The first water pump was discovered by a scientist named Al-Jazari in the 12th century in Mesopotamia. In 1174, Al-Jazari worked as an expert technician for the Bani Artuq dynasty, which at that time was the ruler of the Mesopotamian region. Al-Jazari was a very accomplished scientist in Mesopotamia, in fact, thanks to his various skills, he received several titles, such as Rais al-A’mal, which shows that he was the leader of engineers during the Bani Artuq dynasty.
Mesopotamia’s dry and barren geographical conditions with small rainfall capacity sometimes make it difficult for people to get water. Even though there flows a fairly large river, it is not easy for people who live far from there to reach it. This triggered Al-Jazari to create a machine that could channel water from rivers to residential areas quite far away.
At that time, Mesopotamian people were actually familiar with equipment such as water pumps called shaduf and shaqiya. This tool was widely used by the people of the Assyrian and Ancient Egyptian civilizations. Shaduf consists of a long beam supported by two wooden pillars. Meanwhile, shaqiya is an animal-powered machine that moves using two gears.
Al-Jazari then succeeded in developing these two tools into a machine that could supply large quantities of water. He also succeeded in maximizing the use of wooden blocks and animal power used to move the two previous tools. The way his machine works uses gears that can move blocks up and down regularly. This machine combines materials made of iron, which are connected by bolts.
Previously, the rotation of the machine wheels had to be manually driven by human power. But thanks to Al-Jazari’s abilities, the machine’s wheels could spin continuously and constantly. His discovery was considered an important discovery in mechanical equipment by scientists in the western world, because his method became the basis for making modern machines. In Europe itself, the discovery of this kind of machine only occurred in the 15th century.
Al-Jazari succeeded in completing more than 50 discoveries in the field of mechanics. To explain the results of his work, in 1206, he wrote a book entitled al-Jami Bain al-Ilm Wal ‘Aml al-Nafi Fi Sinat ‘at al-Hiyal. The book contains the theory and practice of mechanical methods that were created by Al-Jazira.