Ibn al Haytham

Ibn al Haytham was a Muslim innovator born in 965 in Basra. He is also known as Alhazen and The First Scientist. In his time, Alhazen was able to invent the first pinhole camera and a camera obscura. Before Alhazen, scientists believed that they did not have to scientifically prove their findings, however, he knew better. Every experiment or hypothesis Alhazen came up with, he submitted it to a physical test and/or proof using mathematic equations. (“Arab Inventors”)

During his wide studies of optics, Alhazen was first to challenge the Greek’s theory of how the light comes out of the eye, and disproved it by proving how light bounces off of object and goes into our eye. To prove this, he studied the eye works itself using knowledge of previous scholars and dissection. Using this, he started to explain how light enters the eye, is focused and then gets projected to the back of the eye, where the image will be flipped upside down. With this knowledge, he was able to study the pinhole camera, which is one of his inventions. His concept of a pinhole camera is simple: a box with a tiny hole on one side is able to project an image of whatever is outside onto a side of the box on the inside.

Thanks to his studies, especially after the translation of Kitâb al-Manâzir (The Book of Optics), many scholars and scientists were inspired. Later European scholars were able take what he had discovered and further our knowledge about cameras and optics in general. Alhazen’s creation of the pinhole camera is the reason why cameras and other important inventions were created, such as eye-glasses, magnifying glasses and telescopes were created, as scholars and scientists knew how images are reflected in our eyes. He especially influenced Isaac Ne...

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... God is the cause of all things, not astronomical bodies. In his time, Alhazen wrote around 200 books, but since he lived a long time ago and they did not know how to preserve books yet, only around 50 survived to this day.

In conclusion, in his time, Alhazen invented two things- camera obscula and a pinhole camera. However, he is most known for writing his book “Kitâb al-Manâzir” which, when translated to Latin, is The Book of Optics. In that book, he talked about his study of optics and the eye. Specifically, he talked about how we do not have light coming out of our eye, which is what the Greeks thought. He then explained how light, from the sun, bounces off of objects and goes into our eye. In the eye, it is then focused and it goes to the back of our eye, where it’s flipped upside down. His works were always backed up by physical tests and mathematical proof.