The non-manual crank appears in several of the hydraulic devices described by the Banū Mūsā brothers in their 9th-century "Book of Ingenious Devices". These automatically operated cranks appear in several devices, two of which contain an action which approximates to that of a crankshaft, anticipating Al-Jazari's invention by several centuries and its first appearance in Europe by over five centuries. However, the automatic crank described by the Banu Musa would not have allowed a full rotation, but only a small modification was required to convert it to a crankshaft.