The Tools of Muslim Water Technology.
Written by Richard Covington
https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/200603/the.art.and.science.of.water.htm
The Shaduf.
One of the oldest known tools used to raise water from a well, river, or lake is the shaduf. This simple mechanism, used since pharaonic and classical times, consists of a bucket attached to a rope at the long end of a wooden pole. The pole rests on a fulcrum with a counterweight at the short end of the pole. When an operator pulls down the long end of the pole, he lowers the bucket into the source, and the counterweight hauls the full pail back up to the surface. Shadufs were introduced in Spain in the sixth century of our era, but not until the 14th century did they spread north to Germany. They also were adopted in Flanders (in present-day Belgium), where the 16th-century artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder depicted them in engravings of Flemish farms. Although they have largely disappeared from northern Europe, shadufs remain widespread throughout the Middle East, notably along the Nile.
Archimedes Screw
This classical device, named for the third-century BC Greek mathematician who first documented it, is composed of a wooden screw mounted inside an inclined cylinder. As the screw is turned, the spiral thread lifts the water into a sluice. Writing around 20 bc, the Greek historian Strabo described just such an Archimedes screw raising water from the Nile.
The Noria
Rotated by water-power, noria waterwheels, such as the Albolafia in Córdoba, turned first in Iran, where al-Muqaddasi described numerous norias along the Ahwaz River around the year 1000. Later, the noria became a mainstay of irrigation throughout al-Andalus. Still, today in Syria, the city of Hama’s 20-meter-diameter (64') wheel, equipped with 120 compartments that empty into a stone aqueduct, lingers as a nostalgic landmark alongside the Orontes River. Writing in 1154, the geographer al-Idrisi marveled over an Andalusian Noria twice that size that lifted water from the Tagus River to Talavera de la Reina near Toledo.
NIK WHEELER
The Qanat
One of the most basic methods of controlling and moving water is the canal. When constructed above ground level, a canal is called an aqueduct; when buried below ground level, it may be called a qanat (in Iran), a falaj (in Oman), foggara (in the Sahara regions), or khettara (in Morocco). The oldest qanat may be one uncovered by the 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran, that dates back more than 2000 years.
The Saqiya
Originating in Persia around the same time as the qanat, the saqiya is an animal-powered mechanism of interlocking wooden gears, usually two, set at right angles to each other. A donkey or mule is harnessed to a pole fixed to the broad, horizontal wheel, which is set with posts generally less than a meter tall—the teeth of that gear. These posts mesh at right angles with thick pins set into a vertical waterwheel, the second gear. Attached around the circumference of the vertical wheel are clay pots. When the animal walks in a circle, rotating the horizontal wheel, it rotates the vertical wheel, which dips the pots into the water one by one. As each pot reaches the top of its arc, its water pours into a wooden sluice. According to historian Ibn Bassal, the saqiya was the most widely used method of irrigation in the Muslim world by the 11th century.
TOR EIGELAND
https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/200603/the.art.and.science.of.water.htm
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