Al-Muradi

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See Abu Jafar al-Muradi for the Egyptian grammarian.
File:Fragment of The Book of Secrets in the Results of Thoughts. 11th century.jpg
Fragment of The Book of Secrets in the Results of Thoughts. 11th century

Alī Ibn Khalaf al-Murādī, (11th century) Al-Andalus, was a Mechanical engineer and author of the unique technological manuscript entitled Kitāb al-asrār fī natā'ij al-afkār (The Book of Secrets in the Results of Thoughts or The Book of Secrets in the Results of Ideas).[1] It was copied and used at the court of Alfonso VI of León and Castile in Christian Spain in the 11th century.[citation needed]

The manuscript provides information about a "Castle and Gazelle Clock" and many other forms of complicated clocks and ingenious devices. Al-Muradi was a contemporary of Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī.[citation needed]

In 2008, the Book of Secrets of al-Muradi has been published in facsimile, translated in English/Italian/French/Arabic and in electronic edition with all machines interpreted in 3D, by the Italian study center Leonardo3.

He also devised, with help from al-Zarqali, the universal astrolabe.[2] Both al-Muradi and al-Zarqali's design were included in the Libros del Saber (1227) of Alfonso X of Castile.[3]

References

  1. Ahmed Djebbar, "Technology in the service of progress: The examples of hydraulic technologies," in Civilization in the Mirror of Universal, UNESCO, 2010, p. 292-304.
  2. David A. King, World-maps for finding the direction and distance to Mecca, (Brill, 1999), 330.
  3. Koenraad Van Cleempoel. "The Migration of Instrumental Knowledge from Flanders to Spain," in: Silent Messengers: The Circulation of Material Objects of Knowledge in the Early Modern Low Countries, Sven Dupré and Christoph Herbert Lüthy (eds.), (Transaction Publishers, 2011), p. 76.