The Center for the Revival of Arab Scientific Heritage at the University of Baghdad has lately organized a seminar entitled (The Role of Ali bin Issa Al-Kahhal (329-400 AH) in Ophthalmology: The Book of the Kahhalin Reminder as a Model) delivered by Prof. Dr. Fatima Zabar Enaizan. The lecturer at first introduced this figure known as the physician Sharaf al-Din Ali bin Issa al-Kahhal al-Baghdadi who was born in 329 AH and died in 400 AH or in 401 AH at the age of more than eighty years. He was one of the greatest ophthalmologists in the history of the Arab-Islamic civilization, and is the first founder of ophthalmology in the whole world, also he was known in Western Europe as Jesyhaly, as mentioned by the scientist Max Meerhoff.
Dr. Fatima Zabar stated that the European scientists were interested in studying al-Kahhal’s writings in ophthalmology, and at the forefront of these scientists are the scientists: Meerhoff and Heberschburg. Ali bin Issa was a student of the tutor Hunayn bin Ishaq and studied his books, namely: The Ten Articles in the Eye. Ali bin Issa Al-Kahhal has surpassed his contemporaries where he was the first to use hypnosis and drug anesthesia during eye surgery, and these two techniques were not known before him to anyone of the Greek ophthalmologists.