Armen Firman & Abbas Ibn Firnas
Armen Firman may be the Latinized name of Abbas Ibn Firnas, or, alternatively, he may have been the man who inspired Ibn Firnas.
There is some contradiction in the modern record: According to some secondary sources, about 20 years before Ibn Firnas attempted to fly he may have witnessed Firman as he wrapped himself in a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts and jumped from a tower in Córdoba, intending to use the garment as wings on which he could glide. The alleged attempt at flight was unsuccessful, but the garment slowed his fall enough that he only sustained minor injuries.
However, there is no reference to Armen Firman in other secondary sources, all of which deal exhaustively with Ibn Firnas' flight attempt. Since this story was recorded only in a single primary source, al-Maqqari, and since Firman's jump is said to have been Ibn Firnas' source of inspiration, the lack of any mention of Firman in al-Maqqari's account may point to the conclusion that he never existed and that his tower jump was later confused with Ibn Firnas' gliding attempt in secondary writings.
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