AlKindi & His Treatise On Light Rays

Abu Yusuf YaQub IbnIshaq Al-Kindi Lived In Baghdad In The Ninth Century When The Abbasid Caliphate Was At The Peak Of Its Political Powers. He Is Considered To Be The Philosopher Of The Arabs. He Was A Polymath Who Wrote On Subjects As Diverse As Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy, Meteorology, Metallurgy, The Making Of Swords, Music, And Of Course Philosophy. He Was Placed In Charge Of The House Of Wisdom By The Caliph Al-MaMcin, Where He Headed The Great Translation Movement That Undertook The Translation Of Greek, Syriac, Persian, Sanskrit And Chinese Texts Into Arabic. This Was In Large Measure Responsible For The Growth Of Arab Learning And Scholarship, Which In Turn Triggered The Subsequent Renaissance In Europe, This Book Is A Translation And Commentary On Al-Kindi?S Treatise On Optics In Arabic, Which Is Held In The Collection Of The Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, Patna. The Treatise Attempts To Explain, Using The Basic Laws Of Reflection, How A System Of Hinged Plane Mirrors Could Have Been Used By Archimedes To Focus The SunS Rays And Burn The Roman Armada Laying Siege To Syracuse Around 210 Bce. It Is Evident From The Treatise That The Arab Scholars Of Ninth Century Baghdad Knew Many Aspects Of Geometrical Optics Whose. Discovery Is Often Attributed To Europeans In The Seventeenth Century.