Ibn al-Haytham Quotes on Knowledge
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen, c. 965–c. 1040), the Iraqi polymath whose seven-book Book of Optics (Kitāb al-Manāẓir, c. 1011–21) gave classical Islamic science its most rigorous experimental treatise, defended an explicitly experimental epistemology against the inherited Aristotelian and Galenic authorities. The framework presents knowledge as the product of disciplined observation, controlled experiment (iʿtibār), and mathematical reasoning, and the corresponding intromission theory of vision — light proceeds from the object to the eye, contrary to the Euclidean and Galenic extramission tradition — was established by an extensive programme of experimental investigation. The Book of Optics, transmitted to the Latin West as the Perspectiva, shaped European natural philosophy from Bacon and Witelo through Kepler.
Quotes
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Attributed to Ibn al-Haytham:
“Truth is sought for its own sake.”
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Attributed to Ibn al-Haytham:
“The duty of any man who studies the writings of scientists is to be the enemy of all that he reads, attacking it from every side.”
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Attributed to Ibn al-Haytham:
“Vision occurs when light from objects enters the eye.”
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Attributed to Ibn al-Haytham:
“Reason and experiment together are the only ways to certain knowledge.”
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“I constantly sought knowledge and truth, and it became my belief that for gaining access to the effulgence and closeness to God, there is no better way than that of searching for truth and knowledge.”
Firas al-Khateeb, Lost Islamic History -
“Ehsan Masood, Science and Islam p: 169”
Whosoever seeks the truth will not proceed by studying the writings of his predecessors and by simply accepting his own good opinion of them. Whosoever studies works of science must, if he wants to find the truth, transform himself into a critic of everything he reads . He must examine tests and explanations with the greatest precision and question them from all angles and aspects.