Technology

Remember Al-Jazari's elephant clock

with all its water powered moving parts?

Well, long before Al-Jazari,

in Baghdad's House of Wisdom

there were three brothers who also used water and gears to amusing and wondrous effect.

The Banu Musa Brothers, even published

“A Book of Ingenious Devices”

showing ways to use mechanical technology

to make over a hundred different magical inventions to puzzle the mind,

from small toys that moved and made noises,

to outdoor fountains that changed from one shape to another.

But the magic tricks were just a hobby for the Banu Musa brothers,

who mostly spent their time working as mathematicians,

and translators of Greek science.

Their interests were wide ranging,

and of course they were also religious scholars,

but their mechanical toys needed precision in the making.

All those filling chambers and floats

and tubes and pumps and gears

required skilled glass blowing and metalwork,

and those skills came in handy in all sorts of other areas.

So one academic subject that needs precision implements and vessels is chemistry,

as you try to separate things and move them around without contact,

and keep them contained and under control.

When substances can burn you or poison you, it is good to have

a precisely engineered seal around the doorway between you.

Or maybe you don't want something to escape

because it is precious, like perfume.

Twelve hundred years ago in Iraq,

Al-Kindi wrote “The Book of the Chemistry of Perfumes and other Distillations”,

and before him in Iran,

Jabir Ibn Hayyan worked with acids like sulphuric

and poisons like arsenic,

and as you might imagine

he was very fussy about his containers.

The experiments of these two,

along with Al-Razi in Iran,

who invented all sorts of instruments to achieve different chemical processes,

were the basis for all the industrial chemistry that followed.

From weaponry to armour,

from jewellery to mechanical engineering,

skilled metalworkers were needed,

along with glassworkers

for lamps and laboratory instruments.

They, and the engravers of astrolabes

were astonishingly skilful,

but to reach that level of skill they had to spend time learning their craft.

Their craft had to become part of their way of life.

Technical skill and precision craftsmanship

are given their standing and purpose

by being part of a greater purpose,

exploring and increasing human knowledge of the Creation,

with humans serving their fellow humans to serve God,

and in that way glorifying the Creator.