First bold attempt at flight 852 C.E | Inventions by Muslims
First bold attempt at flight 852 C.E
First bold attempt at flight
Did you know that the
first really scientific attempt to fly in the Muslim World was made in the 9th
century? Abul Qasim Ibn Firnas, who lived in the Spanish city of Cordoba, built
a glider which was capable of carrying a human being.
Since antiquity,
flying has always been a human dream as early civilizations could only watch
and admire the gracefulness of flying birds. In 852 C.E., Abbas Ibn Firnas, or
Armen Firman in Latin, a Moor(a Muslim of the mixed Berber and Arab people
inhabiting N Africa) from Cordoba, constructed a wing-like cloak that he could
glide on. He survived an attempt jumping from a tower in Cordoba with only
minor injuries as his wing-like garments caught enough air to break his fall.
This fall came to be known as the parachute fall. After watching birds, he
realized that he had not added a tail to his glider.
Another Muslim,
Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi (1609-1640) flew successfully from one side of the
Bosphorus in Istanbul to the other during the reign of the Turkish Sultan Murad
IV, in 1633.
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