Glossary term: Hiyal

Glossary term: Hiyal

"legalistic trickery" to allow jurists to circumvent some of the more restrictive doctrines of Islamic law, especially in the area of commercial practice. It also, came to refer to mechanical/automation like inventions,

The automatonic elephant clock is considered a due to the idea that it is a type of trickery, as it is tricking nature, this clock is a trick elephant. Hiyal can be used to describe automatons and machinery due to the idea that these things are a sort of false copy of nature in a similar way to the wordplay and legalese are tricks in the original context of Hiyal.

Abu'l Izz Isma'il al-Jazari , (Author),, Farkh ibn 'Abd al-Latif , (Copyist),. 715 A.H. / A.D. 1315. Detached folio from an illustrated manuscript, The Elephant Clock: Leaf from the Book of the Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices by al-Jazari. Books, Codex. Place: <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/">The Metropolitan Museum of Art</a>. https://library.artstor.org/asset/AMICO_METRO_103826689.