Analysis of Ibn al-Haytham's Foundational Role in the Development of the Modern Scientific Method

The genealogy of the modern scientific method is conventionally traced to the European Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, rendering comparatively invisible the methodological traditions developed during the Islamic Golden Age. This systematic review investigates whether Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen, c. 965–1040 CE) should be regarded not merely as an influential optical theorist, but as a foundational architect of the empirical scientific method itself. Following PRISMA 2020 principles adapted for historical and humanities-based systematic review methodology, five major databases were searched: Web of Science, Scopus, JSTOR, Google Scholar, and the Islamic Studies Index. A total of 891 records were identified, of which 31 studies met the final inclusion criteria after screening and eligibilitya assessment. Sources included critical editions, historiographical analyses, philosophical reconstructions, and transmission studies. Evidence quality was assessed using an adapted Historical Research Quality Assessment (HRQA) framework. The synthesis demonstrates strong convergent evidence that Ibn al-Haytham articulated a coherent tripartite empirical framework consisting of: (1) methodological doubt (shukuk); (2) controlled experimental verification (i’tibar); and (3) mathematical demonstration (burhan). Across the included literature, these methodological structures exhibit strong correspondence with central features of modern scientific methodology, including falsificationism, controlled experimentation, reproducibility, and hypothetico-deductive reasoning. Evidence of transmission into medieval and early modern European natural philosophy through Latin translations further supports substantial historical continuity. The findings support a major historiographical reassessment of the origins of the scientific method. Rather than emerging ex nihilo during the European Scientific Revolution, the empirical method appears to have undergone substantial conceptual systematisation centuries earlier within the Islamic intellectual tradition through the work of Ibn al-Haytham. Recognising this genealogy enriches the global history of science and challenges overly Eurocentric narratives concerning scientific modernity.