Hezârfen Ahmed Çelebi, Eilmer de Malmesbury, Abbas Ibn Firnas, os homens-pássaro

"First he practiced by flying over the pulpit of Okmeydanı eight or nine times with eagle wings, using the force of the wind. Then, as Sultan Murad Khan (Murad IV) was watching from the Sinan Pasha mansion at Sarayburnu, he flew from the very top of the Galata Tower and landed in the Doğancılar Square in Üsküdar, with the help of the south-west wind. Then Murad Khan granted him a sack of golden coins, and said: 'This is a scary man. He is capable of doing anything he wishes. It is not right to keep such people,' and thus sent him to Algeria on exile. He died there".
—Evliyâ Çelebi[1]

na wikipédia. ou the flying Turk.




"Hezarfen Ahmet was well aware of the fact that he had predecessors. Flight was a primeval obsession. An aviator from Moorish Spain and an English monk [Eilmer de Malmesbury] had supposedly been successful in flying in the 9th and 12th centuries respectively.

Armen Firman in 852 AD in Cordoba, Spain attempted flight with the help of a wing-like cloak. Twenty-three years later, Ibn Firnas, another intrepid dreamer from the same city built a flying machine. The glider was capable of carrying a human being. Sources cite that Firnas was successful in hanging onto the sky. He goofed up while landing. He injured his back and later succumbed to his lesions. "
(from here)

são a mesma pessoa, Armen Firman o nome latinizado do inventor berber Abbas Ibn Firnas, que saltou de uma torre no século nono. Leonardo aconteceu 600 anos mais tarde.

sobre Abbas Ibn Firmas:
"Abbas Ibn Firnas, also known as Abbas Abu Al-Qasim Ibn Firnas Ibn Wirdas al-Takurini, was a Muslim Andalusian polymath: an inventor, engineer, aviator, physician, Arabic poet, and Andalusian musician."

ainda sobre Abbas Ibn Firmas:


In the ninth century AD, all but a northern strip of present-day Spain and Portugal formed the Andalusian Caliphate of Cordova. This was the high tide of Islamic Art and Science. Cordova and Baghdad were twin cultural centers of the world.

In 822, a new Caliph took the throne and set about to create a renaissance. His ingathering of talent began with an Iraqi musician called Ziryab. That meant Blackbird -- a nickname that honored his fine singing, and dramatic appearance.

A jealous music teacher had driven Ziryab out of Baghdad. So the Caliph hired him at a fine salary. In Cordova, Ziryab developed new musical forms. He introduced the lute to Spain, and expanded its range by adding a fifth string. But he also became a patron of the sciences. He fostered the development of astronomy, medicine, and many technologies. One person who joined this exciting world, so bubbling with ideas, was a young Berber astronomer and poet named 'Abbas Ibn Firnas. And here things get interesting.

In 852, a new Caliph and a bizarre experiment: A daredevil named Armen Firman decided to fly off a tower in Cordova. He glided back to earth, using a huge winglike cloak to break his fall. He survived with minor injuries, and the young Ibn Firnas was there to see it.

Like Ziryab, Ibn Firnas worked at a huge variety of enterprises. He set up astronomical tables, he wrote poetry, he built a planetar-ium and designed a water clock. He developed a process for cutting rock crystal. Up to then, only the Egyptians knew how to facet crys-tal. Now Spain would no longer need to export quartz to Egypt, but could finish it at home.

Yet Firman's flight must've lain upon his mind. For, in 875, Ibn Firnas built his own glider. It was far more than a fancy cloak. He too launched himself from a tower. The flight was largely successful. However, the landing was bad. He injured his back, and left critics saying he hadn't taken proper account of the way birds pull up into a stall, and land on their tails. He'd provided neither a tail, nor means for such a maneuver.

His death, just twelve years later, may've been hastened by the injury. And, as we tell our schoolchildren about the Wright Brothers, the Islamic countries tell theirs about Ibn Firnas, a thousand years before the Wrights. The Libyans have a postage stamp honoring him. The Iraqis have their airport.

(daqui)