Abbas ibn Firnas

Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbbās ibn Firnās ibn Wardūs al-Tākurnī (Template:Langx; c. 809/810 – 887 CE), known as ʿAbbās ibn Firnās (Template:Langx) was an Andalusi polymath:<ref name="EI2" /><ref>"Ibn Firnas ('Abbâs)" by Ahmed Djebbar, Dictionnaire culturel des science, by Collective under the direction of Nicolas Witkowski, Du Regard Editions, 2003, Template:ISBN.</ref><ref name="White-Quote">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."</ref> an inventor, astronomer, physician, chemist, engineer, Andalusi musician, and Arabic-language poet.<ref name="White-Quote" /> He was reported to have experimented with unpowered flight.<ref name="EI2">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref>How Invention Begins: Echoes of Old Voices in the Rise of New Machines By John H. Lienhard</ref><ref name="Lienhard">Template:Cite episode</ref><ref name="Lynn White 1961, 100f.">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.]</ref>

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.<ref name="Lienhard" /><ref name="Lynn White 1961, 100f." />

Origin

Abbas ibn Firnas was born in Ronda, in the Takurunna province and lived in Córdoba.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> His ancestors participated in the Muslim conquest of Spain.<ref>Nicolas Witkowski (dir.) et al., Paris, Editions du Regard; Éditions du Seuil, 2001, 441 p.

</ref> His full name was "Abu al-Qasim Abbas ibn Firnas ibn Wirdas al-Takurini", although he is better known as Abbas ibn Firnas. There is very little biographical information on him. While the majority of sources describe him as a Umayyad mawlā (client) of Berber origin,<ref name="EI2" /><ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Elias Teres">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Samsó 2023 q605">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> some sources describe him as Arab<ref name=":0" />Template:Unreliable source?<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Unreliable source? or as native muladí.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Work

Abbas ibn Firnas devised a means of manufacturing colourless glass, invented various glass planispheres, made corrective lenses ("reading stones"), devised an apparatus consisting of a chain of objects that could be used to simulate the motions of the planets and stars, and developed a process for cutting rock crystal that allowed Al-Andalus to cease exporting quartz to Egypt to be cut.<ref name="Lienhard" /><ref name="Lynn White 1961, 100f." /> He introduced the Sindhind to Al-Andalus,<ref name="EI2" /> which had important influence on astronomy in Europe.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> He also designed the al-Maqata, a water clock,<ref name="dict2010">Marshall Cavendish Reference. Illustrated Dictionary of the Jewish World. Marshall Cavendish, 2010 Template:ISBN p.106.</ref> and a prototype for a kind of metronome.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Aviation

Some seven centuries after the death of Firnas, the Algerian historian Ahmad al-Maqqari (d. 1632) wrote a description of Ibn Firnas that included the following:<ref name="Lynn White 1961, 101">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]</ref> Template:Quote Al-Maqqari is said to have used in his history works "many early sources no longer extant", but in the case of Ibn Firnas, he does not cite his sources for the details of the reputed flight, though he does claim that one verse in a ninth-century Arab poem is actually an allusion to Ibn Firnas's flight. The poem was written by Mu'min ibn Said, a court poet of Córdoba under Muhammad I (d. 886), amir of the Emirate of Córdoba, who was acquainted with and usually critical of Ibn Firnas.<ref name="Lynn White 1961, 100f." /> The pertinent verse runs: "He flew faster than the phoenix in his flight when he dressed his body in the feathers of a vulture."<ref name="Lynn White 1961, 101" /> No other surviving sources refer to the event.<ref>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 1633 CE 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 CE), 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."</ref>

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,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> but there is no evidence supporting this hypothesis.<ref name="Lynn White 1961, 100f." />

Armen Firman

According to some secondary sources, about 20 years before Ibn Firnas attempted to fly he witnessed a man named Armen Firman wrap himself in a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts and jump 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 sustained only minor injuries.<ref name="Lienhard" />

However, other secondary sources that deal exhaustively with Ibn Firnas' flight attempt make no reference at all to Armen Firman.<ref name="Lynn White 1961, 100f." /><ref>Terias, Elias, "Sobre el vuelo de Abbas Ibn Firnas", Al-Andalus, Vol. 29, No. 2 (1964), p. 365–369</ref><ref>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</ref> Al-Maqqari's account of Ibn Firnas, being the sole primary source of the flight story,<ref name="Lynn White 1961, 100f." /> makes no mention of Firman. Since Firman's jump is said to have been Ibn Firnas' source of inspiration,<ref name="Lienhard" /> 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.<ref name="Lienhard" /> In fact, it is likely that Armen Firman is simply the Latinized name of Abbas ibn Firnas.<ref name="muslimheritage.com">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Legacy

In 1973, a statue of Ibn Firnas by the sculptor Badri al-Samarrai was installed at the Baghdad International Airport in Iraq.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1976, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) approved of naming a crater on the moon after him as Ibn Firnas.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2011, one of the bridges going over the Guadalquivir river in Córdoba, Spain, was named the "Abbas ibn Firnás Bridge".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A British one-plane airline, Firnas Airways, was also named after him.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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

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.], {{#invoke:doi|main}}.
• 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. (Template:ISBN)

Further reading

• Template:Cite book