Was this Arab world the first to think about robotics?

Can it be said that the idea of ​​robots emerged almost a thousand years ago by an Arab scientist, who developed the initial version of the idea of ​​robots when he created the first primitive version of games in the form of humans who were auto-mobile.

These games were, for example, a musical group floating on the surface of the water, consisting of several characters, each of which emits the sound of a specific musical instrument, and the aim was to entertain the guests of the royal court in the Diyarbakir region, which belongs to the rule of the Ayyubid state.

Impact on Dafinshi

Al-Jazari is considered one of the giants of mechanical engineering creativity in ancient times who prepared the emergence of new mechanics, cranes and generators that work to transmit movement, and he has been influenced by many scholars. Westerners at the start of the Renaissance, especially Da Vinci.

His inventions in general contributed to the emergence of the Age of Machine and Industry in Europe, or what was called the Industrial Revolution.

His name is Badi Al-Zaman Abu Al-Ezz bin Ismail bin Al-Razzaz Al-Jazari, and he was born on the island of Ibn Omar located in northern Syria on the Tigris in 1136 AD and died in 1206 AD. Although this area does not face the sea, the name of the island was given to it due to the large number of rivers that surround it.

stuff industry

After receiving his initial training, he worked as a chief engineer in Diyarbakir, in present-day south-eastern Turkey, where he served the rulers of these lands of Bani Artaq for twenty-five years, starting in 1174 AD. JC, and he became close to the ruler and even to the chief engineer of the court.

Because these areas were agricultural, Al-Jazari was concerned with the development of agricultural mechanisms and water levers, hence his ideas related to mechanics.In the beginning, he designed many machines, most of which were attached to the elevation of water or water clocks with an auto-alarm system, and he designed, clarified and applied them.

And his designs have remained alive to this day, expressing a great and intelligent mind, and he explained it precisely in his book titled “The Combination of Science and Useful Work in Crafting Lathes”, which was interesting and accompanied by colorful designs.

Al-Jazari combined the knowledge of engineering, mechanical physics and mathematics, and turned to applied fields more than the rest of the scientists. He was not inclined to theorize much, and this was reflected in most of his self-propelled levers and clocks, in addition to fluid-powered hydraulic machines.

robot maid

Al-Jazari worked to invent a number of machines related to the field of health, because he was concerned with environmental issues and the need to preserve them in a context integrated with traditional means of production such as agriculture.

Here he invented a mechanism to drain water from sinks and bathrooms, like his invention of a basin for washing hands, with a machine in the shape of a maid next to it.

Here we come back to the idea of ​​the robot to see it emerge again. The basin is filled with clean water. When the user has finished washing their hands, they pull a lever next to the basin, and the used water is pushed out of the basin through a drainage channel, while the robotic maid again fills the basin with water. clean water, which is the mechanism used today in Our bathrooms.

The human character of the machine

Surprisingly, even in machines, it has been humanized in the design, giving it smoothness and splendor.

He was not only designing machines for fun purposes, but mainly for practical purposes and how to use the resources available to humans fruitfully, an observation pointed out by the author of the book “The History of Robot Evolution” named Mark E Richman, who had described the aforementioned Island Design group.

He said of it: “Unlike the Greeks, the Arab examples of robots do not only reflect detailed development of the design, but also reflect a tendency to use available resources for human comfort.”

Man, then, combined the goal, the end, the pleasure and the fun in one container. The machine must serve a purpose, but it must also be beautiful, appeal to the spectators, and be innovative in its form, as it did. , for example, with the watch called “The Elephant Clock”, which was famous for its grandeur and precision in modern times. One of the most important and surprising inventions.

Mechanical .. transmission and energy saving

This art was called by the Arabs “stuff” and it was known to the Greeks as the science of mechanics, which is common now, where man seeks, by the use of things and their relation to each other, to transfer movement, save energy. , and get a lot of work done in a short time and with less effort.

And the art of towers has a lot of intelligence that is not accessible to anyone, because it involves the use of a vast imagination, which are things with which God loved Al-Jazari, which allowed him to achieve a large number of clever innovations, and he follows an approach that combines science and useful work as evidenced by the title of his book to which he refers, he sees that the science of towers must serve the people and not become mere entertainment .

If we refer to some of his designs, we can cite the following: his invention of a pump with two opposed cylinders, which currently corresponds to suction and piston pumps, as well as his invention of waterwheels using the energy available in current in rivers, then his invention of self-propelled hydraulic machines such as water clocks and hydraulic machines. The many articles invented by Muslim scholars and developed by Al-Jazari.

These inventions extend to clocks moving with wicks, lamps, measuring instruments, fountains and musical instruments. He was the first to put a two-armed clock showing the time and derived from it the modern clock with hands, a number of horological inventions and associating them with funny shapes.In addition to the elephant clock , there is the monkey clock, the clock drummer, the skillful archer clock, and others.

A change of conception

Al-Jazari changed the concept of energy, transport and movement by relying on animals to carry water and raising them, for example, to the use of machines and gears, which does not It’s not easy in the history of science, and it describes the presses, crane, conveyor and motor and the characteristics of each of them.

We find that the deterministic gears were not known before him and did not appear in watches until two centuries after him, in what is called the Giovanni astronomical clock in Europe.

His writings

Regarding his books, the most important of which is his book “The Combined Knowledge and Useful Work in Crafting Lathes”. this, at the time of the Abbasid Caliph Abu al-Abbas Ahmad al-Nasir Li Din Allah in the year 1181. Al-Jazari completed it almost before his death, so that he composed it in almost ‘a quarter century.

It is an unprecedented encyclopedic work on designs and mechanical means, in which he classified machines into six categories according to use and method of manufacture, and these were the basis of European classifications to the Renaissance, and in which studies of watches, sparklers, water lifting devices and weights.