The Technology of the Medieval Islamic World

views updated

The Technology of the Medieval Islamic World

Overview

For centuries during the European Middle Ages, non-European cultures continued to make progress in science and technology, only marginally affected by Europe's troubles and relative stagnation. Among these cultures, the Islamic world stands out for having made particularly important contributions, in part because of the location of Islamic nations between the learning centers of the East and Europe. During these centuries, Islamic scholars not only retained the best of ancient and classical European discoveries, but they also augmented these with many discoveries of their own and some that were imported from India and China. Among the areas in which Islamic scientists made significant contributions are metallurgy, glassmaking, architecture, chemistry, military engineering, and what is now known as civil engineering. Some of these developments were transferred to Europe through trade, others during the Moorish occupation of the Iberian peninsula, and still more during the Crusades. The introduction of Islamic science and technology into Europe through these various routes of encounter was an important factor that helped bring Europe into the Renaissance.

Background

The Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century a.d., destroyed by a combination of barbarian armies and cultural decay. Without the steadying force of the Roman government, most of Europe fell into relative anarchy and lawlessness, a state that was relieved by the imposition of religious discipline by the Catholic Church. During the following centuries, Europe was in a state of consolidation; recovering from the barbarian invasions, the loss of a central administrative government, and a series of plagues, famine, and natural disasters.

The ensuing period became known as the Dark Ages, a term that is no longer considered appropriate because learning did not actually stop during these centuries. Monks, scholastics, and others managed to not only keep alive the knowledge of the past, but also made some progress on their own. Unfortunately, education was a rare commodity in those years, and scientific and technical progress in medieval Europe was dramatically slowed. However, this was not the case in all parts of the world.

In particular, the Arab (and later, Islamic) world benefited from the knowledge they had obtained from Greek scholars, as well as from their proximity to the scholarship taking place in the East. Through their contact with the Greeks and Egyptians at the library of Alexandria, the Arabs learned of Greek writings and scientific observations dating back many centuries. At the same time, because their borders touched upon the Persian and Hindu lands, Arab scholars were privy to the intellectual traditions of these cultures and, through them, they even learned of many Chinese advances. The Arabs did not, however, simply copy and translate texts from other cultures; rather, they used these texts either as the starting point of their own work, or they used them to augment their researches. In either case, Arab scientists and engineers not only adapted the best that other cultures had to offer, but they also developed their own science and engineering, some of which lasts to the present day.

One point that must be made is the difference between "Arabic" and "Islamic." Specifically, "Arabic" pertains to Arabs, who are a distinct ethnic group, whereas "Islamic" refers to any followers of the Muslim religion. It is analogous to the distinction between being an American and being a Christian. Not all Arabs were Muslims and not all Muslims were Arabic.

However, with the rise of Islam in the seventh century, these two terms became closely identified because Islam was born among the Arabs and, within a few decades, virtually all Arabs were Muslims. Over the next few centuries, Islam spread through the Indian subcontinent to the east and to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, bringing it into contact with all the great Old World cultures of that time. Because of this, Islamic scientists were in a rare position of being exposed to the best learning of the world, at exactly the time that Europe was in relative chaos.

In the centuries that followed, a number of technological advances arose in Islamic nations. For example, to support increasing urban populations, there required an increased dependence on agriculture. In the arid climate of the Middle East, this necessitated new methods for obtaining, storing, and distributing water to irrigate crops as well as to support the water needs of the city dwellers. Increased urbanization and the advent of a major new religion also required improvements in building techniques to construct homes and temples, while the increased traffic going to and from the cities called for new and better roads and bridges. And, as Islam became more powerful politically, it strove to expand its influence in whatever manner possible, including war. This, in turn, led to a number of innovations in military engineering, as well as advances in metallurgy and metalworking. Finally, but not least, other advances served to make life somewhat more comfortable (primarily for the wealthy or the powerful)—glassmaking, icemaking, and early air conditioning (nonmechanical, of course).

These advances, and others, made their way into Islamic life over the course of several centuries. Some became central to daily life and remained that way for centuries, and many of these innovations were carried to new lands by Islamic conquerors and traders. Most of them, in one form or another, were adopted directly or in modified form by Islam's trading partners, neighbors, and subjects, and they had a very significant impact on the societies of the time, and for subsequent centuries.

Impact

The effects of many of these inventions were felt in the cities as well as among the farmers. Nations on the receiving end of the armies of Islam obviously became acquainted with the military technology developed by Islamic military engineers, and their trading partners benefited from some of the other improvements. Finally, the areas that fell under the political or military domination of Islam had the opportunity to incorporate some of this technology into their societies, often benefiting in the process. The remainder of this essay will examine each of these segments of medieval society and how they were affected by the technological advances that developed in this time.

Agriculture and Rural Life

Some of the most important inventions involved water, as water is essential to life and to agriculture. In some societies living in arid conditions, more time is devoted to finding and storing water than virtually any other activity because, without water, no society can survive. The ability to either raise water from beneath the ground, to store rainwater, and to transfer water from storage locations to the fields was of vital importance.

Water wells and primitive ways of retrieving water from them have existed since before recorded history. The most basic way to retrieve water is by simply lowering a bucket into the well and pulling it up again. But this is very labor-intensive and is not sufficient, in and of itself, for any purpose more intensive than providing water for a family and a few livestock. On the other hand, mechanical methods of raising water can greatly improve the efficiency of the process and, in conjunction with some other methods, can provide enough water to irrigate fields.

Some of these water retrieval methods involved better ways of raising water from beneath the ground. Mechanical pumps, mechanical lifts to raise buckets, geared wheels turned by animals, and wheels with buckets attached were among the mechanical methods invented for this purpose. Civil engineering was used, too. In some cases, a horizontal tunnel was dug underground that intersected a downward-sloping water table at one end. This then could carry water for great distances to feed an irrigation canal, while secondary wells could be dug to intersect the tunnel, providing water at intervals along its length. In other areas, rivers or seasonal riverbeds were dammed, impounding water that could then be used. And, in most places, cisterns were constructed to catch and hold rainwater for houses, settlements, or farming. Finally, many of these also required the construction of canals to carry the water from where it was collected to where it was needed. These canals had to be constructed to minimize losses of water due to evaporation or soaking into the ground, both presenting difficult obstacles.

All of these developments helped facilitate water collection, storage, use, or some combination of these three activities. By doing this, they made agriculture more efficient while simultaneously making the farmers' lives a bit easier. This did not necessarily give farmers more free time; it simply let them farm more land or devote more time to managing their crops and livestock better. The net result may have been a slightly easier life for the farmers, but more importantly, farmers could raise more food, helping the cities to grow.

Roads also had an impact on farming life because they made transporting goods easier and more reliable. This, in turn, meant that farmers spent less time actually transporting and selling their crops, again giving them more time to tend to their farms. In addition, better roads made the cities more accessible to the farmers, increasing the ability of farmers to purchase goods they may not otherwise have had access to.

Finally, the many improvements in agricultural practices and technology also helped farmers to work more efficiently. These included the use of manure as a fertilizer, the development of new devices to help plow the land, to sort grain, and to process foods. This last item is more important than it sounds because it includes devices such as presses for making olive and other vegetable oils, mills for grinding grains into flour, making butter and yogurt, and so forth. Primarily, these devices helped make food preparation simpler, but they also helped make the transportation and storage of many food items more reliable. For example, olive oil will remain fresh and useable longer than olives themselves, and the oil is easier to transport from place to place. Similarly, flour is more convenient than whole grains. In other cases, yogurt is often easier to digest than whole milk, especially for the majority of people who cannot digest lactose. As a whole, then, it seems fair to say that improvements in food technology helped farmers by making it easier for them to transport their goods for trade or sale in the cities and, at the same time, these improvements also helped make food storage and preparation easier and more efficient for farmers themselves.

Cities and Urban Life

In a sense, improvements in farming were a necessary prerequisite for urban life. Almost by definition, cities are not places where each family can provide its own food, so, to exist at all, cities are almost totally dependent on farmers. For this reason, the impact of advances in agricultural or food technology on city dwellers can be overlooked and other inventions discussed instead.

Perhaps the most noticeable and important advances that affected urban life were those in architecture and building materials. New or improved building materials helped make better housing, improved public buildings, more impressive palaces, and elaborate places of worship. These helped to make the cities better places to live and provided a better home for the equivalent of governmental agencies.

Although wood was used for construction when it was available, the forests of Lebanon had largely vanished by the tenth century, and much of the Middle East is bereft of forest. This forced the use of clay, fired brick, unfired (or raw) brick, and stone for construction through most of the Islamic world. Although much heavier than wood, these materials did not provide significant added strength and were often difficult to work with. They had, however, the advantage of holding the day's heat in the cold desert night, and conversely, remaining cool during the hottest part of the day. In addition, the use of brick in particular was possible in virtually all parts of the Islamic world because all that was needed for brick-making was clay, straw, and a kiln. In addition to the materials mentioned above, some buildings used metals in their construction.

These materials were used in novel ways by Islamic architects during the medieval period. For example, the Dome of the Rock, a temple in Jerusalem, is constructed of masonry with a dome made of wood. The wood is covered with lead, which is then covered with brass for a construction that is sturdy and remarkably resistant to the effects of weather. Other temples and mosques used similar combinations of materials and employed architectural innovations such as domes and arches to help support the building's weight, for aesthetic reasons, or both. Other architectural features developed by Islamic artisans (among others) included the use of interior courtyards, the use of "stacked" arches, and the use of arched bridges to carry traffic across rivers, streams, and gullies.

Military Advances

Islamic inventiveness was also evident on the battlefield during the medieval period, playing a role during Islam's expansion and in its self-defense during the Crusades. In particular, Islamic military engineers developed new weapons, stronger defenses, and more reliable weapons, while Islamic metallurgists helped improve the metals that went into so many of their weapons. Unfortunately, a detailed description of all such Islamic military innovations is not possible here, but a brief description of the more important inventions and their overall impact will be attempted.

Two of the most important inventions in the history of warfare (and among the most important in human history) are the invention of gunpowder and firearms. It is fairly certain that both were invented in China, but they reached the Islamic world long before Europe. Islamic military engineers lost little time in adopting gunpowder and turning out incendiary devices, artillery, handheld guns, grenades, and more. All of these gave the Islamic armies a decided advantage in battle and during sieges, and all were used to great effect on multiple occasions against the invading crusaders, as this technology had not yet reached Europe.

Another invention was the trebuchet, a catapult in which the payload was projected with a sling instead of a rigid cup or bowl. Trebuchets were powerful weapons that were used to fling both solid rock and incendiary or explosive devices against invading armies or into besieged fortresses. Like firearms, trebuchets were used to great effect in battle.

Islamic artisans also worked mightily to improve on more traditional weapons, such as the sword, bow and arrow, crossbow, and lance. They devised a bow made of a combination of materials that could pierce chain mail at a distance of a quarter mile, and their lances and arrows were often tipped with heads made of Damascus steel, renowned for its superior properties. Muslim swords, also made of Damascus steel, were so cherished that many were given names and passed down from father to son, and crossbows were often used as long-range weapons to defend against besieging armies. All of these improvements helped give Muslim armies a significant advantage over those equipped with lesser weapons.

All in all, the weapons wielded by Islamic soldiers were almost never inferior to those of their opponents, and were usually superior in some manner or another. This gave Islamic armies a decided advantage in nearly all of their battles, and was a deciding factor in many. One result of this military superiority was facilitating the rapid spread of Islam throughout the Middle East, across northern Africa, and eastwards to Indonesia in a relatively short period of time. Another was that the attacking crusaders were frequently unsuccessful in their attempts to expel Muslims from the Holy Lands, and the Spanish took several centuries to expel the Moors from Spain, in part because of Muslim superiority in military technology.

Domestic Comforts and Luxuries

Other inventions had little impact on the necessities of daily life, but had a decided impact on the quality of life, especially for the wealthy. Among these innovations were glassmaking, a primitive sort of air conditioning, and icemaking.

Glass, a technology that originated in either the Middle East or Egypt several centuries before the time of Christ, remained a near-monopoly of Syria until the twelfth century a.d. In the Middle East, glass was used for making drinking vessels, ornaments, bottles, and similar items, mostly for those who could afford them. In the twelfth or thirteenth century, Venice purchased glassmaking technology from the Muslims, establishing a European monopoly that lasted until the seventeenth century. Thus, glassmaking benefited not only the Islamic world, but was also a factor that helped Venice become a major economic power in its day.

Icemaking emerged as another benefit for the wealthy. In the days before refrigeration, it was still possible to make ice, relying on some basic principles of physics and the cool desert nights. Once made, ice was sold to rulers, merchants, and others who could afford it and used for cooling drinks, chilling food, and so forth. Similar principles could be used to help cool rooms, making use, for example, of the fact that evaporating water will lower the temperature of air passing over it. This basic physical principle, along with architecture that utilized the thermal inertia of building materials and cooling shadows, was used in a number of different guises to help cool rooms during the heat of the desert days.

Beyond the Islamic World

Finally, nations outside of the Islamic world could not help but be affected by the technological advances developed by the Muslims. Whether these other nations were trading partners, wartime adversaries, defeated enemies, or occupied territories, they were exposed to and could draw upon lessons learned from their Islamic neighbors, whether friend or foe. One result of this was the relatively rapid spread of Islamic technology across most of Europe and the Middle East.

Trading partners, of course, not only gained valuable information and technology, but provided it, too. Situated as it was between the advanced civilizations of India and China to the east, and the recovering civilizations of Europe and Egypt to the west, Muslims not only reaped the benefits of both worlds, but combined good ideas from both and, in turn, transferred such ideas to East and West. This led, for example, directly to the transfer of glassmaking to the Venetians, as well as to improving European steelmaking, Indian architecture, and civil engineering projects in many parts of the world. Both Islam and its trading partners benefited from this exchange of ideas and technology, allowing both sides to advance more rapidly than either would have done on its own.

Similarly, Islamic weapons and fortifications were frequently copied by their foes, and were sometimes put into use against their designers. In addition, Islamic military technology seems to have been assimilated in a short period of time by all European kingdoms, keeping any single kingdom from gaining a decisive and irrevocable advantage over its neighboring foes.

Finally, Islamic technology was adopted by the peoples conquered by Islamic armies. Islamic water-raising devices continue to be used in parts of Spain, for example, and the terminology for agricultural techniques in that country reveal Arabic roots. Many of the buildings and other civil engineering projects constructed by the Muslims still exist and, in some cases, are still in use, and buildings inspired by Islamic designs and built using Islamic techniques are more common yet. In short, Islamic technology has left a long-lasting mark on many societies, and in many cases, this was an improvement over earlier conditions.

In summary, then, it may be said that Islamic scholars and engineers made a wide array of technological improvements available to their own society and others that they contacted. These changes not only helped spread Islam rapidly throughout the known world, but also helped to change the life of city dwellers and farmers alike. Because of these innovations, virtually every nation from what is now China to the Atlantic Ocean was affected and, in many ways, improved.

P. ANDREW KARAM