Thābit Ibn Qurrah Al-Ḥarrānī was born in Harran, Mesopotamia in the year 823 CE. He moved to Baghdad during the reign of Caliph Al-Mu’taḍid (با المعتض) and enjoyed a very high rank in the Caliph’s court. It was here that he learnt and mastered several ancient languages, including Aramaic, Greek, and Syriac (in addition to Arabic). Thābit became a distinguished philosopher, mathematician, astrologist, and physician.
In the field of medicine, Thābit was accomplished enough to become the personal physician to Caliph Al-Mut’aḍid. As an ophthalmologist, he wrote a book entitled Vision and Perception. Although it was a small book compared to those he wrote later, it was quoted by most of the ophthalmologists who followed him. These included Khalīfah, who referenced Vision and Perception in his Al-Kāfī (Sufficient Knowledge in Ophthalmology). Al-Rāzī also referred to it in his Al-Ḥāwī fī Al-Ṭib (Continens).
Thābit Ibn Qurrah’s most important contribution to ophthalmology was his treatment of amblyopia, or lazy eye (الغطش). He proposed closing the normal eye with a patch to “force the visual spirit to go into the lazy eye in order for vision to improve”. This was an outstanding breakthrough in the field.
For more on Qurrah, his life and work, see:
For more on Islamic ophthalmology and optics more generally, see: