Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to describe how science and technology are used in various occupations to address real problems, and to analyse what different communities have contributed to science and technology. The museum offers two people who worked in medieval Muslim societies, an engineer and a physician; the class brings the occupations of today, including the skilled trades, and the contributions of other communities, which the museum does not hold. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- A3.1 describe practical applications of science and technology concepts in various occupations, including skilled trades, and how these applications address real-world problems
- A3.3 analyse contributions to science and technology from various communities
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
What problem was this person asked to solve?
The expectations link a skill to a problem and a contribution to a community. For each person you read about, note who needed the work, what problem it answered and what we know of how it was done.
Go deeper
The engineer al-Jazari served the Artuqids at Amid in 1181–1206, and TDV says his book was commissioned by Nasir al-Din Mahmud 2. TDV describes six divisions covering clocks, vessels for drinking and banquets, fountains and automatic musical instruments, and water-raising machines 2. It describes coloured drawings and lettered parts, with instructions that move from the general form to making the components, assembly and operation 2. TDV adds that little is known of his life beyond his book's introduction 2.
Why they did it
The sources used for this lesson contain no sentence in which al-Jazari or Ibn al-Nafis says why he chose his work. For al-Jazari they show a patron: TDV says the book was commissioned by Nasir al-Din Mahmud 2. For Ibn al-Nafis they show a physician whom the chronicle calls the shaykh of medicine in Egypt, who dictated his works from memory and endowed his properties and books to the Mansuri hospital 3 4. These are facts about their work, not stated motives.
Often misunderstood
A book of many devices can make an engineer look like the inventor of everything in it. TDV is more careful: it places al-Jazari in a tradition extending from Hellenistic engineering to the Banu Musa, and describes an engineer improving earlier work, not the inventor of every underlying principle in his book 2.
Think about it
Al-Jazari's book was commissioned by a ruler, while Ibn al-Nafis left his properties and books to a hospital. For which of the two do the records tell you more about who needed the work and what problem it answered, and what is missing for the other?
Into the museum
- Al-Jazari: the book of devices, its drawings and its copies.
- Ibn al-Nafis: the physician and his books.
- The castle clock: water, floats and an operator who resets the machine.
- The double-piston pump: a pump driven by flowing water.
Try this
Read about al-Jazari and Ibn al-Nafis. Draw a table with one row for each: the occupation, the problem it answered and the people it served. Then add a third row for an occupation in your own community.
4 Carry it further
Where this lesson leads in the museum.
5 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Al-Jazari, Ismail ibn al-Razzaz have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
An engineer at a royal court. Al-Jazari was an engineer who wrote a book on mechanical devices. The TDV Islamic Encyclopedia records that he served the Artuqids at Amid between 1181 and 1206 and that his book was commissioned by Nasir al-Din Mahmud. Its six divisions cover clocks, vessels for drinking and banquets, handwashing and bloodletting vessels, fountains and automatic musical instruments, water-raising machines and miscellaneous devices. What problem would each kind of device solve for the people who used it?
In your own words: what does Ibn al-Nafis have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
The shaykh of medicine in Egypt. Ibn al-Imad writes in Shadharat al-Dhahab that Ibn al-Nafis wrote a work on medicine, al-Shamil, whose index showed it would run to 300 volumes, of which he fair-copied eighty, and that he dictated his works from memory. John B. West (2008) writes that, in his commentary on the anatomy of Ibn Sina's Canon, he described blood passing from the right ventricle through the lungs to the left ventricle. Whose work in medicine or engineering does your own class already know, and where would you read about it?
I can now