Abbas ibn Firnas devised a means of manufacturing colourless glass, invented various glass planispheres, made corrective lenses ("reading stones"), devised an apparatus consisting of a chain of objects that could be used to simulate the motions of the planets and stars, and developed a process for cutting rock crystal that allowed Al-Andalus to cease exporting quartz to Egypt to be cut.

He covered himself with feathers for the purpose, attached a couple of wings to his body, and, getting on an eminence, flung himself down into the air, when according to the testimony of several trustworthy writers who witnessed the performance, he flew a considerable distance, as if he had been a bird, but, in alighting again on the place whence he had started, his back was very much hurt, for not knowing that birds when they alight come down upon their tails, he forgot to provide himself with one.

[6] According to some secondary sources, about 20 years before Ibn Firnas attempted to fly he witnessed a man named Armen Firman wrap himself in a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts and jump from a tower in Córdoba, intending to use the garment as wings on which he could glide.

[5] However, other secondary sources that deal exhaustively with Ibn Firnas' flight attempt make no reference at all to Armen Firman.

[6][21][22] Al-Maqqari's account of Ibn Firnas, being the sole primary source of the flight story,[6] makes no mention of Firman.

[23] In 1973, a statue of Ibn Firnas by the sculptor Badri al-Samarrai was installed at the Baghdad International Airport in Iraq.