Abu al-Qasim Ammar ibn Ali al-Mawsili was an important eleventh-century Arab Muslim ophthalmologist. Despite little being known about his life or education, he has been described as the most original of all Arab oculists.[1] As his nisba indicates, Ammar was born in Mosul, and later moved to Egypt, where he settled during the reign of the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, to whom he wrote his only composition, Kitāb al-muntakhab fī ilm al-ayn (“The book of choice in ophthalmology”).
He is mostly known for the invention of a hypodermic syringe, which he used to remove cataracts, a major cause of blindness.[2]
Regarding his invention he wrote the following:
He was a contemporary of the famous oculist Ali ibn Isa.