Abu 'Ali Al-Hasan bin Al-Haytham, most scientists call Ibn Al-Haytham or Ibn Haytham or also Al-Hazen. He was born in Basra, Iraq in 965 AD, known as Polymath, which is the term given to those who master various fields of knowledge. He is the Middle East Muslim who invented the world's first camera.
The word camera used today comes from Arabic, namely qamara, the term arose thanks to al-Haitham's hard work. The father of modern physics was born with the name al-Haitham and was known to be a genius since childhood.
He took his first education in his homeland. Growing up he started his career as a government employee in Basra. However, Al-Haitham was more interested in gaining knowledge than being a government employee.
After that, he migrated to Ahwaz and the intellectual metropolis of the world at that time, the city of Baghdad. In both cities he studied various things. His high scientific passion led him to wander all the way to Egypt.
Al-Haitham was educated at al-Azhar University which was founded by the Fatimid Caliphate. After that, he was self-taught independently until he mastered various disciplines such as astronomy, mathematics, geometry, medicine, physics and philosophy.
But seriously he studied and studied the intricacies of optics. Various theories about the science of optics have been born and sparked. He was the first to write and find important data about light. That said, he has written no less than 200 books.
Unfortunately, only a few are left. Even his monumental work, Kitab al-Manazir, is no longer known to exist. One can only study the translation which was written in Latin.
The camera was first created by an Iraqi scientist who is also a Muslim; he is Abu 'Ali Al-Hasan bin Al-Haytham. Scientists mostly call it Ibn Al-Haytham or Ibn Haytham or also Al-Hazen.
He was born in Basra, Iraq in the year 965 AD. His expertise in science brought him to Egypt to continue to seek and study and finally stopped at Al-Azhar. He is also known as a Polymath, which is the term given to those who master various fields of knowledge.
History records that Alhazen was a scientist who mastered various disciplines, including astronomy, mathematics, geometry, medicine, physics and philosophy. And the discipline of optics that made him create the camera.
Achievement is not just a camera creator. But there are still many of his works, either in the form of books or items that have inspired many scientists after that.
The scientist who is dubbed the "First Scientist" made this phenomenal discovery in 1020 AD at Al-Azhar Egypt. And 19 years after his discovery he died in the same city, Egypt in 1039 AD.
And the word camera or camera was also inspired by Al-hazen's discovery, because he himself gave the name for his creation with the word "Qumroh". Derived from the word "Qomar" in Arabic which means Moon.
His work was inspired by the moon itself. The first Qumroh was a small room where all corners were tightly closed, there was no light at all, only a small hole in front of it. And with that hole the light will enter and then store the shadow that is imagined by the light entering the qumroh in which media has been provided to store the shadow.
So like the moon, which shines in the midst of darkness. Even so, when Umrah is dark, then there is a small light that enters it and saves the object carried by the light.
Al-Haitham's most monumental masterpiece is a very inspiring discovery made by al-Haitham with Kamaluddin al-Farisi. Both managed to research and record the phenomenon of the camera obscura.
The discovery began when the two studied solar eclipses. To study the phenomenon of eclipses, Al-Haitham drilled a small hole in the wall that allowed a semi-real image of the sun to be projected through a flat surface.
The study of optical science in the form of a camera obscura is what underlies the performance of cameras currently used by mankind. By Webster's dictionary, this phenomenon is literally defined as “dark room”.
The world knows al-Haitham as a pioneer in the field of optics who is famous for his book entitled Kitab al-Manazir (Book of optics). To prove the theories in his book, the legendary Muslim physicist then compiled Al-Bayt Al-Muzlim or better known as the camera obscura, or dark room.
Many of Al-Hazen's works have provided inspiration and basic capital for later scientists. One of the most famous is his book called "Al-Manazhir", Western people call it "The Optics".
The Optics which holds many scientific theories about light and lenses as well as vision is widely used in European Universities and has even become mandatory material on many campuses in European countries.
This is also a rebuttal for those who always think that Islam is a backward and backward religion, does not support science and science. But history says otherwise.
History has testified that Islam is a religion that fully supports the advancement of science and technology. Noted many scientists who emerged from among Muslims in various fields of Science. ALHazen is just one of them.
After this phenomenal discovery of al-Haitham, the western world began to be inspired and introduced in the 16th century AD, successively western scientists were inspired by the discovery of al-Haitham, namely Cardano Geronimo (1501 -1576), who was influenced by al-Haitham's thinking began to replace the aperture of the lens. with the lens (camera).
Giovanni Battista della Porta (1535-1615 AD). Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630 AD). Kepler enhanced the camera's functionality by using a negative lens behind the positive lens, thereby magnifying the projected image (a principle used in the world of modern telephoto lenses).
After that, Robert Boyle (1627-1691 AD), began compiling a small, cordless, box-type camera obscura in 1665 AD. After 900 years from al-Haitham's invention, photographic plates were first permanently used to capture images. produced by the camera obscura.
The first permanent photograph was taken by Joseph Nicephore Niepce in France in 1827. In 1855, Roger Fenton used glass negative plates to take pictures of British soldiers during the Crimean War and developed the plates in his darkroom converted carriage journey.
Then in 1888, George Eastman developed the working principle of al-Hitham's camera obscura very well. Eastman invented the Kodak camera. Since then, the camera has continued to change following technological developments.