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- Roles
- mathematician · Scientist · Physician
- Identifiers
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A clever scientist who studied light through experiments and discovered how our eyes see the world around us.
Al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham was a pioneering physicist, mathematician, and optics scholar who lived in Basra and Cairo. In his famous Book of Optics, he relied on rigorous scientific experimentation and geometric proofs, demonstrating that vision occurs when reflected light enters the eye, laying the foundation for modern cameras and lenses.
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Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham (c. 354–430 AH / 965–1040 CE), a preeminent physicist, mathematician, and astronomer of Basra and Fatimid Cairo. Celebrated as the father of modern optics for his seminal 'Kitab al-Manazir' (Book of Optics), he refuted ancient emission theories and established that vision results from light rays entering the eye from illuminated objects. His rigorous commitment to controlled empirical experimentation, mathematical optics, refraction, and camera obscura principles laid the bedrock of the modern scientific method.
Summary
Al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham, an Arab scholar of mathematics and physics, known for his book Kitab al-Manazir on optics. The editor of the book's edition describes him as having lived in the fifth century AH, and holds that his book is the most valuable thing Arab scholars produced in physics 1.
Dates of his life
The readable pages do not record the year of his birth or his death, and they have not yet been confirmed from a second source. The dates therefore remain outside these records until they are added.
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Connections
- Born in
- Basra
- Died in
- Cairo
- Participated in
- Ibn al-Haytham summoned to Cairo· Kitāb al-Manāẓir composed
- Authored
- Kitab al-Manazir (The Book of Optics)
People and things also explored
Cairo· Ibn al-Haytham summoned to Cairo· Kitāb al-Manāẓir composed· Al-Azhar Mosque· The Dar al-Hikma of Cairo· Great Mosque of Basra· Qasr Qubadh / the Hajjaj palace at Basra· The Asawira's Settlement at Basra
Sources
- Kitab al-Manazir, Books 1-3, ed. Abd al-Hamid Sabra (Kuwait 1983) , p.9
- Ibn al-Haytham — Encyclopaedia Britannica
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen)”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/ibn-al-haytham/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-28.