The virtue of the Arabs in advancing maritime knowledge

The Arabs achieved a distinguished global position in navigational skills, in addition to the natural talents they possessed and the inherited knowledge they retained. They excelled in the arts and engineering of sailing shipbuilding. They were the first to learn to ride the sea, and they navigated the depths of the distant seas with their primitive boats made of papyrus coated with bitumen. They achieved the first in inferring the stars and planets. They also had the leadership in refining and developing the astrolabe. They invented the perfecting machine "the sextant machine" and invented the magnetic compass, and they were the first to divide it into thirty-two parts. The first to use a water clock in navigation.
They are credited with drawing navigational maps, establishing coastal features, and distributing lines of latitude and longitude. The Arabs were also the first to know navigation.