Some aspects in Banu Musa's philosophy of technology with special reference to their Kitab Al-Hiyal

Abstract

This study is an attempt to explore the life work of BanQ Musa, a family of three scholars, scientists, and engineers of 9th century ‘Abbasid Baghdad. The study finds that the current framework for the study of past technological development suffers as in the history of science, namely, that the past is studied independently of the worldview and epistemic framework of the scientists and the technologists. This has resulted in the separation of technology and science from the realm of worldview, ethics and society, leading to the problem of the megamachine. Gathering various accounts from medieval biographers, historians, and modem historians of technology, this study focuses on Banu Musa’s intellectual and cultural milieu that nurtured and provided them with opportunities to develop and implement their technological ideas. Some important aspects of scientific and technological development, imprints and imperatives in the era were highlighted. This study uses the worldview of Islam as articulated by Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, combined with the tools of historiography and semantic field analysis, which leads to the discovery of the architectonic nature of technological ideas. The main findings demonstrated that their seminal work Kitab al-Hiyal signified a creative framework for technological miniaturization and fusion, based on their other works on larger scale. The synthesis of these aspects could be used to conceptualize the framework in philosophy of technology that is rooted in the worldview of Islam.