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The Islamic Bulletin
Volume X No. 23 Page 23
How Islamic inventors changed the world
Today, we attribute most of the modern sciences and
discoveries to the Western world. But, the truth is that though
western progress in science and technology is to be lauded in
the present world, it was the great influence of Arabs and
Muslims in the fields of philosophy, astronomy, medicine and
mathematics that has made humans a race of intelligent and
intellectual beings.
From coffee to
cheques and the
three-course meal,
the Muslim world has
given us many
innovations that we in
the West take for
granted. Here are 20
of their most
influential innovations:
(1) The story goes that an Arab named Khalid was tending his
goats in the Kaffa region of southern Ethiopia, when he
noticed his animals became livelier after eating a certain berry.
He boiled the berries to make the first coffee. Certainly the
first record of the drink is of beans exported from Ethiopia to
Yemen where Sufis drank it to stay awake all night to pray on
special occasions. Moka, Mocca, Mokha and Mocha, have all
been used to designate a specific coffee. It’s confusing and
misleading since the term has been used to distinguish
varietals, blends and even flavors. Today, most people think of
the word, “ mocha”, as the flavor combining chocolate
and coffee. Yet, “mocha’s” history traces back centuries
ago to the port city named Al-Makha. Located on the
Red Sea in the Republic of Yemen, Al-Makha was the
export location for coffee and other spices traded from
Asia. Since Yemen was the first country to cultivate and
export coffee, the word Mocha was attached to all
coffee imported into Europe. Hence Yemen Mocha has always
been the distinctive varietal from Yemen, known for its
exceptional taste, rare availability and exotic location.
By the late 15th century it had arrived in Makkah and Turkey
from where it made its way to Venice in 1645. It was brought
to England in 1650 by a Turk named Pasqua Rosee who
opened the first coffee house in Lombard Street in the City of
London. The Arabic “qahwa” became the Turkish “kahve” then
the Italian “caffé” and then English “coffee”.
(2) The ancient Greeks thought our eyes emitted rays, like a
laser, which enabled us to see. The first person to realise that
light enters the eye, rather than leaving it, was the 10th-
century Muslim mathematician, astronomer and physicist Ibn
al-Haitham.
He invented the first pin-hole camera after noticing the way
light came through a hole in window shutters. The smaller the
hole, the better the picture, he worked out, and set up the
first Camera Obscura (from the Arab word “qamara” for a dark
or private room).
He is also credited with being the first man to shift physics
from a philosophical activity to an experimental one.
(3) A form of chess was played in ancient India but the game
was developed into the form we know it today in Persia. From
there it spread westward to Europe — where it was introduced
by the Moors in Spain in the 10th century — and eastward as
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far as Japan. The word “rook” comes from the Persian “rukh”,
which means chariot.
(4) A thousand years before the Wright brothers, a Muslim poet,
astronomer, musician and engineer named Abbas ibn Firnas
made several attempts to construct a flying machine. In 852 he
jumped from the minaret of the Grand Mosque in Cordoba using
a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts.
He hoped to glide like a bird. He didn’t. But the cloak slowed his
fall, creating what is thought to be the first parachute, and
leaving him with only minor injuries.
In 875, aged 70, having perfected a machine of silk and eagles’
feathers he tried again, jumping from a mountain. He flew to a
significant height and stayed aloft for ten minutes but crashed on
landing — concluding, correctly, that it was because he had not
given his device a tail so it would stall on landing. Baghdad
international airport and a crater on the Moon are named after
him.
(5) Washing and bathing are religious requirements for Muslims,
which is perhaps why they perfected the recipe for soap which
we still use today. The ancient Egyptians had soap of a kind, as
did the Romans who used it more as a pomade. But it was the
Arabs who combined vegetable oils with sodium hydroxide and
aromatics such as thyme oil. One of the Crusaders’ most striking
characteristics, to Arab nostrils, was that they did not wash.
Shampoo was introduced to England by a Muslim who opened
Mahomed’s Indian Vapour Baths on Brighton seafront in 1759
and was appointed Shampooing Surgeon to Kings George IV and
William IV.
(6) Distillation, the means of separating liquids through
differences in their boiling points, was invented around
the year 800 by Islam’s foremost scientist, Jabir ibn
Hayyan, who transformed alchemy into chemistry,
inventing many of the basic processes and apparatus
still in use today — liquefaction, crystallisation,
distillation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation and
filtration.
As well as discovering sulphuric and nitric acid, he invented the
alembic still, giving the world intense rosewater and other
perfumes and alcoholic spirits (although drinking them forbidden,
in Islam). Ibn Hayyan emphasised systematic experimentation
and was the founder of modern chemistry.
(7) The crank-shaft is a device which translates rotary into linear
motion and is central to much of the machinery in the modern
world, not least the internal combustion engine. One of the
most important mechanical inventions in the history of
humankind, it was created by an ingenious Muslim engineer
called al-Jazari to raise water for irrigation.
His Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (1206)
shows he also invented or refined the use of valves and pistons,
devised some of the first mechanical clocks driven by water and
weights, and was the father of robotics. Among his 50 other
inventions was the combination lock.
(8) Quilting is a method of sewing or tying two layers of cloth
with a layer of insulating material in between. It is not clear
whether it was invented in the Muslim world or whether it was
imported there from India or China.
However, it certainly came to the West via the Crusaders. They
saw it used by Saracen warriors, who wore straw-filled quilted
canvas shirts instead of armour. As well as a form of protection, it
proved an effective guard against the chafing of the Crusaders’
metal armour and was an effective form of insulation — so much