Ismail al-Jazari's Elephant clock

The need to determine the times of public prayer provided a powerful stimulus to timekeeping technology in the Islamic world. The ready accessibility of Greek and also Indian water clock designs provided the basis for further innovation and elaboration. By the 12th century AD, Islamic engineers were developing the finest water clocks in the world. Like the earlier Greek examples, the most elaborate of these devices went well beyond merely telling the time, to experiment with many different kinds of automation.

A culminating figure in this tradition is Ismail al-Jazari (1136-1206), a native of Upper Mesopotamia who served as chief engineer at the Artuklu Palace in eastern Anatolia. Rather like many of this Alexandrian predecessors, he appears to have brought together and synthesized traditions of mechanical ingenuity also developed by his father. His culminating work, The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devicesis a major landmark in the development of mechanical automation which survives in numerous, richly illustrated manuscript copies.A synopsis can be found here, and a full English edition here.

One of the most famous of these devices is a huge Elephant clock (Image 1). Several working reproductions of the clock have been made (Image 2), and a video explaining its basic mechanism can be found here. As important as the mechanical ingenuity of this masterpiece was its symbolism of the multi-cultural reach and inheritance of Islam in this period: as al-Jazari himself wrote, "The elephant represents the Indian and African cultures, the two dragons represent Chinese culture, the phoenix represents Persian culture, the water work represents Greek culture, and the turban represents Islamic culture".

Commentary. Howard Hotson (May 2021)