Abbas ibn Firnas

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Abu al-Qasim Abbas ibn Firnas ( tamazight ⵄⴱⴱⴰⵙ ⵏ ⴼⵉⵔⵏⴰⵙ Ɛabbas n Firnas , Arabic عباس بن فرناس, DMG ʿAbbās b. Firnās ; born around 810 in Ronda ; died 887 or 888 in Córdoba ) was a poet, scholar and aviation pioneer of Berber descent in al-Andalus .

life and work

He was among the emirs I. al-Hakam , Abd ar-Rahman II. And Muhammad I. laureate of the Umayyad in the Emirate of Córdoba . As a scholar, he was interested in mathematics , astronomy and physics . He made the Indian decimal system known in Andalusia, which he himself had got to know on a trip to what is now Iraq . He developed a process for the production of colorless glass for visual aids (" reading stones ").

He is even credited with building a flying machine, to which the poet Muʾmin bin Saʿid wrote the following verse in the 9th century:

It flew faster than the phoenix flies,
since it wrapped its body in eagle feathers.

The tradition follows the chronicle (Nafḥ) of al-Maqqari , a Moroccan historian of the 17th century who used many older and no longer existing sources. The flying device allegedly consisted of feather wings and is said to have enabled Abbas to fly several hundred meters from a hill in Arruzafa near Córdoba and return to the starting point. Trying to land, he broke both legs, one open . He attributed it to forgetting to construct a tail . The flight attempt shows various parallels with that of Eilmer from Malmesbury almost 200 years later; that Ibn Firna's Eilmer served as a direct model is rejected as unlikely by recent research.

Appreciation

Cordoba, Puente de Abbas Ibn Firnas

The Ibn Firnas crater on the moon was named after Abbas . One of the four airports in Baghdad also bears his name. On the way to the airport there is a statue showing him with wings. It was created by Badri as-Samarra'i.

On January 14, 2011, a bridge over the Guadalquivir was inaugurated in Cordoba , which bears the name Ibn Firnas'.

literature

  • Stephan and Nandy Ronart: Lexicon of the Arab World . Artemis, Zurich and Stuttgart 1972.
  • Mercedes Aragón Huerta: Abbas ibn Firnas: de personaje histórico a personaje literario, en la obra narrativa de Zakariyya Tamir. In: Al-Andalus Magreb: Revista de la Escuela de Estudios Arabes de Madrid y Granada , No. 7 (1999), ISSN  1133-8571 , pp. 21-41 ( online subscription access; Spanish).
  • Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall : literary history of the Arabs. First section, fourth volume. Kaiserl. royal Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1853, p. 594 f. ( Full text in Google Book Search).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 274 AH
  2. ↑ quoted from: Wilhelm Hoenerbach : Islamic History of Spain. Artemis, Zurich 1970, p. 85 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  3. ↑ a b Lynn White: Eilmer of Malmesbury, an Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study of Technological Innovation, Its Context and Tradition . In: Technology and Culture , Vol. 2, No. 2 (1961), pp. 97-111 (here: pp. 100-101), doi: 10.2307 / 3101411 .
  4. ↑ Hoy se abre el noveno puente de Córdoba hacia una ronda inacabada . In: ABC.es . January 14, 2011. Retrieved May 6, 2016.
  5. ↑ Puente Abbas ibn Firnas - Córdoba
personal data
SURNAME Abbas ibn Firnas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abu al-Qasim Abbas ibn Firnas (full name); Ɛabbas n Firnas; عباس بن فرناس (Arabic)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Poet, scholar and aviation pioneer of Berber descent in al-Andalus
DATE OF BIRTH around 810
PLACE OF BIRTH Ronda
DATE OF DEATH 887 or 888
Place of death Cordoba