Al-Jazari
1136 CE–1206 CE · Diyarbakir (Amid)
Badi al-Zaman Abu al-Izz Isma'il ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari was a Muslim engineer, craftsman, and inventor active in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Almost everything known about his life comes from a single source: the preface to his own treatise, the Kitab fi ma'rifat al-hiyal al-handasiyya ("Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices"). No independent chronicle records his biography, so his dates are necessarily uncertain.
By his own account he served as chief engineer ("hiyal" master, a maker of ingenious mechanisms) at the court of the Artuqids, a Turkmen dynasty ruling Upper Mesopotamia as vassals of greater powers. He reports serving the family for some twenty-five years across three successive rulers, completing his book around 1206 at the request of the reigning prince, Nasir al-Din Mahmud, in the city of Amid (modern Diyarbakir, in present-day Turkey).
The book describes water clocks, automata (self-operating mechanical figures), fountains, and water-raising machines, illustrated with detailed diagrams and practical construction notes; it is prized by historians of technology for devices such as crank mechanisms and pumps. His nisba "al-Jazari" points to the al-Jazira region (Upper Mesopotamia) or possibly the town of Jazirat ibn Umar; his birthplace, ethnicity (variously described as Arab, Kurdish, or Persian), and place of death are not securely documented. The widely repeated birth year 1136 is a later estimate, not a contemporary attestation.
Did you know?
A 13th-century engineer built a machine you could reprogram
In 1206, the year of his death, al-Jazari completed "The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices," describing some fifty machines with step-by-step build instructions. Among them was a water-driven musical automaton whose drummer's rhythm could be changed by rearranging pegs — an arrangement often cited as an early example of a programmable machine.
How we know
Ismāʿīl ibn al-Razzāz al-Jazarī, c. 1136–1206; Kitāb fī maʿrifat al-ḥiyal al-handasiyya completed 1206, describing ~50 devices in six categories, incl. a musical-automaton boat with a peg/cam-programmable drummer (Donald R. Hill trans., 1974).
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Diyarbakir (Amid)
What they did here
By his own account in the book's preface — the only source for his life — al-Jazari entered the service of the Artuqid dynasty in 570 AH / 1174 CE and served three successive rulers (Nur al-Din Muhammad, his son Qutb al-Din Sukman II, and Nasir al-Din Mahmud) as court engineer at Amid, the city now called Diyarbakir. He reports that some twenty-five years of service (under Nur al-Din Muhammad and Qutb al-Din Sukman) had already passed when he began writing the book at the request of Nasir al-Din Mahmud (r. c.1200-1222); he completed it on 4 Jumada II 602 AH / 16 January 1206. This is the only place his life is documented; the 1174 start is attested in the preface, while the precise span and his death shortly afterward are traditionally held.
About Diyarbakir (Amid)
Diyarbakir (medieval Amid), on the upper Tigris in southeastern Turkey, was the chief city of the Diyar Bakr region of the Jazira, ringed by its famous black basalt walls. The engineer and inventor al-Jazari (d. 1206), author of the Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, served the Artuqid rulers of Amid/Diyarbakir.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Al-Jazari’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
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Works
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