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Allah's Automata
Artifacts of the Arab-Islamic Renaissance (800-1200)
ISBN: 9783775741064
(PB - E)
€
Centuries before the first automata caused a sensation in Europe, their technology had been developed in Arabic-Islamic cultures: as early as between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, Arabic scholars noted down their knowledge about machines, which they had acquired through the translation and further development of antique texts, in praise of God Almighty. The opulent publication introduces four master manuscripts on the construction of automata: two works by the Banu Musa Ibn-Shakir from the mid-ninth century, one by the engineer Ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari written in around 1200, as well as a manuscript by the Andalusian engineer Ahmad ibn Khalaf al-Muradi from the eleventh century. Accompanying essays reconstruct the development of the Muslim automata from the traditions of Alexandria, Rome, or Byzantium from a media-archeological perspective and throw light on their advancement in Europe.
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