Bücher von Al-Jazari

Badi al-Zaman al-Jazari (1136–1206) was an engineer who served the Artuqid rulers of Diyarbakir, in the upper Mesopotamian region known as al-Jazira, for twenty-five years. At the request of his prince he wrote down everything he had built in his Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, completed in 1206.

The book describes some fifty machines with precise drawings, among them water clocks such as the famous elephant clock, musical automata, fountains and water-raising pumps, and uses mechanisms that anticipate later engineering. It shows a craftsman's joy in machines that are both useful and beautiful. Note that the library also lists, under his name, works by a later scholar of Quranic readings also called al-Jazari.