A Quick Note on Influences: al-Ghazzali, Descartes, Hegel, and Ibn al-Haytham

I recall how I explored--with a group in Portland back in 2015--such topics as the impact of the great Islamic philosopher al-Ghazzali's _Confessions_ on the French philosopher-mathematician Rene Descartes's famous first meditation as well as Hegel's "Sufism" and his reading of the thirteenth-century Persian Sufi poet Rumi in the _Philosophy of Mind_. 

And, indeed, I also recall how some of my friends and I--during our turbulent but exciting undergrad days at Dhaka University--used to explore the works of such Arab polymaths and philosophers and scientists as Ibn Sina, al-Farabi, Ibn Rushd, al-Ghazzali, and Ibn Khaldun, among others; but we hardly knew then Ibn al-Haytham, one who was an optician, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. His seven-volume _Qitab al-Manazir_ (Book of Optics) is somewhat known now, among hundreds of his works that we also hardly know. And I wish I could read right away his philosophical-mathematical work called _Risala fi'l-Makan (Treatise on Place), one which--according to those familiar with this work--challenged the Aristotelian theory of "topos" (place) articulated in his _Physics_, where Aristotle posited that nature abhors a void. In fact, Ibn al-Haytham used geometry to challenge that Aristotelian idea, while showing place as an imagined three-dimensional void and so on. It's said that Ibn al-Haytham even anticipated Descartes's concept of place in the Extensio.