Al-Jazari

Al-Jazari (1136-1206) was a Muslim engineer and inventor who served the Artuqid rulers of Diyarbakir, in present day southeastern Turkey, as chief engineer. In 1206 he completed The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, an illustrated compendium describing dozens of mechanical devices he designed, including elaborate water clocks, automated musical devices, water raising machines and a crankshaft mechanism used to convert rotational motion into reciprocating motion, among the earliest known uses of that mechanism. His book gives detailed construction instructions for each device, allowing later historians of engineering to reconstruct several of them, and its combination of practical craftsmanship with systematic written documentation has led historians of technology to regard him as a foundational figure in the history of mechanical engineering and robotics. His automata, including a humanoid drink serving device and a musical boat powered by mechanical figures, are among the earliest well documented programmable machines.