Ismail al-Jazari

Badi' al-Zaman Abu al-'Izz Ismail al-Jazari (1136–1206 CE) served for twenty-five years as chief mechanical engineer to the Artuqid Turkish kings in Diyarbakir. In 1206, at royal request, he completed his lavishly illustrated treatise, The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (*Kitab fi ma'rifat al-hiyal al-handasiyya*).

Al-Jazari invented the crankshaft—converting rotary motion into linear reciprocating motion, which Lynn White Jr. recognized as the most important mechanical concept after the wheel. He constructed the Elephant Clock (integrating Greek hydraulics, Indian elephants, Egyptian phoenixes, and Persian dragons), double-acting reciprocating suction pumps with valves, and programmable humanoid robotic drummers.