Shedding light on the Golden Age of Islamic sciences

A flourishing of knowledge and science influenced the Arab-Islamic world during the 8th through 13th centuries and spread throughout Europe. Celebrating the Golden Age of Islamic Sciences, the Optical Society of Tunisia hosted the workshop, Shedding Light on the Contributions of Muslim Scholars to Science and Technology, at the Tunisian Academy of Sciences on 3 December. The workshop was supported by SPIE and UNESCO.

The workshop hopes to inspire young researchers and students through included lectures demonstrating the significant aspects and innovations from the Golden Age of Islamic Sciences.

In their talks, professors and doctors from around the world, reflected on the important contributions of the golden ages' Muslim scientists.

Speakers included:

• Juste Jean-Paul Ngome Abiaga, UNESCO
• SPIE Fellow Zohra Ben Lakhdar, Université Tunis El Manar
• SPIE Fellow Maria Luisa Calvo Padilla, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
• SPIE Member Manuel Filipe Costa, Universidade do Minho
• Charles Falco, University of Arizona
• SPIE Fellow Vasudevan Lakshminarayanan, University of Waterloo
• Ahmadou Wague, Université Cheikh Anta Diop
• SPIE Fellow Mourad Zghal, Université de Carthage

The workshop honored the legacy of Ibn al-Haytham, who is the father of the modern scientific method. Ibn al-Haytham proved that light travels only in straight lines, and argued that light rays can bend when moving through different elements. In AD 1011, a powerful Egyptian caliph, placed him under house arrest for 10 years and during this time he recorded his experiments into a single book, The Book of Optics.