"Elephant Water Clock" Representation in the Manuscripts of the Books of Badi' al-Zaman Jazari

Badi 'al-Zaman Abu al-'Izz ibn Isma'il ibn Razzaz al-Jazari is a Muslim scholar of the sixth century AH who spent the last three decades of his life in the region of Diyarbakir (ancient Amidia) in Turkey during the reign of three rulers of the Artuqid dynasty and had passed away in 602 AH. He had the title of "Chief of Operations", which meant Chief of Engineers. He is one of the most important scientists and artists of "Sina'at al-Hiyal" who has been in the scientific and artistic field of producing efficient, useful and, of course, wonderful products in his time.
"Hiyal" is one of the most practical scientific tools in Islamic civilization, which is the science of the solution to change and launching to meet the various needs of life; from the design of timepieces to solutions for easy withdrawal of water from wells and springs, to the construction of devices that are needed in medicine and have other applications, all are defined in the field of Hiyal. If there are different mechanisms in the devices, this science is close to mechanical engineering and the people who have done research in the field of Hiyal have been mechanical engineers, but in many ways, the science of Hiyal or at least the "Sina'at al-Hiyal" that aspect Art is being considered as part of the history of product design (industrial design) which, by using art and creativity, has identified the needs well and provided appropriate answers for them.
Jazari was an inventor and has written a description of his innovations and the development of the innovations of his predecessors in an engineering and artistic way in his book entitled "Al-Jami' Bayn al-'Ilm wa al-'Amal al-Nafi' fi Sina'at al-Hiyal (A Compendium on the Theory and Useful Practice of the Mechanical Arts)". Numerous manuscripts of this book are kept in libraries around the world. Before this research, 20 copies of it were officially introduced by Iranian researchers, and in this research, 4 more copies are introduced for the first time. This book, with other titles such as "Fi Ma'rifat al-Hiyal al-Handasiyya", "Aja'ib al-Sana'ei", "al-Alat al-Rahaniah" and "Kitab al-Hiyal", is apparently the only book left from Jazari, and has 50 automatic devices invented or completed by him, in 6 groups Introduced and illustrated.
Elephant water clock is an example of products designed by Jazari that is of special importance and is considered as one of the manifestations of the progress of science and technology in Islamic civilization. This device is an automatic water clock that could display and announce time along with symbolic functions, before the advent of hands clock.
This product is an artificial elephant with a four-column palace on the back. A person sits on the neck of an elephant with a hammer in his right hand and an ax in his left, holding two beautiful cups on either side. Inside the palace, a secretary is sitting on a circular platform holding a pen. Above it, two dragons turn their tails around an axis and their heads protrude from the palace. At the top of the palace is a dome and on top of it sits an eagle. The other two eagle heads are visible in the front view of this device, on either side of the person sitting on top of the palace. Above this person is a graded page with 15 cells that represents time.
The way this important Jazari’s invention works is that inside the elephant's belly, there is a water tank and a container with a small hole in the bottom floats on this water tank. Gradually, over a period of time, the container fills with water and sinks slowly into the water, pulling down the three chains to which it is attached. This, according to a controlled mechanism, causes the eagle to rotate over the dome and release a metal sphere, which in its path, from the top of the palace, reaches the mouth of one of the two eagles and from there falls into the mouth of the dragon. The weight of this metal sphere causes the dragon to descend, so that the sphere falls from its mouth into one of the two cups next to the elephant, making a resounding sound. Meanwhile, the person raises and lowers his hands to indicate the passage of half-time, the secretary spins on a circular platform, and on the top plate of the palace, the size of the half-unit changes. In the next half of the time, the same thing happens on the other side of the machine.
The method of this research is descriptive-analytical and there is a partial comparative approach in the study of samples. During this article, the collected library data and manuscripts of Jazari book have been observed and described and based on these data, analysis and study have been done. The study population of this study is all known manuscripts of the book "Fi Ma'rifat al-Hiyal al-Handasiyya", which led to the identification of new versions of this book. The illustrations of the original shape of the elephant water clock in these versions were examined as much as possible. Out of 24 manuscripts, 11 had the mentioned image, 9 copies were definitively devoid of this shape, and the status of the other 4 copies remained unclear in this regard because did not have the necessary access to determine the presence or absence of this image in them.
In the next step, 11 images of the elephant water clock were displayed and analyzed, and by presenting a summary of its illustration in the form of a table, a kind of comparative study was performed. In general, it can be said that 8 examples of this image are paintings with good, average and poor qualities, and the other three examples can only be called illustrations. Also, 3 examples of these images can be defined in the Abbasi International School (Baghdad school), two of which were depicted in the workshop of the court of the Artuqid and the other one in the workshop of the Mamluks. The other 3 copies can be attributed to the style of Indian Mongol painting.
It is "Sina'at al-Hyial" that, in addition to the mechanical functions of the product, pays attention to the user interface, user experience, aesthetics, identity and symbolization. This study showed that the international language of Jazari in designing a leading clock in his time, as a scientific achievement, showed the superiority of Muslims, and its installation in the city of Diyarbakir, which is a destination for foreign businessmen and ambassadors, could be a sign of domination of Muslims over other nations. The nations whose symbols were used, namely India, China, Egypt and Iran, were in fact the greatest nations of the civilized world at that time, and in a way, showed the scientific, political and cultural superiority of Islam over these nations.
It can be said that the use of many signs and symbols of the world by Jazari, such as the Indian elephant, the Chinese dragon, the Egyptian eagle, the Persian carpet in a completely advanced and progressive product in its time, indicates the existence of product design process in Jazari work, and brings it transcends engineering and closer to the concept we know today as industrial design.