater evidential value because Mu'min did not like b. Firnas: he criticized one of his metaphors and disapproved his artificial thunder. […] Although the evidence is slender, we must conclude that b. Firnas was the first man to fly successfully, and that he has priority over Eilmer for this honor. But it is not necessary to assume that Eilmer needed foreign stimulus to build his wings. Anglo-Saxon England in his time provided an atmosphere conducive to originality, perhaps particularly in technology.

19. Lienhard, John H. (1988). "The Flying Monk". University of Houston. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
20. "Arabic and Islamic Names of the Moon Craters MuslimHeritage 9-28-07". Archived from the original on 16 October 2013. Retrieved 14 July 2009.
21. Terias, Elias, "Sobre el vuelo de Abbas Ibn Firnas", Al-Andalus, Vol. 29, No. 2 (1964), p. 365–369
22. Lévi-Provençal, E. "ʿAbbās b. Firnās b. Wardūs, Abu 'l-Ḳāsim." Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs, 2009

Sources

• 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.
• 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 [100f.], doi:10.2307/3101411.
• Salim T.S. Al-Hassani (ed.), Elisabeth Woodcock (au.), and Rabah Saoud (au.). 2006. 1001 Inventions. Muslim Heritage in Our World. Manchester: Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation. See pages 308–313. (ISBN 978-0-9555035-0-4)

Further reading

• Zaheer, Syed Iqbal (2010). An Educational Encyclopedia of Islam. Iqra Welfare Trust. p. 1280. ISBN 9786039000440.