Science and Technology in Islam

 

The people of Islamic world used a number of machine to save labour and make their work easier. They used waterwheel to grid corn, they even made paper model to plan engineering projects to make sure they would work.

They were also expert at using water to grow crops. They dug irrigation canal. Some of these were in underground tunnels, called ganats. This slowed down the rate at which the water evaporated. They used the shaduf – a pole with a bucket on one end and a heavy weight on the other to raise water from, a river. They also used the saqiyha, this was a chain of pots fixed to a wheel. It was turned by an animal walking around and round.

Arab engineer also built wells, dams and aqueducts to supply water to the cities. Their skills in using water was even used to tell the time. Ibn Jubayr saw this water clock in Damascus in about 1183.

The Arab were also the leading mathematicians of the Middle Ages like the scientists, they too learned much from the work of Greeks and Roman. Al-Khwarizmi, who lived from about 780 to 850, wrote a book on al-jabr. He also used numerals which came from India, instead Roman Numerals. He made use of another Hindus discovery as well, this was the idea of number 0, this was called sifra in Arabic. Al-Khwarizmi showed zero with a dot. The Hindus used a small circle instead. People in Europe later used Arabic numerals as well. They found them much easier to use in sums than Roman numerals

Omar Khayyam, who was born in Iran in about 1050, was another great Muslim mathematician, he was also an astronomer, but even better known as a poet. He wrote the poem The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. His most important work as a scientist came in 1074 when he made a correction to the Muslim calendar. This made it even more accurate than the calendar we use today.

The care and treatment of people who were ill was far more advanced in Islamic countries than it was in Christian Europe. Arab doctor was particularly skilled at treating the ailment which were very common in a hot and dusty land, such as disease of the eye.

The Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs built splendid hospitals. They trained and employed doctors and nurse to staff them. The medicines used there included drugs and extracts taken from the plants and animals. Experts wrote book so that other physicians could use the same methods to cure disease. Ibn Jubayr saw two fine Ayyabid hospitals like those when he visited Cairo in about 1183.

The first Muslim physicians began by studying the idea of the Greekl physicians in Arabic translation. However, they made many new discoveries of the own. In turn, their methods were later passed on to doctors in Europe. The Moorish surgeon Al Zahrawi, for instance, lived in Spain from about 940 to 1013, he wrote a manual of surgery which was later translated into Latin. It was still being used at Oxford at the end of the eighteenth century. Al-Zahrawi described how to use over 200 surgical instrument and how to set bones. He used antiseptics, knew how to stitch wound and how to extract teeth, he also trained midwives and nurses.

Al-Razi (or Rhazes) was one of the greatest of these doctors, he lived from 865 to 925 and used plaster of Paris to set broken bones. Ibn Sina (or Avicenna), who died in 1037 was another doctor who wrote books described diseases such as measles and smallpox and their treatment