Cited as a Source in Wikipedia

3:32 PM PDT, July 4, 2007

I looked up (blank) in the dictionary, and your picture was there,” ran the old joke. (One of my book editors teased me by filling in the blank with “procrastinator.”) I thought of this line when I visited Wikipedia today. I looked up “scientist,” but what was there was no joke. It was a picture of Ibn al-Haytham.

That by itself was a breakthrough. But the caption was even better: “Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) has been described as the ‘first scientist’ for his development of the scientific method.”

I was thrilled. I had hoped that someday —far in the future, I imagined—Ibn al-Haytham (known in the West as Alhazen, Alhacen, or Alhazeni) would begin to be recognized not just for his contributions to science, but as its original practitioner, its progenitor. It was his methodology—his use of verifiable experiments to test hypotheses—carefully described and recorded in Kitâb al-Manâzir (The Book of Optics)—that was adopted and advocated by Roger Bacon, John Peacham, and Erazmus Witelow, all of whom not only read the Latin translation of Kitâb al-Manâzir (entitled De aspectibus) but actually wrote summaries of it. I never expected that my designation of him as the first scientist would begin to be accepted so soon.

Another surprise awaited me. The text of the article repeated the idea: “A scientific method including experimentation was first used by the Iraqi physicist and polymath Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), circa 1000 AD, in his Book of Optics, and he has been described as the ‘first scientist’ for this reason.[2]” The footnote links to a source at the bottom of the page: “^ Bradley Steffens (2006). Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist, Morgan Reynolds Publishing, ISBN 1599350246.”

Whoever contributed this entry to the encyclopedia has been busy. Similar statements citing my book as a source appear throughout the encyclopedia, on pages dedicated to “Ibn al-Haytham,” “Book of Optics,” “Islamic science,” “Islamic Golden Age,” “Visual perception,” “History of science,” and “List of people known as father or mother of something.” My thanks go out to the contributor or contributors responsible for spreading the message about this towering figure of civilization.

Wikipedia has placed a disclaimer at the top of some of these pages: “This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.” The disclaimer continues, “Please help Wikipedia by adding references. See the talk page for details.”

The issue of Ibn al-Haytham’s place in the annals of science is not settled, but the discussion has begun. For me, that is a dream come true. 

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