History conceals many secrets in itself. The way made by humanity so far, is reviewed again and again from different sides and treatments, but there is always something new to learn. Until today scientist are struggling in fame of truth, this fact has not been changed since then, in reality.
Ibn al-Haytham said, “If learning the truth is the Scientist’s goal, then he must make himself the enemy of all that he reads”.
Ibn al-Haytham medieval scientist, whose name in 2015 was found by UNESCO worth to be written together with Al-Beruniy, Al-Farghani, Ibn-Sina, Euclid, Plato for his great contributions to the human civilization. The story of ibn al-Hayhtam is not less interesting than his inventions.
One day he decided to occupy himself with science. He made thousand of inventions, which continue surprising even modern people of the developed world. He contributed the number of sciences as: vision, optics, light, physics, technics, geography, mathematics and many other. Medieval Syrian scientist ibn Abi Usaybi refers in his book “Source of information about different kinds of doctors” about 92 works of Ibn Al-Haytham, according to which 89 of those works are inducted to mathematics, astronomy, optic and mechanics. His most famous work is “Book of Optics”(Kitab al-Manazir). One of his great inventions was the project of the dam which could help to control The Nil. Hearing this, king of Egypt al-Hakim from clan of Fatimids’ invited ibn al-Hayhtam to realize his project. After arriving to Egypt ibn al-Hayhtam discovered that it was impossible to put into execution his draft in those conditions and just 1000 years later in XX century his idea was materialized. Angry king ordered to seize and keep in house arrest the scientist. He forcedly pretended to be madman to survive. Only after the king’s death he was set free, by former king’s incomer and continued functioning. This beautiful and interesting story that enriched mysterious life of medieval world ended in 1040 Cairo, a brilliant representative of those times Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham al-Basri leaved this world.
Perhaps ibn al-Hayhtam meant in his famous quotation (written above) severities in scientific activity. Nature is full of mysteries and if anyone wants to approach the truth in what he explores, then he must be very attentive in searching the verity, for those objects of exploration are enemies to a scientist, naturally one have to make not a few efforts to learn the truth from his foe. Some of the remarkable qualities of Alhazen (Latinized version of ibn al-Hayhtam’s name) was that “he always used to verify his theories by experiments. Of course he did not received the right answers each time, taught us to ask right questions...” these characteristics were given to him by today’s scientists in International Year of Light 2015. In given year a campaign in honor of ibn al-Hayhtam was formed by King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture in partnership with UNESCO.
Culture centers, museums, schools and other educational institutions worldwide led campaign in honor of muslim scientist. Interactive experiences, live shows, staged experiments, exhibits, workshops, educational materials and high-profile talks took place under motto “1001 Inventions and the world of Ibn al-Hayhtam”.
By initiative of internationally acclaimed singer, songwriter, composer Sami Yusuf, who in his humanitarian work serves as both a UN Global Ambassador for the World Food Program and as a UN Elite Ambassador for the World Interfaith Harmony Week, in cooperationwith award-winning producer Ahmed Salim released short film devoted to ibn al-Hayhtam’s life.
Many centuries past after his death Ibn al-Haytham’s name was repeatedly spread all over the world because of his invaluable part of benefit to the human civilization.
Fatima JALAL,
Tashkent islamic university
Prepared by 2nd year student of religious sciences.
