Mind and hand: Early scientific instruments from al-Andalus and ʿAbbas ibn Firnas in the Cordoban Umayyad Court

This essay explores a symbiotic relationship between visual culture and the exact sciences that is revealed by the career of ʿAbbas b. Firnas (d. circa 876), as recounted in the Cordoban court chronicle, and by early scientific instruments from al-Andalus. Ibn Firnas is today remembered as a polymath and early scientist, yet neither historians of art nor of science have fully explored the implications of his reputation among medieval intellectuals as the wellspring of an Andalusi tradition of fine scientific instrumentation. This essay considers the Arabic account of Ibn Firnas as a maker of such objects, alongside early scientific instruments, exploring what these reveal about connections between elite intellectual culture and craft, between science and artmaking. It argues that considering the objects and texts in tandem reveals intellectuals, especially those working in the exact sciences, as ‘makers’ of medieval Islamic visual culture.