Timeline of Islamic science and technology)

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This timeline of Islamic science and engineering covers the general development of science and technology in the Islamic world during the Islamic Golden Age, usually dated from the 7th to 16th centuries.

From the 17th century onwards, the advances made by Muslim scientists and engineers occurred both within and outside of the Islamic world. For the timeline of Muslim scientists and engineers during the modern period, see Timeline of modern Muslim scientists and engineers.

All year dates are given according to the Gregorian calendar except where noted.

7th century

610 – 632 [empiricism, theology] The Qur’an, which was revealed during this time, emphasized the use of empirical observation and reason.[1][2][3][4] It has been claimed that the Qur’an also contains knowledge that was far ahead of its time (see Qur’an and science and Islam and science for the debate on this topic).

610 – 632 [astrology] Several hadiths attributed to Muhammad show that he was generally opposed to astrology as well as superstition in general. An example of this is when an eclipse occurred during his son Ibrahim ibn Muhammad’s death, and rumours began spreading about this being God’s personal condolence. Muhammad is said to have replied: “An eclipse is a phenomenon of nature. It is foolish to attribute such things to the death or birth of a human being.”[5]

610 – 632 [medicine] Muhammad is reported to have made the following statements on early Islamic medicine: “There is no disease that Allah has created, except that He also has created its treatment”;[6] “Make use of medical treatment, for Allah has not made a disease without appointing a remedy for it, with the exception of one disease, namely old age”;[7] “Allah has sent down both the disease and the cure, and He has appointed a cure for every disease, so treat yourselves medically”;[8] “The one who sent down the disease sent down the remedy.”[9] The belief that there is a cure for every disease encouraged Muslims at the time to seek out a remedy for every disease known to them.

610 – 632 [medicine, pathology] Early ideas on contagion can be traced back to several hadiths attributed to Muhammad, who is said to have understood the contagious nature of leprosy, mange, and sexually transmitted disease.[10] These early ideas on contagion arose from the generally sympathetic attitude of Muslim physicians towards lepers (who were often seen in a negative light in other ancient and medieval societies) which can be traced back through hadiths attributed to Muhammad and to the following advice given in the Qur’an: “There is no fault in the blind, and there is no fault in the lame, and there is no fault in the sick.”[11]

622 [calendar] Islamic calendar developed by Muhammad.

634 – 644 [technology] Windmill invented in Afghanistan during the time of the Rashidun caliph, Umar.[12]

650 – 704 [alchemy] Calid (Khalid ibn Yazid), an Umayyad prince, was the first Muslim alchemist, and he translated the literature on Egyptian alchemy into the Arabic language.

8th century

700s – [astronomy, technology] Brass astrolabe developed by Muhammad al-Fazari.[13]

700s – [ceramics, pottery] From the eighth to eighteenth centuries, the use of glazed ceramics was prevalent in Islamic art, usually assuming the form of elaborate pottery.[14] Tin-opacified glazing was one of the earliest new technologies developed by the Islamic potters. The first Islamic opaque glazes can be found as blue-painted ware in Basra, dating to around the 8th century.[15]

700s – [ceramics, glass, industry, pottery] The first industrial factory complex for Islamic pottery and glass production is built in Ar-Raqqah, Syria. Extensive experimentation is carried out at the complex, which is two kilometres in length, and a variety of innovative high-purity glass are developed there. Two other similar complexes are also built, and nearly three hundred new chemical recipes for glass are produced at all three sites.[16]

702 – 765 – [chemistry] Ja’far al-Sadiq, refuted Aristotle’s theory of the four classical elements and theorized that each one is made up of different chemical elements: “I wonder how a man like Aristotle could say that in the world there are only four elements – Earth, Water, Fire, and Air. The Earth is not an element. It contains many elements. Each metal, which is in the earth, is an element.” Al-Sadiq also developed a particle theory, which he described as follows: “The universe was born out of a tiny particle, which had two opposite poles. That particle produced an atom. In this way matter came into being. Then the matter diversified. This diversification was caused by the density or rarity of the atoms.” Al-Sadiq also wrote a theory on the opacity and transparency of materials. He stated that materials which are solid and absorbent are opaque, and materials which are solid and repellent are more or less transparent. He also stated that opaque materials absorb heat.[17]

715 – 800 – [ceramics, pottery] Lustreware is invented in Iraq by the Arabian chemist, Jabir ibn Hayyan (Geber), during the Abbasid caliphate.[18][19]

715 – 815 – [chemistry] Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan), a Muslim chemist, is “considered by many to be the father of chemistry”,[20][21][22] for introducing the experimental scientific method for chemistry, as well as laboratory apparatus such as the alembic, still and retort, and chemical processes such as pure distillation, liquefaction, crystallisation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation and filtration.[23][24] He also invented more than twenty types of laboratory apparatus.[25] His collection of works (known as the Jabirian corpus) include The elaboration of the Grand Elixir, The chest of wisdom in which he introduces nitric acid, Kitab al-Istitmam (later translated to Latin as Summa Perfectionis), and many others.

715 – 815 – [alchemy] Geber, also a Muslim alchemist, introduces theories on the transmutation of metals, the philosopher’s stone, and Takwin, the artificial creation of life in the laboratory. He also further developed the five classical elements into seven elements by adding two metals: sulfur (‘the stone which burns’ that characterized the principle of combustibility) and mercury (which contained the idealized principle of metallic properties) as ‘elements’.[26]

715 – 815 – [chemical substances] In contrast to the ancients (“the only acid known to the ancients was vinegar”), Jabir was the first to produce a number of other acids: mineral acids such as nitric acid, sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid,[24][27] uric acid,[23] acetic acid,[20][28] citric acid, tartaric acid[20] andaqua regia.[29] Several chemical elements were also first discovered by Geber: arsenic, antimony and bismuth.[30][25][24] Geber was also the first to classify sulfur and mercury as ‘elements’.[26] He also discovered a number of other chemical substances.

715 – 815 – [crystallography] Crystallization is invented by Geber.[20]

715 – 815 – [glass] Geber wrote on adding colour to glass by adding small quantities of metallic oxides to the glass, such as manganese dioxide (magnesia). These coloured glass were a new advancement in the glass industry unknown in antiquity.[31]

715 – 815 – [chemical technology, glass] In the Book of the Hidden Pearl, Geber scientifically described 46 original recipes for producing coloured glass, in addition to 12 recipes inserted by al-Marrakishi in a later edition of the book; the first recipes for the manufacture of artificial pearls and for the purification of pearls that were discoloured from the sea or from grease; the first recipes for the dying and artificial colouring of gemstones and pearls; the first recipes for the manufacture of glue from cheese; and invented plated mail for use in armours (jawasin), helmets (bid) and shields (daraq).[32] and first described the production of high quality coloured glass cut into artificial gemstones.[33]

715 – 815 – [chemistry] Destructive distillation is developed by Arabic chemists.[34]

740 – 828 – [animal husbandry, botany, zoology] Al-Asma’i was the earliest Arab biologist, botanist and zoologist; his works include the Book of Distinction, Book of the Wild Animals, Book of the Horse, and Book of the Sheep.

751 – [technology] Papermaking is introduced to the Islamic world from Chinese prisoners after the Battle of Talas.

754 – [medicine, pharmacy] The first pharmacy and drugstores are opened in Baghdad.[35] The first apothecary shops are also opened in the Islamic world.[36]

763 – 809 – [library] The House of Wisdom is founded by the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid.

763 – 809 – [medicine] “The first free public hospital was opened in Baghdad during the Caliphate of Haroon-ar-Rashid.”[37] 

These “Bimaristans” were hospitals in the modern sense, an establishment where the ill were welcomed and cared for by qualified staff. In this way, Muslim physicians were the first to make a distinction between a hospital and other different forms of healing temples, sleep temples, hospices, assylums, lazarets and leper-houses, all of which in ancient times were more concerned with isolating the sick and the mad from society “rather than to offer them any way to a true cure.” The medieval Bimaristan hospitals are thus considered “the first hospitals” in the modern sense of the word.[38]

763 – 800 – [medicine, psychiatry, psychology] The first psychiatric hospitals and insane asylums are built by the Muslim Arabs in Baghdad and then Fes.[39]

764 – 800 – [petroleum, civil engineering] The streets of the newly constructed Baghdad are paved with tar, derived from petroleum, coming from natural oil fields in the region, through the process of destructive distillation.[34]

770 – [astronomy, mathematics] An Indian astronomer visits the court of Caliph Al-Mansur, and brings with him the Surya Siddhanta and the works of Aryabhata and Brahmagupta.

777 – [astronomy, mathematics] Muhammad al-Fazari and Yaqūb ibn Tāriq translate the Surya Siddhanta and Brahmasphutasiddhanta, and compile them as the Zij al-Sindhind, the first Zij treatise.[40]

794 – [industry, technology] The first paper mills are created in Baghdad, marking the beginning of the paper industry.[41]

c. 796 – [astronomical instruments] The first person credited for building the brass astrolabe in the Islamic world is reportedly Muhammad al-Fazari.[42]

late 700s – early 800s – [musical science] Mansour Zalzal of Kufa. Musician (luth) and composer of the Abbasid era. Contributed musical scales that were later named after him (the Mansouri scale) and introduced positions (intervals) within scales such as the wasati-zalzal that was equidistant from the alwasati alqadima and wasati al-fors. Made improvements on the design of the luth instrument and designed the Luth. Teacher of Is-haq al-Mawsili.

700 – 900 – [legal science] Charitable trust first developed in Islamic law as the Waqf.[43][44]

9th century

721 – 900 – [chemistry] Chemical processes first described by Muslim chemists include: assation (or roasting), cocotion (or digestion), ceration, lavage, solution, mixture, and fixation.[45] Arab chemists were the first to produce purified water, through water purification and distillation, used for water supply systems and for long journeys across deserts where the supplies were uncertain.[46] Petrol is also first produced by Muslim chemists.[47]

721 – 925 – [chemical technology] In his Secretum secretorum (Latinized title), Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes) described the following tools that were invented by him and his Muslim predecessors (Calid, Geber and Al-Kindi) for melting substances (li-tadhwib): hearth (kur), bellows (minfakh aw ziqq), crucible (bawtaqa), the but bar but (in Arabic) or botus barbatus (in Latin), tongs (masik aq kalbatan), scissors (miqta), hammer (mukassir), file (mibrad).[48]

721 – 925 – [chemical technology] Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi described the following tools that were invented by him and his Muslim predecessors for the preparation of drugs (li-tadbir al-aqaqir): cucurbit and still with evacuation tube (qar aq anbiq dhu-khatm), receiving matras (qabila), blind still (without evacuation tube) (al-anbiq al-ama), aludel (al-uthal), goblets (qadah), flasks (qarura or quwarir), rosewater flasks (ma wariyya), cauldron (marjal aw tanjir), earthenware pots varnished on the inside with their lids (qudur aq tanjir), water bath or sand bath (qadr), oven (al-tannur in Arabic, athanor in Latin), small cylindirical oven for heating aludel (mustawqid), funnels, sieves, filters, etc.[48]

721 – 925 – [chemical substances] Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi wrote that he and his Muslim predecessors (Calid, Geber and al-Kindi) invented the following derivative and artificial chemical substances: lead(II) oxide (PbO), red lead (Pb3O4), tin(II) oxide (Isfidaj), copper acetate (Zaniar), copper(II) oxide (CuO), lead sulfide, zinc oxide, bismuth oxide, antimony oxide, iron rust, iron acetate, Daws (a contituent of steel), cinnabar (HgS), arsenic trioxide (As2O3), alkali (al-Qili), sodium hydroxide (caustic soda), and Qalimiya (anything that separates from metals during their purification).[49]

721 – 925 – [chemical substances] Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi classified the natural chemical substances that were discovered by him and his Muslim predecessors (mainly Calid, Geber, al-Kindi and al-Tamimi) as follows: Four spirits (mercury, sal ammoniac, arsenic, sulfur), eight fusible metals (gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, mercury), rhirteen stones (marqashisha, maghnisiya, daws (a constituent of iron and steel), tutiya, lapis lazuli, malachite green, turquoise, hematite, arsenic oxide, lead sulfide, talq (mica and asbestos), gypsum, glass), six vitriols (black vitriol, alum, qalqand, qalqadis, qalqatar, suri), seven borates (borax, bread borax, natron, nitrate, sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate, sodium borate), and thirteen salts (lead(II) acetate (sweet), magnesium sulfate (bitter), andarani salt, tabarzad, potassium nitrate, naphthenate, black salt (Indian), salt of egg, alkali (al-qali), salt of urine, calcium hydroxide (slaked lime), salt of oak ashes, natron).[49]

780 – 850 – [astronomical instruments] Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī (Algorismi) invents the quadrant, mural instrument, sine quadran, horary quadrant,[50] and alhidade.[51]

789 – 857 – [cosmetics, cuisine, fashion, hygiene] Ziryab (“Blackbird”) opens a beauty parlour or “cosmetology school” for women near Alcázar, Al-Andalus, where he introduces a “shorter, shaped cut, with bangs on the forehead and the ears uncovered.” He also taught “the shaping of eyebrows and the use of chemical depilatories for removing body hair”, and he introduced new perfumes and cosmetics.[52] Ziryab is also known to have invented an early toothpaste, which he popularized throughout Islamic Spain.[53] The exact ingredients of this toothpaste are not currently known,[52] but it was reported to have been both “functional and pleasant to taste.”[53] He also invented under-arm deodorants and “new short hairstyles leaving the neck, ears and eyebrows free,”[54] as well as shaving for men. He also introduced the three-course meal, insisting that meals should be served in three separate courses consisting of soup, the main course, and dessert.[54]

800 – [medicine, psychiatry, psychology] The first psychiatric hospital and insane asylum in Egypt is built by Muslim physicians in Cairo.[39]

800 – 868 – [biology, language, linguistics, zoology] ‘Amr ibn Bahr al-Jahiz wrote a number of works on zoology, Arabic grammar, rhetoric, and lexicography. His most famous work is the Book of Animals, in which he was the first to discuss food chains,[55] and was an early adherent of environmental determinism, arguing that the environment can determine the physical characteristics of the inhabitants of a certain community and that the origins of different human skin colors is the result of the environment.[56] He was also the first to describe the struggle for existence[57] and an early theory on evolution by natural selection.[58]

800 – 873 – [technology] The Banū Mūsā brothers write the Book of Ingenious Devices, in which they describe their following inventions: valve, float valve, feedback controller,[59] float chamber, automatic control,[27] Automatic flute player, Programmable machine,[60] Trick drinking vessels, gas mask, grab, clamshell grab, fail-safe system, hurricane lamp, self-feeding oil lamp, self-trimming oil lamp,[61] mechanical musical instrument, and Hydropowered organ.[62]

800s – [education] The first universities in the modern sense, namely institutions of higher education and research which issue academic degrees at all levels (bachelor, master and doctorate), were medieval madrasahs known as Jami’ah founded in the 9th century.[63][64] The first universities in Europe were influenced in many ways by the madrasahs in Islamic Spain and the Emirate of Sicily at the time, and in the Middle East during the Crusades.[63] The Islamic scholarly system of fatwa and ijma, meaning opinion and consensus respectively, formed the basis of the “scholarly system the West has practised in university scholarship from the Middle Ages down to the present day.”[63]

800s – [chemistry, petroleum] Oil fields first appear in Baku, Azerbaijan, and generate commercial activities and industry. These oil fields, where oil wells are dug to get the Naft (naphta, or crude petroleum), are described by geographer Masudi in the 10th century and by Marco Polo in the 13th century, who described the output of those wells as hundreds of shiploads.

800s – [education, legal science] Madrasahs were the first law schools, and it is likely that the “law schools known as Inns of Court in England” may have been derived from the madrasahs which taught Islamic law and jurisprudence.[63]

800s – [legal science, education] The origins of the doctorate dates back to the ijazat attadris wa ‘l-ifta’ (“license to teach and issue legal opinions”) in the medieval Islamic legal education system, which was equivalent to the Doctor of Laws qualification and was developed during the 9th century after the formation of the Madh’hab legal schools. To obtain a doctorate, a student “had to study in a guild school of law, usually four years for the basic undergraduate course” and ten or more years for a post-graduate course. The “doctorate was obtained after an oral examination to determine the originality of the candidate’s theses,” and to test the student’s “ability to defend them against all objections, in disputations set up for the purpose” which were scholarly exercises practiced throughout the student’s “career as a graduate student of law.” After students completed their post-graduate education, they were awarded doctorates giving them the status of faqih (meaning “master of law”), mufti (meaning “professor of legal opinions”) and mudarris (meaning “teacher”), which were later translated into Latin as magister, professor and doctor respectively.[63]

800s – [ceramics, pottery] Another significant contribution of Islamic pottery was the development of stonepaste ceramics, originating from 9th century Iraq.[15]

800s – [chemistry] The first oil fields and oil wells are created in Baku, Azerbaijan, in order to produce naphtha.[34] Coffee was also invented by Khalid in Ethiopia.

800s – [milling technology] The water turbine is invented by Muslim engineers in the Islamic world.[61]

800s – [astronomical instruments] Muslim astronomers invent the universal sundial[65] and universal horary dial[66][67] in Baghdad. The first navigational astrolabe was also invented in the medieval Islamic world, and employed the use of a polar projection system.[68]

800 – 873 – [chemistry, environment, medicine, philosophy, physics] Ibn Ishaq Al-Kindi (Latinized, Alkindus) contributed to early Islamic philosophy, Islamic physics, optics, Islamic medicine, Islamic mathematics, cryptography, and metallurgy. He Worked at the House of Wisdom which was set up in 810. He introduces quantification into medicine in his De Gradibus, and he is the first to isolate ethanol (alcohol) as a pure compound.[69]

810 – 888 – [aviation, glass, medicine, technology] Abbas 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.” He contributed to the mechanics of flight, planetarium, and artificial crystals, and he made the earliest recorded attempt at controlled flight. He also designed a water clock, devised means of manufacturing colorless glass, developed a chain of rings that could be used to display the motions of the planets and stars, and developed a process for cutting rock crystal. Another one of his inventions was an artificial weather simulation room, in which spectators saw stars and clouds, and were astonished by artificial thunder and lightning due to mechanisms hidden in the basement.[70] He also describes corrective lens[34] and clear colourless high-purity glass,[33] and invents silica glass and fused quartz glass.[70]

813 – 833 – [library] A large number of ancient Greek, Sanskrit and Pahlavi texts on mathematics and astronomy are translated into Arabic at Baghdad’s House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma) during Al-Ma’mun’s time.

813 – 833 – [education, medicine] The first medical schools are founded in Baghdad during Al-Ma’mun’s time. These also became the first medical universities, where academic degrees and diplomas (ijazah) were issued to those students who were qualified to be practising doctors of medicine.[37][64]

820 – [mathematics] Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī (Persian name: خوارزمي, Arabicized name الخوارزمي al-Khwarizmi, Latinized name Algorithm) wrote the Hisab al-jabr w’al-muqabala (Calculus of resolution and juxtaposition), more briefly referred to as al-jabr, or algebra. “Algebra was a unifying theory which allowed rational numbers, irrational numbers, geometrical magnitudes, etc., to all be treated as “algebraic objects”. It gave mathematics a whole new development path so much broader in concept to that which had existed before, and provided a vehicle for future development of the subject. Another important aspect of the introduction of algebraic ideas was that it allowed mathematics to be applied to itself in a way which had not happened before.”[71] As Rashed writes: “Al-Khwarizmi’s successors undertook a systematic application of arithmetic to algebra, algebra to arithmetic, both to trigonometry, algebra to the Euclidean theory of numbers, algebra to geometry, and geometry to algebra. This was how the creation of polynomial algebra, combinatorial analysis, numerical analysis, the numerical solution of equations, the new elementary theory of numbers, and the geometric construction of equations arose.”[72][73]

820 – [mathematics] Al-Mahani (full name Abu Abdollah Muhammad ibn Isa Mahani – in Arabic Al-Mahani). Conceived the idea of reducing geometrical problems such as duplicating the cube to problems in algebra.[71]

828 – 896 [agriculture, astronomy, biology, botany, Earth sciences, meteorology] Al-Dinawari, the founder of Arabic botany, writes the Book of Plants, which describes at least 637 plants; discusses plant evolution from its birth to its death, describing the phases of plant growth and the production of flowers and fruit. He also deals with the applications of Islamic astronomy and meteorology to agriculture: he describes the astronomical and meteorological character of the sky, the planets and constellations, the sun and moon, the lunar phases indicating seasons and rain, the anwa (heavenly bodies of rain), and atmospheric phenomena such as winds, thunder, lightning, snow, floods, valleys, rivers, lakes, wells and other sources of water. He also deals with the Earth sciences in the context of agriculture: he considers the Earth, stone and sands, and describes different types of ground, indicating which types are more convenient for plants and the qualities and properties of good ground.[74]

836 – 901 [anatomy; astronomy; mathematics; mechanics] Thabit Ibn Qurra (Latinized, Thebit) studied at Baghdad’s House of Wisdom under the Banu Musa brothers. He made many contributions to mathematics, particularly in geometry and number theory. He discovered the theorem by which pairs of amicable numbers can be found; i.e., two numbers such that each is the sum of the proper divisors of the other.[71] Later, al-Baghdadi (b. 980) and al-Haytham (born 965) developed variants of the theorem.

838 – 870 – Tabari (full name: Ali ibn Sahl Rabban Al-Tabari). Medicine, Mathematics, Calligraphy, Literature.[75]

mid-800s – [chemistry] Al-Kindi writes on the distillation of wine as that of rose water and gives 107 recipes for perfumes, in his book Kitab Kimia al-`otoor wa al-tas`eedat (Book of the chemistry of perfumes and distillations).

850/858 – 929 – [astronomy – mathematics] Al-Battani (Albatenius) writes works on astronomy and trigonometry. He is mentioned twenty-three times in Copernicus’ work De revolutionibus orbium celestium (On the Revolution of Heavenly Spheres).[76]

850 – 930 [mathematics] born Abu Kamil of Egypt (full name, Abu Kamil Shuja ibn Aslam ibn Muhammad ibn Shuja) Forms an important link in the development of algebra between al-Khwarizmi and al-Karaji. Despite not using symbols, but writing powers of x in words, he had begun to understand what we would write in symbols as  .[71]

852 – [aviation, flight] Abbas Ibn Firnas (Armen Firman) made the first successful parachute fall using a huge wing-like cloak to break his fall, near Córdoba, Spain.

859 – [education] The University of Al Karaouine in Fes, Morocco, is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest academic degree-granting university in the world with its founding in 859 by the princess Fatima al-Fihri.[77]

ca. 860 – [astronomy, engineering] Al-Farghani (Algraganus) contributes to Islamic astronomy and civil engineering.

864 – 930 – [chemistry, medicine] Al-Razi (Rhazes) wrote on Naft (naphta or petroleum) and its distillates in his book Kitab sirr al-asrar (Book of the secret of secrets). When choosing a site to build Baghdad’s hospital, he hung pieces of fresh meat in different parts of the city. The location where the meat took the longest to rot was the one he chose for building the hospital. He advocated that patients not be told their real condition so that fear or despair do not affect the healing process. He wrote the earliest descriptions on alkali, caustic soda, glycerine, and he first described the modern formula for soap and invented the soap bar.[78] He also Gave descriptions of equipment, processes and methods in his book Kitab al-Asrar (Book of Secrets) in 925, and he was the first to clearly describe and differentiate between measles and smallpox. He was also a pioneer of chemotherapy[79] and antiseptics.[34]

870 – 950 – Al-Farabi (Al-Pharabius) contributes to early Islamic philosophy, early Muslim sociology, logic in Islamic philosophy, political science, and musical science.

875 – [aviation, flight] Abbas Ibn Firnas made the first recorded attempt at controlled flight employing a glider .[70]

889 – [navigation] Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad made the earliest known attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean. According to Abu al-Hasan ‘Alī al-Mas’ūdī’s The fields of gold and the mines of jewels, Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad, from Delba (Palos de la Frontera) crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 889 and returned with a shipload of valuable treasures (see Pre-Columbian Andalusian-Americas contact theories).

10th century

800 – 1000 [technology] The first wind powered gristmills and sugar refineries appear in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.[80] The first geared gristmills[81] and the on/off switch are also invented by Muslim engineers.[82] Other inventions from the Islamic world include the paned window, street lamp,[83] Mercury escapement mechanism, bridge dam and Milling dam in Iran,[84][85] diversion dam in Iraq,[84] and litter collection, waste containers and Waste disposal in Al-Andalus.[86]

800 – 1000 [drinking industry] Soft drinks,[87][88] sherbets and syrup are invented in the Islamic world.[88]

800 – 1000 The first public library and lending library are built in the Islamic world.[89] The library catalog is also invented in Islamic libraries.[90]

800 – 1300 [environmental science] The earliest known treatises dealing with environmentalism and environmental science, especially pollution, were Arabic medical treatises written by al-Kindi, Qusta ibn Luqa, al-Razi, Ibn Al-Jazzar, al-Tamimi, al-Masihi, Avicenna, Ali ibn Ridwan, Ibn Jumay, Isaac Israeli ben Solomon, Abd-el-latif, Ibn al-Quff, and Ibn al-Nafis. Their works covered a number of subjects related to pollution such as air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination, municipal solid waste mishandling, and environmental impact assessments of certain localities.[91] Cordoba, al-Andalus also had the first 800 – 1300 [medicine, urology] In sexual health, Muslim physicians and pharmacists identified the issues of sexual dysfunction and erectile dysfunction, and they were the first to prescribe medication for the treatment of these problems. They developed several methods of therapy for this issue, including the single drug method where a drug is prescribed, and a “combination method of either a drug or food.” These drugs were also occasionally used for recreational drug use to improve male sexuality in general by those who did not suffer from sexual dysfunctions. Most of these drugs were oral medication, though a few patients were also treated through topical and transurethral means. Sexual dysfunctions were being treated with tested drugs in the Islamic world since the 9th century until the 16th century by a number of Muslim physicians and pharmacists, including Ibn Al-Jazzar, Al-Razi, Thabit bin Qurra, Avicenna (The Canon of Medicine), Averroes, Ibn al-Baitar, and Ibn al-Nafis (The Comprehensive Book on Medicine).[93]

865 – 925 [chemistry, medicine] Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes), in his Doubts about Galen, was the first to prove both Aristotle’s theory of classical elements and Galen’s theory of humorism wrong using an experimental method. He carried out an experiment which would upset these theories by inserting a liquid with a different temperature into a body resulting in an increase or decrease of bodily heat, which resembled the temperature of that particular fluid. Al-Razi noted particularly that a warm drink would heat up the body to a degree much higher than its own natural temperature, thus the drink would trigger a response from the body, rather than transferring only its own warmth or coldness to it. Al-Razi’s chemical experiments further suggested other qualities of matter, such as “oiliness” and “sulfurousness”, or inflammability and salinity, which were not readily explained by the traditional fire, water, earth and air division of elements.[94]

858 – 1048 [astronomical instruments] The first reference to an “observation tube” is found in the work of Al-Battani, and the first exact description of the observation tube was given by al-Biruni, in a section of his work that is “dedicated to verifying the presence of the new cresent on the horizon.” Though these early observation tubes did not have lenses, they “enabled an observer to focus on a part of the sky by eliminating light interference.” These observation tubes were later adopted in Latin-speaking Europe, where they influenced the development of the telescope.[95]

865 – 925 [chemical technology] Kerosene was produced from the distillation of petroleum and was first described by al-Razi (Rhazes) in Baghdad. In his Kitab al-Asrar (Book of Secrets), he described two methods for the production of kerosene. One method involved using clay as an absorbent, while the other method involved using ammonium chloride (sal ammoniac). Al-Razi also described the first kerosene lamps (naffatah) used for heating and lighting in his Kitab al-Asrar (Book of Secrets). These were used in the oil lamp industry.[96]

865 – 925 [alchemy] Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi writes that the only vegetable substance used by Muslim alchemists are the ashes of the Ushnan plant, from which they produced alkali metals and alkali salts. Razi also lists ten animal substances that were used by him and his contemporary alchemists: hair, skulls, brains, bile, blood, milk, urine, eggs, nacre (mother of pearl) and horn. He writes that hair, brains, bile, eggs, skulls and blood were used to prepare sal ammoniac.[49]

865 – 925 [chemical processes] Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi first described the following chemical processes: calcination (al-tashwiya).[48][29] solution (al-tahlil), sublimation (al-tas’id), amalgamation (al-talghim), ceration (al-tashmi), and a method of converting a substance into a thick paste or fusible solid.[48]

900s – [mathematics, accounting] By this century, three systems of counting are used in the Arab world. Finger-reckoning arithmetic, with numerals written entirely in words, used by the business community; the sexagesimal system, a remnant originating with the Babylonians, with numerals denoted by letters of the arabic alphabet and used by Arab mathematicians in astronomical work; and the Hindu-Arabic numeral system, which was used with various sets of symbols.[71] Its arithmetic at first required the use of a dust board (a sort of handheld blackboard) because “the methods required moving the numbers around in the calculation and rubbing some out as the calculation proceeded.” Al-Uqlidisi (born 920) modified these methods for pen and paper use.[71] Eventually the advances enabled by the decimal system led to its standard use throughout the region and the world.

900s – [technology] The first milling factory is built in Baghdad.[97]

900s – [astronomy, mathematics, technology] The cartographic grid is invented in Baghdad,[98] and graph paper is also invented in the Islamic world.[99][100][101]

900s – Muslim astronomers also invent the almucantar quadrant,[102] navigational astrolabe,[103] vertical sundial, and polar sundial.[104]

900s – [chemistry] Shaving soap is invented by Arabic chemists.

900s – [medicine] Alcohol is first employed for medical uses by Arabic physicians.[34]

800 – 1000 – Muslim engineers invented a variety of surveying instruments for accurate levelling, including: a wooden board with a plumb line and two hooks, an equilateral triangle with a plumb line and two hooks, and a “reed level”. They also invented a rotating alhidade used for accurate alignment, and a surveying astrolabe used for alignment, measuring angles, triangulation, finding the width of a river, and the distance between two points separated by an impassable obstruction.[105]

903 – 986 – [astronomical instruments] Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (Latinized name, Azophi) first described over 1,000 different uses of an astrolabe, in areas as diverse as astronomy, astrology, horoscopes, navigation, surveying, timekeeping, Qibla, Salah prayer, etc.[106]

964 – [astronomy] Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi writes the Book of Fixed Stars, a star catalogue thoroughly illustrated with observations and descriptions of the stars, their positions, their apparent magnitudes and their colour. He identified the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is visible from Yemen, though not from Isfahan; it was not seen by Europeans until Magellan’s voyage in the 16th century. [107][108] He also made earliest recorded observation of the Andromeda Galaxy in 964 AD; describing it as a “small cloud”.[109] He also catalogued the Omicron Velorum star cluster as a “nebulous star”, and an additional “nebulous object” in Vulpecula, a cluster now variously known as Al Sufi’s Cluster, the “Coathanger asterism”, Brocchi’s Cluster or Collinder 399.

909 – 950 [ceramics, pottery] The Hispano-Moresque style of Islamic pottery emerged in Andalusia under the Fatimids.

920 [mathematics] Born al-Uqlidisi. Modified arithmetic methods for the Indian numeral system to make it possible for pen and paper use. Until then, doing calculations with the Indian numerals necessitated the use of a dust board as noted earlier.

927 – 928 – [astronomical instruments] The earliest surviving example of an astrolabe is dated 315 AH in the Islamic calendar.

936 – 1013 [medicine] Al-Zahrawi (Latinized name, Albucasis) Surgery, Medicine. Called the “Father of Modern Surgery.”[75]

940 – 997 [astronomy; mathematics] Muhammad Al-Buzjani. Mathematics, Astronomy, Geometry, Trigonometry.

940 [mathematics] Born Abu’l-Wafa al-Buzjani. Wrote several treatises using the finger-counting system of arithmetic, and was also an expert on the Indian numerals system. About the Indian system he wrote: “[it] did not find application in business circles and among the population of the Eastern Caliphate for a long time.”[71] Using the Indian numeral system, abu’l Wafa was able to extract roots.

945 – 1000 [cuisine] Some of the earliest restaurants came into existence through the medieval Islamic world at this time. The Islamic world had “restaurants where one could purchase all sorts of prepared dishes.” These restaurants were mentioned by Al-Muqaddasi (born 945) in the late 10th century.[110]

953 [mathematics] Born al-Karaji of Karaj and Baghdad (full name, Abu Bekr ibn Muhammad ibn al-Husayn Al-Karaji or al-Karkhi). Believed to be the “first person to completely free algebra from geometrical operations and to replace them with the arithmetical type of operations which are at the core of algebra today. He was first to define the monomials x, x2, x3, … and 1 / x, 1 / x2, 1 / x3, … and to give rules for products of any two of these. He started a school of algebra which flourished for several hundreds of years”.[71] Discovered the binomial theorem for integer exponents. This “was a major factor in the development of numerical analysis based on the decimal system.”[71]

953 [technology] The earliest historical record of a reservoir fountain pen dates back to 953, when Ma’ād al-Mu’izz, the caliph of Egypt, demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes, and was provided with a pen which held ink in a reservoir and delivered it to the nib via gravity and capillary action, as recorded by Qadi al-Nu’man al-Tamimi (d. 974) in his Kitdb al-Majalis wa’l-musayardt.[111][112]

957 [geography; cartography; exploration; chemistry] died Abul Hasan Ali Al-Masudi, best known as a cartographer, was also a traveler historian, etc. Al-mas`oudi described his visit to the oilfields of Baku. Wrote on the reaction of alkali water with zaj (vitriol) water giving sulfuric acid.

965 – 1040 [mathematics; optics; physics] Born ibn al-Haitham (full name, ; Latinized name, Alhazen). Possibly the first to classify all even perfect numbers (i.e., numbers equal to the sum of their proper divisors) as those of the form 2k − 1(2k − 1) where 2k − 1 is prime number.[71] Al-Haytham is also the first person to state Wilson’s theorem. if p is prime than 1 + (p − 1)! is divisible by p. “It is called Wilson’s theorem because of a comment by Waring in 1770 that John Wilson had noticed the result. There is no evidence that Wilson knew how to prove it. It was over 750 years later that Lagrange gave the first known proof to the statement in 1771.![71] “Haytham in the tenth-eleventh century wrote a scathing critique of Ptolemy’s work: ‘Ptolemy assumed an arrangement that cannot exist, and the fact that this arrangement produces in his imagination the motions that belong to the planets does not free him from the error he committed in his assumed arrangement, for the existing motions of the planets cannot be the result of an arrangement that is impossible to exist’.”[113]

972 – 1058 [humanities] Al-Mawardi (Alboacen) Political science, Sociology, Jurisprudence, Ethics.

975 – [education] Al-Azhar University, founded in Cairo, Egypt, was a Jami’ah (“university” in Arabic) which offered a variety of post-graduate academic degrees (ijazah),[64] and had individual faculties[114] for a theological seminary, Islamic law and Islamic jurisprudence, Arabic grammar, Islamic astronomy, early Islamic philosophy and logic in Islamic philosophy.[64]

975 – 1075 – [ceramics, pottery] Fustat becomes a center for innovative Islamic pottery and ceramics.[115]

980 [mathematics] Born al-Baghdadi (full name, ). Studied a slight variant of Thabit ibn Qurra’s theorem on amicable numbers.[71] Al-Baghdadi also wrote texts comparing the three systems of counting and arithmetic used in the region during this period. Made improvements on the decimal system.

981 – 1037 [astronomy; mathematics; medicine; philosophy] Ibn Sina (Avicenna); Medicine, Philosophy, Mathematics, Astronomy. Is considered to be the father of modern medicine

994 – [astronomy, engineering] Abu-Mahmud al-Khujandi constructs the first astronomical sextant in Ray, Iran.

996 – [astronomy, engineering] The geared mechanical astrolabe, featuring eight gear-wheels, is invented by Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī.[116]

11th century

c. 1000 – [medicine, ophthalmology] Ammar ibn Ali of Mosul writes the Choice of Eye Diseases, a landmark text on ophthalmology in medieval Islam. In cataract surgery, He attempted the earliest extraction of cataracts using suction. He invented a hollow metallic syringe hypodermic needle, which he applied through the sclerotic and successfully extracted the cataracts through suction. He discovered the technique of cataract extraction while experimenting with his hypodermic needle invention on a patient.[117][118]

c. 1000 – [physics, mathematics] Abu Sahl al-Quhi (Kuhi), discovers that the heaviness of bodies vary with their distance from the center of the Earth, and solves equations higher than the second degree.

c. 1000 – [mathematics] Abu-Mahmud al-Khujandi first states a special case of Fermat’s last theorem.

c. 1000 – [mathematics] Law of sines is discovered by Muslim mathematicians, but it is uncertain who discovers it first between Abu-Mahmud al-Khujandi, Abu Nasr Mansur, and Abu al-Wafa.

1000 – [mathematics] Al-Karaji writes a book containing the first known proofs by mathematical induction. He who used it to prove the binomial theorem, Pascal’s triangle, and the sum of integral cubes.[119] He was “the first who introduced the theory of algebraic calculus.”[120]

1000 – [medicine, surgery, engineering] Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis), the father of modern surgery, publishes his 30-volume medical encyclopedia, the Kitab al-Tasrif, which remains a standard textbook in Muslim and European universities until the 16th century. The book first introduced many surgical instruments, including the first instruments unique to women,[121] as well as the surgical uses of catgut and forceps, the ligature, surgical needle, curette, retractor, surgical spoon, sound, surgical hook, surgical rod, specula,[122] lithotomy scalpel,[123] and bone saw.[23] He also invented the plaster[124] cotton dressing,[125] oral anaesthesia, inhalational anaesthetic, and anaesthetic sponge.[126]

1000s – [glass] Clear glass mirrors were being produced in al-Andalus.[34]

1000s – [civil engineering] Cobwork (tabya) first appeared in the Maghreb and al-Andalus in the 11th century, and was later described in detail by Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century, who regarded it as a characteristically Muslim practice. Cobwork later spread to other parts of Europe from the 12th century onwards.[127]

1000s – [mechincal technology] In Al-Andalus, Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi invents complex gearing, Epicyclic gearing, segmental gearing, and the geared mechanical clock. Muslim engineers also invent the Weight-driven mechanical clock.[27]

c. 1000 – 1009 – [physics, engineering] Ibn Yunus publishes his astronomical treatise Al-Zij al-Hakimi al-Kabir in Egypt. It contains the earliest desciption of a pendulum.[128] He also constructs the first monumental astrolabe.[129]

1000 – 1020 – [astronomy, engineering] Al-Sijzi invents the Zuraqi, a unique astrolabe designed for a heliocentric planetary model in which the Earth is moving rather than the sky.[130]

1000 – 1030 – [biology] – Ibn Miskawayh discusses ideas on evolution.

1000 – 1031 – [astronomy] Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī was the first to conduct elaborate experiments related to astronomical phenomena. He discovered the Milky Way galaxy to be a collection of numerous nebulous stars.[131]

1000 – 1037 – [mechanics, physics] Ibn al-Haytham discusses the theory of attraction between masses, and it seems that he was aware of the magnitude of acceleration due to gravity. Ibn al-Haytham also discovered the law of inertia, known as Newton’s first law of motion, when he stated that a body moves perpetually unless an external force stops it or changes its direction of motion.[132]

1000 – 1037 – [alchemy, chemistry, engineering] Avicenna criticizes the theory of the transmutation of metals.[133] He also invents the chemical process of steam distillation and extracts the first fragrances and essential oils as a result, for use in aromatherapy and the drinking and perfumery industries.[134] He also invents the air thermometer for use in his laboratory experiments.[135]

1000 – 1037 – [mechanics, physics] Avicenna, the father of the fundamental concept of momentum in physics,[136] discovered the concept of momentum, when he referred to impetus as being proportional to weight times velocity, a precursor to the concept of momentum in Newton’s second law of motion. His theory of motion was also consistent with the concept of inertia in Newton’s first law of motion.[137]

1000 – 1038 – [astronomy, physics] Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen), in his Epitome of Astronomy, was the first to insist that the heavenly bodies “were accountable to the laws of physics”.[138]

1000 – 1038 – [biology] Ibn al-Haytham writes a book in which he argues for evolutionism.

1000 – 1048 – [alchemy, chemistry] Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī criticizes the theory of the transmutation of metals.[139]

1000 – 1048 – [anthropology, Indology, history] Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, considered “the first anthropologist”[140] and the father of Indology,[141] wrote detailed comparative studies on the anthropology of peoples, religions and cultures in the Middle East, Mediterranean and South Asia. Biruni’s anthropology of religion was only possible for a scholar deeply immersed in the lore of other nations.[142] Biruni has also been praised for his Islamic anthropology.[143]

1000 – 1048 – [earth sciences, Indology, geodesy, geology] Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, who is considered the father of Indology, the father of geodesy, one of the first geologists, and an influential geographer, hypothesized that India was once covered by the Indian Ocean while observing rock formations at the mouths of rivers,[144] introduced techniques to measure the Earth and distances on it using triangulation, and measured the radius of the Earth as 6339.6 km, the most accurate up until the 16th century.[145] He also determines the Earth’s circumference.

1000 – 1048 – [engineering, mechanics, physics] Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī was the first to realize that acceleration is connected with non-uniform motion.[145] He also invents the laboratory flask, pycnometer,[146] and conical measure.[147]

1000 – 1121 – [mechanics, physics] Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, and later al-Khazini, were the first to apply experimental scientific methods to mechanics, especially the fields of statics and dynamics, particularly for determining specific weights, such as those based on the theory of balances and weighing. Muslim physicists unified statics and dynamics into the science of mechanics, and they combined the fields of hydrostatics with dynamics to give birth to hydrodynamics. They applied the mathematical theories of ratios and infinitesimal techniques, and introduced algebraic and fine calculation techniques into the field of statics. They were also generalized the theory of the centre of gravity and applied it to three-dimensional bodies. They also founded the theory of the ponderable lever and created the “science of gravity” which was later further developed in medieval Europe.[148]

1019 – [astronomy, technology] In Afghanistan, Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī observed and described the solar eclipse on April 8, 1019, and the lunar eclipse on September 17, 1019, in detail, and gave the exact latitudes of the stars during the lunar eclipse.[131] He also invents the Orthographical astrolabe[149] and the planisphere, which was the earliest star chart.[150][149] He also invents a geared mechanical lunisolar calendar analog computer with gear train and eight gear-wheels,[145] an early example of a fixed-wired knowledge processing machine.[151]

1020 – [astronomical instruments] The geared mechanical astrolabe is perfected by Ibn Samh in Al-Andalus. These can be considered as an ancestor of the mechanical clock.[152]

1021 – [optics, physics, engineering, mathematics, ophthalmology, psychology, scientific method, surgery] Ibn al-Haytham, who is considered the father of optics, the pioneer of the scientific method, the “first scientist”,[153] and the founder of psychophysics and experimental psychology, completes his Book of Optics, which has been ranked alongside Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica as one of the most influential books ever written in the history of physics.[154] The book drastically transformed the understanding of light and vision, and introduced the experimental scientific method, hence the book is considered the root of experimental physics. It correctly explained and proved the modern intromission theory of vision, and described experiments on lenses, mirrors, refraction, reflection, and the dispersion of light into its constituent colours.[155] It also explained binocular vision and the moon illusion, speculated on the finite speed, rectilinear propagation and electromagnetic aspects of light,[156] first stated Fermat’s principle of least time, described an early version of Snell’s law, and argued that rays of light are streams of energy particles[157] travelling in straight lines.[158] The book also contains the earliest discussions and descriptions on psychophysics and experimental psychology,[159] the psychology of visual perception,[160] phenomenology, and the inventions of the pinhole camera, camera obscura,[161] and parabolic mirror. In mathematics, the book formulated and solved “Alhazen’s problem” geometrically, and developed and proved the earliest general formula for infinitesimal and integral calculus using mathematical induction. In medicine and ophthalmology, the book also made important advances in eye surgery, as it correctly explained the process of sight and visual perception for the first time.[121] The work also had an influence on the use of optical aids in Renaissance art and the development of the telescope and microscope.[162]

1021 – [glass, scientific instruments] In the Book of Optics, Ibn al-Haytham develops the following scientific instruments: magnifying glass,[163] parabolic mirror, spherical mirror,[132] concave mirror, convex mirror,[164] pinhole camera, and camera obscura.[165]

1021 – 1037 – [optics, physics] Avicenna “observed that if the perception of light is due to the emission of some sort of particles by a luminous source, the speed of light must be finite.”[166] He also provided a sophisticated explanation for the rainbow phenomenon.[167]

1021 – 1048 – Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī stated that light has a finite speed, and he was the first to discover that the speed of light is much faster than the speed of sound.[145]

1025 – [medicine, pathology, physiology] Avicenna (Ibn Sina), who is considered the father of modern medicine and one of the greatest thinkers and medical scholars in history,[30] publishes his 14-volume medical encyclopedia, The Canon of Medicine, which remains a standard textbook in Muslim and European universities until the 17th century. The book’s contributions to medicine includes the introduction of systematic experimentation and quantification in the study of physiology,[168] the discovery of contagious diseases, the distinction of mediastinitis from pleurisy, the contagious nature of phthisis, the distribution of diseases by water and soil, the first careful descriptions of skin troubles, sexually transmitted diseases, perversions, and nervous ailments,[30] the use of ice to treat fevers, the separation of medicine from pharmacology (important to the development of the pharmaceutical sciences),[121] the introduction of quarantine to limit the spread of contagious diseases, and the introduction of evidence-based medicine, experimental medicine,[169] clinical trials,[170] randomized controlled trials,[171][172] efficacy tests,[173][174] clinical pharmacology,[175] neuropsychiatry,[176] physiological psychology,[39] risk factor analysis, and the idea of a syndrome in the diagnosis of specific diseases.[177] The Canon is also considered the first pharmacopoeia.[178][179]

1025 – [medicine, pathology] In The Canon of Medicine, Avicenna is the first to carry out cancer therapy. He recognized cancer as a tumor and noted that a “cancerous tumour progressively increases in size, is destructive and spreads roots which insinuate themselves amongst the tissue elements.” He also attempted the earliest known treatments for cancer. One method he discovered was the “Hindiba”, a herbal compound drug which Ibn al-Baitar later identified as having “anticancer” properties and which could also treat other tumors and neoplastic disorders.[180] After recognizing its usefulness in treating neoplastic disorders, Hindiba was patented in 1997 by Nil Sari, Hanzade Dogan, and John K. Snyder.[181] Another method for treating cancer first described by Avicenna was a surgical treatment. He stated that the excision should be radical and that all diseased tissue should be removed, which included the use of amputation or the removal of veins running in the direction of the tumor. He also recommended the use of cauterization for the area being treated if necessary.[125] Avicenna’s Canon was also the first to describe the symptoms of esophageal cancer and the first to refer to it as “cancer of the esophagus.”[182] Hirudotherapy, the use of medicinal leech for medical purposes, was also introduced by Avicenna in The Canon of Medicine. He considered the application of leech to be more useful than cupping in “letting off the blood from deeper parts of the body.” He also introduced the use of leech as treatment for skin disease. Leech therapy became a popular method in medieval Europe due to the influence of his Canon.[183] In phytotherapy, Avicenna also introduced the medicinal use of Taxus baccata L. He named this herbal drug as “Zarnab” and used it as a cardiac remedy. This was the first known use of a calcium channel blocker drug, which were not used in the Western world until the 1960s.[184]

1025 – 1028 – [astronomy] Ibn al-Haytham, in his Doubts on Ptolemy, criticizes Ptolemy’s astronomical system for relating actual physical motions to imaginary mathematical points, lines, and circles.

1027 – [arithmetic, astronomy, earth sciences, geology, geometry, logic, mathematics, music, natural sciences, philosophy, psychology] Avicenna (Ibn Sina) writes one of the first scientific encyclopedias, The Book of Healing. Its contributions include nine volumes on Avicennian logic; eight on the natural sciences; four on the quadrivium of arithmetic, astronomy, geometry and music; a number of volumes on early Islamic philosophy, Islamic mathematics, metaphysics and psychology;[185] the astronomical theory that Venus is closer to Earth than the Sun; and a geological hypothesis on two causes of mountains.[186]

1028 – 1087 – [astronomy, engineering] Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī (Arzachel) invents the “Saphaea”, the first universal latitude-independent astrolabe which did not depend on the latitude of the observer and could be used anywhere. He also invents the equatorium, a mechanical analog computer device,[187] and he discovers that the orbits of the planets are ellipses and not circles.[188]

1029 – [chemistry, technology] The purification process for potassium nitrate (saltpetre; natrun or barud in Arabic) was first described by the Muslim chemist Ibn Bakhtawayh in his Al-Muqaddimat.[189]

1030 – [astronomy] Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī discussed the Indian planetary theories of Aryabhata, Brahmagupta and Varahamihira in his Ta’rikh al-Hind (Latinized as Indica). Biruni stated that Brahmagupta and others consider that the earth rotates on its axis and Biruni noted that this does not create any mathematical problems.[190]

1030 – 1048 – [astronomy] Abu Said Sinjari suggested the possible heliocentric movement of the Earth around the Sun, which Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī did not reject.[191] Al-Biruni agreed with the Earth’s rotation about its own axis, and while he was initially neutral regarding the heliocentric and geocentric models,[192] he considered heliocentrism to be a philosophical problem.[193] He remarked that if the Earth rotates on its axis and moves around the Sun, it would remain consistent with his astronomical parameters.[149]

1031 – [astronomy] Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī completes his extensive astronomical encyclopaedia Canon Mas’udicus,[194] in which he records his astronomical findings and formulates astronomical tables. It presents a geocentric model, tabulating the distance of all the celestial spheres from the central Earth.[195] The book introduces the mathematical technique of analysing the acceleration of the planets, and first states that the motions of the solar apogee and the precession are not identical. Al-Biruni also discovered that the distance between the Earth and the Sun is larger than Ptolemy’s estimate, on the basis that Ptolemy disregarded the annual solar eclipses. Al-Biruni also described the Earth’s gravitation as “the attraction of all things towards the centre of the earth.”[149]

1038 – [astronomy] Ibn al-Haytham described the first non-Ptolemaic configuration in The Model of the Motions. His reform excluded cosmology, as he developed a systematic study of celestial kinematics that was completely geometric. This in turn led to innovative developments in infinitesimal geometry.[196] His reformed model was the first to reject the equant[197] and eccentrics,[198] free celestial kinematics from cosmology, and reduce physical entities to geometrical entities. The model also propounded the Earth’s rotation about its axis,[199] and the centres of motion were geometrical points without any physical significance, like Johannes Kepler’s model centuries later.[200]

1038 – 1075 – [engineering] Ibn Bassal invents the flywheel in al-Andalus, and he first employs it in a Noria and a Saqiya chain pump.[201]

1044 or 1048 – 1123 [mathematics, literature] Omar Khayyám, a mathematician and poet, “gave a complete classification of cubic equations with geometric solutions found by means of intersecting conic sections. Khayyam also wrote that he hoped to give a full description of the algebraic solution of cubic equations in a later work: ‘If the opportunity arises and I can succeed, I shall give all these fourteen forms with all their branches and cases, and how to distinguish whatever is possible or impossible so that a paper, containing elements which are greatly useful in this art will be prepared’.”[71] He later became the first to find general geometric solutions of cubic equations and laid the foundations for the development of analytic geometry and non-Euclidean geometry. He extracted roots using the decimal system (Hindu-Arabic numeral system). He is well-known for his poetic work Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, but there is dispute whether the Maqamat, a famous diwan of poetry translated to English are actually his work.

1058 – 1111 [law; theology] Al-Ghazali (Algazel), judge and prolific thinker and writer on topics such as sociology, theology and philosophy. He critiqued the philosophers Avicenna and al-Farabi in The Incoherence of the Philosophers. Wrote extensive expositions on Islamic tenets and foundations of jurisprudence. Also critiqued the Muslim scholastics (al-mutakallimun.) Was associated with sufism but he later critiqued it as well.

1070 – [astronomy] Abu Ubayd al-Juzjani proposed a non-Ptolemaic configuration in his Tarik al-Aflak. In his work, he indicated the so-called “equant” problem of the Ptolemic model, and proposed a solution for the problem.

1085 – 1099 – [related] First wave of devastation of Muslim resources, lives, properties, institutions, and infrastructure over a period of one hundred years: Fall of Muslim Toledo (1085), Malta (1090), Sicily (1091) and Jerusalem (1099). This was followed by several Crusades from 1095 to 1291.

1087 – [astronomy] Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī publishes the Almanac of Azarqueil, the first almanac. The entries found in the almanac “give directly the positions of the celestial bodies and need no further computation”. The work provided the true daily positions of the sun, moon and planets for four years from 1088 to 1092, as well as many other related tables. A Latin translation and adaptation of the work appeared as the Tables of Toledo in the 12th century and the Alfonsine tables in the 13th century.[202][203]

1091 – [education] Another early university, the Al-Nizamiyya of Baghdad, was founded, and is considered the “largest university of the Medieval world”.[204]

12th century

See also: Latin translations of the 12th century

1100s – [engineering] The ventilator is invented in Egypt.[205] The bridge mill,[85] hydropowered forge and finery forge are also invented in Al-Andalus.[80] The war machine is also invented in Turkey.[206]

1100s – [astronomical instruments] The astrolabic quadrant is invented in Egypt.[207]

1100s – [chemistry, military technology] The Seljuqs had facilities in Sivas for manufacturing war machines.[206]

1100 – 1138 – [astronomy] Ibn Bajjah (Avempace) develops the first planetary model without any epicycles, as an alternative to Ptolemy’s model.

1100 – 1138 – [mechanics, physics] Ibn Bajjah (Avempace) is the first to state that there is always a reaction force for every force exerted, a precursor to Gottfried Leibniz’s idea of force which underlies Newton’s third law of motion.[208] His theory of motion later has an important influence on later physicists like Galileo Galilei.[209]

1100 – 1150 – [astronomical instruments] Jabir ibn Aflah (Geber) invents the torquetum, an observational instrument and mechanical analog computer device used to transform between spherical coordinate systems.[210] He also invents the celestial globe, being “the first to design a portable celestial sphere to measure and explain the movements of celestial objects.”[211]

1100 – 1161 – [anatomy, anesthesiology, biology, medicine, physiology, surgery] Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) invents the surgical procedure of tracheotomy in al-Andalus.[212] During his biomedical research, Ibn Zuhr is also one of the earliest physician known to have carried out human dissections and postmortem autopsy. 

As a pioneer in parasitology, he proves that the skin disease scabies is caused by a parasite, which contradicted the erroneous theory of humorism supported by Hippocrates, Galen and Avicenna. The removal of the parasite from the patient’s body did not involve purging, bleeding or any other traditional treatments associated with the four humours.[213] His works show that he was often highly critical of previous medical authorities, including Avicenna’s The Canon of Medicine.[214] He was one of the first physicians to reject the erroneous theory of four humours, which dates back to Hippocrates and Galen. Avenzoar also confirmed the presence of blood in the body. He was also the first to give a correct description of the tracheotomy operation for suffocating patients, and the first to provide a real scientific etiology for the inflammatory diseases of the ear, and the first to clearly discuss the causes of stridor.[215] Modern anesthesia was also developed in al-Andalus by the Muslim anesthesiologists Ibn Zuhr and Abulcasis. They were the first to utilize oral as well as inhalant anesthetics, and they performed hundreds of surgeries under inhalant anesthesia with the use of narcotic-soaked sponges which were placed over the face.[34][126]

1100 – 1161 – [medicine, pharmacopoeia] Ibn Zuhr writes The Method of Preparing Medicines and Diet, in which he performed the first parenteral nutrition of humans with a silver needle. He also wrote an early pharmacopoeia, which later became the first Arabic book to be printed with a movable type in 1491.[216] Ibn Zuhr (and other Muslim physicians such as al-Kindi, Ibn Sahl, Abulcasis, al-Biruni, Avicenna, Averroes, Ibn al-Baitar, Ibn Al-Jazzar and Ibn al-Nafis) also developed drug therapy and medicinal drugs for the treatment of specific symptoms and diseases. His use of practical experience and careful observation was extensive.[34]

1100 – 1165 – [mechanics, physics] Hibat Allah Abu’l-Barakat al-Baghdaadi writes a critique of Aristotelian philosophy and Aristotelian physics entitled al-Mu’tabar. He is the first to negate Aristotle’s idea that a constant force produces uniform motion, as he realizes that a force applied continuously produces acceleration, which is considered “the fundamental law of classical mechanics” and an early foreshadowing of Newton’s second law of motion.[217] Like Newton, he described acceleration as the rate of change of velocity.[218]

1100 – 1166 [cartography, geography] Muhammad al-Idrisi, aka Idris al-Saqalli aka al-sharif al-idrissi of Andalusia and Sicily, also known as Dreses in Latin. Among his works are a world map and the first known globe. He is said to draw the first correct map of the world “lawh al-tarsim” (plank of draught). His maps were used extensively during the explorations of the era of European renaissance. Roger II of Sicily commemorated his world map on a circle of silver weighing about 400 pounds. Works include Nozhat al-mushtaq fi ikhtiraq al-&agrav;faq dedicated to Roger II of Sicily, which is a compendium of the geographic and sociologic knowledge of his time as well as descriptions of his own travels illustrated with over seventy maps; Kharitat al-`alam al-ma`mour min al-ard (Map of the inhabited regions of the earth) wherein he divided the world into 7 regions, the first extending from the equator to 23 degrees latitude, and the seventh being from 54 to 63 degrees followed by a region uninhabitable due to cold and snow.

1100 – 1600 – [ceramics, pottery] Damascus becomes a center for innovative Islamic pottery and ceramics.[115]

waste containers and waste disposal facilities for litter collection.[92]

1105 – 1200 [astronomy] Ibn Tufail (Abubacer) and al-Betrugi (Alpetragius) are the first to propose planetary models without any equant, epicycles or eccentrics. Al-Betrugi was also the first to discover that the planets are self-luminous.[219]

1106 – 1138 [polymath] Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Yahya (Ibn Bajjah or Avempace) writes books on philosophy, medicine, mathematics, poetry, and music.

1110 – 1185 [literature, philosophy] Abdubacer Ibn Tufayl of Spain. Philosophy, medicine, poetry, fiction. His most famous work is Hayy ibn Yaqzan, which is a spiritual investigation into the reality of the world narrated by a man who was raised from infancy by a roe or gazelle on a desert island. This work later had a strong influence on early Islamic philosophy, Arabic literature, European literature, the Scientific Revolution, and modern philosophy.

1115 – 1116 [astronomy, engineering] Al-Khazini wrote the Sinjaric Tables, in which he gave a description of his construction of a 24 hour water clock designed for astronomical purposes, an early example of an astronomical clock, and the positions of 46 stars computed for the year 500 AH (1115-1116 CE). He also computed tables for the observation of celestial bodies at the latitude of Merv.[220][221][222] The Sinjaric Tables was later translated into Greek by Gregory Choniades in the 13th century and was studied in the Byzantine Empire.[223]

1115 – 1130 [astronomy, biology, chemistry, evolution] Al-Khazini’s Treatise on Instruments has seven parts describing different scientific instruments: the triquetrum, dioptra, a triangular instrument he invented, the quadrant and sextant, the astrolabe, and original instruments involving reflection.[224] He also wrote another work on evolution in chemistry and biology, and how they were perceived by natural philosophers and common people in the Islamic world at the time. He wrote that there were many Muslims who believed that humans evolved from apes.[225]

1118 – 1174 – [education, medicine] Al-Nuri hospital in Egypt was a famous teaching hospital built by Nur ad-Din Zanqi, and was where many renowned physicians were taught. The hospital’s medical school is said had elegant rooms, and a library which many of its books were donated by Zangi’s physician, Abu al-Majid al-Bahili.[226]

1121 – [astronomy, astrophysics, engineering, mechanics, physics] Al-Khazini publishes The Book of the Balance of Wisdom, in which he is the first to propose that the gravity and gravitational potential energy of a body varies depending on its distance from the centre of the Earth. This phenomenon is not proven until Newton’s law of universal gravitation centuries later. Al-Khazini is also one of the first to clearly differentiate between force, mass, and weight, and he shows awareness of the weight of the air and of its decrease in density with altitude, and discovers that there is greater density of water when nearer to the Earth’s centre.[227] He also invents several scientific instruments, including the steelyard and hydrostatic balance.[228] Al-Biruni and al-Khazini were also the first to apply experimental scientific methods to the fields of statics and dynamics, particularly for determining specific weights, such as those based on the theory of balances and weighing. He and his Muslim predecessors unified statics and dynamics into the science of mechanics, and they combined the fields of hydrostatics with dynamics to give birth to hydrodynamics. They applied the mathematical theories of ratios and infinitesimal techniques, and introduced algebraic and fine calculation techniques into the field of statics. They were also the first to generalize the theory of the centre of gravity and the first to apply it to three-dimensional bodies. They also founded the theory of the ponderable lever and created the “science of gravity” which was later further developed in medieval Europe. The contributions of al-Khazini and his Muslim predecessors to mechanics laid the foundations for the later development of classical mechanics in Renaissance Europe.[229]

1126 – 1198 – [mechanics, physics] Averroes (Ibn Rushd) is the first to define and measure force as “the rate at which work is done in changing the kinetic condition of a material body”[230] and the first to correctly argue “that the effect and measure of force is change in the kinetic condition of a materially resistant mass.”[231]

1126 – 1198 – [astronomy] Averroes rejects the eccentric deferents introduced by Ptolemy. He rejects the Ptolemaic model and instead argues for a strictly concentric model of the universe.[232]

1128 – 1198 – [philosophy, law, medicine, astronomy, theology] Averroes writes books on philosophy, law, medicine, astronomy, and theology.

1130 – [mathematics] Born al-Samawal. An important member of al-Karaji’s school of algebra. Gave this definition of algebra: “[it is concerned] with operating on unknowns using all the arithmetical tools, in the same way as the arithmetician operates on the known.”[71]

1135 – [mathematics] Born Sharafeddin Tusi. Follows al-Khayyam’s application of algebra of geometry, rather than follow the general development that came through al-Karaji’s school of algebra. Wrote a treatise on cubic equations which “represents an essential contribution to another algebra which aimed to study curves by means of equations, thus inaugurating the beginning of algebraic geometry.”[73][71]

1135 – 1200 – [astronomy, engineering] Sharaf al-Dīn al-Tūsī invents the linear astrolabe (staff of al-Tusi).[233]

1150 – [telecommunication] The use of homing pigeons is introduced in Iraq and Syria.[234]

1154 – [engineering] Al-Kaysarani invents the striking clock in Syria.[235]

1187 – [military technology] Mardi bin Ali al-Tarsusi invents the counterweight trebuchet[236][237] and the mangonel.[238]

13th century

1200s – [chemistry] Al-Jawbari describes the preparation of rose water in the Book of Selected Disclosure of Secrets (Kitab kashf al-Asrar).

1200s – [chemistry; materials, glassmaking] Arabic manuscript on the manufacture of false gemstones and diamonds. Also describes spirits of alum, spirits of saltpetre and spirits of salts (hydrochloric acid).

1200s – [chemistry] An Arabic manuscript written in Syriac script gives description of various chemical materials found in the galapogas islands and their properties such as sulfuric acid, sal-ammoniac, saltpetre and zaj (vitriol).

1201 – 1274 – [astronomy; mathematics] Nasir Al-Din Al-Tusi; Astronomy, Non-Euclidean geometry.

1204 – [astronomy] Died, Al-Bitruji (Alpetragius.)

1206 – [engineering, mechanics, technology] Al-Jazari, the father of modern-day engineering and the father of robotics, publishes The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, in which he authors fifty inventions, including the combination lock, mechanical clocks driven by hydropower and weights, bolted joint lock,[61] clock automaton, flow control regulator, closed-loop system, elephant clock, kitchen appliance, cam, camshaft,[239] connecting rod, crank-connecting rod mechanism,[240] suction pipe, suction piston pump with reciprocating piston motion and double-action motion,[241] programmable humanoid robot,[242] automatic gate,[243] pointer,[243][61] and geared and hydropowered water supply system.[243] and especially the crankshaft, which is considered one of the most important mechanical inventions after the wheel.[240] Other devices he invented include a hand washing device, machines for raising water, accurate calibration of orifices, lamination of timber to reduce warping, static balancing of wheels, use of paper models to establish a design, casting of metals in closed mould boxes with green sand, emery powder, the most sophisticated candle clocks and water clocks of his time,[61] crank-driven chain pump,[244] water-powered saqiya chain pump,[245] and intermittent working,[244] and hour hand.[246][247]

1206 – [astronomy, technology] Al-Jazari invented monumental water-powered astronomical clocks which displayed moving models of the Sun, Moon, and stars. His largest astronomical clock displayed the zodiac and the solar and lunar orbits. Another innovative feature of the clock was a pointer which traveled across the top of a gateway and caused automatic doors to open every hour.[61]

1207 – 1273 [sociology; poetry; spirituality] Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, one of the best known Persian passion poets, famous for poignant poetry on the theme of spiritual enlightenment and passion.

1217 – 1329 [related] “Second wave of devastation of Muslim resources, lives, properties, institutions, and infrastructure over a period of one hundred and twelve years. Crusader invasions (1217-1291) and Mongol invasions (1219-1329). Crusaders active throughout the Mediterranean from Jerusalem and west to Muslim Spain. Fall of Muslim Córdoba (1236), Valencia (1238) and Seville (1248). Mongols devastation from the eastern most Muslim frontier, Central and Western Asia, India, Persia to Arab heartland. Fall of Baghdad (1258) and the end of Abbasid Caliphate. Two million Muslims massacred in Baghdad. Major scientific institutions, laboratories, and infrastructure destroyed in leading Muslim centers of civilization.”

1213 – 1242 [anatomy, biology, medicine, pharmacology, pharmacopoeia, physiology] Ibn al-Nafis publishes his Commentary on Compound Drugs, a commentary on Avicenna’s The Canon of Medicine concerning pharmacopoeia. It contains criticisms of Galen’s doctrines on the heart and the blood vessels and dealt with the circulatory system to some extent. This work was later translated into Latin by Andrea Alpago of Belluno (d. 1520), who had lived in Syria for about 30 years before returning to Italy with a collection of medical Arabic books. A printed version of his translation was available in Venice from 1547.[248]

1213 – 1288 [biology, cosmology, epistemology, futurology, geology, literature, physiology, psychology, science fiction, sociology] Ibn al-Nafis publishes his Theologus Autodidactus, the first science fiction novel, where he uses the plot to express many of his own themes on a wide variety of subjects, including biology, physiology, cosmology, epistemology, futurology, geology, natural philosophy, psychology, and sociology. The narrative is used to present religious, philosophical and scientific arguments on spontaneous generation and bodily resurrection, and the book also contains the earliest medical description on metabolism: “Both the body and its parts are in a continuous state of dissolution and nourishment, so they are inevitably undergoing permanent change.”[249]

1213 – 1288 – [anatomy, biology, medicine, ophthalmology, physiology] Ibn al-Nafis publishes his ophthalmological work, The Polished Book on Experimental Ophthalmology, where he discovers that the muscle behind the eyeball does not support the ophthalmic nerve, that they do not get in contact with it, that the optic nerves transect but do not get in touch with each other, and many new treatments for glaucoma and the weakness of vision in one eye when the other eye is affected by disease.

1228 – 1229 – [chemistry, military technology] Medieval French reports suggest that Muslim armies also used explosives against the Sixth Crusade army led by Ludwig IV, Landgrave of Thuringia in the 13th century.[206]

1235 – [astronomical instruments] A geared mechanical astrolabe with an analog computer calendar is invented by Abi Bakr of Isfahan.[250] His geared astrolabe uses a set of gear-wheels and is the oldest surviving complete mechanical geared machine in existence.[251][252]

1242 – [anatomy, biology, medicine, physiology, scientific method] Ibn al-Nafis, an Arab physician and anatomist publishes another commentary on Avicenna’s The Canon of Medicine called the Commentary on Anatomy in Avicenna’s Canon, in which Ibn al-Nafis discovers the pulmonary circulation (the cycle involving the ventricles of the heart and the lungs) and coronary circulation,[253] and describes the mechanism of breathing and its relation to the blood and how it nourishes on air in the lungs, for which he is considered the father of circulation theory[254] and one of the greatest physiologists in history.[255] He followed a “constructivist” path of the smaller circulatory system: “blood is purified in the lungs for the continuance of life and providing the body with the ability to work.” During his time, the common view was that blood originates in the liver then travels to the right ventricle, then on to the organs of the body; another contemporary view was that blood is filtered through the diaphragm where it mixes with the air coming from the lungs. Ibn al-Nafis discredited all these views including ones by Galen and Avicenna, and at least an illustration of his manuscript is still extant. William Harvey later explained the circulatory system without reference to Ibn al-Nafis in 1628. Ibn al-Nafis also extolled the study of comparative anatomy in his Explaining the dissection of [Avicenna’s] Canon which includes prefaces and citations of sources. He emphasized the rigours of verification by measurement, observation and experiment. He subjected conventional wisdom of his time to a critical review and verified it with experiment and observation, discarding errors. He was also an early proponent of experimental medicine, postmortem autopsy, and human dissection,[256] and he also discredited many other erroneous Avicennian and Galenic doctrines on the humorism, pulse bones, muscles, intestines, sensory organs, bilious canals, esophagus, stomach, and the anatomy of almost every other part of the human body.[257] Ibn al-Nafis also drew diagrams to illustrate different body parts in his new physiological system.[258]

1242 – 1244 [biology, medicine, surgery, urology, scientific method] Ibn al-Nafis publishes the first 43 volumes of his medical encyclopedia, The Comprehensive Book on Medicine. One volume is dedicated to surgery, where he describes the “general and absolute principles of surgery”, a variety of surgical instruments, and the examination of every type of surgical operation known to him. He states that in order for a surgical operation to be successful, full attention needs to be given to three stages of the operation: the “time of presentation” when the surgeon carries out a diagnosis on the affected area, the “time of operative treatment” when the surgeon repairs the affected organs, and the “time of preservation” when the patient needs to be taken care of by nurses. The Comprehensive Book on Medicine was also the earliest book dealing with the decubitus of a patient.[259] The Comprehensive Book on Medicine is also the earliest book dealing with the decubitus of a patient.[260] Another section is dedicated to urology, including the issues of sexual dysfunction and erectile dysfunction, where Ibn al-Nafis is one of the first to prescribe clinically tested drugs as medication for the treatment of these problems. His treatments are mainly oral drugs, though early topical and transurethral treatments are also mentioned in a few cases.[93]

1242 – 1288 [medicine] Ibn al-Nafis publishes more commentaries on Avicenna’s The Canon of Medicine. All of his commentaries on The Canon of Medicine add up to 20 volumes in length.

1244 – 1288 [medicine] Ibn al-Nafis writes down notes for upcoming volumes of his medical encyclopedia, The Comprehensive Book on Medicine. His notes add up to a total of 300 volumes in length, though he is only able to publish 80 volumes before he dies in 1288.[261] Even in its incomplete state, however, The Comprehensive Book on Medicine is one of the largest known medical encyclopedias in history, and was much larger than the more famous The Canon of Medicine by Avicenna. However, only several volumes of The Comprehensive Book on Medicine have survived into modern times.[262]

1244 – 1288 [anatomy, medicine, science of hadith] Ibn al-Nafis publishes many other works, including The Choice of Foodstuffs which places a greater emphasis on diet and nutrition rather than the prescriptions of drugs; Commentary on Hippocrates’ Aphorisms where he expresses his rebellious nature against established authorities as he states that he has decided to “throw light on and stand by true opinions, and forsake those which are false and erase their traces”;[263] A Short Account of the Methodology of Hadith on the science of hadith; Epitome of the Canon; Synopsis of Medicine; An Essay on Organs; Reference Book for Physicians; among many others.

1248 – [anatomy, botany, pharmacy, veterinary medicine] Ibn al-Baitar dies. He studied and wrote on botany, pharmacy and is best known for studying animal anatomy and medicine. The Arabic term for veterinary medicine is named after him.

1258 – The sack of Baghdad results in the destruction of Baghdad along with all its libraries, including the House of Wisdom. Survivors said that the waters of the Tigris ran black with ink from the enormous quantities of books flung into the river.

1259 – [astronomy, instutution] The Maragheh observatory is founded by Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī at the patronage of Hulagu Khan. It was the first example of the observatory as a research institute (as opposed to an ancient observation post).[264]

1260 – [mathematics] Al-Farisi isa born. He gave a new proof of Thabit ibn Qurra’s theorem, introducing important new ideas concerning factorization and combinatorial methods. He also gave the pair of amicable numbers 17296, 18416 which have also been attributed to Fermat as well as Thabit ibn Qurra.[265]

1260 – [chemistry, military technology] The first portable hand cannons (midfa) loaded with explosive gunpowder, the first example of a handgun and portable firearm, were used by the Egyptians to repel the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut. The gunpowder compositions used for the cannons at these battles were later described in several manuscripts in the early 14th century. According to Shams al-Din Muhammad (d. 1327), the cannons had an explosive gunpowder composition (74% saltpetre, 11% sulfur, 15% carbon) almost identical to the ideal compositions for explosive gunpowder used in modern times. Gunpowder cartridges were also first employed at the Battle of Ain Jalut by the Egyptians, for use in their fire lances and hand cannons against the Mongols. Egyptian soldiers at the Battle of Ain Jalut were also the first to smear dissolved talc (from Arabic talq) on their hands, as forms of fire protection from gunpowder. They also wore fireproof clothing, to which gunpowder cartridges were attached.[189]

1270 – [chemistry, military technology] The first complete purification process for potassium nitrate is described in 1270 by the Arab chemist and engineer Hasan al-Rammah of Syria in his book al-Furusiyya wa al-Manasib al-Harbiyya (The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices, a.k.a. the Treatise on Horsemanship and Stratagems of War). He first described the use of potassium carbonate (in the form of wood ashes) to remove calcium and magnesium salts from the potassium nitrate.[266][189] Several almost identical compositions were first described by the Arab engineer Hasan al-Rammah as a recipe for the rockets (tayyar) he described in The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices in 1270. Several examples include a tayyar “rocket” (75% saltpetre, 8% sulfur, 15% carbon) and the tayyar buruq “lightning rocket” (74% saltpetre, 10% sulfur, 15% carbon). He also states recipes for fireworks and firecrackers made from these explosive gunpowder compositions. He states in his book that many of these recipes were known to his father and grandfather, hence dating back to at least the late 12th century. Compositions for an explosive gunpowder effect were not known in China or Europe until the 14th century.[29][189] The torpedo is also invented by Hasan al-Rammah, who shows illustrations of a torpedo running on water with a rocket system filled with explosive materials and having three firing points.[206]

1270 – [medicine, psychiatry, psychology] Famous psychiatric hospitals are built by Muslim physicians in Damascus and Aleppo.[39]

1271 – 1273 – Ballistic weapons were manufactured in the Muslim world since the time of Kublai Khan in the 13th century. According to Chinese sources, two Muslim engineers, Alaaddin and Ismail (d. 1330), built machines of a ballistic-weapons nature before the besieged city of Hang-show between 1271-1273. Alaaddin’s weapons also played a major role in the conquest of several other Chinese cities. His son Ma-ho-scha also developed ballistic weapons. Ismail (transliterated as I-ssu-ma-yin) was present in the Mongol siege of Hsiang-yiang, where he built a war machine with the characteristics of a ballistic weapon. Chinese sources mention that when this war machines were fired, the earth and skies shook, the cannons were buried seven feet into the ground and destroyed everything. His son Yakub also developed ballistic war machines.[206]

1273 – 1331 [astronomy; geography; history] Abu al-Fida (Abulfeda).

1274 – [chemistry, military technology] The use of cannons as siege machines dates back to Abu Yaqub Yusuf who employed them at the siege of Sijilmasa in 1274, according to Ibn Khaldun.[189]

1275 – [engineering, rocketry, weaponry] Hasan al-Rammah invents the torpedo in Syria.[267]

1277 – [materials; glass and ceramics] A treaty for the transfer of glassmaking technology signed between the crusader Bohemond VII, titular prince of Antioch and the Doge of Venice leads to the transfer of Syrian glassworkers and their trade secrets and the subsequent rise of Venetian glass industry, the most prominent in Europe for centuries. The techniques henceforth, closely guarded by Venitians only become known in France in the 1600s.

1285 – [medicine] The largest hospital of the Middle Ages and pre-modern era is built in Cairo, Egypt, by Sultan Qalaun al-Mansur. 

According to Will Durant, the hospital had a spacious quadrangular enclosure with four buildings around a courtyard “adorned with arcades and cooled with fountains and brooks.” The hospital had “separate wards for diverse diseases and for convalescents”, and had laboratories, a dispensary, out-patient clinics, kitchens, baths, a library, a religious place of worship, lecture halls, and “pleasant accommodations for the insane.” Treatment was given for free to patients of all backgrounds, regardless of gender, ethnicity or income, while convalescents were offered disbursements on their departure so that they wouldn’t need to return to work immediately. “The sleepless were provided with soft music, professional story-tellers, and perhaps books of history.”[268]

c. 1296 – [astronomy, technology] The first astronomical uses of the magnetic compass is found in a treatise on astronomical instruments written by the Yemeni sultan al-Ashraf (d. 1296). This was the first reference to the compass in astronomical literature.[269]

14th century

1300s – [astronomy, engineering] The spherical astrolabe is invented in the Middle East. Ibn al-Shatir also invents the astrolabic clock in Syria,[270] and he also invents the compass dial, a timekeeping device incorporating both a universal sundial and a magnetic compass, which he invented for the purpose of finding the times of Salah prayers.[271]

1300s – [bacteriology, etiology, medicine, microbiology, pathology] When the Black Death bubonic plague reached al-Andalus, Ibn Khatima discovered that infectious diseases are caused by microorganisms which enter the human body.[272]

1300 – 1348 [navigation] Abubakari II, a mansa of the Mali Empire, attempts to cross the Atlantic Ocean. According to the Arabic historian Ibn Fadlullah al-Umari (1300-1348), in his encyclopaedic work Masalik Al-Absar, Abubakari set out on a journey equipped with “two hundred boats full of men, and many others full of gold, water and provisions sufficient for several years” (see Pre-Columbian Andalusian-Americas contact theories).

1301 – [ceramics] Al-Kashani promotes a center for ceramics. He also writes a book on Islamic ceramics techniques. His name is still associated with ceramics in the Muslim Orient today.

1312 – 1361 [cryptography] Taj ad-Din Ali ibn ad-Duraihim ben Muhammad ath-Tha ‘alibi al-Mausili wrote on cryptology, but his writings have been lost. To his work is attributed the section on cryptology in an encyclopedia (Subh al-a ‘sha) by Shihab al-Din abu ‘l-Abbas Ahmad ben Ali ben Ahmad Abd Allah al-Qalqashandi (1355 or 1356 – 1418). The list of ciphers in this work included both substitution and transposition, and for the first time, a cipher with multiple substitutions for each plaintext letter. Also traced to Ibn al-Duraihim is an exposition on and worked example of cryptanalysis, including the use of tables of letter frequencies and sets of letters which can not occur together in one word. Al-Qalqashandi was a medieval Egyptian writer born in a village in the Nile Delta. He is the author of Subh al-a ‘sha, a fourteen volume encyclopedia in Arabic, which included a section on cryptology. This information was attributed to Taj ad-Din al-Mausili (see Ahmad al-Qalqashandi).

1304 – 1369 [exploration, travel] Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta was a world traveler. He travels along a 75,000 mile voyage from Morocco to China and back. These journeys covered much of the Old World, extending from North Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe in the west, to the Middle East, Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China in the east, a distance readily surpassing that of his predecessors and his near-contemporary Marco Polo.

1313 – 1374 – [bacteriology, etiology, medicine, pathology] The Andalusian physician Ibn al-Khatib wrote a treatise called On the Plague, in which he stated: “The existence of contagion is established by experience, investigation, the evidence of the senses and trustworthy reports. These facts constitute a sound argument. The fact of infection becomes clear to the investigator who notices how he who establishes contact with the aflicted gets the disease, whereas he who is not in contact remains safe, and how transmission is affected through garments, vessels and earrings.”[272]

1304 – 1375 [astronomy] Ibn al-Shatir, a Muslim astronomer from Damascus, in A Final Inquiry Concerning the Rectification of Planetary Theory, incorporated the Urdi lemma and eliminated the need for an equant by introducing an extra epicycle (the Tusi-couple), departing from the Ptolemaic system in a way that was mathematically identical to what Nicolaus Copernicus did in the 16th century. Ibn al-Shatir’s system was also only approximately geocentric, rather than exactly so, having demonstrated trigonometrically that the Earth was not the exact center of the universe. While previous Maragha models were just as accurate as the Ptolemaic model, Ibn al-Shatir’s geometrical model was the first that was actually superior to the Ptolemaic model in terms of its better agreement with empirical observations.[273][274] Ibn al-Shatir’s rectified model was later adapted into a heliocentric model by Copernicus,[275] which was mathematically achieved by reversing the direction of the last vector connecting the Earth to the Sun in Ibn al-Shatir’s model.[276]

1371 [astronomy, engineering] As ancient sundials were nodus-based with straight hour-lines, they indicated unequal hours—also called temporary hours—that varied with the seasons. Every day was divided into twelve equal segments; thus, hours were shorter in winter and longer in summer. The idea of using hours of equal length throughout the year was the innovation of Ibn al-Shatir, based on earlier developments in trigonometry by Muhammad ibn Jābir al-Harrānī al-Battānī (Albategni). Ibn al-Shatir was aware that “using a gnomon that is parallel to the Earth’s axis will produce sundials whose hour lines indicate equal hours on any day of the year.” His sundial is the oldest polar-axis sundial still in existence. The concept later appeared in Western sundials from at least 1446.[277][278]

1377 [demography, economics, historiography, history, humanities, political science, social sciences, sociology] Ibn Khaldun, the father of demography,[279] cultural history,[280] historiography,[281] the philosophy of history,[282] sociology,[279][282] and the social sciences,[283] and one of the forerunners of modern economics, writes his most famous work, the Muqaddimah (known as Prolegomenon in the West), which is encyclopedic in breadth, surveys the state of knowledge of his day, covering geography, accounts of the peoples of the world and their known history, the classification and aims of the sciences, and the religious sciences. In the social sciences, he introduces the concepts of social philosophy, social conflict theories, Asabiyyah (social cohesion), social capital, social networks, the Laffer curve, the historical method, standard of evidence, propoganda, systemic bias, the rise and fall of civilizations, dialectic and feedback loops, systems theory, corporate social responsibility, economic growth,[284] macroeconomics, population growth, human capital development,[285] and the Khaldun-Laffer curve.[286]

1377 [biology, chemistry, evolution] Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah also makes several contributions to biology and chemistry. He develops a biological theory of evolution based on empirical evidence and in which he begins with minerals evolving into plants and then animals and ending with humans evolving from monkeys, which he states is “as far as our (physical) observation extends.”[287] In chemistry, he refutes the practice of alchemy and discredits the theory of the transmutation of metals.[288]

1380 [mathematics] Al-Kashi “contributed to the development of decimal fractions not only for approximating algebraic numbers, but also for real numbers such as pi. His contribution to decimal fractions is so major that for many years he was considered as their inventor. Although not the first to do so, al-Kashi gave an algorithm for calculating nth roots which is a special case of the methods given many centuries later by Ruffini and Horner.”[71]

1393 – 1449 – [astronomy] Ulugh Beg commissions an observatory at Samarqand in present-day Uzbekistan.

15th century

1400 – 1500 – [related] Third wave of devastation of Muslim resources, lives, properties, institutions, and infrastructure. End of Muslim rule in Spain after the completion of the Reconquista in 1492. More than one million volumes of Muslim works on science, arts, philosophy and culture were burnt in the public square of Vivarrambla in Granada. Colonization began in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.[289]

1400s [mathematics] Ibn al-Banna and al-Qalasadi used symbols for mathematics in the 15th century “and, although we do not know exactly when their use began, we know that symbols were used at least a century before this.”[71]

1400 – 1406 [astronomy, mathematics, physics] Jamshīd al-Kāshī is invited to the Samarqand observatory by Ulugh Beg to pursue his study of mathematics, astronomy and physics.

1400 – 1429 [astronomy, mathematics] Jamshīd al-Kāshī is the first to use the decimal point notation in arithmetic and Arabic numerals. His works include The Key of arithmetics, Discoveries in mathematics, The Decimal point, and The benefits of the zero. The contents of the Benefits of the Zero are an introduction followed by five essays: “On whole number arithmetic”, “On fractional arithmetic”, “On astrology”, “On areas”, and “On finding the unknowns [unknown variables]”. He also wrote the Thesis on the sine and the chord; The garden of gardens or Promenade of the gardens describing an instrument he devised and used at the Samarqand observatory to compile an ephemeris and for computing solar and lunar eclipses; the ephemeresis Zayj Al-Khaqani which also includes mathematical tables and corrections of the ephemeresis by al-Tusi; Thesis on finding the first degree sine; and more.

1400 – 1429 [astronomical instruments] Al-Kashi invents the Plate of Conjunctions, an analog computer instrument used to determine the time of day at which planetary conjunctions will occur,[290] and for performing linear interpolation.[291] He also invents a mechanical planetary computer which he calls the Plate of Zones, which could graphically solve a number of planetary problems, including the prediction of the true positions in longitude of the Sun and Moon,[291] and the planets in terms of elliptical orbits;[292] the latitudes of the Sun, Moon, and planets; and the ecliptic of the Sun. The instrument also incorporated an alhidade and ruler.[293]

1400 – 1474 [astronomy, astrophysics, mathematics, physics] Ali al-Qushji (d. 1474) rejected Aristotelian physics and completely separated natural philosophy from Islamic astronomy, allowing astronomy to become a purely empirical and mathematical science. This allowed him to explore alternatives to the Aristotelian notion of a stationery Earth, as he explored the idea of a moving Earth instead. He found empirical evidence for the Earth’s rotation through his observation on comets and concluded, on the basis of empiricism rather than speculative philosophy, that the moving Earth theory is just as likely to be true as the stationary Earth theory.[294][295][296] Ali al-Qushji also improved on Nasir al-Din al-Tusi’s planetary model and presented an alternative planetary model for Mercury.[297]

1403 – 1433 [navigation] The Chinese Muslim general Zheng He travels across the Indian Ocean in newly-constructed troopships and treasure ships.

1406 – 1409 [astronomy] Jamshīd al-Kāshī computed and observed the solar eclipses of 809 AH, 810 AH and 811 AH.

1411 [mathematics] Al-Kashi writes Compendium of the Science of Astronomy.[298]

1424 [mathematics] Al-Kashi writes Treatise on the Circumference giving a remarkably accurate approximation to pi in both sexagesimal and decimal forms, computing pi to 8 sexagesimal places and 16 decimal places.[298]

1427 [mathematics] Al-Kashi completes The Key to Arithmetic containing work of great depth on decimal fractions. It applies arithmetical and algebraic methods to the solution of various problems, including several geometric ones and is one of the best textbooks in the whole of medieval literature.[298]

1437 [mathematics] Ulugh Beg publishes his star catalogue, the Zij-i-Sultani. It contains trigonometric tables correct to eight decimal places based on Ulugh Beg’s calculation of the sine of one degree which he calculated correctly to 16 decimal places.[298]

1453 [military technology] The first supergun was the Great Turkish Bombard, used by the troops of Mehmed II to capture Constantinople. It had a 762 mm bore, and fired 680 kg (1500 lb) stones.

1470 – 1550 – [ceramics, pottery] Tabriz becomes a center for innovative Islamic pottery and ceramics.[115]

16th century

1500s [architecture, engineering, urban planning] The city of Shibam is built in Yemen. This city is regarded as the “oldest skyscraper-city in the world”, the “Manhattan of the desert”, and the earliest example of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction. Shibam was made up of over 500 tower houses, each one rising 5 to 9 storeys high, with each floor being an apartment occupied by a single family.[299] The city has the tallest mudbrick buildings in the world, with some of them being over 100 feet[300] (over 30 meters) high, thus being the first high-rise (which need to be at least 75 feet or 23 meters) apartment buildings and tower blocks.

1500 – 1528 [astronomy, astrophysics, physics] Al-Birjandi continued the debate on the Earth’s rotation after Ali al-Qushji. In his analysis of what might occur if the Earth were rotating, he develops a hypothesis similar to Galileo Galilei’s notion of “circular inertia”,[301] which he described in an observational test (as a response to one of Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi’s arguments): “The small or large rock will fall to the Earth along the path of a line that is perpendicular to the plane (sath) of the horizon; this is witnessed by experience (tajriba). And this perpendicular is away from the tangent point of the Earth’s sphere and the plane of the perceived (hissi) horizon. This point moves with the motion of the Earth and thus there will be no difference in place of fall of the two rocks.”[302]

1500 – 1550 [astronomy] Shams al-Din al-Khafri, the last major astronomer of the hay’a tradition, was the first to realize that “all mathematical modeling had no physical truth by itself and was simply another language with which one could describe the physical observed reality.”[303]

1551 [engineering] Taqi al-Din invents the steam turbine in Ottoman Egypt. He first described it in The Sublime Methods of Spiritual Machines, which describes the use of his steam turbine as the prime mover for the first steam-powered and self-rotating spit.[304]

1551 – 1574 [astronomy, engineering] Taqi al-Din invents a rudimentary telescope, as described in his Book of the Light of the Pupil of Vision and the Light of the Truth of the Sights around 1574. He describes it as an instrument that makes objects located far away appear closer to the observer, and states that the instrument helps to see distant objects in detail by bringing them very close. He also states that he wrote another earlier treatise explaining the way this instrument is made and used, suggesting that he invented it some time before 1574.[305]

1556 – 1559 [engineering] Taqi al-Din publishes The Brightest Stars for the Construction of Mechanical Clocks, which describes the first mechanical alarm clock, the first spring-powered astronomical clock, and the first clock and mechanical watch to first measure time in minutes.[306]

1559 [engineering] Taqi al-Din invents a ‘Monobloc’ pump with a six cylinder engine. It was a hydropowered water-raising machine incorporating valves, suction and delivery pipes, piston rods with lead weights, trip levers with pin joints, and cams on the axle of a water-driven scoop-wheel.[307]

1577 [astronomy, engineering] Taqi al-Din builds the Istanbul observatory of al-Din, the largest astronomical observatory in its time, with the patronage of the Ottoman Sultan Murad III.

1577 – 1580 [astronomy, engineering] At the Istanbul observatory of al-Din, Taqi al-Din carries out astronomical observations. He produces a zij (named Unbored Pearl) and astronomical catalogues that are more accurate than those of his contemporaries, Tycho Brahe and Nicolaus Copernicus. Taqi al-Din is able to achieve this with his new invention of the “observational clock”, which he describes as “a mechanical clock with three dials which show the hours, the minutes, and the seconds.” This is the first clock to measure time in seconds, and he uses it for astronomical purposes, specifically for measuring the right ascension of the stars. This is considered one of the most important innovations in 16th century practical astronomy, as previous clocks were not accurate enough to be used for astronomical purposes.[308] He further improves his observational clock, using only one dial to represent the hours, minutes and seconds, describing it as “a mechanical clock with a dial showing the hours, minutes and seconds and we divided every minute into five seconds.”[309] Taqi al-Din is also the first astronomer to employ a decimal point notation in his observations rather than the sexagesimal fractions used by his contemporaries and predecessors.[308]

1579 [civil engineering] The first prefabricated homes and movable structure are invented by Akbar the Great.[310]

1580 [astronomy] The Istanbul observatory of al-Din is destroyed by Sultan Murad III.

1582 [military technology] Fathullah Shirazi, a Persian-Indian polymath and mechanical engineer who worked for Akbar the Great in the Mughal Empire, invented the autocannon, the earliest multi-shot machine gun. As opposed to the polybolos and repeating crossbows used earlier in ancient Greece and China, respectively, Shirazi’s rapid-firing gun had multiple gun barrels that fired hand cannons loaded with gunpowder.[311] Another cannon-related machine he created could clean sixteen gun barrels simultaneously, and was operated by a cow.[312]

1582 [technology] Fathullah Shirazi invents a corn-griding carriage, which can be used to transport passengers and for grinding corn.[312]

1589 – 1590 [astronomy, engineering, metallurgy] The seamless celestial globe invented by Muslim metallurgists and instrument-makers in Mughal India, specifically Lahore and Kashmir, is considered to be one of the most remarkable feats in metallurgy and engineering. All globes before and after this were seamed, and in the 20th century, it was believed by metallurgists to be technically impossible to create a metal globe without any seams. It was in the 1980s, however, that Emilie Savage-Smith discovered several celestial globes without any seams in Lahore and Kashmir. The earliest was invented in Kashmir by the Muslim metallurgist Ali Kashmiri ibn Luqman in 998 AH (1589-1590 CE) during Akbar the Great’s reign; he invented the method of lost-wax casting in order to produce these globes. 21 such globes were produced, and these remain the only examples of seamless metal globes. These seamless celestial globes are considered to be an unsurpassed feat in metallurgy, hence some consider this achievement to be comparable to that of the Great Pyramid of Giza which was considered an unsurpassed feat in architecture until the 19th century.[313]