Talk:Ibn al-Haytham

Ibn al-Haytham's origin

@Kansas Bear, HistoryofIran, Ernne, and Academal: Hi and firstly, a happy new year full of joy and health to everyone. I'm pinging you because you have edited this article or this talk page during the past months. Few months ago, some editors suggested to add a possible Persian origin in the biography section, some sources were added accordingly, i took those sources to WP:RSN because, humbly, i thought that they were weaker than the sources that claim an Arab origin (Vernet, Sabra, etc ...). WP:RSN's conclusion is that these sources are indeed weaker than the sources claiming an Arab origin for this scholar and suggest that we discuss the matter here, thus i suggest to either reword the beginning of the biography section and make clear that he was probably of Arab origin even though he has also been described as Persian or simply remove the Persian origin (or relegate it to a footnote). Thoughts ? ---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 18:37, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi, thank you and likewise Wikaviani. I am pretty ignorant about this person, but it does look like the Persian claim is WP:UNDUE and thus I would support having it removed. --HistoryofIran (talk) 20:04, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Hey, Wikaviani. Yeah, I was involved in a discussion a few years ago over this issue. Then as in now, the sources are non-specialized and only mention his "Persian"-ness in passing. I see no reason to mention Persian using these sources. --Kansas Bear (talk) 20:47, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

@Wikaviani I didn’t remove that some sources claim him of persian origin, I did included it in a note. I just applied what you said here as per the RSN and WP:DUE as you said here:

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i took those sources to WP:RSN because, humbly, i thought that they were weaker than the sources that claim an Arab origin (Vernet, Sabra, etc ...). WP:RSN's conclusion is that these sources are indeed weaker than the sources claiming an Arab origin for this scholar

…

thus i suggest to either reword the beginning of the biography section and make clear that he was probably of Arab origin even though he has also been described as Persian or simply remove the Persian origin (or relegate it to a footnote)

two IPs in the discussion even supported the outright removal of the persian origin in the first place, while one wanted it to stay

So all i did was just applying the consensus of this discussion and what the overall people here agreed upon. Anyway its up to you, i am not into getting to a debate about that. But i would say i suggest removing the non-specialized sources claiming a persian origin or at most mention in a footnote that some less reliable sources claim a persian origin as I already did before you revert me. Chafique (talk) 19:50, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

That was before additional sources added by Erne, some of them are historians, as i said below.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 21:08, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, when I compared both articles (Arabic and English) I noticed that the English article is more biased than the Arabic article it says only that he is Arab however the authors who wrote the Arabic article mentioned that there is a possibility that he has Persian origin so I took the English source from Arabic Wikipedia and put it in English Wikipedia no need to remove the possibility of Persian origin because even Arabic Wikipedia says historians are divided about his origin and the same source was cited there, I don't understand why some want to remove the possibility that he has Persian origin, we didn't mention one theory that he is Persian without mentioning the possibility of Arab origin we're not historians to doubt what historians says no need to make the article biased again and worse than the Arabic article, Westerners should stop thinking that anyone from the Middle East is Arab because a huge number of medieval scientists in the Islamic world were Persians however Westerners thought they were Arabs because they spoke Arabic I added additional 3 sources that says Persian origin and one source that supports what the article says (either Arab or Persian origin) --Ernne (talk) 10:58, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

I would follow the advice given by RSN, and so I do support to remove the claim. Concerning the handling of sources by the Arabic Wikipedia: different Wikipedias do things differently, and inclusion in one doesn't mean it has to be done the same way on any other Wikipedia. We will reach a consensus here, and act accordingly here. Lectonar (talk) 11:26, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Comment : "Westerners should stop thinking that anyone from the Middle East is Arab because a huge number of medieval scientists in the Islamic world were Persians however Westerners thought they were Arabs because they spoke Arabic" @Ernne: If it was true, then Iranian mathematicians like Al-Khwarizmi, Nasr addin al-Tusi and many others would be described as "Arabs", which is not the case. Also, i don't speak Arabic, but Google translate helped me to understand that while the Arabic Wikipedia mentions both origins, its wording seems to favor the Arab origin ... @Lectonar: WP:RSN's conclusion was not a clear cut "remove", one editor said that the sources are reliable per se, but wasn't sure that they still are for the specific claim, the other said that since these sources contradict stronger ones, then they should either be removed or relegated to a footnote. I'm not sure about the other sources added by Ernne, but they seem weaker than the sources that support an Arab origin. To be honest, before i took the sources at WP:RSN, i thought that removing the Persian origin was the best thing to do and i was almost certain they would say that those sources are unreliable, but since their answer was not so clear, perhaps relegating to a footnote or rewording the sentence in order to comply with due weight could help to achieve a consensus with Ernne.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 19:45, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Ernne is not responding, thus i've left the article as it is, i just fixed some spacing issues, however, the current wording can stand only if the new sources added by Ernne are reliable enough for the Persian origin claim, i confess that i don't have a clue about that, as far as i have seen, some of the sources are labeled historians, like this one : "Visiting Professor, University of Tuebingen, Teaching "History and Evolution of Concept in Physics"" or that one and others, but i don't know if they have expertise for this specific topic.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 17:48, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Well, it is also worth mentioning that Encyclopedia Iranica does not consider Alhazen a Persian in its article on Optics which summarizes Persian scholars' contribution to the subject. 212.2.129.42 (talk) 08:06, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

There is no need to mention what Iranica says, we have several expert sources like Vernet or Sabra who spport an Arab origin.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 04:46, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Scientific method in book of optics section

The sub section "scientific method" should be removed from the section "book of optics" of this article as it is not related to optics. It deserves its own section or it should be placed in the section that discusses other works of ibn al haytham Hu741f4 (talk) 13:14, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

He revolutionized the subject by overturning previous theories in optics using scientific method. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 13:19, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

I am just saying that this topic deserves a separate section because the section 'Book of Optics' is about his contributions to optics like visual perception, Alhazen's problem, camera obscura etc

Hu741f4 (talk) 06:48, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposal for new sub section

A fellow editor Wikaviani just reverted my edit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1139870581 I belive his/her concern should be addressed :

1)Alhazen's statement of coplanar law of reflection doesn't fit in the subsection 'Theory of optics' because that section is about visual perception and image formation 2) The law of reflection isn't just a mathematical formula. It consists of three statements as stated here in this article(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflection_(physics):

1) The incident ray, the reflected ray and the normal to the reflection surface at the point of the incidence lie in the same plane.

2)The angle which the incident ray makes with the normal is equal to the angle which the reflected ray makes to the same normal.

3)The reflected ray and the incident ray are on the opposite sides of the normal.

The first statement was given by alhazen as mentioned in the source. So, There must be new sub section for this passage. Hu741f4 (talk) 17:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi Hu741f4,

i believe i misread your edit, i thought you were talking about the law of refraction (or Snell's law, which is a mathematical formula), not law of reflection. Please accept my apologies and feel free to reinstate your edit. Best.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 10:47, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

"The theory of vision"

I don't think this claim in the article makes sense: "Ibn al-Haytham was the first to correctly explain the theory of vision." There are many theories that involve vision, but I don't think there is something that can be called "the theory of vision." 172.91.107.147 (talk) 07:13, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

See the article reference (Smith 2001 both vol I (Latin manuscripts) and vol II (English translation) in JSTOR); Alhacen used an experimental setup using both eyes of the subject to refute the existing extramission theory. The specific page number for the Book I [6.54] quotation is p.372. -- Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 09:00, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

It's in Smith's translation of Book of Optics I section [6.54] (Smith follows Sabra's section numbering system, when assigning the 6.54 number) "After anatomical investigation of the human eye, and an exhaustive study of human visual perception, Alhacen characterizes the first postulate of Euclid's Optics as 'superfluous and useless' (Book I, [6.54] —thereby overturning Euclid's, Ptolemy's, and Galen's emission theory of vision, using logic and deduction from experiment. He showed Euclid's first postulate of Optics to be hypothetical only, and fails to account for his experiments.), and deduces that light must enter the eye, in order for us to see. He describes the camera obscura as part of this investigation." I personally found the JSTOR ref to be the most helpful. It's A. Mark Smith 2001 "Alhacen's Theory of Visual Perception: A Critical Edition, with English Translation and Commentary, of the First Three Books of Alhacen's "De aspectibus", the Medieval Latin Version of Ibn al-Haytham's "Kitāb al-Manāẓir": Volume One", and also Volume Two (English Translation of Books I-III) -- Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 09:27, 30 August 2024 (UTC)