9th century


• 721 - 900 - [chemistry] Chemical processes first described by Muslim chemists include: assation (or roasting), cocotion (or digestion), ceration, lavage, solution, mixture, and fixation. Arab chemists were the first to produce purified water, through water purification and distillation, used for water supply systems and for long journeys across deserts where the
supplies were uncertain. Petrol is also first produced by Muslim chemists

• 721 - 925 - [chemical technology] In his Secretum secretorum (Latinized title), Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes) described the following tools that were invented by him and his Muslim predecessors (Calid, Geber and Al-Kindi) for melting substances (li-tadhwib): hearth (kur), bellows (minfakh aw ziqq), crucible (bawtaqa), the but bar but (in Arabic) or botus barbatus (in Latin), tongs (masik aq kalbatan), scissors (miqta), hammer (mukassir), file (mibrad).

• 721 - 925 - [chemical technology] Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi described the following tools that were invented by him and his Muslim predecessors for the preparation of drugs (li-tadbir al-aqaqir): cucurbit and still with evacuation tube (qar aq anbiq dhu-khatm), receiving matras (qabila), blind still (without evacuation tube) (al-anbiq al-ama), aludel (al-uthal), goblets (qadah), flasks (qarura or quwarir), rosewater flasks (ma wariyya), cauldron (marjal aw tanjir), earthenware pots varnished on the inside with their lids (qudur aq tanjir), water bath or sand bath (qadr), oven (al-tannur in Arabic, athanor in Latin), small cylindirical oven for heating aludel (mustawqid), funnels, sieves, filters, etc.

• 721 - 925 - [chemical substances] Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi wrote that he and his Muslim predecessors (Calid, Geber and al-Kindi) invented the following derivative and artificial chemical substances: lead(II) oxide (PbO), red lead (Pb3O4), tin(II) oxide (Isfidaj), copper acetate (Zaniar), copper(II) oxide (CuO), lead sulfide, zinc oxide, bismuth oxide, antimony oxide, iron rust, iron acetate, Daws (a contituent of steel), cinnabar (HgS), arsenic trioxide (As2O3), alkali (al-Qili), sodium hydroxide (caustic soda), and Qalimiya (anything that separates from metals during their purification).

• 721 - 925 - [chemical substances] Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi classified the natural chemical substances that were discovered by him and his Muslim predecessors (mainly Calid, Geber, al-Kindi and al-Tamimi) as follows: Four spirits (mercury, sal ammoniac, arsenic, sulfur), eight fusible metals (gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, mercury), rhirteen stones (marqashisha, maghnisiya, daws (a constituent of iron and steel), tutiya, lapis lazuli, malachite green, turquoise, hematite, arsenic oxide, lead sulfide, talq (mica and asbestos), gypsum, glass), six vitriols (black vitriol, alum, qalqand, qalqadis, qalqatar, suri), seven borates (borax, bread borax, natron, nitrate, sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate, sodium borate), and thirteen salts (lead(II) acetate (sweet), magnesium sulfate (bitter), andarani salt, tabarzad, potassium nitrate, naphthenate, black salt (Indian), salt of egg, alkali (al-qali), salt of urine, calcium hydroxide (slaked lime), salt of oak ashes, natron).

• 780 - 850 - [astronomical instruments] Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī (Algorismi) invents the quadrant, mural instrument, sine quadran, horary quadrant, and alhidade.

• 789 - 857 - [cosmetics, cuisine, fashion, hygiene] Ziryab ("Blackbird") opens a beauty parlour or “cosmetology school” for women near Alcázar, Al-Andalus, where he introduces a "shorter, shaped cut, with bangs on the forehead and the ears uncovered." He also taught "the shaping of eyebrows and the use of chemical depilatories for removing body hair", and he introduced new perfumes and cosmetics.[52] Ziryab is also known to have invented an early toothpaste, which he popularized throughout Islamic Spain The exact ingredients of this toothpaste are not currently known, but it was reported to have been both "functional and pleasant to taste." He also invented under-arm deodorants and "new short hairstyles leaving the neck, ears and eyebrows free," as well as shaving for men. He also introduced the three-course meal, insisting that meals should be served in three separate courses consisting of soup, the main course, and dessert.

• 800 - [Medicine, psychiatry, psychology] The first psychiatric hospital and insane asylum in Egypt is built by Muslim physicians in Cairo.

• 800 - 868 - [biology, language, linguistics, zoology] 'Amr ibn Bahr al-Jahiz wrote a number of works on zoology, Arabic grammar, rhetoric, and lexicography. His most famous work is the Book of Animals, in which he was the first to discuss food chains, and was an early adherent of environmental determinism, arguing that the environment can determine the physical characteristics of the inhabitants of a certain community and that the origins of different human skin colors is the result of the environment. He was also the first to describe the struggle for existence[ and an early theory on evolution by natural selection.

• 800 - 873 - [technology] The Banū Mūsā brothers write the Book of Ingenious Devices, in which they describe their following inventions: valve, float valve, feedback controller, float chamber, automatic control, Automatic flute player, Programmable machine, Trick drinking vessels, gas mask, grab, clamshell grab, fail-safe system, hurricane lamp, self-feeding oil lamp, self-trimming oil lamp, mechanical musical instrument, and Hydropowered organ.

• 800s - [education] The first universities in the modern sense, namely institutions of higher education and research which issue academic degrees at all levels (bachelor, master and doctorate), were medieval madrasahs known as Jami'ah founded in the 9th century. The first universities in Europe were influenced in many ways by the madrasahs in Islamic Spain and the Emirate of Sicily at the time, and in the Middle East during the Crusades. The Islamic scholarly system of fatwa and ijma, meaning opinion and consensus respectively, formed the basis of the "scholarly system the West has practised in university scholarship from the Middle Ages down to the present day."

• 800s - [chemistry, petroleum] Oil fields first appear in Baku, Azerbaijan, and generate commercial activities and industry. These oil fields, where oil wells are dug to get the Naft (naphta, or crude petroleum), are described by geographer Masudi in the 10th century and by Marco Polo in the 13th century, who described the output of those wells as hundreds of shiploads.

• 800s - [education, legal science] Madrasahs were the first law schools, and it is likely that the "law schools known as Inns of Court in England" may have been derived from the madrasahs which taught Islamic law and jurisprudence.

• 800s - [legal science, education] The origins of the doctorate dates back to the ijazat attadris wa 'l-ifta' ("license to teach and issue legal opinions") in the medieval Islamic legal education system, which was equivalent to the Doctor of Laws qualification and was developed during the 9th century after the formation of the Madh'hab legal schools. To obtain a doctorate, a student "had to study in a guild school of law, usually four years for the basic undergraduate course" and ten or more years for a post-graduate course. The "doctorate was obtained after an oral examination to determine the originality of the candidate's theses," and to test the student's "ability to defend them against all objections, in disputations set up for the purpose" which were scholarly exercises practiced throughout the student's "career as a graduate student of law." After students completed their post-graduate education, they were awarded doctorates giving them the status of faqih (meaning "master of law"), mufti (meaning "professor of legal opinions") and mudarris (meaning "teacher"), which were later translated into Latin as magister, professor and doctor respectively.

• 800s - [ceramics, pottery] Another significant contribution of Islamic pottery was the development of stonepaste ceramics, originating from 9th century Iraq.

• 800s - [chemistry] The first oil fields and oil wells are created in Baku, Azerbaijan, in order to produce naphtha. Coffee was also invented by Khalid in Ethiopia.

• 800s - [milling technology] The water turbine is invented by Muslim engineers in the Islamic world.

• 800s - [astronomical instruments] Muslim astronomers invent the universal sundial and universal horary dial in Baghdad. The first navigational astrolabe was also invented in the medieval Islamic world, and employed the use of a polar projection system.

• [COLOR="Red"]800 - 873 - [chemistry, environment, medicine, philosophy, physics] [/COLOR]Ibn Ishaq Al-Kindi (Latinized, Alkindus) contributed to early Islamic philosophy, Islamic physics, optics, Islamic medicine, Islamic mathematics, cryptography, and metallurgy. He worked at the House of Wisdom which was set up in 810. He introduces quantification into medicine in his De Gradibus, and he is the first to isolate ethanol (alcohol) as a pure compound.

• 810 - 888 - [aviation, glass, medicine, technology] Abbas Ibn Firnas "was a polymath: a physician, a rather bad poet, the first to make glass from stones (quartz), a student of music, and inventor of some sort of metronome." He contributed to the mechanics of flight, planetarium, and artificial crystals, and he made the earliest recorded attempt at controlled flight. He also designed a water clock, devised means of manufacturing colorless glass, developed a chain of rings that could be used to display the motions of the planets and stars, and developed a process for cutting rock crystal. Another one of his inventions was an artificial weather simulation room, in which spectators saw stars and clouds, and were astonished by artificial thunder and lightning due to mechanisms hidden in the basement. He also describes corrective lens and clear colourless high-purity glass, and invents silica glass and fused quartz glass.

• 813 - 833 - [library] A large number of ancient Greek, Sanskrit and Pahlavi texts on mathematics and astronomy are translated into Arabic at Baghdad's House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma) during Al-Ma'mun's time.

• 813 - 833 - [education, medicine] The first medical schools are founded in Baghdad during Al-Ma'mun's time. These also became the first medical universities, where academic degrees and diplomas (ijazah) were issued to those students who were qualified to be practising doctors of medicine.

• 820 - [mathematics] Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī (Persian name: خوارزمي, Arabicized name الخوارزمي al-Khwarizmi, Latinized name Algorithm) wrote the Hisab al-jabr w'al-muqabala (Calculus of resolution and juxtaposition), more briefly referred to as al-jabr, or algebra. "Algebra was a unifying theory which allowed rational numbers, irrational numbers, geometrical magnitudes, etc., to all be treated as "algebraic objects". It gave mathematics a whole new development path so much broader in concept to that which had existed before, and provided a vehicle for future development of the subject. Another important aspect of the introduction of algebraic ideas was that it allowed mathematics to be applied to itself in a way which had not happened before.As Rashed writes: "Al-Khwarizmi's successors undertook a systematic application of arithmetic to algebra, algebra to arithmetic, both to trigonometry, algebra to the Euclidean theory of numbers, algebra to geometry, and geometry to algebra. This was how the creation of polynomial algebra, combinatorial analysis, numerical analysis, the numerical solution of equations, the new elementary theory of numbers, and the geometric construction of equations arose."

• 820 - [mathematics] Al-Mahani (full name Abu Abdollah Muhammad ibn Isa Mahani - in Arabic Al-Mahani). Conceived the idea of reducing geometrical problems such as duplicating the cube to problems in algebra.

• 828 - 896 [agriculture, astronomy, biology, botany, Earth sciences, meteorology] Al-Dinawari, the founder of Arabic botany, writes the Book of Plants, which describes at least 637 plants; discusses plant evolution from its birth to its death, describing the phases of plant growth and the production of flowers and fruit. He also deals with the applications of Islamic astronomy and meteorology to agriculture: he describes the astronomical and meteorological character of the sky, the planets and constellations, the sun and moon, the lunar phases indicating seasons and rain, the anwa (heavenly bodies of rain), and atmospheric phenomena such as winds, thunder, lightning, snow, floods, valleys, rivers, lakes, wells and other sources of water. He also deals with the Earth sciences in the context of agriculture: he considers the Earth, stone and sands, and describes different types of ground, indicating which types are more convenient for plants and the qualities and properties of good ground.

• 836 - 901 [anatomy; astronomy; mathematics; mechanics] Thabit Ibn Qurra (Latinized, Thebit) studied at Baghdad's House of Wisdom under the Banu Musa brothers. He made many contributions to mathematics, particularly in geometry and number theory. He discovered the theorem by which pairs of amicable numbers can be found; i.e., two numbers such that each is the sum of the proper divisors of the other. Later, al-Baghdadi (b. 980) and al-Haytham (born 965) developed variants of the theorem.

• 838 - 870 - Tabari (full name: Ali ibn Sahl Rabban Al-Tabari). Medicine, Mathematics, Calligraphy, Literature.

• mid-800s - [chemistry] Al-Kindi writes on the distillation of wine as that of rose water and gives 107 recipes for perfumes, in his book Kitab Kimia al-`otoor wa al-tas`eedat (Book of the chemistry of perfumes and distillations).

• [B]850/858 - 929 - [astronomy - mathematics][/B] Al-Battani (Albatenius) writes works on astronomy and trigonometry. He is mentioned twenty-three times in Copernicus' work De revolutionibus orbium celestium (On the Revolution of Heavenly Spheres).

• 850 - 930 [mathematics] born Abu Kamil of Egypt (full name, Abu Kamil Shuja ibn Aslam ibn Muhammad ibn Shuja) Forms an important link in the development of algebra between al-Khwarizmi and al-Karaji. Despite not using symbols, but writing powers of x in words, he had begun to understand what we would write in symbols as .

• 852 - [aviation, flight] Abbas Ibn Firnas (Armen Firman) made the first successful parachute fall using a huge wing-like cloak to break his fall, near Córdoba, Spain.

• 859 - [education] The University of Al Karaouine in Fes, Morocco, is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest academic degree-granting university in the world with its founding in 859 by the princess Fatima al-Fihri.

• ca. 860 - [astronomy, engineering] Al-Farghani (Algraganus) contributes to Islamic astronomy and civil engineering.

• 864 - 930 - [chemistry, medicine] Al-Razi (Rhazes) wrote on Naft (naphta or petroleum) and its distillates in his book Kitab sirr al-asrar (Book of the secret of secrets). When choosing a site to build Baghdad's hospital, he hung pieces of fresh meat in different parts of the city. The location where the meat took the longest to rot was the one he chose for building the hospital. He advocated that patients not be told their real condition so that fear or despair do not affect the healing process. He wrote the earliest descriptions on alkali, caustic soda, glycerine, and he first described the modern formula for soap and invented the soap bar.[78] He also Gave descriptions of equipment, processes and methods in his book Kitab al-Asrar (Book of Secrets) in 925, and he was the first to clearly describe and differentiate between measles and smallpox. He was also a pioneer of chemotherapy and antiseptics.

• 870 - 950 - Al-Farabi (Al-Pharabius) contributes to early Islamic philosophy, early Muslim sociology, logic in Islamic philosophy, political science, and musical science

• 875 - [aviation, flight] Abbas Ibn Firnas made the first recorded attempt at controlled flight employing a glider

• 889 - [navigation] Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad made the earliest known attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean. According to Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī's The fields of gold and the mines of jewels, Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad, from Delba (Palos de la Frontera) crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 889 and returned with a shipload of valuable treasures (see Pre-Columbian Islamic contact theories).