Ibn al-Haytham was the major figure in the study of optics and vision in the Middle Ages and his influence was pervasive for over 500 years. In this article, Professor Charles G. Gross, a renowned neurophysiologist of vision, outlines his original theory of vision and describes aspects which are less well known, namely Ibn al-Haytham's insights into visual physiology and visual perception. Professor Gross concludes that, although Ibn al-Haytham's unique synthesis of physics, mathematics and physiology into a new theory of vision and its historical importance have been recognized, his insights into the psychology of perception and their influence remains an important and potentially fertile area of research.

Ali Al-Qushji was one of the most noteworthy and important scientists in the Islamic world. He wrote valuable works especially on astronomy and mathematics. He was a student and co-worker of the famous statesman and scientist Ulugh Beg. After Ulugh Beg's death, Ali Al-Qushji left Samarqand to Tabriz where he worked for Akkoyunlu Ruler Uzun Hasan. Afterwards, he worked for the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II in Istanbul during the last two years of his life. This article presents a short survey of Al-Qushji's contributions to mathematics and astronomy.

This is a very short note summarizing the lecture presented by Dr Saira Malik in the Muslim Heritage Awareness Group (MHAG) meeting organized by FSTC at the Royal Society in London on March 30, 2011. Dr Malik focused on the influence of Ibn al-Haytham's Book of Optics on the work of Kamal al-Din al-Farisi in his Kitab Tanqih al-Manazir, which is in form and content an original recension of Ibn al-Haytham's work.

This presentation focused on the historical and epistemic bearings of the scientific legacy of the celebrated polymath al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham (known in Latin as Alhazen). A particular emphasis was placed on his remarkable revolution in optics, while situating his research in the broader context of his ingenuous investigations in geometry, his development of the methodological rudiments of scientific experimentation, and his mathematization of the principal notions of classical physics and natural philosophy. This line of inquiry accounted for the channels of transmission, adaptation, and expansion of his research in optics, within the European intellectual milieu, and up till the seventeenth century, while also revealing the multilayered nature of his tradition in underpinning the scientific investigations of Franciscan mediaeval opticians, and of guiding the theoretical debates of Renaissance artists and architects over the best methods of constructing pictorial perspective.

The famous scientist Ibn al-Haytham (‘Alhazen') has rightly been credited with many advances in optics and vision science, but recent spurious claims that he is the ‘founder of psychophysics' rest upon unsupported assertions, a conflation of psychophysics with the wider discipline of psychology, and semantic arguments over what it is to ‘found' a school of thought.

Based on the outstanding achievement of Ibn al-Haytham's work in optics, which paved the way for the "Optics of Space," Dr. Charles M. Savage develops in this stimulating article a vibrant plea for the need for a complementary understanding of the "Optics of Time." The reflection argues that time is ripe for a mature and open appreciation of the gift of life on this planet, otherwise we stand the risk of abusing one another and the richness of the resources nature has stored up for us. In so doing, we can implement a vision of a "sustainable history," an important concept introduced by Prof. Nayef al-Rodham. This will require our reflective abilities to co-create a "sustainable future" as well.

"Cybernetics: Past, Present, Future" published by Toygar Akman, a renowned expert in the field, retraces for the Turkish readers the history of cybernetics and presents the state of the art in this revolutionary scientific field. The author, an admirer of al-Jazari, the Muslim engineer of the early 13th century, devotes a section to describing his outstanding, early contribution to the history of robotics