Kitab al-Manazir (The Book of Optics)

"Kitab al-Manazir" (The Book of Optics) by Ibn al-Haytham, his most important book on optics. In it he studies the properties of light in its three states: its radiation in straight lines, its reflection and its refraction, through experiment together with mathematical methods ¹.

The editor of the edition holds that the book divides into two parts. The first deals with the radiation of light and the seeing of visible objects in straight lines, which is the subject of the first three treatises. The second deals with reflection and refraction and what follows from them in the perception of visible objects in mirrors and transparent bodies, which is the subject of the last four treatises ².

The Arabic text available to us is the first volume of the edition by ʿAbd al-Hamid Sabra, which includes the first three treatises. It was published in Kuwait in 1983 in the heritage series. The details of the edition have not yet been verified from an independent source ³.