Hasan al-Rammah

Hasan al-Rammah (Arabic: حسن الرماح, died 1295) was a Syrian[1][2][3] Arab[4] chemist and engineer during the Mamluk Sultanate who studied gunpowders and explosives, and sketched prototype instruments of warfare, including the first torpedo.[5] Al-Rammah called his early torpedo "an egg which moves itself and burns." It was made of two sheet-pans of metal fastened together and filled with naphtha, metal filings, and potassium nitrate. It was intended to move across the surface of the water, propelled by a large rocket and kept on course by a small rudder.[6]

Al-Rammah devised several new types of gunpowder[7], a new type of fuse, and two types of lighters.[6]

References

1. Riper, A. Bowdoin Van (2004). Rockets and Missiles: The Life Story of a Technology. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-32795-7.
2. Partington, J. R. (1999). A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-5954-0.
3. Pacey, Arnold (1991). Technology in World Civilization: A Thousand-year History. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-66072-3.
4. Elgood, Robert (1995). Firearms of the Islamic World: In the Tared Rajab Museum, Kuwait. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 9781850439639.
5. Hinds, Joseph (23 February 2009). "Very, Very Early Torpedoes". Great History. Archived from the original on 2 November 2013. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
6. Partington, James Riddick (1999), A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder, Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 203, ISBN 0-8018-5954-9
7. Al-Hassan, Ahmad Y. (1992-03-27). Islamic Technology: An Illustrated History (1st ed.). Cambridge ; New York : Paris: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-42239-0.