Ibn Haytham
Abu Ali Hasan Ibn Haytham Basri, great Muslim Arab mathematician and physicist (956 – 1039), known in the West as “Alhazen” or “Avennathan”. Although he was a famous scholar, there is not much information about his education and masters. Ibn Haytham studied natural sciences, philosophy, logic and theology. He lived in the golden age of Islamic sciences and civilization and is considered as the pioneer of empiricists and experimenters. Besides mathematics, he was fully versed at theology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, literature, music #### and medicine. The European orientalists conducted researches on his works; they found out that, he had solved many difficult questions of mathematics and also the hard trigonometrical questions. Ibn Haytham is the inventor of the empirical methods. The English scientist of the 13th century, “Roger Baycon” used the methods of Ibn Haytham’s experiments for doing his scientific researches. The orientalists believe that the development of astronomy in the West is indebted to him. Ibn Haytham was the first person who conducted a perfect research on the moonlight.
Works:
He was a prolific author, some historians say that he wrote 92 books. The following are some of his important works:
1- The light of the stars
2- The scenes “Manazer” (his most famous work)
3- On qibla
4- A treatise on “the area of local solid” ,etc.
Students:
Among his students, only two of them have been identified:
- Abul Wafaf Mubasherin (famous Egyptian scholar), studied mathematics in the presence of Ibn Haytham.
- Sohrab (famous scholar from Semnan – Iran), studied 3 years under him.
Sources :
Islamic encyclopedia -vol. 5