Episode 12: How a Muslim Scientist Helped the World See

Abul Hasan Ibn Ishaq looked far and wide, gazing intently at the stars and countless constellations, looking for a way to open up a world that was so limitless with such limited means. He had worked long and hard on glass, but with limited results. Day by day, he tried different cuts, different looks, but still nothing. What could be stopping his latest invention? After several attempts, he decided to give it a rest and continue on with another project that involved glass. Only this time, it was the bifocal.

The year was AD 859, and Baghdad was entering onto the world stage, attracting scholars from all around the world, from India to Andalusia. Everyone wanted to see what was going on in this new and proud city. Urban Hassan had an advantage. He was born and raised among the people in the area and loved learning. He did not have to venture out and learn the language of science and art, Arabic. Instead, he had this as his mother tongue, which gave him an advantage over others who would have to learn this as a second or maybe even third or fourth language.

It was in this very year that the world's first eyeglasses were created. He started off making his own and experimenting on himself on account of long nights crouching over his table in the dim light of the night. He sought to conserve lighting and used the most minimal amount of olive oil he could burn and still have provisions left over for food and buying items for his inventions. This came at a cost to his vision. When things became blurry, he started to write much longer and larger print and make his diagrams more pronounced. Upon completing the invention of the bifocal, he was able to return to the study of his works and read books that had previously been far too blurry.

Months later, he opened up the night sky using the same methods to work with lenses and optics. The only difference is that this would be for a larger invention. This would open the world up to stars and planets that were previously hidden to the human eye. After literally hundreds of tests and experiments, he was now ready to present his two inventions: the eyeglasses and the telescope to the most important ruler of his time, Haroon al-Rashid.

Haroon al-Rashid did not know it; he was on the cusp of two life-changing inventions. Initially, he believed them to be a waste of time. He did not understand the purpose of how these two items could be used as stratagems in war. After coaxing and a great deal of explanation, he finally grasped the significance of what Abu Hassan had imparted to him.

The bifocal could return vision to people who, in many instances, might be doomed to a life of semi-blindness and blurry vision. What the telescope would do would make it possible to enter into discussions that many felt were long settled. Ptolemy and others had believed there were seven planets, while Egyptians and others preceded them had believed it was nine in total, and sometimes ten, depending on the definition of the word planet. The telescope would enable Baghdad and the world around it to enter back into this discussion and finally start coming to conclusions about Saturn, Jupiter, along with other distant locations.

Initially, as part of his nature, Harun al-Rashid had the telescope commissioned for use in warfare and the ancestor of what would become the monocular and the looking glass. While war would be enhanced, so would astronomy. After the invention of the telescope, we were able to discuss planets such as Uranus, Pluto, and also another planet that might be within or without the solar system that we inhabit. We also had a clear picture of other galaxies, planets, stars, and a better picture of what our solar system may have looked like in its distant infancy.

By default, Urban became the father of other scholars of astronomy, such as Abu Joseph and a host of others who would also use our knowledge of astronomy to make startling calculations about the size and shape of Earth, to a degree that has only been rivaled recently by satellites in low orbit outside of the earth that we live on today.