Who knew that a Muslim poet was a pioneer in aviation - and not just flights of fancy. Before the Wright brothers got aerodynamic, the bard Abbas Ibn Firas crafted a flying machine in 852. The lyrical engineer tried to fly his contraption from a mosque minaret in Cordoba using a loose cloak, which flopped and hey presto, the first parachute.
Since cleanliness is a central part of the Quran, it should come as no surprise that soap originates from the region. Keeping greasy hair and smelly pits at bay for centuries, Muslim brainboxes as early as 2800 B.C. were working up a lather in Babylon. Perhaps the most useful invention of all time, wouldn't you say?
Although the Chinese are credited with inventing saltpetre gunpowder, the Arabs figured out that the saltpetre gunpowder can be purified using potassium nitrate. In the 15th century, Arabs invented a rocket which they called a ?self-moving and combustion egg?, and they called the torpedo a ?self-propelled pear-shaped bomb?.
As the world goes camera crazy and snaps up selfies, let?s remember who we should thank for Kodak moments! Ibn al-Haytham, the ?father of optics,? was the first person to realise that light enters through the eye and with this knowledge, he crafted the first pinhole camera. The world has been anything but camera-shy since.
With scorching temperatures and a plethora of desert creepy crawlies, it?s no wonder that the Arabs devised the first vaccinations. Muslim Indians brewed a successful vaccination for smallpox as early as 1000 BC but it wasn?t until the wife of the British ambassador in Turkey began exporting it to Europe in 1724 that it went viral.
Cutting edge! Countless surgical instruments in a modern medical theater were brought to us by Al Zahrawi (Father of Modern Surgery). Thanks to his monkey nibbling on his lute string, the Muslim doc discovered that catgut used for internal stitches would dissolve naturally and could also make medicine capsules.
Islamic architecture is known to be the first style of architecture to adopt pointed arches. Europe?s gothic architecture later borrowed this characteristics for their cathedrals. The Middle East itself has moved out of its gothic teenage phase and, as shown by the Gulf, is now into opulent buildings like the Burj Al Khalifa in Dubai.
Not just run of the Muslim mill: The first windmill did not spin on the planes of The Netherlands, but in Arabia in 634 AD. Windmills were originally made for a Persian caliph who lived in the infinite deserts of Arabia with plenty of hot-air to to harness.
List of inventions in the medieval Islamic world - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia