Ibn Firnas made various contributions in the field of astronomy and engineering. He constructed a device which indicated the motion of the planets and stars in the Universe. In addition, ibn Firnas came up with a procedure to manufacture colourless glass and made magnifying lenses for reading, which were known as reading stones.[5][6]
Abbas ibn Firnas was born in Ronda, in the Takurunna province and lived in Córdoba.[7] His ancestors participated in the Muslim conquest of Spain.[8] His full name was "Abu al-Qasim Abbas ibn Firnas ibn Wirdas al-Takurini", although he is better known as Abbas ibn Firnas. There is very little biographical information on him. While the majority of sources describe him as a Umayyad mawlā (client) of Berber origin,[9][10][11] some sources describe him as Arab.[12][unreliable source?][13][unreliable source?]
Abbas Ibn Firnas devised a means of manufacturing colorless glass, invented various glass planispheres, made corrective lenses ("reading stones"), devised a chain of things that could be used to simulate the motions of the planets and stars, and developed a process for cutting rock crystal that allowed Al-Andalus to cease exporting quartz to Egypt to be cut.[5][6] He introduced the Sindhind to Al-Andalus,[1] which had important influence on astronomy in Europe.[14] He also designed the al-Maqata, a water clock,[15] and a prototype for a kind of metronome.[16][17]
Some seven centuries after the death of Firnas, the Algerian historian Ahmad al-Maqqari (d. 1632) wrote a description of Firnas that included the following:[18]
Among other very curious experiments which he made, one is his trying to fly. He covered himself with feathers for the purpose, attached a couple of wings to his body, and, getting on an eminence, flung himself down into the air, when according to the testimony of several trustworthy writers who witnessed the performance, he flew a considerable distance, as if he had been a bird, but, in alighting again on the place whence he had started, his back was very much hurt, for not knowing that birds when they alight come down upon their tails, he forgot to provide himself with one.[6]
Al-Maqqari is said to have used in his history works "many early sources no longer extant", but in the case of Firnas, he does not cite his sources for the details of the reputed flight, though he does claim that one verse in a ninth-century Arab poem is actually an allusion to Firnas's flight. The poem was written by Mu'min ibn Said, a court poet of Córdoba under Muhammad I (d. 886), amir of the Emirate of Córdoba, who was acquainted with and usually critical of ibn Firnas.[6] The pertinent verse runs: "He flew faster than the phoenix in his flight when he dressed his body in the feathers of a vulture."[18] No other surviving sources refer to the event.[19]
It has been suggested that ibn Firnas's attempt at glider flight might have inspired the attempt by Eilmer of Malmesbury between 1000 and 1010 in England,[20] but there is no evidence supporting this hypothesis.[6]
According to some secondary sources, about 20 years before Ibn Firnas attempted to fly he may have witnessed Firman as he wrapped himself in a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts and jumped from a tower in Córdoba, intending to use the garment as wings on which he could glide. The alleged attempt at flight was unsuccessful, but the garment slowed his fall enough that he sustained only minor injuries.[5]
However, there is no reference to Armen Firman in other secondary sources, all of which deal exhaustively with Ibn Firnas' flight attempt.[6][22][23] Armen Firman is not mentioned in al-Maqqari's account.[5]
As this story was recorded only in a single primary source, al-Maqqari,[6] and since Firman's jump is said to have been Ibn Firnas' source of inspiration,[5] the lack of any mention of Firman in al-Maqqari's account may point to synthesis, the tower jump later confused with Ibn Firnas' gliding attempt in secondary writings.[5]
^"Ibn Firnas ('Abbâs)" by Ahmed Djebbar, Dictionnaire culturel des science, by Collective under the direction of Nicolas Witkowski, Du Regard Editions, 2003, ISBN2-84105-128-5.
^ abLynn Townsend White, Jr. (Spring, 1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study of Technological Innovation, Its Context and Tradition", Technology and Culture2 (2), p. 97-111 [100]: "Ibn Firnas was a polymath: a physician, a rather bad poet, the first to make glass from stones (quartz), a student of music, and inventor of some sort of metronome."
^How Invention Begins: Echoes of Old Voices in the Rise of New Machines
By John H. Lienhard
^ abcdefghLynn Townsend White, Jr. (Spring, 1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study of Technological Innovation, Its Context and Tradition", Technology and Culture2 (2), p. 97-111 [100f.]
^Nicolas Witkowski (dir.) et al., , Paris, Editions du Regard ; Éditions du Seuil, 2001, 441 p.
^Elías Terés (2019). "ABBAS IBN FIRNAS". The Formation of al-Andalus, Part 2 Language, Religion, Culture and the Sciences. Routledge. pp. 234–244. ISBN978-1-351-88958-2.
^Lévi-Provençal, E. (24 April 2012). "ʿAbbās b. Firnās". Brill. Retrieved 5 August 2023.
^Samsó, Julio (2014). "ʿAbbās ibn Firnās". In Kalin, Ibrahim (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science, and Technology in Islam. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-981257-8. Retrieved 5 August 2023.
^ abLynn Townsend White, Jr. (Spring, 1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study of Technological Innovation, Its Context and Tradition", Technology and Culture2 (2), p. 97-111 [101]
^Lynn Townsend White, Jr. (Spring, 1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study of Technological Innovation, Its Context and Tradition", Technology and Culture2 (2), p. 97-111 [101]: "The Moroccan historian al-Maqqari, who died in 1632 A.D. but who used many early sources no longer extant, tells of a certain Abu'l Qasim 'Abbas b. Firnas who lived in Cordoba in the later ninth century. […] No modern historian can be satisfied with a source written 750 years after the event, and it is astonishing that, if indeed several eye-witnesses recorded Firnas's flight, no mention of it independent of al-Maqqari has survived. Yet al-Maqqari cites a contemporary poem by Mu'min b. Said, a minor court poet of Cordoba under Muhammad I (d. 886 A.D.), which appears to refer to this flight and which has the greater evidential value because Mu'min did not like b. Firnas: he criticized one of his metaphors and disapproved his artificial thunder. […] Although the evidence is slender, we must conclude that b. Firnas was the first man to fly successfully, and that he has priority over Eilmer for this honor. But it is not necessary to assume that Eilmer needed foreign stimulus to build his wings. Anglo-Saxon England in his time provided an atmosphere conducive to originality, perhaps particularly in technology."
^Lienhard, John H. (1988). "The Flying Monk". University of Houston. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
^Terias, Elias, "Sobre el vuelo de Abbas Ibn Firnas", Al-Andalus, Vol. 29, No. 2 (1964), p. 365–369
^Lévi-Provençal, E.『ʿAbbās b. Firnās b. Wardūs, Abu 'l-Ḳāsim.』Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs, 2009
^"Planetary Names: Crater, craters: Ibn Firnas on Moon". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature International Astronomical Union (IAU) Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN). 18 October 2010. Retrieved 24 October 2021.
J. Vernet, Abbas Ibn Firnas. Dictionary of Scientific Biography (C.C. Gilespie, ed.) Vol. I, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970–1980. pg. 5.
Lynn Townsend White Jr. (Spring, 1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study of Technological Innovation, Its Context and Tradition", Technology and Culture2 (2), p. 97–111 [100f.], doi:10.2307/3101411.
Salim T.S. Al-Hassani (ed.), Elisabeth Woodcock (au.), and Rabah Saoud (au.). 2006. 1001 Inventions. Muslim Heritage in Our World. Manchester: Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation. See pages 308–313. (ISBN978-0-9555035-0-4)
