Amazon.com: Al-Jazarí: The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices: Kitáb fí ma'rifat al-hiyal al-handasiyya (9789027703293): P. Hill: Books: "Al-Jazari, as he is known to Western scholars wrote this book no later than 1206 in today's Diyarbakir, Turkey. If you think Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks are interesting you must have a look at the illustrations and descriptions in this incredible book. The book includes world history's first clearly described robots.
Dr. Donald Hill of England made a very important, historical contribution to the history of technology and almost singlehandedly founded the study of the History of Islamic Technology. This book, although almost extinct deserves special interest.
As a note to possible readers, the book is in rare book collections of some universities and have a newer facsimile by the Hijra Council of Pakistan, printed in 1988. Myself and a group of multimedia specialists are trying to produce working 3D animated illustrations of the machines in the book in CD-ROM form. We will be happy to give more information on Al-Jazari and his wonderful book.
Leonardo da Vinci and many other pioneering engineers of the "Renaissance" period have read and commented on Al Jazari's book. The fact that his geography being in "Mesopotamia" and not in Europe has hidden his inputs to the engineering sciences. To name a few of his findings and mostly quoting from Lynn White, UCLA, he has been the first to draw conical valves and segmented gears 3 centuries before his European counterparts. His drawings include the first samples of camshafts and four-stroke engines. Having a B.S in mechanical engineering and having been ignorant of such a man in this part of the world teaches to understand the works of Borges more deeply than before.
This is a rare book and can hardly be found outside libraries. It was translated by late Dr. Donald Hill from Arabic in 1974. The book was written in 1205 one year before Al Jazari's death in Diyarbakir. He tells us in the entry part of the manuscript that his sponsor is the local ruler of Diarbekr, Mohammed bin Kara Arslan bin Artuk and that he has worked for him a total of 25 years.
There are about 40 mechanical devices and engines described with illustrations. One of the machines show a very clearly depicted and illustrated camshaft more than two centuries before Leonardo Da Vinci. This book also shows suction pipes, pumps, double-action pump, a twin-cylinder reciprocating piston suction pump as well as many other human figured automata that works with hydraulic power, such as music instrument playing human size robots.
This historical book's earliest manuscript is kept in the Topkapi Palace. A coloured facsimile copy has been published in 1998 by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and a Turkish translation has been published in 2006. However, a 3D illustrated modern book for the layman is still not available to show the importance of his inventions.
One really wonders if there was an earlier precedent of Jazari, further East where his sponsors migrated from, since these 40 robots and machines are too advanced (for its time) and so well developed to be the fruit of one human life.
