om 949 CE to 983 CE. Prior to that he had received extensive trained under Shaikh Abu Maher Musa ibn Sayyār.
- There are some medicine historians that claim that Abbas’s book,“Kitāb Kāmil aṣ-Ṣināʿa aṭ-Ṭibbiyya” (The Complete Art of Medicine), which he completed around 980, contain a more practical perspective than Avicenna’s “The Canon of Medicine”.
- “The complete Book of Medicine” was divided into more than 18 parts and covered topics from medical ethics to mental disorders.
- The physician is believed to be one of the early practitioners to delve into psychophysiology and psychosomatic medicine.
- The Iranian physician and researcher died from natural causes in 994 AD
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen)
Another prominent figure whose works made waves during and after the Islamic Golden Age was Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham. Popularly known by his Latin name Alhazen, al-Haytham was widely referred to as the “Father of Optics”. He also produced some influential works in astronomy and mathematics.
The polymath Al-Haytham was born in c. 965 to a Persian family. Influenced by prominent names such as Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, and Galen, Alhazen put religion aside and delved deep into the sciences. He later made a name for himself as a renowned mathematician.
His major contributions was in regard to visual representation and perception. He is credited with his groundbreaking works on the camera obscure, popularly known as the pinhole.
Based on his studies, he concluded that only a perpendicular hit of a projectile on a surface would be strong enough to cause it to penetrate, whereas oblique impacts would be deflected by the surface.
The Persian polymath also conducted extensive research in psychophysics and experimental psychology.
Other Interesting Facts about Ibn Al-Haytham
- Ibn Al-Haytham delved into other disciplines such as physics to investigate properties of luminance from rainbows and eclipses. This later provided the foundation for his theories on catoptrics.
- He also formulated the Lambert quadrilateral (also known as Ibn al-Haytham–Lambert quadrilateral) after introducing the concept of motion into geometry. Al-Haytham went a step further to generate a formula that could sum up the first 100 natural numbers.
- The polymath influenced great scholars like Averroes and the German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler.
Another influential personality during the Islamic Golden Age was Diyāʾ al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Mālaqī, a famous Andalusian polymath. Popularly known as Ibn al-Bayṭār, this scholar produced remarkable works in botany, pharmacology, and medicine.
Born in 1197, the polymath grew up under the tutelage of a popular Málagan botanist called Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Nabātī. Just like al-Nabātī, he quickly learned all there was to know about the development of the scientific method and the introduction of empirical and experimental techniques.
Ibn al-Baytars main contribution during his lifetime was his precise analyses of contributions made by other Islamic physicians in the Middle Ages. This helped him to discover more than 300 different medicines that had not been documented.
The botanist died from natural causes in 1248. He was in his early 50s.
Other major contributions of Ibn al-Baytar
- The botanist’s life and works influenced other physicians such as Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, Amir Dowlat, and Andrea Alpago
- Al-Baytar produced his first major work called “Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ li-Mufradāt al-Adwiya wa-l-Aghdhiya” which comprised more than a thousand uses of various foods and drugs.
- He also published “Kitāb al-Mughnī fī al-Adwiya al-Mufrada”, which encompassed various Islamic medicines and their treatment of various ailments.
Al-ʻIjliyyah bint al-ʻIjliyy was one of the few women scholars who made a name for herself during the Islamic Golden Age. The Baghdad-based scientist is credited with manufacturing an important astronomical instrument known as astrolabes. These were circular disks that looked like hand-held models of the universe.
She contributed a lot to the study of astronomy and was in the service of Sayf 