Remembering ʿAbbas Ibn Firnas

In popular culture today ʿAbbās b. Firnās (d. 887) is remembered primarily as an early ‘scientist’ of the early Islamic west. He is best known for conducting an early aeronautics experiment that has been considered as a milestone in the early history of human flight. From modern aviation to modern art, social media to luxury automobiles, his medieval 'first in flight' is imagined, visualized, and celebrated in arts & popular culture in Spain and the MENA region. This story map considers some of the ways in which this medieval polymath has been remembered in modern and contemporary contexts for his medieval ‘first in flight.' It contrasts these modern legacies with how medieval and early modern Arabic intellectuals remembered him as a talented polymath whose career bridged the exact sciences and visual culture. This story map reveals a web of connections between history, science and technology, and visual culture that links Spain, North Africa, and regions beyond.

Ibn Firnas and his medieval ‘first in flight’ have been widely invoked and celebrated in popular and visual culture since the early twentieth century, and this has intensified in the last two decades. These modern and contemporary representations and the narratives they create bring to the fore issues of memory, the museum, and public perception about the place of Islamic societies in the narrative of the history of science and technology. His modern and contemporary legacy speaks to a desire to create a more diverse global story of history, science, and technology – one that decenters Eurocentric narratives of scientific and technological superiority. By contrast, while medieval and early modern Arabic intellectuals in Spain and North Africa remarked on Ibn Firnas’ unusual aeronautics experiment, they did not see it as his enduring legacy. Rather, they remembered him as a pioneering intellectual of the Islamic West who also designed and made fine technological devices and spaces of scientific visualization that astounded and impressed his contemporaries. As Margaret Graves has shown, intellect and the applied arts were closely entertwined in medieval Islamic societies. Ibn Firnas’ legacies and his career invite us to explore this productive dynamic in the early Islamic West

I would like to thank Joanne Bloom, Mariam Rosser-Owen, Matt Saba, and Michael Toler for kind assistance with images. This Story Map is based on my Medieval ‘First in Flight’ collaborative project (2014-17) and my monograph, A Caliphal Daedalus (currently under revision).

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