29 March, 2024
Search
Close this search box.
Seeing the World through a Different Lens: the science and philosophy of Ibn-al Haytham
Seeing the World through a Different Lens: the science and philosophy of Ibn-al Haytham

Date

Spread the love

Referred to as “the father of modern optics”, the Arab Muslim scholar Abu Ali al Hasan ibn al-Haytham was a remarkable scholar, intellectual, and scientist.

 Ibn al-Haytham by the artist Ali Amro
Creative representation of Ibn al-Haytham by the artist Ali Amro

Ibn al-Haytham was born in the year 965 in Basra (Southern Iraq), and died in about 1040 in Cairo. He was one of the earliest scientists to study the characteristics of light and the mechanism/process of vision. He sought experimental proof of his theories and ideas. During many years living in Egypt, ten of which were spent under what we may now call protective custody (house arrest), he composed one of his most celebrated works, the Kitab al-Manazir, whose title is commonly translated into English as Book of Optics but more properly has the broader meaning Book of Vision.

Ibn al-Haytham’s work was remarkable for its emphasis on proof and evidence. He is known to have said:

“If learning the truth is the scientist’s goal… then he must make himself the enemy of all that he reads. ” By this, he meant it was essential to conduct experiments to test what is written rather than blindly accepting it as true.

Ibn al-Haytham made significant advances in optics, mathematics, and astronomy. His work on optics was characterized by a strong emphasis on carefully designed experiments to test theories and hypotheses. In that regard, he was following a procedure somewhat similar to the one modern scientists adhere to in their investigative research.

 Ibn al-Haytham by the artist Ali Amro
  • Ibn al-Haytham was invited to Egypt to help build a dam on the Nile. After a field visit, he declined to proceed with the project causing him to end up in what we now call -protective custody for 10 years.
  • From his observations of light entering a dark room, he made major breakthroughs in understanding light and vision.
  • His discoveries led him to make significant revisions to ancient views about how our eyes see.
  • Ibn al-Haytham showed that a person saw an object by something entering the eye rather than leaving the eye. Before Ibn al-Haytham, both ideas had been put forward by other scientists and scholars writing in Greek, Latin, Arabic, and other languages.
  • Through his studies of earlier work by Galen and others, he gave names to several parts of the eye, such as the lens, the retina, and the cornea.
  • He set new standards in experimental science and completed his great Book of Optics sometime around 1027.
  • He died at the age of 74 in around the year 1040.
  • His Book of Optics was translated into Latin and had a significant influence on many scientists of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Enlightenment. For example, the optics book Perspectiva was authored around 1275 by Erasmus Witelo (Silesia Poland), who later was called “Alhazen’s Ape” when people realized he had largely copied al-Haytham’s Book of Optics.  Certainly, an early notable case of plagiarism.
  • His work showed an understanding of Ptolemy’s 2nd Century AD Optics which indicated he was widely read and could read Latin. Ibn al-Haytham was about to correct certain flaws in Ptolemy’s work.
Pinhole Camera demonstration by Ibn al Haytham.
Pinhole Camera demonstration by Ibn al Haytham. The use of a pinhole in a window blind to form an inverted image of an outside scene on an opposite wall of a dark room has been known since at least the time of the Arab scholar Ibn al Haytham (or Alhazen, ca. 956- 1038).

Other optical works include Ḍawʾ al-qamar (“On the Light of the Moon”), al-Hāla wa-qaws quzaḥ (“On the Halo and the Rainbow”), Ṣūrat al-kusūf (“On the Shape of the Eclipse”; which includes a discussion of the camera obscura), and al-Ḍawʾ (“A Discourse on Light”).

Alhazen made major contributions to physics, mathematics, and astronomy as well. He developed the field of analytical geometry by exploring the connection between algebra and geometry. He studied the atmosphere and deduced the relationship between its density and height, which according to him was 55 miles. He devised one of the first laws of motion and suggested that an object in motion will remain in a perpetual state of motion unless it is influenced by an external force that causes it to stop or change its direction.

In astronomy, he studied the anomalies between Aristotelian and Ptolemaic models and wrote his own treatise called “On the Structure of the World”. Alhazen was undoubtedly one of the finest and earliest Muslim scholars of note and his work influenced many notable scientists and scholars who came after him such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Galileo, Descartes and Kepler, to name a few.

Sources:

  1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18822953
  2. http://www.ibnalhaytham.com/discover/who-was-ibn-al-haytham/
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Haytham
  4. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Al-Haytham.html
  5. http://www.ibnalhaytham.com/
  6. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ibn-al-Haytham
  7. https://www.famousinventors.org/alhazen
  8. https://religiondocbox.com/Islam/71545455-1001-inventions-exhibition-at-the-science-museum-london.html
  9. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1cgLK8EhmxxgkcjStM018Y53nIfznqVFqLfh2mhUJ_kM/edit#slide=id.p14
  10. http://www.firstscientist.net/
  11. https://independentpress.cc/ibn-al-haytham-brilliant-man-who-developed-the-first-camera-obscura/2021/02/25/

About the Author

More
articles