A painting on paper in color and gold leaf from al-Jazari's ' Kitab fi marifat al-hiyal al-handasiyya' (The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices). Abu al-'Iz Ibn Isma'il ibn al-Razaz al-Jazari (1136-1206) was a polymath: a scholar, inventor, mechanical engineer, craftsman, artist, mathematician and astronomer from Al-Jazira, Mesopotamia, who worked in service of the Artuqid dynasty in Diyarbakir, Asia Minor. He is best known for writing the Kitáb fí ma'rifat al-hiyal al-handasiyya (Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices) in 1206, where he described fifty mechanical devices along with instructions on how to construct them.