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Gunpowder Composition for Rockets and Cannon in Arabic Military Treaties of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

Gunpowder Composition for Rockets and Cannon in Arabic Military Treaties of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

By Ahmad Y. al-Hassan

ICON (International Committee for the History of Technology) Journal, Vol. 9 (2003)

Abstract: In some documented histories of warfare and weapons in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance there is a noticeable gap in the history of gunpowder and cannon in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Some Authors jump from China in the far east to Europe in the far west with the slightest reference or no reference at all to the Arabic and Islamic lands that spanned the whole distance between east and west. In the thirteenth century, technology could hardly have been transferred between the two extremities of the old world unless it passed through the Arabic and Islamic medium and subjected to more developments.

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