The Greco-Arabic Optical Tradition In and Beyond Ninth-Century Baghdad

Kheirandish Elaheh, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Project Summary The proposed project is to conduct research on the Greco-Arabic optical tradition, a tradition initiated in ninth-century Baghdad, and continued as a basis for the important and outstanding "Optics" of Ibn al-Haytham, known in Europe as Alhazen or Alhacen (d.1040 CE). The focus is on two earlier Arabic compositions: "The Book of Optics and Burning Mirrors", attributed to a certain A?mad ibn ' and the recently discovered "Rectification of Errors and Problems of Euclid's Optics", by the prominent scholar, Ya'qb al-Kind (d. ca. 870 CE). The research project aims to produce new and conclusive knowledge based on previously unavailable sources and methods, with two immediate objectives: (a) to expose and illuminate a historically important scientific tradition within the context of a largely understudied period - that of the early optical translations and compositions in and around ninth-century Baghdad; and (b) to investigate and advance the long-unresolved problem of the composition date and author identity of the "Optics" of A?mad ibn ', a name associated with several figures in the 8-10th centuries CE, through evidence provided by the "Optics" of Al-Kind, itself the only extant Arabic text of its author on optics proper. These texts were selected for their comparable content (including exact overlaps), derivable date (of about mid ninth-century), and extendable knowledge, in particular their impact on the work of its famous author. The expected results will include English editions for the two texts, the first currently available in two Arabic manuscripts and a Hebrew transcription, and the second, in an apparently unique manuscript copy. Intellectual Merit Through linguistic analysis of those and other relevant texts, the project will solve long- standing problems of the translation and transmission of those texts from the ancient Greeks to Islamic culture. The project will contribute to the knowledge and understanding of science in ninth-century Baghdad, and as a result will provide important new insights into Islamic science. It will likewise examine the transmission of those texts to Europe in the Middle Ages and will thus explore their impact on optics and other fields of science in the Latin West. The project is also a contribution to the fast growing specialty area of Islamic science. Through the analysis of those texts, their relationship to Greek prototypes, and their impact on the comprehensive and influential volumes of Alhazen, the project will yield new information about Islamic science, the role of patrons and scholars, and the processes of transmission and translation, all still largely unappreciated by the general public. Broader Impacts The work will yield new insights into one of the most important developments of western science in general: the transmission and appropriation of ancient Greek science by Islamic culture, and its subsequent transmission to the West. Through the use of new electronic technologies, this project will make the translations widely available to those in the scholarly community and beyond. Using electronic media, in particular the 'IOTA' Project (Index for Optical Terms in Arabic)" this proposal will make the texts and the understanding of science in an increasingly vital geographical area, widely available. In teaching, the project will redress source limitations by making those and other largely untapped and understudied sources much better known and more readily accessible.