The Arabian physicist, astronomer, and mathematician al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham (ca.

966-1039), or
Alhazen, established the theory of vision that prevailed till the 17th century. He also defended a theory
of the physical reality of Ptolemy's planetary models.

Al-Hasan was born at Basra in southern Iraq, where he must have received all his education. He gained
sufficient fame for his knowledge of physics in his youth that he was called to Egypt by the Fatimid ruler
al-Hakim to attempt to regulate the flow of the Nile. Failing in this effort, he was disgraced and
established himself as a copyist of mathematical manuscripts; there still exists in Istanbul a manuscript
of the Banu Musa's version of Apollonius's Conics copied by him in 1024. He continued to practice the
scribal art in Cairo for the remainder of his life.

He did not cease to pursue his scientific studies, however, and published a large number of highly
original works. He produced two catalogs of his own work, which are preserved by Ibn abi Usaybia. The
first of these, compiled in 1027, comprises 25 books on mathematics and 44 on physics and
metaphysics, including On the Structure of the World. The second, supplementary catalog was complied
in 1028.

We shall discuss this problem, and ibn al-Haytham's other work, after giving some biographical details.
In contrast to our lack of knowledge of the lives of many of the Arabic mathematicians, we have quite a
number of details of ibn al-Haytham's life. However, although these details are in broad agreement with
each other, they do contradict each other in several ways. We must therefore try to determine which
are more likely to be accurate. It is worth commenting that an autobiography written by ibn al-Haytham
in 1027 survives, but it says nothing of the events his life and concentrates on his intellectual
development.

Since the main events that we know of in ibn al-Haytham's life involve his time in Egypt, we should set
the scene regarding that country. The Fatimid political and religious dynasty took its name from
Fatimah, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad. The Fatimids headed a religious movement
dedicated to taking over the whole of the political and religious world of Islam. As a consequence they
refused to recognise the 'Abbasid caliphs. The Fatimid caliphs ruled North Africa and Sicily during the
first half of the 10th century, but after a number of unsuccessful attempts to defeat Egypt, they began a
major advance into that country in 969 conquering the Nile Valley. They founded the city of Cairo as the
capital of their new empire. These events were happening while ibn al-Haytham was a young boy
growing up in Basra.

We know little of ibn al-Haytham's years in Basra. In his autobiography he explains how, as a youth, he
thought about the conflicting religious views of the various religious movements and came to the
conclusion that none of them represented the truth. It appears that he did not devote himself to the
study of mathematics and other academic topics at a young age but trained for what might be best
described as a civil service job. He was appointed as a minister for Basra and the surrounding region.
However, ibn al-Haytham became increasingly unhappy with his deep studies of religion and made a
decision to devote himself entirely to a study of science which he found most clearly described in the
writings of Aristotle. Having made this decision, ibn al-Haytham kept to it for the rest of his life devoting
all his energies to mathematics, physics, and other sciences.

Ibn al-Haytham went to Egypt some considerable time after he made the decision to give up his job as a
minister and to devote himself to science, for he had made his reputation as a famous scientist while
still in Basra. We do know that al-Hakim was Caliph when ibn al-Haytham reached Egypt. Al-Hakim was
the second of the Fatimid caliphs to begin his reign in Egypt; al-Aziz was the first of the Fatimid caliphs to
do so. Al-Aziz became Caliph in 975 on the death of his father al-Mu'izz. He was very involved in military
and political ventures in northern Syria trying to expand the Fatimid empire. For most of his 20 year
reign he worked towards this aim. Al-Aziz died in 996 while organising an army to march against the
Byzantines and al-Hakim, who was eleven years old at the time, became Caliph.

Al-Hakim, despite being a cruel leader who murdered his enemies, was a patron of the sciences
employing top quality scientists such as the astronomer ibn Yunus. His support for science may have
been partly because of his interest in astrology. Al-Hakim was highly eccentric, for example he ordered
the sacking of the city of al-Fustat, he ordered the killing of all dogs since their barking annoyed him, and
he banned certain vegetables and shellfish. However al-Hakim kept astronomical instruments in his
house overlooking Cairo and built up a library which was only second in importance to that of the House
of Wisdom over 150 years earlier.

Our knowledge of ibn al-Haytham's interaction with al-Hakim comes from a number of sources, the
most important of which is the writings of al-Qifti. We are told that al-Hakim learnt of a proposal by ibn
al-Haytham to regulate the flow of water down the Nile. He requested that ibn al-Haytham come to
Egypt to carry out his proposal and al-Hakim appointed him to head an engineering team which would
undertake the task. However, as the team travelled further and further up the Nile, ibn al-Haytham
realised that his idea to regulate the flow of water with large constructions would not work.

Ibn al-Haytham returned with his engineering team and reported to al-Hakim that they could not
achieve their aim. Al-Hakim, disappointed with ibn al-Haytham's scientific abilities, appointed him to an
administrative post. At first ibn al-Haytham accepted this but soon realised that al-Hakim was a
dangerous man whom he could not trust. It appears that ibn al-Haytham pretended to be mad and as a
result was confined to his house until after al-Hakim's death in 1021. During this time he undertook
scientific work and after al-Hakim's death he was able to show that he had only pretended to be mad.
According to al-Qifti, ibn al-Haytham lived for the rest of his life near the Azhar Mosque in Cairo writing
mathematics texts, teaching and making money by copying texts. Since the Fatimids founded the
University of Al-Azhar based on this mosque in 970, ibn al-Haytham must have been associated with this
centre of learning.
A different report says that after failing in his mission to regulate the Nile, ibn al-Haytham fled from
Egypt to Syria where he spent the rest of his life. This however seems unlikely for other reports certainly
make it certain that ibn al-Haytham was in Egypt in 1038. One further complication is the title of a work
ibn al-Haytham wrote in 1027 which is entitled Ibn al-Haytham's answer to a geometrical question
addressed to him in Baghdad. Several different explanations are possible, the simplest of which being
that he visited Baghdad for a short time before returning to Egypt. He may also have spent some time in
Syria which would partly explain the other version of the story. Yet another version has ibn al-Haytham
pretending to be mad while still in Basra.

Ibn al-Haytham's writings are too extensive for us to be able to cover even a reasonable amount. He
seems to have written around 92 works of which, remarkably, over 55 have survived. The main topics on
which he wrote were optics, including a theory of light and a theory of vision, astronomy, and
mathematics, including geometry and number theory. We will give at least an indication of his
contributions to these areas.

A seven volume work on optics, Kitab al-Manazir, is considered by many to be ibn al-Haytham's most
important contribution. It was translated into Latin as Opticae thesaurus Alhazeni in 1270. The previous
major work on optics had been Ptolemy's Almagest Ⓣ and although ibn al-Haytham's work did not have
an influence to equal that of Ptolemy's, nevertheless it must be regarded as the next major contribution
to the field. The work begins with an introduction in which ibn al-Haytham says that he will begin "the
inquiry into the principles and premises". His methods will involve "criticising premises and exercising
caution in drawing conclusions" while he aimed "to employ justice, not follow prejudice, and to take
care in all that we judge and criticise that we seek the truth and not be swayed by opinions".

Also in Book I, ibn al-Haytham makes it clear that his investigation of light will be based on experimental
evidence rather than on abstract theory. He notes that light is the same irrespective of the source and
gives the examples of sunlight, light from a fire, or light reflected from a mirror which are all of the same
nature. He gives the first correct explanation of vision, showing that light is reflected from an object into
the eye. Most of the rest of Book I is devoted to the structure of the eye but here his explanations are
necessarily in error since he does not have the concept of a lens which is necessary to understand the
way the eye functions. His studies of optics did led him, however, to propose the use of a camera
obscura, and he was the first person to mention it.
The primary interest of al-Hasan was the explanation of phenomena by both mathematical and physical
hypotheses. His interest in astronomy was motivated by the discrepancy between the Aristotelian
physical and mechanistic model of the celestial spheres and the Ptolemaic mathematical model.

On the Structure of the World, of which only the Latin translation has been published, describes the
Aristotelian sublunar world of four elements and the Ptolemaic celestial spheres in all their complexity
(his only change is to accept the theory that the solar apogee is fixed with respect to the fixed stars) as if
they were material. He inserts a discussion of the perception of lunar and solar eclipses based on the
assumption that the moon and sun are solid physical bodies.

This problem al-Hasan takes up again in On the Light of the Moon, in which he refutes the ancient
theory that the moon reflects the sun's light like a mirror. Rather he believes that the moon is a self-
illuminating body because each point on its surface broadcasts light rays in all directions, whereas each
point on the surface of a mirror reflects a light ray from a single source (here the sun) in only one
direction.

However, he further believes that the eye receives two primary impressions in the act of vision: light and
color. Therefore he concludes that only some physical effect of the sun's light rays on the moon renders
the latter's color (and thereby its light) visible. This explanation opens the possibility of reconciling
Aristotle and Ptolemy, for the element of which the heavenly bodies are constituted is now seen to be,
though qualitatively unchangeable as Aristotle insisted, yet subject to some quantitative change which
renders their light visible when they are struck by the sun's light.