oa Ibn Al Nafis (Abu A1 Hassan Ala Addin Ali Ibn Abu A1 Hazm) (1210–1288)

He is Abu A1 Hassan Ala Addin Ali Ibn Abu A1 Hazm. One of the prominent Muslim Physicians. He was the first to describe the pulmonary circulation (minor circulation) of the blood. This was an important landmark in the understanding of the circulation, several hundreds of years before William Harvey's description. In finding that the wall between the right and the left ventricles of the heart is solid without pores, he disputed Galen's view that the blood passes directly from the right to the left side of the heart. Ibn A1 Nafis correctly stated that the blood must pass from the right ventricle to the left ventricle by way of the lungs. But the significance of this statement remained unheaded and in fact unknown by physicians in western countries. It was only in the 20th century that his work was brought to light.