Abbas Ibn Firnas (810 – 887 A.D.), also known as Abbas Qasim Ibn Firnas and ?????? ?? ????? (Arabic language), was Berber polymath:^[1][2] an inventor, engineer, aviator, physician, Arabic poet, and Andalusian musician.^[2] He was born in Izn-Rand Onda, Al-Andalus (today's Ronda, Spain), and lived in the Emirate of Córdoba. He is known for an early unsuccessful attempt at aviation.^[3][4]

Work

Ibn Firnas designed a water clock called Al-Maqata, devised a means of manufacturing colorless glass, made corrective lenses ("reading stones"), developed a chain of rings 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.^[5][6]

In his house he built a room in which spectators witnessed stars, clouds, thunder, and lightning, which were produced by mechanisms located in his basement laboratory. He also devised "some sort of metronome."^[6]

Aviation

He is also said to have made an attempt at flight using a set of wings. In the words of the Moroccan historian Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari (d. 1632):^[7]

This account is described seven centuries later by al-Maqqari, who used in his history works "many early sources no longer extant." In case of Firnas, the only one cited by him was a 9th century poem written by Mu'min ibn Said, a court poet of Cordoba under Muhammad I (d. 886), who was acquainted with and usually critical of Ibn Firnas.^[6] The pertinent verse runs: "He flew faster than the phoenix in his flight when he dressed his body in the feathers of a vulture."^[7] No other surviving sources refer to the event.^[8]

Ibn Firnas' glider flight is considered by John Harding to be the first attempt at heavier-than-air flight in aviation history.^[9] It may have inspired another attempt by Eilmer of Malmesbury between 1000 and 1010 in England, although there is no evidence and the later event in Anglo-Saxon England took place without foreign stimulus.^[6]

Armen Firman

For the Australian rock-group by the same name, see: Armen Firman (band)

Armen Firman may be the latinized name of Abbas Ibn Firnas,^[10] or, alternatively, he may have been the man who inspired Ibn Firnas.^[11]

There is some contradiction in the modern record: 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, Spain, 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.^[11]

However, there is no reference to Armen Firman in other secondary sources, all of which deal exhaustively with Ibn Firnas' flight attempt.^[6][12][13] Since this story was recorded only in a single primary source, al-Maqqari,^[6] and since Firman's jump is said to have been Ibn Firnas' source of inspiration,^[11] the lack of any mention of Firman in al-Maqqari's account may point to the conclusion that he never existed and that his tower jump was later confused with Ibn Firnas' gliding attempt in secondary writings.^[11]

He has been commemorated on stamps from Libya, by a statue near the Baghdad International Airport, and by a namesake airport north of Baghdad. The crater Ibn Firnas on the Moon is named in his honor.

See also

• List of Arab scientists and scholars
• Physics in medieval Islam

References

Bibliography

• 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.]
• Salim T.S. Al-Hassani (ed.), Elisabeth Woodcock (au.), and Rabah Saoud (au.). 2006. 1001 Inventions. Muslum Heritage in Our World. Manchester: Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation. See pages 308-13. (ISBN 978-0-9555035-0-4)

ar:???? ?? ????? ca:Abbàs ibn Firnàs de:Abbas ibn Firnas es:Abbás Ibn Firnás fr:Abbas Ibn Firnas it:Abbas Ibn Firnas la:Armen Firman ms:Abbas Ibn Firnas ja:??????????????? sv:Abbas Ibn Firnas tr:Abbas Kas?m ?bn Firnas

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