REVISITING IBN AL-HAYTHAM'S OPTIC: AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL FOUNDATION FOR CONTEMPORARY PRECISION MEDICINE

This article reconstructs the optical epistemology of Ibn al-Haytham as a foundational conceptual framework for the advancement of contemporary precision medicine. Navigating the paradigm shift in medical science toward highly personalized, data-driven frameworks predicated on patient-specific biological characteristics, this study highlights the role of light as a primary scientific medium within modern optical imaging modalities. Utilizing a library-based inquiry driven by a historical-epistemological approach and a conceptual-comparative analysis, this paper evaluates how the fundamental principles of Ibn al-Haytham’s optics, specifically controlled observation, systematic experimentation, geometric propagation, and the critique of speculative dogmatism, configured the scientific methodology of conceptualizing light as an instrument of knowledge production. The findings indicate that the paradigm shift of light, from an ancillary visual tool to an epistemic medium for decoding biological reality, exhibits a profound conceptual continuity with contemporary optical imaging practices in precision medicine, such as optical coherence tomography (OCT), fluorescence imaging, Raman spectroscopy, photoacoustic imaging, and near-infrared (NIR)-based techniques. This article contends that Ibn al-Haytham’s intellectual legacy remains indispensable to the historiography of Islamic science, the philosophy of science, and the epistemological reflection undergirding modern medical developments. Consequently, this study offers an integrative perspective that converges the history of science, the philosophy of knowledge, and light-based biomedical innovations.