Islamic World

Between the 9th and 13th centuries, Islamic courts, scholars, and engineers developed water technologies that reflected both practical needs and religious ideals. From fountains in courtyards to hydraulic clocks in palaces, water flowed through the daily life and intellectual imagination of the Islamic world.

Rulers commissioned devices not only to move water, but to embody control over it, and by extension, over time, labor, and the cosmos. These creations merged empirical observation with cosmological symbolism, reflecting the harmony between divine law and human design.

In 1206, the engineer Ibn al-Razzāz al-Jazarī compiled The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices at the court of the Artuqid dynasty. The treatise includes over 100 devices, fountains, automata, clocks, and pumps, built to entertain, instruct, and inspire.

Among the most iconic is his elephant clock, which combines a hidden water tank, float-regulated motion, falcons that release balls, and a timing dial. The elephant serves as the main body of the clock, with a mahout, a domed pavilion, and moving figures perched atop it.

“It is a complete elephant, with a man mounted between its shoulders, like a mahout (fayyal). In his right hand is an axe… and in his left a mallet…”

— al-Jazarī, The Book of Knowledge, trans. Hill

Al-Jazarī describes each part in functional detail, without offering symbolic interpretation. However, modern scholars have noted that the diverse aesthetic components, including the Indian elephant, Persian motifs, and Arabic inscriptions, may reflect the cultural breadth of the Islamic world, even if the symbolism was not explicitly stated.

Beyond the machinery of court spectacle, Islamic thought placed water at the center of divine creation. The Qur’an frequently references water as the origin of all life and a sign of God’s power:

“And We made from water every living thing. Then will they not believe?”

— Qur’an 21:30 [7]

This verse and others like it underpinned both spiritual and legal attitudes toward water. Its use in ritual ablution (wudū’), gardens, and public infrastructure emphasized not only its necessity, but its sanctity. To control water was to uphold divine trust.

In Islamic cities, water flowed through courtyards, gardens, and baths. Fountains were not decorative alone, they were symmetrical reflections of paradise, described in the Qur’an as “gardens beneath which rivers flow.” These spaces combined geometric order, sensory calm, and hydraulic function.

Though less technical than al-Jazarī’s devices, such spaces reflect a shared vision: that water, when carefully directed, becomes a sign of spiritual and political order.

In Islamic civilization, water engineering served as both a real and symbolic instrument of rule. Whether in the silent drop of a falcon’s ball in al-Jazarī’s elephant clock, or the flowing rills of a mosque courtyard, control over water was seen as a form of knowledge, and a reflection of divine harmony.