biography about ibn sina

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Ibn Sina [Avicenna]

Abū-ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn-ʿAbdallāh Ibn-Sīnā [Avicenna] (ca. 970–1037) was the preeminent philosopher and physician of the Islamic world. [ 1 ] In his work he combined the disparate strands of philosophical/scientific [ 2 ] thinking in Greek late antiquity and early Islam into a rationally rigorous and self-consistent scientific system that encompassed and explained all reality, including the tenets of revealed religion and its theological and mystical elaborations. In its integral and comprehensive articulation of science and philosophy, it represents the culmination of the Hellenic tradition, defunct in Greek after the sixth century, reborn in Arabic in the 9 th (Gutas 2004a, 2010). It dominated intellectual life in the Islamic world for centuries to come, and the sundry reactions to it, ranging from acceptance to revision to refutation and to substitution with paraphilosophical constructs, determined developments in philosophy, science, religion, theology, and mysticism. In Latin translation, beginning with the 12 th century, Avicenna’s philosophy influenced mightily the medieval and Renaissance philosophers and scholars, just as the Latin translation of his medical Canon (GMed 1), often revised, formed the basis of medical instruction in European universities until the 17 th century. The Arabophone Jewish and Christian scholars within Islam, to the extent that they were writing for their respective communities and not as members of the Islamic commonwealth, accepted most of his ideas (notably Maimonides in his Arabic Guide of the Perplexed and Barhebraeus in his Syriac Cream of Wisdom ). The Jewish communities in Europe used Hebrew translations of some of his works, though they were far less receptive than their Roman Catholic counterparts, preferring Averroes instead. The Roman Orthodox in Constantinople were quite indifferent to philosophical developments abroad (and inimical to those at home) and came to know Avicenna’s name only through its occurrence in the Greek translations of the Latin scholastics that began after the 4 th Crusade. In his influence on the intellectual history of the world in the West (of India), he is second only to Aristotle, as it was intuitively acknowledged in the Islamic world where he is called “The Preeminent Master” ( al-shaykh al-raʾīs ), after Aristotle, whom Avicenna called “The First Teacher” ( al-muʿallim al-awwal ).

2. Philosophical Aims

3. logic and empiricism, 4. the metaphysics of the rational soul; practical philosophy, 5. conclusion, works by ibn sina, secondary sources, other internet resources, related entries, 1. life and works.

At some point in his later years, Avicenna wrote for or dictated to his student, companion, and amanuensis, Abū-ʿUbayd al-Jūzjānī, his Autobiography, reaching till the time in his middle years when they first met; al-Jūzjānī continued the biography after that point and completed it some time after the master’s death in 1037 AD. This auto-/biographical complex, which also contains bibliographies and has been transmitted as a single document (Gohlman 1974), is an early representative of an Arabic literary genre much cultivated by scientists and scholars in medieval Islam (Gutas 2015). It is also our most extensive source about Avicenna’s life and times. According to this document, Avicenna was born in Afshana, a village in the outskirts of metropolitan Bukhara, some time in the 70s of the tenth century, perhaps as early as 964; it has not been possible to determine the year of his birth with greater precision. [ 3 ] His father, originally from Balkh farther to the southeast who had moved north as a young man apparently in search of (better) employment, was a state functionary, a governor of the nearby district Kharmaythan. He was in the employ of the Persian Samanid dynasty that ruled Transoxania and Khurasan with Bukhara as its capital (819–1005), where the family moved when Avicenna was still a boy. Avicenna grew up and was educated there and began his philosophical career as a member of the educated elite in political circles close to the Samanids.

Bukhara lies on one of the main trade routes of the Silk Road between Samarkand and Marw, and like these and other cities along the Silk Road, had been economically and culturally active from pre-Islamic times. Under the Samanids in the 9 th and 10 th centuries, who followed a deliberate agenda of Persian linguistic revival as well as promotion of the high Arabic-Islamic culture radiating from the center of the Islamic world, Baghdad, it provided a sophisticated and refined milieu for the cultivation of the arts and sciences. The palace library of the Samanids, where the teenager Avicenna was allowed to visit and study following his successful treatment of the ailing ruler, contained such books on all subjects, including books by the ancient Greeks in Arabic translation, as he had never seen before nor since (Gohlman 1974, 37). This was the result of the cultural, scientific, and philosophical effervescence taking place in Baghdad due to the rationalistic outlook in political and social affairs espoused by the ʿAbbāsid dynasty upon its accession to power in 750 and the attendant Graeco-Arabic translation movement (Gutas 1998; Gutas 2014a, 359–62). Bukhara was no backwater provincial town, teeming as it was with scholars in residence and visiting intellectuals.

Avicenna had an excellent education on all subjects, but he dwells at length in the Autobiography on his study of the intellectual sciences, that is, the philosophical curriculum in practice in the Hellenic schools of higher education in late antiquity, notably in Alexandria. These consisted of logic as the instrument of philosophy (the Organon ), the theoretical sciences—physics (the natural sciences), mathematics (the quadrivium : arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music), and metaphysics—, and the practical sciences—ethics, oeconomics (household management), and politics. Avicenna makes a point to say that he studied these subjects all by himself, in this order, at increasing levels of difficulty, and that he achieved proficiency by the time he was eighteen. At about that time he was allowed to visit the library of the Samanid ruler, just mentioned above, where, he says, he “read those books, mastered their teachings, and realized how far each man had advanced in his science” (Gohlman 1974, 36; transl. Gutas 2014a, 18). Shortly thereafter he wrote his first work, Compendium on the Soul (GP 10), dedicated to the ruler in apparent gratitude for the permission to visit the library. His fame grew, and when he was twenty-one he was asked by a neighbor named ʿArūḍī to write a “comprehensive work” on all philosophy, which he did ( Philosophy for ʿArūḍī , GS 2), treating all subjects listed above except mathematics; another neighbor, Baraqī, asked for commentaries on the books of philosophy on all these subjects—essentially the works of Aristotle—and he obliged with a twenty-volume work he called The Available and the Valid (i.e., of Philosophy , GS 10) and a two-volume work on the practical sciences, Piety and Sin (GPP 1). His father having died in the meantime, he was forced to take up, but clearly had no difficulty in finding, a post in the financial administration of the Samanids.

But history dealt its blows, ending Avicenna’s idyllic existence of secure employment, intellectual renown, and the admiration of his compatriots. In 999 the Turkic Qarakhanids effectively put an end to the Samanids and took over Bukhara. Avicenna, manifestly because of his close affiliation with the ruling dynasty and his high position in the Samanid administration, saw fit to flee Bukhara. In the Autobiography he provides no political context for his decision but merely says, “necessity led me to forsake Bukhara” (Gohlman 1974, 40–41), though the nature of this “necessity” could hardly be mistaken by his contemporaries and even by us. Thus began Avicenna’s lifelong itinerant career and the attendant quest for patronage and employment (Reisman 2013). Initially he moved north to Gurganj in Khwarizm (999?–1012), but eventually he had to leave again and traveled westwards, staying for a while (1012–1014?) first in Jurjan, off the southeastern Caspian, and then going on into the Iranian heartland, in Ray (1014?–1015), in Hamadhan (1015–1024?), and finally in Isfahan (1024?–1037), in the court of ʿAlāʾ-ad-Dawla, the Kakuyid ruler of the area (Gutas 2014b-I, 6–9). Avicenna served the various local rulers in these cities certainly in his dual capacity as physician and political counselor, functions he had assumed already back home, but also as scientist-in-residence. Engaging in science and philosophy during the first three Abbasid centuries (750–1050) in Islam was done mostly under the political patronage of the rulers and the ruling elite who were the sponsors and also among the consumers of the scientific production. It was certainly a matter of prestige for a ruler to be flanked by the top scientists of his day, but patronage of the sciences was also seen, politically more importantly, as legitimizing his right to whatever throne he was occupying. As a result, many a ruler evinced sheer interest in science itself out of a desire to appear knowledgeable and participated in scientific debates, usually conducted in political fora. It is for this reason that we find Avicenna, involved in certain political/intellectual controversies in some of the cities in which he lived, addressing to political elites a scientific treatise instead of political oratory in his defense (Michot 2000; Reisman 2013, 14–22; Gutas 2014a, personal writings listed on p. 503). Science was much more integrally related to the social and political life and discourse during this period, which is also a significant factor in its rapid spread and development in the Islamic world.

In the court of ʿAlāʾ-ad-Dawla in Isfahan where he spent his last thirteen years or so, Avicenna enjoyed the appreciation that it was felt he deserved. His productivity never flagged, even during these years that were militarily and politically turbulent. He completed there his major work, The Cure ( al-Shifāʾ , GS 5), and four further summae of philosophy, along with shorter treatises, and conducted a vigorous philosophical correspondence with students and followers in response to questions they raised about sundry points in logic, physics, and metaphysics. He died in 1037 in Hamadhan and was buried there. A mausoleum in that city today purports to be his.

Despite his peregrinatory life spent in historically turbulent times and areas, including the frequently unfavorable personal circumstances in which he found himself (as recounted in the Autobiography and Biography, Gohlman 1974), Avicenna was terribly productive, even by the standards of the highly prolific authors writing in Arabic in medieval Islam. In the Autobiography he says that by the time he was eighteen he had mastered all subjects in philosophy without anything new having come to him since (Gohlman 1974, 30–39). Even though the Autobiography has particular philosophical points to make (discussed in the next section), this is no mere boast. There are reports that he wrote major portions of his greatest work, The Cure , without any books to consult (Gohlman 1974, 58; transl. and analysis Gutas 2014a, 109–115), that he composed in a single night, dusk to dawn, a treatise on logic in one hundred quarto (large size) pages (Gohlman 1974, 76–81), and that he compiled The Salvation (GS 6) “en route”—on horseback, manifestly, or during rests from riding—in the course of a military expedition in which he had accompanied his master, ʿAlāʾ-ad-Dawla (Gohlman 1974, 66–67). Exaggerated and hagiographic as some of these reports might be, it is clear that Avicenna had constructively internalized (not to say “memorized”) the philosophical curriculum and he could reproduce it, properly assimilated and analytically reconstructed, at will. This is also evident in his disregard (rather than neglect?) for keeping copies of his works; as it must have happened rather frequently, when commissioned or asked to write about a subject that he had treated earlier, it was apparently just as easy for him to compose a treatise anew as it was to copy an earlier version of it. Avicenna could write fast and with great precision, sacrificing nothing in analytical depth. At the same time, however, given his undisputed fame and immense intellectual authority that he exercised soon after his death, pseudepigraphy became a major factor multiplying the works attributed to him (Reisman 2004 and 2010). Accordingly, some medieval bibliographies of his works (and some modern ones, based on the former) list close to three hundred titles, though a recent sober tally of them brings the authentic writings down to fewer than one hundred, ranging from essays of a few pages to multi-volume sets, and flags the pseudepigraphs that need to be assessed and authenticated (Gutas 2014a, Appendix, 387–540). Much work still remains to be done in this regard.

Avicenna wrote in different genres, but his major innovation was the development of the summa philosophiae , a comprehensive work that included all parts of philosophy as classified in the late antique Alexandrian and early Islamic tradition (cited above). This was due as much to his own philosophical training, which followed this curriculum, as to the earliest commissions he received while still in Bukhara for works that would encompass all philosophy; but then these commissions inevitably reflect the broad philosophical culture of the period that viewed science and philosophy as an integral whole. Already in his very first philosophical treatise, Compendium on the Soul , which Avicenna dedicated to the Samanid ruler, as noted above, he presented the theoretical knowledge (the intelligible forms) to be acquired by the rational soul precisely as classified in the philosophical curriculum (Gutas 2014a, 6–8), and with his second work, the Philosophy commissioned by ʿArūḍī, he fleshed out this outline into the first scholastic philosophical compendium or summa. He went on to write seven more such summae in his career, ranging in length from a sixty-page booklet ( Elements of Philosophy , ʿUyūn al-ḥikma , GS 3), written earlier in his career, to the monumental The Cure ( al-Shifāʾ ), in his middle period. It runs to twenty-two large volumes in the Cairo edition (1952–83), and its contents exhibit all the parts of philosophy in the Aristotelian tradition which they reproduce, revise, adjust, expand, and re-present, as follows:

• Eisagoge (Porphyry’s Eisagoge )
• Categories (Aristotle’s Categories )
• On interpretation (Aristotle’s De interpretatione )
• Syllogism (Aristotle’s Prior Analytics )
• Demonstration (Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics )
• Dialectic (Aristotle’s Topics )
• Sophistics (Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations )
• Rhetoric (Aristotle’s Rhetoric )
• Poetics (Aristotle’s Poetics ).
• On nature (Aristotle’s Physics )
• On the heavens (Aristotle’s De caelo )
• On coming to be and passing away (Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione )
• Mineralogy (Aristotle’s Meteorology IV)
• Meteorology (Aristotle’s Meteorology I–III)
• On the soul (Aristotle’s De anima )
• Botany ( De plantis by Nicolaus of Damascus)
• Zoology (Aristotle’s History, Parts, and Generation of Animals )
• Geometry (Euclid’s Elements )
• Arithmetic (Nicomachus of Gerasa, Diophantus, Euclid, Thābit b. Qurra, and others)
• Music (mostly Ptolemy’s Harmonics with other material)
• Astronomy (Ptolemy’s Almagest )
• Universal Science: the study of being as being, first philosophy, natural theology (Aristotle’s Metaphysics )
• Metaphysics of the Rational Soul (phenomena of religious and paranormal life studied as functions of the rational soul)
• Prophetic legislation as the basis for the three parts of practical philosophy
• Politics (prescriptions by the prophet legislator for public administration and political ruler to succeed him; [Plato’s and Aristotle’s books on politics])
• Household management (prescriptions of the prophet legislator for family law; [Bryson’s Oikonomikos and related books by others])
• Ethics (as legislated by a caliph; [Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics ]) [ 4 ]

Avicenna did not treat all of these subjects in each one of his summae, but he varied their contents and emphasis depending on the specific purpose for which he composed them. He developed a style of supple Arabic expository prose, complete with technical philosophical terminology, that remained standard thenceforth. After The Cure , he was asked to write a brief exposition of the philosophical subjects, which he did by collecting and putting together—at times even splicing together—material from his earlier writings and produced The Salvation ( al-Najāt ). He did the same, in Persian this time, for his patron the Kakuyid ʿAlāʾ-ad-Dawla, the Philosophy for ʿAlāʾ ( Dāneshnāme-ye ʿAlāʾī , GS 7). In both of these books he left out the mathematical sciences and the subjects of practical philosophy, only the former of which was later supplemented by Jūzjānī, first in Arabic and then in Persian, on the basis of earlier writings by Avicenna.

Toward the end of his life Avicenna wrote two more summae in slightly divergent modes. In one of them, which he called Eastern Philosophy ( al-Mashriqiyyūn or al-Ḥikma al-mashriqiyya , GS 8) to reflect his own locality in the East of the Islamic world, broader Khurasan ( mashriq ), he concentrated on “matters about which researchers have disagreed” in logic, physics, and metaphysics, but not mathematics or the subjects of practical philosophy (except for prophetic legislation which he introduced; see below) insofar as there was little disagreement about them. His approach is doctrinal, not historical, presenting, as he says, “the fundamental elements of true philosophy which was discovered by someone who examined a lot, reflected long,” and had nearly perfect syllogistic prowess, namely, himself (GS 8, p. 2 and 4; transl. and analysis Gutas 2014a, 35–40; Gutas 2000). In the second, also his very last summa, he diverged even more drastically from traditional modes of presentation and developed an allusive and suggestive style which he called “pointers and reminders” ( al-Ishārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt , GS 9). The purpose in this, for which he borrowed the topos of late antique Aristotelian commentarial tradition explaining why Aristotle had developed a cryptic style of writing, was to train the student by providing not whole arguments and fully articulated theories but only pointers and reminders to them which the student would complete himself. The book, in two parts, deals with logic in the first and with physics, metaphysics, and metaphysics of the rational soul in the second. It proved hugely popular as a succinct though frequently amphibolous statement of his mature philosophy, open to interpretation, and it became the object of repeated commentaries throughout the centuries, apparently as Avicenna must have intended. It is a difficult work, and it must be understood always through constant reference to the more explicit expository statement of Avicenna’s theories in The Cure . Traditionally it has rarely been read except together with a commentary, notably those of Fakhr-ad-Dīn al-Rāzī and especially Naṣīr-ad-Dīn al-Ṭūsī. [ 5 ]

Other than in the summae, Avicenna wrote comprehensively on all philosophy in two major and massive works, both in about twenty volumes, both now lost. The first was his youthful commentary on the works of Aristotle which he wrote upon commission by his neighbor Baraqī, mentioned above, The Available and the Valid [ of Philosophy ]. The second, Fair Judgment (GS 11) , composed in 1029, was a detailed commentary on the “difficult passages” of the entire Aristotelian corpus, in which was included even the suspect Theology of Aristotle (actually Plotinus’ Enneads IV–VI). The title refers to Avicenna’s adjudication between traditional Aristotelian exegeses and Avicenna’s own views by presenting arguments in support of the latter. As Avicenna explains his title, “I divided [in the book] scholars into two groups, the Westerners [the Greek commentarial tradition and the Baghdad Aristotelians] and the Easterners [Avicenna’s positions], and I had the Easterners argue against the Westerners until I intervened to judge fairly when there was a real point of dispute between them” (GS 14, 375; transl. Gutas 2014a, 145). The book was unfortunately lost during some military rout, and only the commentary on Book Lambda, 6–10, of Aristotle’s Metaphysics survives (GS 11a; Geoffroy et al. 2014), along with two incomplete recensions of his commentary on the Theology of Aristotle (GS 11b; Vajda 1951). Some marginal notes on De anima , surviving independently as transcribed in a manuscript, have the same approach and manifestly belong to the same period and project (GS 11c; Gutas 2004b).

Independent treatises on individual subjects written by Avicenna deal with most subjects, but especially with those for which there was greater demand by his sponsors and in which he was particularly interested, notably logic, the soul, and the metaphysics of the rational soul. In an effort to reach a wider audience, he expressed his theories on the rational soul in two allegories, Alive, Son of Awake ( Ḥayy b. Yaqẓān , GM 7; Goichon 1959) and The Bird (GM 8; Heath 1990), and he versified still others: The Divine Pearl ( al-Jumāna al-ilāhiyya ) on the oneness of God and the emanated creation in 334 verses (GM 9), The Science of Logic, in verse , in 290 lines (GL 4), and a number of poems on medical subjects, notably his Medicine, in verse , in 1326 lines (GMed 27), which was commented upon by Averroes. In addition, he engaged in protracted correspondence with scholars who asked or questioned him about specific problems; noteworthy are his Answers to Questions Posed by Bīrūnī [GP 8], the other scientific genius of his time, on Aristotelian physics and cosmology, and especially the two posthumous compilations of his responses and discussions circulating under the titles Notes (GS 12a) and Discussions (GS 14). He also wrote what amounts to open letters depicting the controversies in which he was involved and seeking arbitration or repudiating calumniatory charges against him (GPW 1–3).

Avicenna lived his philosophy, and his desire to communicate it beyond what his personal circumstances required, as an intellectual in the public eye, is manifest in the various compositional styles and different registers of language that he used. He wrote with the purpose of reaching all layers of (literate) society, but also with an eye to posterity. His reach was as global in its aspirations as his system was all-encompassing in its comprehensiveness; and history bore him out.

The Autobiography, written at a time when Avicenna had reached his philosophical maturity, touches upon a number of issues that he felt were highly significant in his formation as a thinker and accordingly point the way to his approach to philosophy and his philosophical aims and orientation. These were, first, his understanding of the structure of philosophical knowledge (all intellectual knowledge, that is) as a unified whole, which is reflected in the classification of the sciences he studied; second, his critical evaluation of all past science and philosophy, as represented in his assessment of the achievements and shortcomings of previous philosophers after he had read their books in the Samanid library, which led to the realization that philosophy must be updated; and third, his emphasis on having been an autodidact points to the human capability of acquiring the highest knowledge rationally by oneself, and leads to a comprehensive study of all functions of the rational soul and how it acquires knowledge (epistemology) as well as to an inquiry into its origins, destination, activities, and their consequences (eschatology). Accordingly Avicenna set himself the task of presenting and writing about philosophy as an integral whole and not piecemeal and occasionalistically; bringing philosophy up to date; and studying how the human soul (intellect) knows as the foundation of his theory of knowledge, logical methodology, and the relation between the celestial and terrestrial realms, or the divine and human.

The implementation of the first task, the treatment of all philosophy as a unified whole, though historically seemingly unachievable, was accomplished by Avicenna almost without effort. Aristotle himself stands at the very beginning of this process. He clearly had a conception of the unity of all philosophy, which could be systematically presented on the basis of the logical structure set forth in the Posterior Analytics (Barnes 1994, p. xii), while his classification of the sciences in Metaphysics E1 and K7 showed what the outline of such a systematic presentation would be. In the polyphony of philosophical voices and systems that followed his death in 322 BC and throughout the Hellenistic period (336–31 BC), his suggestions went mostly unheeded by the Peripatetics and were only followed, at the end of that period, by Andronicus of Rhodes if only for the purposes of the order in which he put Aristotle’s school treatises (his extant corpus) in his first edition of them. In subsequent centuries, when the polyphony subsided to just two voices, of the Platonists and the Aristotelians, which eventually had to be presented as one for political reasons (to counter the one “divine” voice of the rapidly Christianizing Roman empire, east and west), the tendency to return to the texts of the two masters ( ad fontes ) for their defense, which had started even before the domination of Christianity, intensified. Accordingly, while the classification of the different parts of philosophy continued to be presented as a virtual blueprint for a potential philosophical summa, the main form of philosophical discourse was the individual treatise on one or more of related themes and, predominantly, the commentary on the works of “divine” Plato and, by the sixth century, also “divine” Aristotle. When philosophy was resuscitated after a hiatus of about two centuries (ca. 600–800) with the translation and paraphrase, in Arabic this time, of the canonical source texts (Gutas 2004a), these compositional practices reappeared. But the social context in which philosophy now found itself had changed. The literate population in the Islamic near and farther East during the early Abbasid period was favorably disposed toward philosophy as a rational scientific system, and with the different parts of this system—the philosophical curriculum—broadly known in its range if not in detail, it was possible, indeed expected, that an educated layman like Avicenna’s neighbor in Bukhara, Abū-l-Ḥasan Aḥmad ibn-ʿAbdallāh al-ʿArūḍī (I give his full name because he deserves to be noted in a history of philosophy), would be interested to have and read a comprehensive account of the entire discipline and to commission such a work from the youthful Avicenna. Avicenna complied, and thus was born the first philosophical summa treating in a systematic and consistent fashion within the covers of a single book all the branches of logic and theoretical philosophy as classified in the Aristotelian tradition. That Avicenna was able to produce such a work (and repeat it seven more times thenceforth) is of course a tribute to his genius (universally acknowledged both then and now), but that the request for it should have come from his society is telling evidence of its cultural attitude regarding science.

The creation of the philosophical summa—and not only this particular first one for ʿArūḍī but especially the major work, The Cure , and the alluring and allusive Pointers and Reminders —had momentous consequences. It presented for the first time to the world a comprehensive, unified, and internally self-consistent account of reality, along with the methodological tools wherewith to validate it (logic)—it presented a scientific system as a worldview, difficult to resist or even refute, given its self-validating properties. This was good for studying philosophy and disseminating it. But by the same token, and by its very nature, this worldview so clearly presented, documented, and validated, set itself up against other ideologies in the society with contending worldviews. Up until that time, philosophical treatises on discrete subjects and abstruse commentaries, the two dominant forms of philosophical discourse, as just indicated, were matters for specialists that could not and did not claim endorsement or allegiance from society as a whole; the philosophical summa did. And Avicenna who wrote in different styles and genres to reach as many people as possible, as also noted above, clearly intended as much. As a result, his philosophical system dominated intellectual history in both Shi’ite and most of Sunni Islam (Gutas 2002), and through the sundry reactions it elicited, it determined, and can now explain, developments not only in philosophy but also in theology and mysticism, and it generated several fields of what can be called para-philosophy: [ 6 ] theology using philosophical discourse to express (or hide) Islamic content (the tradition of al-Ghazālī and his followers and imitators), “philosophical” mysticism (the tradition of Ibn al-ʿArabī, who was called the Greatest Master” [ al-Shaykh al-Akbar ] to rival Avicenna’s “The Preeminent Master” [ al-Shaykh al-Raʾīs ]), occultism, numerology, lettrism.

Performance of the first task, necessarily entailed the second, bringing philosophy up to date. The philosophical knowledge that Avicenna received was neither complete nor homogeneous. He had no access to the entirety of even the very lacunose information that we now have about the philosophical movements during the 1330 years separating him from Aristotle (Avicenna gives this quite accurate number himself), but could view the entire tradition as essentially Aristotelian. Plato was not available in Arabic other than in brief excerpts, in Galen’s epitomes, in gnomologies, and in second-hand reports in Aristotle and Galen (Gutas 2012a), and accordingly Avicenna could dismiss him. The lesser philosophical schools of antiquity—the Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics, and Pythagoreans, who had ceased to exist long before late antiquity—he knew mostly as names with certain basic views or sayings affiliated with them. Those whom we call Neoplatonists he knew as commentators of Aristotle along with the rest, and even Plotinus and Proclus were available to him in translated excerpts under the name of Aristotle, as the Theology of Aristotle and The Pure Good respectively. However, both the substantive and temporal diversity of these sources in the tradition presented grave inconsistencies and divergent tendencies, to say nothing of anachronisms, while the surviving work even of Aristotle himself contained discrepancies and incomplete treatments. Furthermore, the Islamic tradition before Avicenna was not any less unhomogeneous, as it was represented by the eclectic al-Kindī and his disciples, the Aristotelians of Baghdad, and the sui generis Rhazes (of whom Avicenna thought little even as a physician). To these philosophers should be added the philosophically sophisticated theologians of the various Muʿtazilite branches (one of whose most prominent representatives, the judge ʿAbd-al-Jabbār, Avicenna may have met in Ray between 1013 and 1015). Faced with this situation, Avicenna set himself the task of revising and updating philosophy, as an internally self-consistent and complete system that accounts for all reality and is logically verifiable, by correcting errors in the tradition, deleting unsustainable arguments and theses, sharpening the focus of others, and expanding and adding to the subjects that demanded discussion. An area that needed to be added most urgently in both the theoretical and practical parts of philosophy, if all reality was to be covered by his system, was all manifestations of religious life and paranormal events. As he put it, “it behooves his [Aristotle’s] successors to gather the loose ends he left, repair any breach they find in what he constructed, and supply corollaries to fundamental principles he presented” (GS 8, 2–3; transl. Gutas 2014a, 36).

Performance of this second task, in turn, entailed the third, the accuracy and verifiability of the knowledge which would constitute the contents of his updated philosophy. Verifiability depends on two interdependent factors for the person doing the verification: following a productive method and having the mental apparatus to employ that method and understand its results. The method Avicenna adopted already at the start of his career was logic, and the mental apparatus wherewith we know involved an understanding and study of the human, rational soul. Thus logic and the theory of the soul as the basis for epistemology are the two motors driving Avicenna’s philosophy. He wrote more, and more frequently, on these two subjects than on anything else.

The starting point of Avicenna’s logic is that all knowledge is either forming concepts ( taṣawwur ) by means of definitions—i.e. in good Aristotelian fashion, realizing the genus and specific difference of something—or acknowledging the truth ( taṣdīq ) of a categorical statement by means of syllogisms. The inspiration here is clearly the beginning of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (cf. Lameer 2006). Avicenna took this book seriously, following both the curriculum, in which this book was made the center of logical practice, and especially his two Peripatetic predecessors in Baghdad, Abū-Bishr Mattā and al-Fārābī, who made it the cornerstone of their philosophy and advertised its virtues (cf. Marmura 1990).

Acknowledging the truth of a categorical statement meant verifying it, and this could only be done by taking that statement as the conclusion of a syllogism and then constructing the syllogism that would conclude it. There being three terms in a syllogism, two of which, the minor and the major, are present in the conclusion, the syllogism that leads to that conclusion can be constructed only if one figures out or guesses correctly what the middle term is that explains the connection between the two extreme terms. In other words, if we seek to verify the statement “ A is C ,” we must look for a suitable B to construct a syllogism of the form, “ A is B , B is C , therefore A is C .” The significance of the middle term is discussed in the Posterior Analytics (I.34), where Aristotle further specifies, “Acumen is a talent for hitting upon ( eustochia ) the middle term in an imperceptible time” (Barnes 1994 transl.). Avicenna picked up on the very concept of the talent for hitting upon the middle term, literally translated in the Arabic version as ḥads (guessing correctly, hitting correctly upon the answer), and made it the cornerstone of his epistemology (Gutas 2001). This theory made the core of syllogistic verification by means of hitting upon the middle term the one indispensable element of all certain intellectual knowledge, and it explained why people differ in their ability to apply this syllogistic method by presupposing that they possess a varying talent for it, as with all human faculties.

In essence, following this method of logical verification meant for Avicenna examining the texts of Aristotle, read in the order in which they are presented in the curriculum, and testing the validity of every paragraph. How he did this in practice, teasing out the figures and forms of syllogisms implied in Aristotle’s texts, can be seen in numerous passages in his works. By his eighteenth year, he had internalized the philosophical curriculum and verified it to his own satisfaction as a coherent system with a logical structure that explains all reality.

According to the scientific view of the universe in his day which he studied in the curriculum—Aristotelian sublunar world with Ptolemaic cosmology and Neoplatonic emanationism in the supralunar—all intelligibles (all universal concepts and the principles of all particulars, or as Avicenna says, “the forms of things as they are in themselves”) were the eternal object of thought by the First principle, and then, in descending hierarchical order, by the intellects of the celestial spheres emanating from the First and ending with the active intellect ( al-ʿaql al-faʿʿāl ), the intellect of the terrestrial realm. Avicenna’s identification of hitting upon the middle term as the central element in logical analysis on the one hand established that the syllogistic structure of all knowledge is also as it is thought by the celestial intellects, and on the other enabled Avicenna to unify and integrate the different levels of its acquisition by the human intellect within a single explanatory model. As a result, he succeeded in de-mystifying concepts like inspiration, enthusiasm, mystical vision, and prophetic revelation, explaining all as natural functions of the rational soul. At the basic level there is discursive thinking in which the intellect proceeds to construct syllogisms step by step with the aid of the internal and external senses, and acquires the intelligibles by hitting upon the middle terms (something which in emanationist terms—but also, though less conspicuously, Aristotelian—is described as coming into “contact” with the active intellect, to be discussed further below, note 6). At a higher level, Avicenna analyzed non-discursive thinking, which takes no time and grasps its object in a single act of intellection, though the knowledge acquired is still structured syllogistically, complete with middle terms (because in its locus, the active intellect, it is so structured) (Adamson 2004). Avicenna also discussed a facility for or habituation with intellection, which he called direct vision or experience ( mushāhada ) of the intelligibles. It comes about after prolonged engagement with intellective techniques through syllogistic means until the human intellect is not obstructed by the internal or external senses and has acquired a certain familiarity or “intimacy” with its object, “without, however, the middle term ceasing to be present.” This kind of intellection is accompanied by an emotive state of joy and pleasure (Gutas 2006a,b). The highest level of intellection is that of the prophet, who, on account of his supremely developed ability to hit upon middle terms, acquires the intelligibles “either at once or nearly so … in an order which includes the middle terms” (GS 6, 273–274; transl. Gutas 2014a, 184).

This knowledge, which represents and accounts for reality and the way things are, also corresponds, Avicenna maintains, with what is found in books, i.e. with philosophy, or more specifically, with the philosophical sciences as classified and taught in the Aristotelian tradition. However, the identity between absolute knowledge, in the form of the intelligibles contained in the intellects of the celestial spheres, and philosophy, as recorded in the Aristotelian tradition, is not complete. Though Aristotelianism is the philosophical tradition most worthy of adherence, Avicenna says, it is nevertheless not perfect, and it is the task of philosophers to correct and amplify it through the acquisition of further intelligibles by syllogistic processes. It is this understanding that enabled Avicenna to have a progressive view of the history of philosophy and set the framework for his philosophical project. For although the knowledge to be acquired, in itself and on the transcendent plane of the eternal celestial intellects, is a closed system and hence static, on a human level and in history it is evolutionary. Each philosopher, through his own syllogistic reasoning and ability to hit correctly upon the middle terms, modifies and completes the work of his predecessors, and reaches a level of knowledge that is an ever closer approximation of the intelligible world, of the intelligibles as contained in the intellects of the spheres, and hence of truth itself. Avicenna was conscious of having attained a new level in the pursuit of philosophical truth and its verification, but he never claimed to have exhausted it all; in his later works he bemoaned the limitations of human knowledge and urged his readers to continue with the task of improving philosophy and adding to the store of knowledge.

The human intellect can engage in a syllogistic process in the order which includes the middle terms and which is identical with that of the celestial intellects for the simple reason, as Avicenna repeatedly insists, that both human and celestial intellects are congeneric ( mujānis ), immaterial substances. However, their respective acquisition of knowledge is different because of their different circumstances: the human intellect comes into being in an absolutely potential state and needs its association with the perishable body in order to actualize itself, whereas the celestial intellects are related to eternal bodies and are permanently actual. Thus unfettered, their knowledge can be completely intellective because they perceive and know the intelligibles from what causes them, while the human intellect is in need of the corporeal senses, both external and internal, in order to perceive the effect of an intelligible from which it can reason syllogistically back to its cause. This makes it necessary for Avicenna to have an empirical theory of knowledge, according to which “the senses are the means by which the human soul acquires different kinds of knowledge ( maʿārif ),” and man’s predisposition for the primary notions and principles of knowledge, which come to him unawares, is itself actualized by the experience of particulars (GS 12a, 23; transl. and analysis in Gutas 2014b-VII, esp. pp. 25–27). For human knowledge, therefore, the intellect functions as a processor of the information provided by the external and internal senses. It is important to realize that this is not because the intellect does not have the constitution to have purely intellective knowledge, like the celestial spheres, but because its existence in the sublunar world of time and perishable matter precludes its understanding the intelligibles through their causes. Instead, it must proceed to them from their perceived effects. However, once the soul has been freed of the body after death, and if, while still with the body, it has acquired the predisposition to perceive the intelligibles through philosophical training, then it can behold the intelligibles through their causes and become just like the celestial spheres, a state which Avicenna describes as happiness in philosophical terms and paradise in religious.

Avicenna’s rationalist empiricism is the main reason why he strove in his philosophy on the one hand to perfect and fine-tune logical method and on the other to study, at an unprecedented level of sophistication and precision, the human (rational) soul and cognitive processes which provide knowledge through the application of rational empirical methods. In section after section and chapter after chapter in numerous works he analyzes not only questions of formal logic but also the mechanics through which the rational soul acquires knowledge, and in particular the conditions operative in the process of hitting upon the middle term: how one can work for it and where to look for it, and what the apparatus and operations of the soul are that bring it about (Gutas 2001). This entailed detailed study of the operations of the soul in its totality and in all its functions, whether rational, animal, or vegetative. He charts in great detail the operations of all the senses, both the five external senses and especially the five internal senses located in the brain—common sense, imagery (where the forms of things are stored), imagination, estimation (judging the imperceptible significance or connotations for us of sensed objects, like friendship and enmity, which also includes instinctive sensing), and memory—and how they can help or hinder the intellect in hitting upon the middle term and perceiving intelligibles more generally. When, at the end of all these operations just described, the intellect hits upon a middle term or just perceives an intelligible that it had not been thinking about before, it acquires the intelligible in question (hence the appellation of this stage of intellection, “acquired intellect,” al-ʿaql al-mustafād ), or, otherwise expressed, acquires it from the active intellect which thinks it eternally and atemporally since the active intellect is, in effect, the locus of all intelligibles, there being no other place for them to be always in actual existence. The human intellect can think an intelligible for some time, but then it disappears, it being impossible for the immaterial intellect to “store” it, or have memory of it, as opposed to the two internal senses, imagery and memory, which have a storage function for their particular oblects (forms and connotational attributes) because they have a material base in the brain. Avicenna calls this process of acquisition or apprehension of the intelligibles a “contact” ( ittiṣāl ) between the human and active intellects. [ 7 ] In the emanative language which he inherited from the Neoplatonic tradition, and which he incorporated in his own understanding of the cosmology of the concentric spheres of the universe with their intercommunicating intellects and souls, he referred to the flow of knowledge from the supernal world to the human intellect as “divine effluence” ( al-fayḍ al-ilāhī ). The reason that this is possible at all is again the consubstantiality and congeneric nature of all intellects, human and celestial alike. Only, as already mentioned, because of their varied circumstances, the latter think of the intelligibles directly, permanently, and atemporally, while the human intellect has to advance from potentiality to actuality in time by technical means leading to the discovery of the middle term as it is assisted by all the other faculties of the soul and body.

The wording itself of this acquisition of knowledge by the human intellect—“contact with the active intellect,” or receiving the “divine effluence”—has misled students of Avicenna into thinking that this “flow” of knowledge from the divine to the human intellect is automatic and due to God’s grace, or it is ineffable and mystical. But this is groundless; the “flow” has nothing mystical about it; it just means that the intelligibles are permanently available to human intellects who seek a middle term or other intelligibles at the end of a thinking process by means of abstraction and syllogisms. Avicenna is quite explicit about the need for the human intellect to be prepared and to demand to hit upon a middle term, or actively to seek an intelligible, in order to receive it. He says specifically, “The active principle [i.e. the active intellect] lets flow upon the [human rational] soul form after form in accordance with the demand by the soul ; and when the soul turns away from it [the active intellect], then the effluence is broken off” (GS 5, De anima, 245–246; transl. Gutas 2014a, 377; cf. Hasse 2013, 118).

The same applies to other forms of communication from the supernal world. In the case of the prophet, he acquires all the intelligibles comprising knowledge, complete with middle terms as already mentioned, because the intellective capacity of his rational soul to hit upon the middle terms and acquire the intelligibles is extraordinarily high; this capacity is coupled with an equally highly developed internal sense of imagination that can translate this intellective knowledge into language and images (in the form of a revealed book) that the vast majority of humans can easily understand. But in addition to intelligible knowledge, the divine effluence from the intellects and the souls of the celestial spheres also includes information about events on earth, past, present, and future—what Avicenna calls “the unseen” ( al-ghayb )—, for all of which the intellects and souls of the celestial spheres are directly responsible. This information can also be received by humans in various forms—as waking or sleeping dreams, as visions, as messages to soothsayers—depending on the level of the humoral equilibrium of the recipient, the proper functioning of his internal and external senses, and the readiness of his intellect. Somebody whose internal sense of imagination or estimation is overactive, for example, may be hindered thereby in the clear reception of dream images so that his dreams would require interpretation, while someone else not so afflicted may get clearer messages; or a soothsayer who wishes to receive information about the future has to run long and hard in order to bring about such a humoral equilibrium through the exertion, thereby preparing his intellect to receive the message.

The logistics of the reception of information from the supernal world thus varies in accordance with what is being communicated and who is receiving it, but in all cases the recipient has to be ready and predisposed to receive it. All humans have both the physical and mental apparatus to acquire intelligible and supernal knowledge and the means to do so, but they have to work for it, just as they have to prepare for their bliss in afterlife while their immortal rational souls are still affiliated with the body. There is no free emanation of the intelligibles on “couch-potato” humans, or afterlife contemplation for them of eternal realities in the company of the celestial spheres (Avicenna’s paradise). To have thought so would have negated the entire philosophical project Avicenna so painstakingly constructed.

This analysis and understanding of the rational soul, precisely elaborated on the basis of the Aristotelian theory but also going much beyond it, enable Avicenna to engage systematically primarily with all aspects of religion, cognitive and social alike, and secondarily with what we would call paranormal phenomena (prognostication of the future, telekinesis, evil eye, etc.). All issues relating to the cognitive side of religion he added to the traditional contents of metaphysics, and those relating to the social side he added to the practical sciences. In the former case he created a veritable metaphysics of the rational soul (Gutas 2012b), which he added to the traditional treatment of metaphysics (being as such, first philosophy, natural theology) as an additional subject, called “theological” ( al-ʿilm al-ilāhī, al-ṣināʿa al-ilāhiyya ). Its contents can be seen in his extensive treatment of it all at the end of the metaphysics part of The Cure , as follows.

Book 9, Chapter 7: Destination of the rational soul in the afterlife and its bliss and misery; real happiness is the perfection of the rational soul through knowledge.

Book 10, Chapter 1: Celestial effects on the world: inspiration, dreams, prayer, celestial punishment, prophecy, astrology.

On the social side of religion, he added a fourth subdivision to practical philosophy (in addition to ethics, household management, and politics) which he called “the discipline of legislating” ( al-ṣināʿa al-shāriʿa, Kaya 2012; Kaya 2014; Gutas 2014a, 470–471, 497). As mentioned above, the prophet, through his supremely developed ability to hit upon the middle of terms of syllogisms, acquires all knowledge (all the intelligibles actually thought by the active intellect) “either at once or nearly so.” This acquisition “is not an uncritical reception [of this knowledge] merely on authority, but rather occurs in an order which includes the middle terms: for beliefs accepted on authority concerning those things which are known only through their causes possess no intellectual certainty” (GS 5, De anima, 249–250; transl. Gutas 2014a, 183–184). With this secure and syllogistically verified knowledge, the prophet then is in a position to legislate and regulate social life as well as have a legitimate ground for gaining consent. The subjects of all parts of practical philosophy are covered briefly also at the very end of The Cure , as follows:

Book 10, Chapter 2: Proof of prophecy on the basis of the need for laws, to be enacted by the prophet legislator, in order to regulate social life which is necessary for human survival.

Chapter 3: Acts of worship as reminders of the afterlife and as exercises predisposing the rational soul to engage in intellection (cf. Gutas 2014a, 206–208).

Chapter 4: Household management.

Chapter 5: Politics (the caliphate and legislation); ethics.

For further reading, see the entries on Ibn Sina’s metaphysics and Ibn Sina’s natural philosophy .

Avicenna synthesized the various strands of philosophical thought he inherited—the surviving Hellenic traditions along with the developments in philosophy and theology within Islam—into a self-consistent scientific system that explained all reality. His scientific edifice rested on Aristotelian physics and metaphysics capped with Neoplatonic emanationism in the context of Ptolemaic cosmology, all revised, re-thought, and critically re-assessed by him. His achievement consisted in his harmonization of the disparate parts into a rational whole, and particularly in bringing the sublunar and supralunar worlds into an intelligible relation for which he argued logically. The system was therefore both a research program and a worldview.

Aristotelian ethics provided the foundation of the edifice. The imperative to know, and to know rationally, which is the motivation behind Avicenna’s conception and then realization of his scientific system, is based on Aristotle’s concept of happiness as the activity of that which differentiates humans from all other organic life, of the mind ( Nicomachean Ethics X.7, 1177b19–25): “the activity of the intellect is thought to be distinguished by hard work ( spoudê, ijtihād ), since it employs theory, and it does not desire to have any other end at all except itself; and it has its proper pleasure …. Complete happiness ( eudaimonia, saʿāda ) is this.” [ 8 ] Avicenna subscribed fully to this view of human happiness in this world, and extended it to make it also the basis for happiness in the next—as a matter of fact, he made it a prerequisite for happiness in the next. Only the contemplative life while in the body prepares the intellect, which has to use the corporeal external and internal senses to acquire knowledge and gain the predisposition for thinking the intelligibles, for the contemplative life after death. In understanding the goal of human life in this manner Avicenna was again being true to the Aristotelian view of divine happiness as the identity of thinker, thinking, and thought ( Metaphysics XII.7, 1072b18–26). Using the words of Aristotle, Avicenna paraphrases this passage as follows: “As for the foremost ‘understanding ( noêsis, fahm ) in itself, it is of what is best in itself;’ and as for ‘what understands itself, it is’ the substance ‘of the intellect as it acquires the intelligible, because it becomes intelligible’ right away just as if ‘it touches it,’ for example. ‘And the intellect,’ that which intellects, ‘and the intelligible are one and the same’ with regard to the essence of the thing as it relates to itself…. ‘And if the deity<’s state> is always like the state in which we sometimes are, then this is marvelous; and if it is more, then it is even more marvelous’” (Geoffroy et al. 2014, 59). [ 9 ]

There is thus a deeply ethical aspect to Avicenna’s philosophical system. The core conception was the life of the rational soul: because our theoretical intellects—our selves—are consubstantial with the celestial intellects, it is our cosmic duty to enable our intellects to reach their full potential and behave like the celestial ones, that is, think the intelligibles (cf. Lizzini 2009). And because we (i.e. our essential core which identifies us and survives, our rational souls) are given a body and our materiality hampers our unencumbered intellection like that enjoyed by the First and the other celestial beings, we have to tend to the body by all means, behavioral (religious practices, ethical conduct) and pharmacological, to bring its humoral temperament to a level of equilibrium that will help the function of the intellect in this life and prepare it for unimpeded and continuous intellection, like that of the deity, in the next. This is humanist ethics dictated by a scientific view of the world.

Apart from the references in the text, the bibliography also lists several recent studies on Avicenna along with some reference works. For a full list of Avicenna’s works in Arabic and Persian, their editions, translations, and studies, see the inventory in Gutas 2014a, also for further bibliography.

• Adamson, P., 2004, “Non-Discursive Thought in Avicenna’s Commentary on the Theology of Aristotle,” in Interpreting Avicenna: Science and Philosophy in Medieval Islam , J. McGinnis (ed.), Leiden: Brill, pp. 87–111.
• –––, (ed.), 2013, Interpreting Avicenna. Critical Essays , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Akasoy, A., and A. Fidora, 2005, The Arabic Version of the Nicomachean Ethics, Leiden: Brill.
• Badawī, ʿA., 1947, Arisṭū ʿinda l-ʿArab , Cairo: Maktabat an-nahḍa al-miṣriyya.
• Barnes, J., 1994, Aristotle. Posterior Analytics , Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Bertolacci, A., 2006, The Reception of Aristotle’s Metaphysics in Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifāʾ, Leiden: Brill.
• Biesterfeldt, H.H., 2000. “Medieval Arabic Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy,” in The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy , S. Harvey (ed.), Boston: Kluwer, pp. 77–98.
• –––, 2002, “Arabisch-islamische Enzyklopädien: Formen und Funktionen,” in Die Enzyklopädie im Mittelalter vom Hochmittelalter bis zur frühen Neuzeit , Ch. Meier (ed.), München: Wilhelm Fink, pp. 43–83.
• Black, D., 2008, “Avicenna on Self-Awareness and Knowing that One Knows,” in The Unity of Science in the Arabic Tradition , S. Rahman, T. Street, and H. Tahiri (eds.), N.p.: Springer, pp. 63–87.
• Davidson, H.A., 1987, Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 1992, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, on Intellect , Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Eichner, H., 2009, The Post-Avicennian Philosophical Tradition and Islamic Orthodoxy: Philosophical and Theological Summae in Context , unpublished professorial dissertation (Habilitationsschrift), Halle.
• Geoffroy et al., 2014, Commentaire sur le Livre Lambda de la Métaphysique d’Aristote (Chapitres 6–10) par Ibn Sīnā (Avicenne) , M. Geoffroy, J. Janssens, and M. Sebti (eds.), Paris: Vrin.
• Gohlman, W.E., 1974, The Life of Ibn Sina , Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
• Goichon, A.-M., 1938, Lexique de la langue philosophique d’Ibn Sīnā , Paris: Desclée de Brouwer.
• –––, 1939, Vocabulaires comparés d’Aristote et d’Ibn Sīnā , Paris: Desclée de Brouwer.
• –––, 1951, Ibn Sīnā (Avicenne). Livre des directives et remarques , Paris: Vrin
• –––, 1959, Le récit de Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān commenté par des textes d’Avicenne . Paris: Desclée de Brouwer.
• Gutas, D., 1987–88, “Avicenna’s Maḏhab , With an Appendix on the Question of His Date of Birth,” Quaderni di Studi Arabi , 5–6: 323–36; repr. in Gutas 2014b-II.
• –––, 1998, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture , London and New York: Routledge.
• –––, 2000, “Avicenna’s Eastern (“Oriental”) Philosophy: Nature, Contents, Transmission,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 10: 159‑180.
• –––, 2001, “Intuition and Thinking: The Evolving Structure of Avicenna’s Epistemology,” Princeton Papers. Interdisciplinary Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 9: 1‑38; repr. in Aspects of Avicenna, R. Wisnovsky (ed.), Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2001, pp. 1‑38.
• –––, 2002, “The Heritage of Avicenna: The Golden Age of Arabic Philosophy, 1000 ‑ ca. 1350,” in Janssens and De Smet 2002: 81–97.
• –––, 2004a. “Geometry and the Rebirth of Philosophy in Arabic with al‑Kindī,” in Words, Texts and Concepts Cruising the Mediterranean Sea, Studies … Dedicated to Gerhard Endress on his Sixty‑fifth Birthday , ed. R. Arnzen and J. Thielmann, 195–209. Leuven: Peeters.
• –––, 2004b, “Avicenna’s Marginal Glosses on De anima and the Greek Commentatorial Tradition,” in Philosophy Science & Exegesis in Greek, Arabic & Latin Commentaries , ed. P. Adamson, H. Baltussen, and M.W.F. Stone, II,77–88, London: Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 83.2.
• –––, 2006a, “Intellect Without Limits: The Absence of Mysticism in Avicenna,” in Intellect et imagination dans la Philosophie Médiévale ( Actes du XI e Congrès International de Philosophie Médiévale de la S.I.E.P.M. , Porto, du 26 au 31 août 2002) , M. C. Pacheco and J.F. Meirinhos (eds.), Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 351–372; repr. in Gutas 2014b, article XII.
• –––, 2006b, “Imagination and Transcendental Knowledge in Avicenna,” in Arabic Theology, Arabic Philosophy. From the Many to the One: Essays in Celebration of Richard M. Frank , J.E. Montgomery (ed.,), Leuven: Peters, pp. 337–354; repr. in Gutas 2014b, article XI.
• –––, 2010, “Origins in Baghdad,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy , R. Pasnau (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 11–25
• –––, 2012a, “Platon. Tradition Arabe,” in Dictionnaire des Philosophes Antiques , R. Goulet (ed.), Paris: CNRS.
• –––, 2012b, “Avicenna: The Metaphysics of the Rational Soul,” Muslim World , 102: 417–425.
• –––, 2014a, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition. Inroduction to Reading Avicenna’s Philosophical Works. Second, Revised and Enlarged Edition , Leiden: E.J. Brill.
• –––, 2014b, Orientations of Avicenna’s Philosophy , Ashgate/Variorum: Surrey/Burlington.
• –––, 2014b-I, “Avicenna: Biography,” in Gutas 2014b, article I.
• –––, 2014b-VII, “The Empiricism of Avicenna,” in Gutas 2014b, article VII.
• –––, 2015, “The Author as Pioneer[ing Genius]: Graeco-Arabic Philosophical Autobiographies and the Paradigmatic Ego,” in Concepts of Authorship in Pre-Modern Arabic Texts , L. Behzadi and J. Hameen-Anttila (eds.), Bamberg: University of Bamberg Press, pp. 47–62
• Hasse, D.N., 2013, “Avicenna’s Epistemological Optimism,” in Adamson 2013, pp. 109–119.
• Hasse, D.N., and A. Bertolacci (eds.), 2012, The Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Reception of Avicenna’s Metaphysics [Scientia Graeco-Arabica 7], Berlin: De Gruyter.
• Heath, P., 1990, “Disorientation and Reorientation in Ibn Sina’s Epistle of the Bird: A Reading ,” in Intellectual Studies on Islam. Essays written in honor of Martin B. Dickson , Michel M. Mazzaoui and Vera B. Moreen, eds., Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, pp. 163–183.
• Inati, S.C., 1984, Ibn Sīnā , Remarks and Admonitions. Part One: Logic ,Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.
• –––, 1996, Ibn Sīnā and Mysticism. Remarks and Admonitions: Part Four , London and New York: Kegan Paul International.
• –––, 2014, Ibn Sina’s Remarks and Admonitions: Physics and Metaphysics, New York: Columbia University Press.
• Janssens, J., 1991, An Annotated Bibliography on Ibn Sînâ (1970–1989) , Leuven: Leuven University Press.
• –––, 1999, An Annotated Bibliography on Ibn Sīnā: First Supplement (1990–1994) , Louvain-la-Neuve: Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales.
• –––, 2006, Ibn Sīnā and His Influence on the Arabic and Latin World [Variorum Collected Studies 843], Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate.
• Janssens, J., and D. De Smet (eds.), 2002, Avicenna and His Heritage , Leuven: Leuven University Press.
• Kaya, M.C., 2012, “Prophetic Legislation: Avicenna’s View of Practical Philosophy Revisited,” in Philosophy and the Abrahamic Religions: Scriptural Hermeneutics and Epistemology , T. Kirby, R. Acar, and B. Baş, eds., Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 205–223.
• –––, 2014, “In the Shadow of “Prophetic Legislation”: The Venture of Practical Philosophy after Avicenna,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 24: 269–296.
• Lameer, J., 2006, Conception and Belief in Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī (ca 1571–1635 ), Tehran: Iranian Institute of Philosophy.
• Langermann, T., 2009, Avicenna and His Legacy. A Golden Age of Science and Philosophy , Turnhout: Brepols.
• Lizzini, O., 2009, “Vie active, vie contemplative et philosophie chez Avicenne,” in Vie active et vie contemplative au Moyen Âge et au seuil de la Renaissance , Ch. Trottmann (ed.), Rome: École Française de Rome, pp. 207–239.
• Mahdavī, Y., 1954, Fehrest-e nosḫahā-ye moṣannafāt-e Ebn-e Sīnā , Tehran: Dānešgāh-e Tehrān, 1333Š.
• Marmura, M.E., 1990, “The Fortuna of the Posterior Analytics in the Arabic Middle Ages,” in Knowledge and the Sciences in Medieval Philosophy , M. Asztalos, J.E. Murdoch, I. Niiniluoto (eds.), Helsinki: Acta Philosophica Fennica, v. I, pp. 85–103; repr. in Marmura 2005: 355–373.
• –––, 2005, Probing in Islamic Philosophy , Binghamton, N.Y.: Global Academic Publishing.
• McGinnis, J., with the assistance of D.C. Reisman, 2004, Interpreting Avicenna : Science and Philosophy in Medieval Islam , Leiden: Brill.
• McGinnis, J., 2010, Avicenna , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Michot, Yahya (Jean R.), 1986, La destinée de l’homme selon Avicenne. Le retour à Dieu (ma‘ād) et l’imagination , Leuven: Peeters.
• –––, 2000, Ibn Sînâ. Lettre au vizir Abû Sa‘d. Editio princeps d’après le manuscrit de Bursa, traduction de l’arabe, introduction, notes et lexique [Sagesses musulmanes 4] , Beirut/Paris: Al-Bouraq.
• Rahman, F., 1958, Prophecy in Islam , London : George Allen & Unwin; repr. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011.
• Reisman, D.C., 2002, The Making of the Avicennan Tradition: The Transmission, Contents, and Structure of Ibn Sīnā’s al-Mubāḥaṯāt (The Discussions), Leiden: Brill.
• –––, 2004, “The Pseudo-Avicennan Corpus, I: Methodological Considerations,” in McGinnis with Reisman 2004, pp. 3–21.
• –––, 2010, “The Ps.-Avicenna Corpus II: The Ṣūfistic Turn,” in Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale ,” 21: 243–258.
• –––, 2013, “The Life and Times of Avicenna. Patronage and Learning in Medieval Islam,” in Adamson 2013, pp. 7–27.
• Swain, S., 2013, Economy, Family, and Society from Rome to Islam , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Treiger, A. 2011. Inspired Knowledge in Islamic Thought. Al-Ghazālī’s Theory of Mystical Cognition and Its Avicennian Foundation . London: Routledge.
• Vajda, G., 1951, “Les notes d’Avicenne sur la «Théologie d’Aristote»,” Revue Thomiste 51: 346–406.
• Wisnovsky, R, 2003, Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context , Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

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Arabic and Islamic Philosophy, historical and methodological topics in: Greek sources | Ibn Sina [Avicenna]: logic | Ibn Sina [Avicenna]: metaphysics | Ibn Sina [Avicenna]: natural philosophy

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Famous Philosophers

Biography, Facts and Works

Ibn Sina, also known by his Latinized name in Europe as Avicenna, was a Persian philosopher and polymath, born in 980 CE. Regarded as one of the most influential thinkers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age, Ibn Sina wrote extensively on philosophy of ethics and metaphysics, medicine, astronomy, alchemy, geology psychology and Islamic theology. He was also a logician, mathematician and a poet.

Born in Afshana, Bukhara in Central Asia, his work on medicine, specifically the Canon, or the Qanun fil Tibb , was taught in schools in the Islamic world and in Europe alike till the early modern era. His treatise on philosophy, the Cure, or al Shifa , was greatly influential on European scholastics, such as Thomas Aquinas .

Chiefly being a metaphysical philosopher, Ibn e Sina attempted at presenting a comprehensive system linking human existence and experiences with its contingency, while staying in harmony with the Islamic exigency. Thus, he is considered as the first significant Muslim philosopher of all times. He based his theories on God as the chief Existence, and this forms the foundations of his ideas on soul, human rationale and the cosmos. He also attempted at a philosophical interpretation of religion and religious beliefs.

For Ibn Sina, gaining education was of foremost importance. Grasping the logic and the comprehensible is the first step towards determining the fate of one’s soul, thereby deciding human actions. For Ibn Sina, people can be categorized on the basis of their ability to grasp the intelligible. The highest category comprises of the prophets, who have pure rational souls and have knowledge of all things intelligible. The lowest is the person with an impure soul, who lacks the capability of developing an argument. People can elevate their position in the categories by having a rational approach, balanced temperament and by purifying their soul.

In the field of metaphysics, Ibn Sina differentiates between what exists and its essence. Essence is what comprises the nature of things, and should be recognized as something separate from the physical and mental realization of things. This difference applies to all things except God, said Ibn Sina. For him, God is the basic cause and so it is both the essence and the existence. He further argued that soul is ethereal and intangible; it cannot be destroyed. Is it the soul which compels a person to choose between good and evil in this world, and is a source of reward or punishment in the hereafter.

Being a devout Muslim himself, Ibn Sina applied rational philosophy at interpreting divine text and Islamic theology. His ultimate aim was to prove God’s presence and existence and the world is His creation through scientific reason and logic. His teachings and views on theology were part of the core curriculum of various schools across the Islamic world well into the nineteenth century. Ibn Sina also penned down a significant number of short treatise on Islamic theology and the prophets, whom he termed as ‘inspired philosophers’. He also linked rational philosophy with interpretation of Quran, the holy book of muslims.

Ibn e Sina passed away in June 1037, in the Hamadan area of Iran. Out of his 450 various publications and treatises, almost 240 of them have survived, majority of which belongs to philosophy and medicine.

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World History Edu

Ibn Sina (aka Avicenna): Life, Accomplishments and Major Works of the Renowned Persian Polymath

by World History Edu · November 29, 2022

It’s common knowledge that the advances in modern medicine are the result of numerous centuries of research, development and experimentation. However, unbeknownst to many people, a large number of those advancements took place in the Islamic world between the 9th and 14th centuries, a period historians like to refer to as the Islamic Golden age. Inspired by the works of ancient Greeks and Romans, Islamic Golden age scholars were tolerant and open to new knowledge and technology from different parts of the world, including from non-Muslims. One of such distinguished scholars was the Persian polymath ibn Sīnā, who is known in the West as Avicenna. ibn Sīnā’s medical texts had profound influence on the study of medicine throughout Europe for many centuries. For example, until the late 17th century, his work “The Canon of Medicine” remained the standard textbook in many medical schools across Europe and beyond.

What else was ibn Sīnā best known for? And how did his works and contributions to medicine come to epitomize the Islamic Golden Age?

Below, we look at the life and major achievements of Ibn Sina, the Persian polymath who is often hailed as the “Father of Early Modern Medicine”.

Abu Ali al-Husayn Ibn Abd Allan Ibn Sina, popularly known in Western societies as Avicenna, was the son of Abdullah and Setareh. He was born in c. 980 in Transoxiana, a place in central Asia. Soon after his birth, his family relocated to Bukhara, where he received his early education in Hanafi jurisprudence from Isma’il Zahid and began his studies in medicine under the tutelage of a variety of experts.

He became a well-known doctor by the time he was 16 years old and spent a lot of time learning about physics, natural sciences, and philosophy in addition to his medical studies. He rose to notoriety after successfully curing a very rare illness that had plagued Nuh ibn Mansur, the Sultan of Bukhara of the Samanid Court, Nuh ibn Mansur.

In 997, after Ibn Sina had healed Nun ibn Mansur of his disease, Mansur employed him as his personal physician. In addition to that, the sultan granted him access to his library and its collection of priceless manuscripts so that he could continue his studies. This education and access to the medical library of the Samanid court aided him in his pursuit of philosophical understanding. As one of the finest of its sort in the medieval world, the sultan’s royal library was a source of great prestige for his country, and Ibn Sina took full advantage of the opportunity to advance his knowledge in a host of disciplines.

What was the polymath best known for?

Avicenna also wrote numerous psychological works about the connection between the mind, the body, and the senses.

Ibn Sina’s book “Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb” ( The Canon of Medicine ) is widely regarded as a landmark in the field of medicine because of the way it skillfully weaves together old medical wisdom with modern discoveries made by Islamic scientists of the Golden Age.

At some point in the 12th century, the book was translated into Latin, and from that point on, it was employed as a go-to medicine textbook at universities across Europe until the middle of the 17th century.

Ibn Sina not only outlined the anatomy of various body components, including the eye and the heart, but he also listed over 550 potential treatments for common diseases. The physician also discusses the impact that plants and roots have on the human body, demonstrating his expertise as a botanist.

One of his most important contributions to medicine was his research on the usefulness of quarantines in preventing the transmission of disease. He argued that a quarantine of at least 40 days was necessary to prevent the spread of infection. This became one of his most notable contributions to medicine.

The Book of Healing

“The Book of Healing”, one of his most influential writings outside of medicine, is divided into four parts and covers a wide range of topics, including mathematics, physics, biological sciences, and psychology. After an extensive 50 page a day write up, Sina completed “The Book of Healing”; however, the book only became available in Europe fifty years later under a new title known as “Sufficientia”.

The book is regarded as one of the most notable works of physiology and taking a closer would reveal the polymath’s knowledge displayed across numerous fields.

Did Avicenna believe in God?

The establishment of his own version of Aristotelian logic and the use of reason to prove the presence of God were Ibn Sina’s most significant contributions to the field of philosophy.

The Persian polymath, while challenging his Greek predecessor Aristotle , held the view that humans possessed three souls: the vegetative, the animal, and the intellectual. He believed that humans’ reasoning ability was the link between them and God, whereas the first two tied them to the ground.

With this philsophy, Ibn Sina authored a book titled “Burhan al-Siddiqin” ( Proof of the Truthful ) in which he argued that God must exist because there is no such thing as a nonexistent being. He went on to say that everything other than this is dependent on the existence of another entity. A person’s own existence, for instance, is dependent on the presence of their parents, who in turn depend on the existence of their family members, and so forth.

Ibn Sina reasoned that even when everything in the universe is added up, it is still contingent, since everything needs a non-contingent cause outside of itself, which he believed to be God. Ibn Rushd later argued that this kind of thinking was flawed because it relied on unprovable metaphysical principles rather than observable natural rules. Therefore, Ibn Sina kept his belief in God.

READ MORE: Top 10 Philosophers from Ancient Greece

The link between the human senses and soul

Ibn Sina dedicated most of his life to learning the ins and outs of the human senses and proving that they were more complex than previously thought. He suggested that we possess inner senses that work in tandem with the five traditionally recognized senses (i.e. taste, smell, hearing, sight, and touch).

An avid intuitive scholar, he considered common sense to be an internal sense and even credited it with performing some of the soul’s tasks. Therefore, in his view, the process of coming up with an opinion and deciding on an action is an act of the soul.

He believed that aside from using common sense, individuals also relied on their retentive imagination to recall the facts they had learned. This perceptual faculty saves numerous information in the mind, allowing you to recall this information and identify them.

Finally, Ibn Sina explained that understanding is the ability to use all the information to the best of our internal senses’ capacities, while memory is responsible for preserving all the knowledge created by the other senses.

Other discoveries of the polymath

In his scientific writings, Avicenna argued that light traveled at a constant velocity. He also described the path of sound in the air and proposed a theory of motion. Here are some other notable discoveries and works made by Avicenna:

• The polymath, during his study of an early kind of psychiatry, discussed the physical manifestations of mental health problems like depression and anxiety.
• The study of earthquakes and cloud formation were two examples of the natural phenomena studied by the Persian polymath. He explained that surface-level earthquakes are caused by plate movements and other subsurface processes.
• By comparing the apparent size of Venus to the sun’s disc, Ibn Sina deduced that Venus was actually further from the sun than the Earth. It’s been said that he may have discovered that the SN 1006 supernova, visible for three months around the turn of the first millennium CE, briefly outshone Venus and was visible even in broad daylight.
• The physicist also invented a gadget to track the positions of stars and discovered that stars emit their own light.

How did Avicenna die?

He died in June 1037, which was in the holy month of Ramadan. Image: Avicenna Mausoleum in Hamadan, Iran

In June 1037, at the age of 58, Ibn Sina passed away following a protracted bout with colic. All his efforts to heal himself proved futile as he was steadily poisoned by one of his slaves. This resulted in his early death. His tomb in Hamdan, Iran, which is now a mausoleum, served as the site of his burial.

Other interesting facts about Ibn Sina

This 11th-century Muslim scholar was one of the prominent men of the Golden Age. He is credited with penning over 200 works, ranging from subjects such as geometry, peotry, astronomy, and medicine. It was in the latter that he made his greatest impact. Image: Statue of Ibn Sina in United Nations Office in Vienna

Here are a few more interesting facts about Ibn Sina:

• Ibn Sina was recognized as a Qur’an Hafiz (one who has memorized the entire Qur’an) at the tender age of ten. At the age of fourteen, he had already surpassed his educators due to his outstanding intelligence.
• The Persian polymath succeeded his father as the Governor of Harmaytan.
• By the 12th century, Avicennism had emerged as the preeminent school of Islamic thought in the medieval Islamic world, thanks to Avicenna’s successful attempt to reconcile Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism, coupled with Kalam.
• For his extensive works, he became the most famous and influential polymath of the Islamic Golden Age.
• At some point in his life, he served as the private physician and confidant of the Emir of Buyid Majd al-Dawla.
• He also served in the court of ʿAlā al-Dawlah Muhammad, the founder of the Kakuyid dynasty in Jibal.
• It was during his stay at Eṣfahān that he penned his most famous works – Kitāb al-shifāʾ ( Book of the Cure , or  The Cure ) and Kitāb al-najāt ( Book of Salvation ).
• He lived during the Abbasid Caliphate era (750-1258).
• Much of what we know of Avicenna comes from his autobiography dictated to his loyal student, al-Jūzjānī.

Avicenna: Fast Facts

Full name : Abū ʾAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā

Born : c. 980

Place of birth : Transoxiana, Samanid Empire (in modern-day Uzbekistan)

Died : June 22, 1037

Place of death : Hamadan (in modern-day Hamadan Province, Iran)

Father : Abd Allah

Notable works :  l-Qānūn fī al-ṭibb  ( The Canon of Medicine ) and Kitāb al-shifāʾ  ( Book of the Cure , or  The Cure )

Scholars that influenced him : Hippocrates , Aristotle, Galen, al-Farabi, al-Kindi

Scholars that he influenced : René Descartes , Al-Ghazali, Tusi, Duns Scotus, al-Juzjani, Thomas Aquinas, Sir William Osler

Tags: Famous Scientists ibn Sīnā Iran Islamic Golden Age Islamic world Persian polymaths Sufficientia The Book of Healing

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Ibn Sina: The Greatest Thinker of the Islamic Golden Age

This article explores the many trials of Ibn Sina, a famous medieval polymath who lived during the Islamic Golden Age.

Ibn Sina, known in the west as Avicenna via the Hebrew translation of his name, is one of the most influential thinkers of the Islamic Golden Age. This article sets out Ibn Sina’s biography, starting with his ancestry, proceeding through his education and his political endeavors, and ending with his death.

Ibn Sina was born in August 980 CE. All of our information about his childhood and adolescence comes from the autobiographical narration he dictated to a pupil. Indeed, this will be one of the main sources for all further discussion of Ibn Sina’s life , although it is quite clearly an unreliable account, and should be understood as containing only Ibn Sina’s life in the terms in which he would have chosen to describe it.

Ibn Sina’s Cosmopolitan Upbringing

Ibn Sina was born in a large village near Bukhara, known as Kharmaithan, meaning the ‘Land of the Sun’. His father was from Balkh, given the epithet ‘the glittering’ in Middle Persian literature. It was known as Bactra to the Greeks, and throughout much of antiquity constituted a center of Hellenism in Persia.

Following a period of decline, it faced renewal as a major, cosmopolitan center during the Samanid and Ghaznavid dynasties. Soheil M. Afnan observes that Balkh was a place of extraordinary cosmopolitanism:

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“Here Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity and finally Islam met . This was the site of the Nowbahar, the renowned Buddhist monastery visited by pilgrims from far-away China, at the head o f which was Barmak, the ancestor of the most powerful, able and enlightened minister at the court of the Caliphs in Baghdad”.

Nearby cities, like Bukhara, had corresponding Chinese names (Pu-Ho), and there too a major Buddhist monastery stood alongside a major Islamic school.

Ibn Sina’s Ancestry 

Ibn Sina’s ancestry continues to remain oblique. His mother’s name, Setāreh, is certainly Persian and we know she came from nearby. However, it has been suggested that his father was Persian, Turkish, Arab, Chinese, or some combination thereof.

Whatever his origins, Ibn Sina’s father was a fairly powerful man – it would seem that he moved from Bukhara to nearby Kharmaithan to take up a local governorship – but one with radical views. Ibn Sina tells us that, “My father was one of those who had responded to the invitation of the Egyptians [the Fatimids] and was counted among the Isma’ilis”.

The Isma’ilis were a mystical sect, and not considered orthodox by the rulers of Persia. Moreover, his father and brother were known to discuss other, dissident regimes of knowledge: Indian arithmetic, geometry and philosophy, though Ibn Sina neither confirms nor denies his participation in such. Certainly, he is keen to distance himself from his father’s religious views.

Ibn Sina’s Education

Ibn Sina’s own education appears to have been, at least initially, quite eclectic. He famously claims to have read and memorized the entire of the Qu’ran by the age of ten, although whether this is something he intends to be taken literally or as a sign of his foundational commitment to Islam remains ambiguous.

In any case, he appears to have learned some Indian mathematics from a grocer, his religious argumentation from an aged ascetic, and eventually his philosophy from a renowned tutor, Nātelī. He read a wide range of Greek authors in Arabic translation, including Aristotle, Plato and Euclid. He read the former two philosophers with the aid of commentaries, which seems to be where the ‘Peripatetic’ (post-Aristotelian) and Stoic elements of his thought come from.

From the age of sixteen onwards, he became obsessed with logic. In a rather intriguing anecdote, Ibn Sina claims that during this period, whenever a problem escaped him, he prayed at the mosque in order to break through whichever intellectual issue was plaguing him at the time, but whenever he felt physically weak he recovered his strength by drinking a glass of wine. 

Aristotle and Fārābi

Nonetheless, Ibn Sina found Aristotle’s Metaphysics to be entirely intractable, despite claiming to have read it some forty times. It was only when he reluctantly bought a volume from a bookseller, which turned out to be Fārābi’s commentary on Aristotle’s text, that the purpose of Aristotle’s work became clear to him.

He had simultaneously taken up medicine, and at around this time, the reigning prince in Bukhara (Nuh Ibn Mansur), of whom Ibn Sina was a subject, fell ill. Ibn Sina was called to treat him, and whilst he did so gained access to the famous, Samanid library at Bukhara:

“I saw books whose very names are as yet unknown to many-works which I had never seen before and have not seen since. I read these books, taking notes of their contents.”

This dynasty was indeed famous for their promotion of literature and their veneration of learning. Soon after this, the library was destroyed by fire, and Ibn Sina’s enemies maintained that he himself had burned it down, in order to keep its learning for himself.

From Bukhara to Gurganj – and Exile

Ibn Sina then moved from Bukhara to Gurganj. The reason he gives is the death of his father, although the need to earn his own living doesn’t explain the need to change master, from the prince of Bukhara to the sultan of Gurganj. However, these were tumultuous times, as Turks were in the ascendancy across Persia, and especially critical of those with Isma’ili beliefs or connections.

Although he was initially welcomed with open arms, life in Gurganj was not easy. The Sultan, called Mahmud, was known for his strict religious orthodoxy, and eventually Ibn Sina fled, much to the Sultan’s chagrin. We learn from Ibn Sina’s own account that Mahmud then ordered a painter…

“…to make a portrait of [Ibn Sina] and that some forty copies were cir-culated throughout the land with strict orders that he should be arrested wherever found and sent to the Sultan under escort. Meanwhile Avicenna and Masihi (Ibn Sina’s companion)…wandered from village to village until on the fourth day they were caught in a violent sandstorm and completely lost their way. Masihi could not survive the excessive heat of the desert, and died of thirst, assuring his companion, however, that ‘their souls would meet elsewhere.’ Avicenna together with the guide found his way to Baward ‘after a thousand difficulties.”

The move to Gurganj therefore marked the beginning of a period of itinerance for Ibn Sina, which he describes thus:

“… then necessity constrained me to move to Fasa and thence to Baward and thence to Tiis, then Shaqqan, then Samanqan, then Jajarm the frontier-post of Khurasan, and thence to Jurjan (Gurgan). My entire purpose was to reach the Amir Qabiis; but it happened meanwhile that Qabiis was taken and imprisoned in a fortress, where he died. After this I went to Dihistan where I fell very ill, then returned to Jurjan where Abii ‘Ubaid al-Jiizjani made friends with me; and I composed a poem on my condition in which there is a verse saying: ‘And great once I became, no more would Egypt have me / And when my value rose, no one would care to buy me.’ Those last lines of verse are not to be taken literally, but are rather a reference to the plight of Joseph in Egypt, and display self-pity and self-restraints in equal measure.”

Politics and Death

Ibn Sina eventually found himself in a position of major political power in Hamadhan, having originally been summoned to treat Hamadhan’s ruler for colic, eventually promoted to become first his personal physician, then a vizier. However, Ibn Sina made enemies in this latter position, especially with the army (rarely a wise move for any politician).

Ibn Sina was also something of a libertine by the standards of the time, making no secret of his love for alcohol and for music. Ibn Sina began corresponding with the ruler of Isfahan , Alā el-Dowleh, and when this was discovered was forced into hiding. He came to be imprisoned, about which he composed the following lines in verse:

“My going in was sure, as you have seen / My going out is what many will doubt.”

Contra his own pessimism, Ibn Sina was freed and escaped to Isfahan. This place became Ibn Sina’s home as far as any place was his ever home. Though certainly close with the ruler, Ibn Sina largely stayed out of politics and focused on his work.

However, even in Isfahan he could not escape the civil war erupting throughout much of Persia, and his death was not to be wholly peaceful. He fled Isfahan near the end of his life, along with Alā el-Dowleh, and in a state of seriously ill health. We hear that even his own servants were a source of danger for him at this time:

“He also took mithridatum for the epilepsy; but one of his slaves went and threw in a great quantity of opium, and he consumed the mixture; this being because they had robbed him of much money from his treasury, and they desired to do away with him so that they might escape the penalty of their actions.”

Having recaptured Isfahan, Alā el-Dowleh marched on Hamadhan and Ibn Sina came with him. Their campaign was successful, and not long after Ibn Sina died in the city which had pursued and imprisoned him, in the summer of 1037 at the age of 58.

3 Aristotelian Concepts that Influenced Ibn Sina

By Luke Dunne BA Philosophy & Theology Luke is a graduate of the University of Oxford's departments of Philosophy and Theology, his main interests include the history of philosophy, the metaphysics of mind, and social theory.

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Abu ali al-husain ibn abdallah ibn sina (avicenna).

Destiny had plunged [ ibn Sina ] into one of the tumultuous periods of Iranian history, when new Turkish elements were replacing Iranian domination in Central Asia and local Iranian dynasties were trying to gain political independence from the 'Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad ( in modern Iraq ) .

... the power of concentration and the intellectual prowess of [ ibn Sina ] was such that he was able to continue his intellectual work with remarkable consistency and continuity and was not at all influenced by the outward disturbances.

... but he escaped to Isafan, disguised as a Sufi, and joined Ala al-Dwla.

... of a mysterious illness, apparently a colic that was badly treated; he may, however, have been poisoned by one of his servants.

... it is important to gain knowledge. Grasp of the intelligibles determines the fate of the rational soul in the hereafter, and therefore is crucial to human activity.

Ibn Sina sought to integrate all aspects of science and religion in a grand metaphysical vision. With this vision he attempted to explain the formation of the universe as well as to elucidate the problems of evil, prayer, providence, prophecies, miracles, and marvels. also within its scope fall problems relating to the organisation of the state in accord with religious law and the question of the ultimate destiny of man.

References ( show )

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• S M Afnan, Avicenna: His life and works ( London, 1958) .
• M B Baratov, The great thinker Abu Ali ibn Sina ( Russian ) ( Tashkent, 1980) .
• M B Baratov, P G Bulgakov and U I Karimov ( eds. ) , Abu 'Ali Ibn Sina : On the 1000 th anniversary of his birth ( Tashkent, 1980) .
• M N Boltaev, Abu Ali ibn Sina - great thinker, scholar and encyclopedist of the Medieval East ( Russian ) ( Tashkent, 1980) .
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• L Goodman, Avicenna ( London, 1992) .
• D Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian tradition ( Leiden, 1988) .
• I M Muminov ( ed. ) , al-Biruni and Ibn Sina : Correspondence ( Russian ) ( Tashkent, 1973) .
• S H Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines (1964) .
• B Ja Sidfar, Ibn Sina : Writers and Scientists of the East ( Moscow, 1981) .
• S Kh Sirazhdinov ( ed. ) , Mathematics and astronomy in the works of Ibn Sina, his contemporaries and successors ( Russian ) ( Tashkent, 1981) .
• V N Ternovskii, Ibn Sina ( Avicenna ) 980 - 1037 ( Russian ) , 'Nauka' ( Moscow, 1969) .
• G W Wickens ( ed. ) , Avicenna: Scientist and Philosopher (1952) .
• H F Abdulla-Zade, A list of Ibn Sina's work in the natural sciences ( Russian ) , Izv. Akad. Nauk Tadzhik. SSR Otdel. Fiz.-Mat. Khim. i Geol. Nauk (3)(77) (1980) , 101 - 104 .
• M A Ahadova, The part of Ibn Sina's 'Book of knowledge' devoted to geometry ( Russian ) , Buharsk. Gos. Ped. Inst. Ucen. Zap. Ser. Fiz.-Mat. Nauk Vyp. 1 (13) (1964) , 143 - 205 .
• M F Aintabi, Ibn Sina : genius of Arab-Islamic civilization, Indian J. Hist. Sci. 21 (3) (1986) , 217 - 219 .
• M A Akhadova, Some works of Ibn Sina in mathematics and physics ( Russian ) , in Mathematics and astronomy in the works of Ibn Sina, his contemporaries and successors ( Tashkent, 1981) , 41 - 47 ; 156 .
• M S Asimov, The life and teachings of Ibn Sina, Indian J. Hist. Sci. 21 (3) (1986) , 220 - 243 .
• M S Asimov, Ibn Sina in the history of world culture ( Russian ) , Voprosy Filos. (7) (1980) , 45 - 53 ; 187 .
• A K Bag, Ibn Sina and Indian science, Indian J. Hist. Sci. 21 (3) (1986) , 270 - 275 .
• R B Baratov, Ibn Sina's views on natural science ( Russian ) , Izv. Akad. Nauk Tadzhik. SSR Otdel. Fiz.-Mat. Khim. i Geol. Nauk (1)(79) (1981) , 52 - 57 .
• D L Black, Estimation ( wahm ) in Avicenna : the logical and psychological dimensions, Dialogue 32 (2) (1993) , 219 - 258 .
• O M Bogolyubov and V O Gukovich, On the thousandth anniversary of the birth of Ibn-Sina ( Avicenna ) ( Ukrainian ) , Narisi Istor. Prirodoznav. i Tekhn. 29 (1983) , 35 - 38 .
• E Craig ( ed. ) , Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy 4 ( London-New York, 1998) , 647 - 654 .
• O V Dobrovol'skii and H F Abdulla-Zade, The astronomical heritage of Ibn Sina ( Russian ) , Izv. Akad. Nauk Tadzhik. SSR Otdel. Fiz.-Mat. Khim. i Geol. Nauk (3)(77) (1980) , 5 - 15 .
• A Ghorbani and J Hamadanizadeh, A brief biography of Abu 'Ali Sina ( Ibn Sina ) , Bull. Iranian Math. Soc. 8 (1) (1980 / 81) , 33 - 34 .
• R Glasner, The Hebrew version of 'De celo et mundo' attributed to Ibn Sina, Arabic Sci. Philos. 6 (1) (1996) , 4 ; 6 - 7 ; 89 - 112 .
• N G Hairetdinova, Trigonometry in the works of al-Farabi and Ibn Sina ( Russian ) , Voprosy Istor. Estestvoznan. i Tehn. Vyp. 3 (28) (1969) , 29 - 31 .
• M M Hairullaev and A Zahidov, Little-known pages of Ibn Sina's heritage ( correspondence and epistles of Ibn Sina ) ( Russian ) , Voprosy Filos. (7) (1980) , 76 - 83 .
• A Kahhorov and I Hodziev, Ibn Sina - mathematician ( on the occasion of the 1000 th anniversary of his birth ) ( Russian ) , Izv. Akad. Nauk Tadzik. SSR Otdel. Fiz.-Mat. i Geolog.-Him. Nauk (3)(65) (1977) , 121 - 124 .
• A de Libera, D'Avicenne à Averroès, et retour : Sur les sources arabes de la théorie scolastique de l'un transcendantal, Arabic Sci. Philos. 4 (1) (1994) , 6 - 7 , 141 - 179 .
• M E Mamura, Some aspects of Avicenna's theory of God's knowledge of particulars, J. Amer. Oriental Soc. 82 (1962) , 299 - 312 .
• P Morewedge, Philosophical analysis and Ibn Sina's 'Essence-Existence' distinction, J. Amer. Oriental Soc. 92 (1972) , 425 - 435 .
• H R Muzafarova, Basic planimetry concepts of Euclid's 'Elements' as presented by Qutb al-Din al Shirazi, Ibn Sina and their contemporaries ( Russian ) , Izv. Akad. Nauk Tadzhik. SSR Otdel. Fiz.-Mat. Khim. i Geol. Nauk (3)(77) (1980 , 16 - 23 .
• S H Nasr, Ibn Sina's oriental philosophy, in History of Islamic philosophy ( London, 1996) , 247 - 251 .
• F Rahman, Essence and existence in Avicenna, Medieval and Renaissance Studies 4 (1958) , 1 - 16 .
• I W Rath, Wie die Logik auf vor-Urteilen beruht : Überlegungen zu Aristoteles, zu Ibn Sina und zur modernen Logik, Conceptus 28 (72) (1995) , 1 - 19 .
• N Rescher, Avicenna on the logic of 'conditional' propositions, Notre Dame J. Formal Logic 4 (1963) , 48 - 58 .
• A I Sabra, The sources of Avicenna's 'Usul al-Handasa' ( Geometry ) ( Arabic ) , J. Hist. Arabic Sci. 4 (2) (1980) , 416 - 404 .
• A V Sagadeev, Ibn Sina as a systematizer of medieval scientific knowledge ( Russian ) , Vestnik Akad. Nauk SSSR (11) (1980) , 91 - 103 .
• A S Sadykov, Ibn Sina and the development of the natural sciences ( Russian ) , Voprosy Filos. (7) (1980) , 54 - 61 ; 187 .
• H M Said, Ibn Sina as a scientist, Indian J. Hist. Sci. 21 (3) (1986) , 261 - 269 .
• G Saliba, Ibn Sina and Abu 'Ubayd al-Juzjani : the problem of the Ptolemaic equant, J. Hist. Arabic Sci. 4 (2) (1980) , 403 - 376 .
• A N Shamin, The works of Ibn Sina in Europe in the epoch of the Renaissance ( Russian ) , Voprosy Istor. Estestvoznan. i Tekhn. (4) (1980) , 73 - 76 .
• S Kh Sirazhdinov, G P Matvievskaya and A Akhmedov, Ibn Sina and the physical and mathematical sciences ( Russian ) , Voprosy Filos. (9) (1980 , ) 106 - 111 .
• S Kh Sirazhdinov, G P Matvievskaya and A Akhmedov, Ibn Sina's role in the history of the development of the physico-mathematical sciences ( Russian ) , Izv. Akad. Nauk UzSSR Ser. Fiz.-Mat. Nauk (5) (1980) , 29 - 32 ; 99 .
• Z K Sokolovskaya, The scientific instruments of Ibn Sina ( Russian ) , in Mathematics and astronomy in the works of Ibn Sina, his contemporaries and successors ( Tashkent, 1981) , 48 - 54 ; 156 .
• T Street, Tusi on Avicenna's logical connectives, Hist. Philos. Logic 16 (2) (1995) , 257 - 268 .
• B A Tulepbaev, The scholar- encyclopedist of the medieval Orient Abu Ali Ibn Sina ( Avicenna ) ( Russian ) , Vestnik Akad. Nauk Kazakh. SSR (11) (1980) , 10 - 13 .
• A Tursunov, On the ideological collision of the philosophical and the theological ( on the example of the creative work of Ibn Sina ) ( Russian ) , Voprosy Filos. (7) (1980) , 62 - 75 ; 187 .
• A U Usmanov, Ibn Sina and his contributions in the history of the development of the mathematical sciences ( Russian ) , in Mathematics and astronomy in the works of Ibn Sina, his contemporaries and successors ( Tashkent, 1981) , 55 - 58 ; 156 .

Additional Resources ( show )

Other pages about Avicenna:

• See Avicenna on a timeline
• Heinz Klaus Strick biography
• Miller's postage stamps

Other websites about Avicenna:

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography
• Encyclopaedia Britannica
• A Google doodle
• Google books
• MathSciNet Author profile
• Google doodle

Honours ( show )

Honours awarded to Avicenna

• Lunar features Crater Avicenna
• Popular biographies list Number 114
• Google doodle 2018

Cross-references ( show )

• History Topics: The Arabic numeral system
• Other: Jeff Miller's postage stamps
• Other: Most popular biographies – 2024
• Other: Popular biographies 2018

If there is only one God, and the world is God’s creation, then the world must reflect God’s unity: there must be a single, unified cosmos under Divine rule. That has been the central theme of Islamic philosophy for over a millennium and a half, since the religion’s founding. In their insistence on unity, Islamic philosophers laid the groundwork for future attempts to synthesize various strands of world philosophy into a single cohesive framework.

As the Islamic Empire expanded outward from Arabia in the 7 th and 8 th centuries AD, it encountered more and more people with more and more diverse ideas. Like Alexander’s empire a thousand years earlier, the Caliphate became a global center of intellectual activity. Scholars from far-flung lands now belonged under a single, sprawling political system, and consequently they were increasingly able to learn from each other. By the time of the Islamic Golden Age (roughly 800-1300AD), the House of Wisdom at Baghdad had become the world’s preeminent institution of philosophy and science. And arguably the Islamic Empire’s greatest scholar was Ibn Sina , also known by the Latin name Avicenna.

Growing up in this global center of scholarship, Ibn Sina had plenty of opportunities for education. His family was not particularly wealthy, but his father worked in local government and ensured that his son was properly educated. As a child, Ibn Sina showed a remarkable propensity for learning: we’re told that he memorized the Qur’an at age 10, and by the time he reached his 20s he was a qualified doctor and was well-versed in the classics of Greek and Islamic philosophy.

It was in medicine that Ibn Sina achieved fame. He was a brilliant diagnostician, able to identify the causes of people’s illnesses and prescribe an appropriate remedy. He traveled widely within the eastern reaches of the Islamic Empire, working on his philosophy and earning a comfortable living as a physician until his death in 1037. He wrote a medical encyclopedia called The Canon of Medicine , which summarized all the best medical knowledge of the time. It became a standard textbook in medical schools throughout the world, and was not replaced until the European Enlightenment of the 18 th century, when medical science finally started to move beyond the insights of Ibn Sina.

Following his death, Ibn Sina’s influence was immediately felt in the Islamic world, where he convinced many of his colleagues that they ought to read the Greek philosophers, especially Aristotle . In the 13 th century, his ideas were discovered by the German philosopher Thomas Aquinas, who brought Ibn Sina’s Aristotelean monotheism into the Christian world. Thomas wrote some of the most influential works of Medieval Christian philosophy, and is known as one of the two most important Catholic philosophers (alongside Saint Augustine). In his writings are many arguments for the synthesis of Aristotelean philosophy and monotheism, arguments that he learned in part from Ibn Sina. Ibn Sina was therefore one of the most important thinkers in the development of Christian thought, despite the fact that he was himself a Muslim.

Ibn Sina’s Ideas

The floating man.

Imagine a person floating in the dark silence of outer space. Imagine they are so far out that they can’t see a single star. There is no sound, no smell, no sensation of any kind. If it helps, you can imagine that this person is paralyzed and therefore incapable of any sensations at all. It is as if the outside world simply does not exist. Now imagine that this person has no memories either – they simply woke up in this blank, dark nothingness.

What would such a person think? With no senses, Ibn Sina argues, they would not have any awareness of an outside world. They would not even be aware of their own body! Without any sense of touch, they cannot know that they have arms, legs, or a head. Would they therefore conclude that they don’t exist? Ibn Sina argues that this is impossible. Even a person with no awareness of the world, or of their own body, would still know that they exist in some form.

In other words, whatever else they might doubt, no human mind can doubt its own existence. In making this argument , Ibn Sina anticipated by several centuries the work of Descartes, who today is famous for his statement that “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes made his famous remark in 1644, some 600 years after Ibn Sina’s death, but it’s very similar to Ibn Sina’s argument.

I prefer a short life with width to a narrow one with length.

If that was Ibn Sina’s goal, he certainly achieved it. His interests were broad and his accomplishments spread across many fields. In an era when many people never left their hometown, he traveled to far-flung cities within the empire. (And, to be fair, his life was reasonably long as well – he was about 60 when he died, not bad for someone living in the 10 th century!)

God, the supreme being, is neither circumscribed by space, nor touched by time; he cannot be found in a particular direction, and his essence cannot change.

This is a standard part of Muslim theology , articulated succinctly by Ibn Sina. It affirms that God is not a physical being occupying any particular place in space and time. Because God is not part of the physical world, God can only be sought through prayer and contemplation, not through science. By the same token, science is independent of the existence of God, and the devoutly religious should understand their faith in light of the best science of the day. Thus, a man like Ibn Sina could be both a prominent scientist and a leading religious scholar, without fear of any contradiction.

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Avicenna (Ibn Sina): Biography And The Canon Of Medicine

Ibn sina, a pivotal figure in the history of medicine, has been captured in the novel and movie "the physician".

13/03/2019 08:00:00h Updated at 20/03/2019 10:13:17h

Avicenna is one of the world's most famous medics   and many have named him "the father of modern medicine" - an honor he shares with Hippocrates, the Greek doctor that penned the Hippocratic oath. 

As a pioneer and essential figure in Arabic culture in the Islamic Golden Age, Ibn Sina has been forever immortalized in Noah Gordon's "The Physician" novel and in the movie, where Ben Kingsley gives life to the legendary Avicenna. 

Hippocrates: Life, Contributions And The Hippocratic Oath   

Avicenna - biography of a medical titan 

Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abdallah ibn al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn Sina is the full name of the most transcendental figure in philosophy and medicine in the Middle Ages, usually shortened to Ibn Sina (ابن سينا) or Avicenna. His disciples would call him "The Greatest Doctor", and "The Prince of Physicians".

Ibn Sina lived in Persia between 980 and 1037 during a period known as the Islamic Golden Age. His father was a scholar working for the Samanid Empire, which used to cover all of today's Afganistan. According to his biography, Avicenna memorized the Coran before he was 10 , learned maths from a vegetable seller, and medicine from a traveling doctor. By the time he was 18, Avicenna was already a reputable doctor making a living off of his profession. 

Avicenna's most famous writings include "The Book of Healing" and "The Canon of Medicine" - two transcendental books that revolutionized how medicine was practiced in universities across the Middle Ages, both in Islam and the Western world.   "The Canon of Medicine" was particularly successful and got translated into Latin while being widely used until the Renaissance 

Ibn Sina's contributions are not limited to medicine; on the contrary, his work also left a significant mark on sciences such as mathematics, physics, psychology, astronomy, geography, geology, and alchemy. The polymath also wrote about theology, music theory, and the soul among many other topics. 

Avicenna remains one of the most the most significant philosopher in the Islamic tradition   and arguably the most influential philosopher of the pre-modern era. 

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The Canon of Medicine 

Avicenna's most known body of work is   The Canon of Medicine - a 5 volume medical encyclopedia that was used as a medical guideline in Europe and the Islamic world until the 18th century. Ibn Sina wrote and published the final volume in 1025. 

The first volume detailed basic principles of medicine , anatomy, and human physiology. Avicenna also described treatments, diets, and general exercise routines. 

In book 2,   Materia Medica, Avicenna lists 800 therapeutic natural substances   from vegetal, animal, or mineral sources. The author also describes six basic rules for experimenting with new substances, which he based off of Galen's work -  Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. 

The third volume analyzes the mechanism and ailments of each organ in the human body, from head to toes, while the fourth book talks about diseases and infections that affect the body in its entirety. 

Lastly, the fifth volume of the Canon compiles   a list of 650 medicinal compounds along with their respective recipes . Some of these have been attributed to Avicenna himself, while others come from external sources. This last book also includes the author's opinion on the effectiveness of the medicine he introduces. 

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Medical influence in the Middle Ages 

One of the reasons that could explain the popularity of Avicenna's work in Europe could be the fact that in Persia, at the time, Aristotle, Galen, and Hippocrates were believed to be the more prominent scholars. 

Hippocrates and Galen, known for their theory of humorism (which explains personality in relation to the biological temperament) were seen as   key figures in Islamic medicine as well as well as in many places in Europe and their work left a significant mark on Avicenna.

Philosopher and   doctor Ibn Rushd, Latinized as Averroes, was a Muslim Spanish Andalusian philosophe r and thinker who also had an important influence on Ibn Sina and promoted uniting the Islamic and the Greek philosophies, considering that both scholars were knowledgeable in these areas. 

Among the most significant contributions that Avicenna made to medicine, we can mention his   accurate description of the anatomy of the human eye   and of the symptoms caused by diabetes mellitus, cataract, pleuresia, and meningitis. The polymath also   accurately predicted that rats would play an essential role in the proliferation of the plague (Avicenna mentioned this in the year 1000AD), a hypothesis which came to life three hundred years later in one of the most devastating pandemics of the world, also known as the Black Death.  

The End Of The World: Between Science And Religion   

Ibn Sina in “The Physician” by Noah Gordon

In 1986, author Noah Gordon published the novel "The Physician"   which includes Ibn Sina as the main character, and although its success was limited in the United States (Gordon's home country), the book was well received in Spain and Germany.  https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/21/books/best-selling-author-but-not-at-home.html

The book's popularity in Europe prompted the author to write two more volumes, thus creating a trilogy. His additions were Shaman (1992) and Matters of Choice (1996). 

Following in the book's footsteps, as it were, German director Philipp Stölzl released the movie The Physician   (Der Medicus in German), who stars Tom Payne and Ben Kingsley who interprets the role of Avicenna.

The Physician tells the story of an orphan man who, after the death of his mother, travels to Persia in an attempt to study medicine from one of the most famous physicians of the land - Ibn Sina. 

Check out the original article:   Avicena (Ibn Sina): biografía e influencia del autor del Canon de Medicina  at viviendolasalud.com  

References;

Gutas, D. (1988). Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Introduction to Reading Avicenna’s Philosophical Works. Leiden: Brill.

Khan, A. (2006). Avicenna (Ibn Sina): Muslim physician and philosopher of the eleventh century. The Rosen Publishing Group.

McGinnis, J. (2010). Avicenna. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Saffari, M. & Pakpour, A. (2012). Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine: A look at health, public health, and environmental sanitation. Archives of Iranian Medicine, 15: 785-789.

Segovia, C. A. (2006). Avicena (Ibn Sina). Cuestiones divinas (Ilahiyyat): Textos escogidos. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva.

Weisser, U. (2011). Avicenna: The influence of Avicenna on medical studies in the West. Encyclopedia Iranica.

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Islamic Philosophy Online

PHILOSOPHIA ISLAMICA

Ibn Sina (Avicenna)

Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (980-1037) is one of the foremost philosophers of the golden age of Islamic tradition that also includes  al-Farabi  and  Ibn Rushd . He is also known as al-Sheikh al-Rais (Leader among the wise men) a title that was given to him by his students. His philosophical works were one of the main targets of  al-Ghazali ’s attack on philosophical influences in Islam. In the west he is also known as the “Prince of Physicians” for his famous medical text al-Qanun “Canon”. In Latin translations, his works influenced many Christian philosophers, most notably  Thomas Aquinas . 

CORPUS (WORKS):

In Original Language (Arabic/Persian):

• Autobiography  in Arabic Html
• Biography  by his student in Arabic word file. 
• Biography  from Uyun al’anba fi tabaqat al-‘atibia’ by Ibn ‘abi asaiba’ (Arabic word file)
•   Volume 1: Logic  (PDF, file size: 25000 kb)
•   Volume 2: Physics  (PDF, file size: 13100 kb)
•    Volume 3: Metaphysics  (PDF, file size: 8400 kb)
•   Volume 4: Sufism  (PDF, file size: 4601 kb)
• Somewhat edited e-text in word format . (1.2 megs) with hyperlinked table of contents
• Somewhat edited e-text in html format.   (6.5 megs) with hyperlinked table of contents.
• Kitab al-mabda’ wa l-ma’ad  (PDF, File size TBD Kb)
• Minor editing of e-text in  word format . (from warraq) (1.2)
• Ilhyat  in Arabic html format . (5.4 Megs) big file -with table of contents.
• Part 2:  Psychology (Tabiyat: ilm an-Nafs)  ed. Jan Bakos (PDF, file size: 18304kb) (link)
•  Part 3: Logic madkhal – maqulat – maqiyas ( Zipped  in 3 Arabic word files) A gift from Mufid Dankali. 
• Canon of Medicine (al-Qanun fi al-tibb) . (link to complete 1593 edition) thanks to B. Ludvigsen & AUB.
• Kitab al-Hudud (livre des définitions) (Arabic-French) ed. (A. M. Goichon)  (PDF, file size: 2624kb)
• Uyun al-Hikmah: e-text in  word format . (from warraq)
• Risala fi’l ‘ashq  (Treatise on Love) Trans. E. Fackenheim . (PDF, file size: 1919kb) also available in  word file . 
• al-Mubhathat  (discussions) from Aristu inda’ al-Arab (Aristotle According to Arabs) edited by A. Badawi. (Arabic PDF 10200 kb)
• Ibn Sînâ. Lettre au vizir Abû Sa‘d. Editio princeps d’après le manuscrit de Bursa, traduction de l’arabe, introduction, notes et lexique, « Sagesses Musulmanes, 4 », Paris, Albouraq, 1421/2000, XII, 130*, 61, 4 et 186 p. ISBN 2-84161-150-7.
• IBN SINA – Ḥayy ibn yaqẓān [Mehren, 1889 edition]
• IBN SINA – Isharāt and ṭayr [Mehren, 1891 edition]
• IBN SINA – Kitab al-ʿarshiya [pdf]
• IBN SINA – Qaṣidat al-nafs [pdf]
• IBN SINA – Traité ur le destin [Mehren 1899 edition]
• IBN SINA – Traités mystiques [Mehren 1894 edition]

Attributed works (Questionably by Ibn Sina):

• Risala fi al-Huzn  (from a rare Persian manuscript) (Arabic PDF, file size: 78kb)
• French Translation . (French PDF, file size: 27.2 Megs) 4 volumes.

In English & other languages:

• Medieval Sourcebook:  Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (973-1037): On Medicine  ( link)
• Overview of Shifa. (link)
• Kitab al-mabda’ wa l-ma’ad  (Annotated “exploratory” French Translation by Prof. Y. Michot.) (PDF, File size 427 Kb)
• Remarks and Admonitions Part One: On Logic (Vol. 1 Ishart & Tanbihat)  Tr. S. Inati (PDF, file size: 5585kb)
• Ibn Sina & Mysticism (Vol. 4 Ishart & Tanbihat)  Tr. S. Inati (PDF, file size: 4591kb) 
• Danish Nameh Alali  (Book of knowledge dedicated to Alai Dawlah) (Logic) pdf link.

Bibliography:

• Mu’allfat Ibn Sina (Works of Ibn Sina)  By: G. C. Anawati. (Arabic PDF 12701 kb)
• AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON IBN SINA  (1970-1989) by: J. Janssens. (link: book Abstract.)
• There is also a  supplement  to the above. (link)

WORKS ON IBN SINA:

• The inquiry of Avicenna concerning the corporal form  by  L. Khayrallah . Arabic word file.
• Ibn Sina and dental care (link: in Arabic). This site has a lot on the Medical theories of Ibn Sina.
• Childcare according to Ibn Sina  (link: in Arabic).
• Cosmetics in the Canon  (link: in Arabic).
• The distinction between existence and essence in the philosophy of Avicenna . by  L. Khayrallah . Arabic word file.
• Explications de quelques arguments avicenniens contre la théorie des parties insécables.  by  L. Khayrallah . Arabic word file.
• Avicenna, Jon McGinnis, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, ISBN: 9780195331486.
• Avicenna and His Legacy, Y. Tzvi Langermann, ed. Turnhout: Berpols, 2009, ISBN: 9782503527536.
• A New Standard for Avicenna Studies . By D. Reisman (PDF) 3.5 megs.
• Avicenna His life and works . By S. Afnan. pdf format.
• Biography from History of Muslim Philosophy . (pdf) by Prof. F. Rahman
• Biography and works  from the Encyclopedia Iranica. ( www.iranica.com ) (pdf) 4.2 megs.
• Biography & Works  from Encyclopedia of Islam…(e-text)
• Biography & Works  from Encyclopedia of Religion…(PDF e-text). (File Size: 498 KB) 
• Biography & works  from Routledge…(e-text)
• Avicenna on Casual Priority . M. Marmura.  (PDF, file size: 543 KB)
• Avicenna on Theology  A. J. Arberry. (pdf -link)
• Avicenna’s Chapter on the Relative in the Metaphysics of the Shifa . M. Marmura.  (PDF, file size: 554 KB)  
• Ibn Sina’s `Burhan Al-Siddiqin’  -Journal of Islamic Studies. Vol. 12, # 1. Jan. 2001. pp.18-39. pdf. (pdf -link complete e-text) By: T. Mayer
• La distinction de l’existence et de l’essence dans la philosophie d’Avicenna . Par:  L. Khayrallah . (French- word file)
• Ibn-Sina on the human soul, in Notes and observations on natural science, Book II, Section 5. By J. Kenny O. P. (link)
• God Physics: From Hawkings to Avicenna . By: W. Carroll (e-text in word only 82KB)
• An article about  the Danesh Nameh translated  from Russian. PDF. 
• Ibn Sina from: “ A Medical History of Persia and the Eastern Caliphate ” by C. Elgood. (link)
• An Evaluation of Ibn Sina’s Argument for God’s Existence in the Metaphysics of the Isharat, By: T. Mayer (link -Abstract only).
• Nader El-Bizri’s interpretation  of Ibn Sina: (link -Book Abstract).
• International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine . (link)
• AVICENNA AND HIS HERITAGE  Edited by J. JANSSENS and D. DE SMET (link) Islamic Medicine organization has many articles in Arabic about Ibn Sina & Medicine. (link)
•   Über Ibni Sina und die arabische Medizin (link in German)
• Michot, Y. “A Mamluk Theologian’s Commentary on Avicenna’s  Risla Adhawiyya : Being a Translation of a Part of the  Dar’ al-ta’rud  of Ibn Taymiyya with Introduction, Annotation, and Appendices” Part I,   Journal of Islamic Studies , 2003 14:2 pp.149-203 and Part II ,  Journal of Islamic Studies,  2003 14:3 pp. 309-363 ( PDF ).
• Michot, Y. “Le Riz Trop Cuit Du Kirmânî: Présentation, Éditon Traduction et Lexique de L’épître d’Avicenne Contestant L’accusation d’avoir Pastiché Le Coran”, in F. Dalemans, et. al.  Mélanges Offerts À Hossam Elkhadem par ses Amis et ses Éléves , Bruxelles, 2007. pp. 81-129. ( PDF )
• Michot, Y.  “Al-Nukat wa-l-faw`id : An Important  Summa  of Avicenian  Falsafa” , in Peter Adamson, ed.,  Classical Arabic Philosophy: Sources and Reception , Warburg Institue, London 2007, pp. 90-123. ( pdf )

Conferences:

• 3rd Avicenna Study Group conference theme is going to be on the Avicennaian manuscript tradition.
• First Avicenna Study Group conference at Yale University March 2001.
• Avicenna Study Group  at the  World Congress of Middle East Studies  Associations conference Sept. 8 -13 2002.  (link)

Manuscripts:

• The Canon of Medicine  from the Islamic Medical Manuscripts at the National Library of Medicine. (link)
• Image  of Canon of Medicine. (Local.)
• AUB’s Saab Medical Library pages  on the first printed Canon  (link)

Links and Internet Biographies , just a sample of what is out there! :

• Basic web biography … (link)
• Good Biography with map of his trips. (link)
• A short Biography by Dr. A. Zahoor (link: much copied on the net!)
• A short Biography by Dr. M. Ahmed (link: much copied on the net!)
• The Oxford Companion  to Philosophy article on Avicenna. (link)
• A  short Biography  by T. Kjeilen. (link)
• yet another Biography by M. Christensen. (link)
• U.S. News is on it too. (link)
• BBC why not too! (link)
• The Encyclopedia Britannica entry. (link)
• The  Catholic Encyclopedia  entry. (link)
• Ibn Sina (the Mathematician) from a Math History site  has very good info. (link)
• From the  Philosophical Dictionary . (link)
• The  window’s Philosophers . (link)
• Yet another Bio  with different portrait. (link)
• Yet another Bio By Sr. D. Hess from University of Louisville. (link)

Portraits and stamps (Visuals): 

• ( Ibn Sina Gallery…  Yes we see Ibn Sina everywhere here is more images from stamps, currency, TV, in stone, bronze, marble, etc. (Now 51 images in total) (LOCAL!)

Video & Audio too:

• An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia: Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Mehdi Aminrazavi discuss philosophy in Persia a Library of Congress event. ( link )
• Science in a golden age: Al-Razi, Ibn Sina and the Canon of Medicine narrated by Jim al-Khalili – Al-Jazeera production ( link )
• Hidden Science Superstars: Ibn Sina ( link )
• Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr: Great thinkers series: Ibn Sina. (link)
• Lynn Redgrave narrates: Avicenna & Medieval Muslim Philosophy. (link)
• Boo Ali Sina  the movie (okay its a serial)… (link)

City of his birth and work:

• Avicenna’s city “Hamadan”. (link)

Tomb, statue, etc.

• Avicenna mausoleum . (link)
• Avicenna Museum . (link)
• The Avicenna Dome. (link)
• Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine & Sciences (link)
• The Avicenna hotel in Istanbul. (link)
• Avicenna Virtual Campus . (link)
• Avicenna’s IQ. (link)
• Avicenna, Schools, Colleges, Clinics, Pharmacies, skin cream, hotels, etc… there is so much named after him.

[…] Al-Ghazali, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Taymiyah, al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Muhammad Iqbal. […]

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IBN SINA, Abu 'Ali al-Husayn b. 'Abd Allah b. Sina, known in the West as Avicenna. He followed the encyclopedic conception of the sciences that had been traditional since the time of the Greek Sages in uniting philosophy with the study of nature and in seeing the perfection of man as lying in both knowledge and action. He was also as illustrious a physician as he was a philosopher [see Hikma].

His life is known to us from authoritative sources. An autobiography covers his first thirty years, and the rest are documented by his disciple al-Juzajani, who was also his secretary and his friend.

He was born in 370/980 in Afshana, his mother's home, near Bukhara. His native language was Persian. His father, an official of the Samanid administration, had him very carefully educated at Bukhara. His father and his brother were influenced by Isma'ili propaganda; he was certainly acquainted with its tenets, but refused to adopt them. His intellectual independence was served by an extraordinary intelligence and memory, which allowed him to overtake his teachers at the age of fourteen.

It was he, we are told, who explained logic to his master al-Natili. He had no teacher in the natural sciences or in medicine; in fact, famous physicians were working under his direction when he was only sixteen. He did, however, find difficulty in understanding Aristotle's Metaphysics, which he grasped only with the help of al-Farabi's commentary. Having cured the amir of Khurasan of a severe illness, he was allowed to make use of the splendid library of the Samanid princes. At the age of eighteen he had mastered all the then known sciences. His subsequent progress was due only to his personal judgment.

His training through contact with life was at least equal to his development in intellectual speculation. At the age of twenty-one he wrote his first philosophical book. The following year, however, the death of his father forced him to enter the administration in order to earn his living. His judgment was swiftly appreciated. Having consulted him on medical matters, the princes had recourse to him also in matters of politics. He was a minister several times, his advice being always listened to; but he became an object of envy, sometimes persecuted by his enemies and sometimes coveted by princes opposing those to whom he wished to remain loyal. He took flight and was obliged to hide on several occasions, earning his living by medical consultations. He was imprisoned, escaped, lived for fourteen years in relative peace at the court of Isfahan and died at Hamadan, during an expedition of the prince 'Ala’ al-Dawla, in 428/1037. He was buried there; and a monument was erected to him to celebrate the (hijri) millenary of his birth.

If his works are to be understood, they should not be thought of as those of a philosopher who lived in his books. He was occupied all day by affairs of state, and he laboured by night on his great works, which were written with astonishing rapidity. He was never safe, and was frequently compelled to move; he would write on horseback, and sometimes in prison, his only resource for reference being his memory. It has been found surprising that he differs from Aristotle in his works: but he quoted him without re-reading him, and, above all, his independence of mind inclined him to present his own personally worked out thought, rather than to repeat the works of another. Besides, his personal training was different. He was a man who lived in touch with the concrete, constantly faced with difficulties, and a great physician who dealt with specific cases. Aristotle's Logic seemed to him insufficient, because it could not be applied in a way that was sufficiently close to life. Many recent controversies have been aroused since the study of his works has increased, especially at the time of his millenary, but the most plausible view of his personality is still the following: he is a scientific man, who attempts to bring the Greek theories to the level of that which needs to be expressed by the study of the concrete, when apprehended by a great mind.

The secret of his evolution, however, will remain concealed from us as long as we do not possess such important works as the Kitab al-Insaf, the ‘Book of Impartial Judgment’, which investigated 28,000 questions, and his ‘Eastern Philosophy’, of which we have only a fragment.

The corpus of Ibn Sina's works that has come down to us is considerable, but incomplete. To the many questions that were put to him he replied hastily, without always taking care to keep his texts. Al-Juzajani has preserved several of these; others have been transmitted with different titles, others lost. The manuscript of the Insaf disappeared at the sack of Isfahan, in his own lifetime. The fundamental bibliography is that which al-Juzajani included in his biography, but it is not exhaustive. G. C. Anawati lists a total of 276 works, including texts noted as doubtful and some apocryphal works, in his bibliography of 1950. Mahdavi, in 1954, lists 131 authentic, and 110 doubtful works. Ibn Sina was known primarily as a philosopher and a physician, but he contributed also to the advancement of all the sciences that were accessible in his day: natural history, physics, chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, music. Economics and politics benefited from his experience as a statesman. Moral and religious questions (not necessarily pertaining to mysticism), Qur’anic exegesis, statements on ‘ufi doctrine and behaviour produced minor writings. He wrote poetry for instructional purposes, for he versified epitomes of logic and medicine, but he had also the abilitiesQof a true poet, clothing his philosophical doctrine in images, both in verse (as in his poem on the soul) and in prose, in symbolic narratives whose meaning has given rise to controversy [see Hayy b. yaqzan].

Medicine is the subject of separate works; but natural history and mathematics are thought of as parts of philosophy. Thus, his principal treatise on these sciences is included in the great Kitab al-Shifa’, ‘Book of Healing [of the Soul]’, in the same way as that on Metaphysics, while the famous Qanun fi 'l-tibb, ‘Canon of Medicine’, is a separate work.

The Qanun appears to have formed a more consciously coherent whole than the philosophical works. Because it constituted a monumental unity, which maintained its authority until modern times when experimental science began, and because it still remained more accessible than Hippocrates and Galen, it served as a basis for seven centuries of medical teaching and practice. Even today it is still possible to derive useful information from it, for Dr. 'Abd Allah Ahmadieh, a clinician of Tehran, has studied the therapeutics of Avicenna and is said to use them with good results, particularly in treating rheumatism.

The Qanun is the clear and ordered ‘Summa’ of all the medical knowledge of Ibn Sina's time, augmented from his own observations. It is divided into five books. The first contains generalities concerning the human body, sickness, health and general treatment and therapeutics (French translation of the treatise on Anatomy by P. de Koning, 1905; adaptation giving an incomplete resume of the first book, in English, by Cameron Grüner, 1930). The second contains the Materia Medica and the Pharmacology of herbs; the page on experimentation in medicine (115, of the Rome 1593 edition) quoted in the Introduction to the French translation of the Isharat, 58, is to be found there. This passage sets out the three methods-agreement, difference and concomitant variations-that are usually regarded as characteristic of modern science. The third book deals with special pathology, studied by organs, or rather by systems (German translation of the treatise on diseases of the eyes, by Hirschberg and Lippert, 1902). The fourth book opens with the famous treatise on fevers; then follow the treatise on signs, symptoms, diagnostics and prognostics, minor surgery, tumours, wounds, fractures and bites, and that on poisons. The fifth book contains the pharmacopoeia.

Several treatises take up in isolation a number of the data in the Qanun and deal with particular points. Some are very well-known: their smaller size assured them of a wide circulation. Among the most widely diffused are treatises on the pulse, the medical pharmacopoeia, advice for the conservation of health and the study of diarrhoea; in addition, monographs on various remedies, chicory, oxymel, balsam, bleeding. The virtues of wine are not neglected.

Physicians were offered a mnemonic in the form of a poem which established the essentials of Avicenna's theory and practice: principles, observations, advice on therapeutics and dietetics, simple surgical techniques. This is the famous Urjuza fi 'l-tibb, which was translated into Latin several times from the 13th to the 17th century, under the title Cantica Avicennae (ed. with French trans. by H. Jahier and A. Noureddine, Paris 1956, Poeme de la Medecine, together with Armengaud de Blaise's Latin translation).

Ibn Sina's philosophical works have come down to us in a mutilated condition. The important Kitab al-Shifa’ is complete (critical text in process of publication, Cairo 1952-). Extracts chosen by the author himself as being the most characteristic make up the Kitab al-Najat, ‘The Book of Salvation [from Error]’, which is not an independent redaction, as was thought until 1937 (table of concordances established by A.-M. Goichon in La distinction de l'essence et de l'existence d'apres Ibn Sina, 499-503). The Kitab al-Isharat wa 'l-tanbihat, ‘Book of directives and remarks’, is complete (trans. into Persian and French), as is the Danishnama-i 'Ala’i, ‘The Book of Knowledge for 'Ala’&rdquo;, a resume of his doctrine written at the request of the prince 'Ala’ al-Dawla. We have only fragments of the Kitab al-Insaf, ‘Book of Impartial Judgment between the Easterners and the Westerners’, which have been published by A. Badawi, and a small part of the Mantiq al-mashriqiyyin, ‘Logic of the Easterners’, which is the logic of his ‘Eastern Philosophy’, the rest of it being lost. A fairly large number of minor writings are preserved; they illuminate points of detail which are often important, but are far from completing the lacunas.

Ibn Sina's was too penetrating a mind, and one too concerned with the absolute, not to venture outside the individual sciences. He looked for the principle and the guarantee of these, and this led him to set above them, on the one hand, the science of being, Metaphysics, and, on the other, the universal tool of truth, Logic, or ‘the instrumental science’, as the falasifa termed it.

As far as one can tell in the absence of several of his fundamental works, he seems to have been an innovator particularly in logic, correcting the excess of abstraction which does not permit Aristotle to take sufficient account of change, which is present everywhere and at all times in the terrestrial world; and, thus, of the difference between strict (mutlaq) meaning, and concrete meaning, specified by the particular ‘conditions’ in which a thing is actualized. As a physician, he enters into logic when he admits a sign as the middle term of a syllogism. He gives it the force of a proof, as the latter is recognized in a symptom in medical diagnosis (see Introduction to the French trans. of the Isharat).

Metaphysics

In Metaphysics the doctrine of Ibn Sina is most individual, and is also illuminated by his personal antecedents. On the other hand, his thought was fashioned by three teachers, of whom, however, he knew only two by name: Aristotle and al-Farabi, who introduced several of

the great concepts subsequently developed by Ibn Sina. The third was Plotinus, who came down to him under the name of Aristotle, in the so-called ‘Theology of Aristotle’ [see aristutalis], which was composed of extracts from Plotinus's Enneads, and presented as the culmination of Aristotle's Metaphysics. This error of attribution dogs the whole of Avicenna's work. As a born metaphysician he earned the title of ‘Philosopher of being’ but as a realist he wished to understand essences in their actualized state, so that he is just as much the ‘Philosopher of essence’. The whole of his metaphysics is ordered round the double problem of the origin of being and its transmission to essence, but to individually actualized essence (cf. Goichon, La distinction de l'essence et de l'existence d'apres Ibn Sina, Paris 1937).

It is at this point that a free interpretation of Aristotle and Plotinus gives him his theory of the creation of forms by emanation. This is linked with a cosmogony taken from the apocryphal Theology, but is also inspired by hylemorphism and Aristotelian data on the soul. The extensive place occupied in his thought by the intelligence prompts him to this startling view: the gift of being is linked with the light of the intelligence. Moreover, Ibn Sina is a believer; in accordance with Islam he believes in God as the Creator. None of the philosophies handed down from pagan antiquity takes account of this. He attempts to integrate dogma with his philosophical formulation. In fact, he does not succeed very well, but he continually works in this direction.

The first certitude apprehended by the human mind, he says, is that of being, which is apprehended by means of sense-perceptions. The idea of being, however, is so deep-rooted in man that it could be perceived outside of the sensible. This prefiguration of the Cartesian ‘Cogito ergo sum’ appears to have two causes: intuition (Hads) is so powerful in Ibn Sina (see in the Physics of the Danishnama the part that it played for him) that he bases himself here on a metaphysical apprehension of being; in addition, since the human soul, according to him, is a separate intelligence, which leads its own spiritual existence while being united with the body, it is capable of apprehending itself directly.

The second certitude is that the being thus apprehended in man, and in every existing thing, is not present there of necessity. The essence of ‘man’, ‘horse’ or ‘stone’ does not imply the necessity of the existence of a particular man or horse. Existence is given to actualized, concrete beings by a Being that differs from all of them: it is not one of the essences that have no existence in themselves, but its essence is its very being. The Creator is the First Cause; as a consequence of this theory the proof of the existence of God is restricted to Metaphysics, and not to Physics, as happens when God is proved to be the prime mover.

A Western controversy enters here: did Avicenna really believe in the analogy of being? It is true that he does not place the uncreated Being in the genus Substance or in a genus Being; but if he proceeds from knowledge of created beings to that of the uncreated Being, is not this a proof that he considers their natures to be allied? He certainly apprehends an analogy between the being of substance and that of accident, as he states explicitly, but did he go further? (see M. Cruz Hernandez, passim).

Ibn Sina did not formulate the distinction between the uncreated Being and created beings as clearly as did Thomas Aquinas, but the latter does base himself on Ibn Sina's doctrine; only being is in God, God is in no genus and being is not a genus. He then sets out his thought precisely (cf. Vasteenkiste, Avicenna-Citaten bij S. Thomas, in Tijdschrift voor Philosophie, September 1953, citations nos. 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 148, 330, pp. 460-1, 473 and 491).

With the principles established, two reasons for the omission of the conclusion are plausible, but neither involves the distinction not being made. Either, having set it out and admitted it, he withdrew it with difficulty because of the confusion between the data of Aristotle and Plotinus, or, as G. M. Wickens (Avicenna, scientist and philosopher, 52) suggests, he does not speak of it as a discovery because the celebrated distinction was then generally admitted-as Abu Hayyan al-TawHidi says. But Ibn Sina maintains that God, as he conceives Him, is ‘the first with respect to the being of the Universe, anterior to that being, and also, consequently, outside it’ (E. Gilson, L'esprit de la philosophie medievale2, 80-1).

However, this apparent impetus of Ibn Sina is interrupted by the data of Plotinus, for they inspire the emanatist theory of creation. The Qur’an, like the Old and New Testaments, explains creation by a freeQact of will on the part of God. For Ibn Sina, by way of Plotinus, the necessary Being is such in all its modes-and thus as creator-and being overflows from it. (Here the reader will ask himself the question: ‘Is it an analogous being? is it not rather the same being?’) Moreover, this emanation does not occur freely, and creation involves intermediaries, which are also creators. From the One can come only one. The necessary Being thus produces a single Intelligence. This, having a cause, necessarily possesses a duality of being and knowledge. It introduces multiplicity into the world; from it can derive another Intelligence, a celestial Soul and a celestial body. Ptolemy's system becomes the framework of creative emanation; emanation descends from sphere to sphere as far as a tenth pure Intelligence, which governs, not a sphere, but our terrestrial world, which is made, unlike the others, of corruptible matter. This brings with it a multiplicity which surpasses human knowledge but is perfectly possessed and dominated by the active Intellect, the tenth Intelligence. Its role is demonstrated in a poetic and symbolic form in the ‘Tale of Hayy b. Yaqzan;, a name that refers to the active Intellect itself.

The philosophical origin of this active Intellect is the passage in the De Anima in which Aristotle refers by this name to the active part of the human soul. Ibn Sina irremediably mutilates the latter by taking away from it this active part, and with it its most noble action and its highest intellectual function: abstraction of intelligibles. This active Intellect, which, according to Aristotle, produces all intelligibles, is now a separate Intelligence. Thus the human soul receives them passively, and so cannot think except by leave of the Intellect; comprehension, knowledge and the sciences are now no longer its affair. It can elaborate only that which is given to it by the active Intellect. The latter produces not only these intelligibles but also all the substantial forms that are created in accordance with the models that it has conceived in conformity with the potentialities of matter. It is in this way, Ibn Sina replies to Plato's anxious question (Parmenides, 131 a-b), that the concrete being can share in the Idea. The active Intellect has an ability which Plato sought for in vain: it apprehends the two series of relative perceptions, both the forms with their mutual relationships and the concrete beings with their mutual relationships; in addition, it apprehends their common repository, which is its own essence (cf. Goichon, La theorie des formes chez Avicenne, in Atti XII congr. intern. de filosofia, ix, at 137-8). A reply is also given to the question of Aristotle as to the provenance of form and the contribution of the Ideas to sensible beings (Metaph., Z 8 and M 5).

The human soul by itself can attain only the first three degrees of abstraction: sensation, imagination and the action of estimation that extracts individual non-sensible ideas. It then apprehends the intelligible that is given to it from outside. Intuition is due to its joining with the active Intellect.

Being and intelligence overflow like a river from the necessary Being and descend to the extreme limits of the created. There is an equally full re-ascent, produced by creatures' love and desire for their creators, as far as the supreme Principle, which corresponds to the abundance of this gift. This beautiful concept, which could derive only from a soul inclined towards religion, has been thought of as mystical. The Risala fi 'l-'ishq, ‘The Epistle on Love’, however, is primarily a metaphysical explanation of the tendency of every being towards its good, and a physical explanation of the motion of the stars; they imitate in their fashion, which is material, the unceasing action of the pure Act. The spheres, in fact, thus imitate the unceasing desire of the celestial Souls which correspond to each one of them. The rational soul of man tends towards its good with a conscious motion of apprehension of, and love for, the active Intellect, and, through it, for the necessary Being, which is pure Good. In the highest states, however, it can tend directly towards the latter.

Ibn Sina believed firmly in the immortality of the soul. Corruption cannot touch it, for it is immaterial. The proof of this immateriality lies in its capability of apprehending the intelligibles, which are in no way material. He is much more hesitant on the question of the resurrection of the body, which he at first admits in the Shifa’ and the Najat, and then denies in the epistle A·Hawiyya, after indicating in the ‘Tale of Hayy b. Yaqzan’; that this dogma is often an object of temptations. He appears finally to have decided to understand it in a symbolic sense.

Among the fierce controversies to which Avicenna's thought has given rise is the discussion as to whether or not he should be considered a mystic. At first sight, the whole range of expressions that he uses to speak of love's re-ascending as far as to the Creator leads one to an affirmative interpretation-not in an esoteric way [see Hayy b. yaqzan], but in the positive sense of the love of God. The more one studies his philosophical doctrine, the more one finds that it illuminates these expressions. The stages of the Sufis, studied in the Isharat, leave rather the impression of experiences observed by a great, curious and respectful mind, which, however, does not participate. Ibn Sina is a believer, and this fact should be maintained in opposition to those who have made of him a lover of pleasure who narrowly escapes being a hypocrite, although there is so much seriousness in his life and such efforts to reconcile his philosophy with his faith-even if he is not always successful. He is far above the gnosis impregnated with occultism and paganism to which some would reduce him. Is he a mystic in the exact sense that the word has in Catholic theology? It reserves the word for one whose whole life is a great love of God, in a kind of intimacy of heart and thought with Him, so that God holds the first place in all things and everything is apprehended as related to Him.

Had it been thus with Ibn Sina, his writings would give a totally different impression. Nevertheless, at bottom he did perhaps apprehend God. It is in the simple expression of apprehension through the heart, in the secret of the heart (sirr), in flashes, however short and infrequent, that we are led to see in him a beginning of true mystic apprehension, in opposition to the gnosis and its symbols, for at this depth of the heart there is no longer any need for words.

One doubt, however, still enters in: his general doctrine of apprehension, and some of the terms that he uses, in fact, in texts on sirr, could be applied at least as well to a privileged connexion with the active Intellect, and not with God Himself (cf. Goichon, Le ‘sirr’ (l'intime du coeur) dans la doctrine avicennienne de la connaissance). Again, on this question, the absence of his last great work, the ‘Eastern Philosophy’, precludes a definite answer.

This irreparable lacuna in the transmission of his works does not allow us to understand in what respects he wished to complete, and even to correct, Aristotle, as he states in the prologue. As a hypothesis, suggested by his constant efforts to express the concrete and by his biography, we may suppose that he wished to make room for the oriental scientific tradition, which was more experimental than Greek science. The small alterations made to Aristotelian logic are slanted in this direction. In metaphysics, it is probable that he was shocked by the contradictions between Plotinus and Aristotle that were evident in the texts which the knowledge of the time attributed to one single author, and that he wished to resolve these anomalies by giving new explanations.

Influence of Ibn Sina.

The transmission of Greek science by the Arabs, and the translation of the works of the Arabs into Latin, produced the first Renaissance in Southern Europe, which began in the 10th century in Sicily, flourished in the 12th round Toledo, and soon afterwards in France. The two principal works of Ibn Sina, the Shifa’ and the Qanun, made him an undisputed master in medicine, natural sciences and philosophy.

From the 12th to the 16th century the teaching and practice of medicine were based on him. The works of Abu Bakr MuHammad b. Zakariyya’ al-Razi were also known, and he was considered to be a better clinician; but the Qanun provided an irreplaceable didactic corpus, for the Kitab al-Kulliyyat fi 'l-tibb of Ibn Rushd corresponded only with the first part of the Qanun. The latter was translated in its entirety between 1150 and 1187 by Gerard of Cremona, and, in all, eighty-seven translations of it were made, some of which were only partial. The majority were into Latin, but several Hebrew translations were also made, in Spain, Italy and the south of France. The medical translations are less good than those of the philosophical works; some words transcribed in Arabic from Greek were not understood or identified, and some Arabic technical terms were more or less transcribed in Latin, and remain incomprehensible. The Qanun formed the basis of teaching at all the universities. It appears in the oldest known syllabus of teaching given to the School of Medicine at Montpellier, a bull of Clement V, dating from 1309, and in all subsequent ones until 1557. Ten years later Galen was preferred to Ibn Sina, but the latter continued to be taught until the 17th century. The editing of the Arabic text, at Rome in 1593, demonstrates the esteem in which he was still held. (On the teaching of the works of Avicenna in the universities, see A. Germain, L'Ecole de medecine de Montpellier ..., Montpellier 1880, 71; Stephen d'Irsay, Histoire des universites franaises et etrangeres des origines a nos jours, Paris 1933, i, 119; C. Elgood, A medical history of Persia ... until the year 1932, Cambridge 1951, 205-9). Chaucer reminds us in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales that no doctor should be ignorant of him. Almost all, in fact, possessed either fragments of the Qanun, especially the ‘Fevers’ and the ‘Diseases of the eyes’, or shorter writings, the treatise on the pulse or that on ‘Diseases of the heart’. All Arab authors, from the 7th/13th to the 10th/16th century, are dependent on Ibn Sina, even though they question him, like the father of Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar), or augment and correct him, like Ibn al-Nafis, who recorded his discovery of pulmonary circulation in his commentary on the Qanun; he wrote a summary of the Qanun which any physician could obtain more easily than he could the original text.

In the West several physicians learned Arabic for the sake of the works of Ibn Sina. The first known influence appears in the works of a Dane, Henrik Harpestraeng, a royal physician who died in 1244. Arnold of Villeneuve, born at Valence, translated the treatise on the diseases of the heart, as well as some of the books of al-Kindi and other Arab authors. Some surgeons also quoted him as their authority: William of Saliceto in Italy, and his disciple Lanfranc, the founder of surgery in France; Guy of Chauliac, who died in 1368, and whose teaching employed Arabic terms and doctrines. At the University of Bologna, anatomy was still being taught in Arabic terms in the 14th century.

The Renaissance brought a violent reaction; Leonardo da Vinci rejected Ibn Sina's anatomy, but, for want of another vocabulary, used the Arabic terms. Paracelsus burned the Qanun at Basle. Harvey dealt him a severe blow by publishing his discovery of the major circulation in 1628.

The natural sciences presented in the Shifa’ were much used by the mediaeval encyclopaedists, as were the treatises of al-Razi and apocryphal treatises. The ‘Treatise on Animals’ was translated by Michael Scot; Albertus Magnus employed the mineralogy (on Ibn Sina's scientific influence, see G. Sarton, Introduction to the history of science, ii, passim.). In physics, Ibn Sina was an Aristotelian, and as such inferior to al-Razi, who had discovered the existence of the vacuum, which he himself denied. However, he opposed the theory of the transmutation of metals, and hence alchemy (for citations to this effect from several Arab authors, see the introduction by Holmyard and Mandeville to their translation of Avicennae De congelatione et conglutinatione lapidum, Paris 1927, 6-7).

Ibn Sina's influence in philosophy was less absolute and more disputed, but more lasting, for the use made of him by St Thomas Aquinas embodied certain of his proofs in Catholic theology (cf. Goichon, La philosophie d'Avicenne et son influence en Europe medievale, Paris 1944, ch. III).

The translation of the Shifa’ came at a moment when Aristotle was scarcely known, and that only through the ‘Posterior Analytics’, the ‘Topics’ and the ‘Refutation of the Sophists’. The corpus that presented a ‘Metaphysics’, the ‘Treatise on the Soul’ and that on the ‘Heavens’, etc. seemed to hold another significance. It was, however, thought to be a simple commentary on Aristotle. For a century it received unreserved admiration; when Aristotle was better known, it was still thought that the Shifa’ augmented his work on the subject of the origin of the world, on God, the soul, the intelligence and angels. He was placed in the Neoplatonist and Augustinian traditions; his attempts to reconcile philosophy and faith corresponded with the ardent desires of the Schoolmen. He was forbidden by the decrees of 1210 and 1215, referring to ‘Aristoteles et sequaces ejus’, which banned Ibn Sina from the Sorbonne. But his role remained undiminished in private discussions.

After acclaim for his similarities with Christian thought came criticism of his divergences from it, violently initiated by William of Auvergne in 1230. Nevertheless, a pontifical decree of Gregory IX, in 1231, once more permitted the study of Ibn Sina's philosophy. The lacunas, however, were now apparent. Nonetheless, the thought of all philosophers was nourished by his, to such a degree that it is impossible to tell what it would have been like without him. Latin scholasticism owes to his opponent, William of Auvergne, the fact that it received from him the distinction between essence and existence, which William considered that he had found in him.

Another current of thought, stemming from English centres of study, developed particularly in the Franciscan order. It saw Ibn Sina as more of a philosopher, augmenting Saint Augustine: the active Intellect was like the sun of minds and the internal Master. They believed that he opened up a whole mystic world. Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus were influenced by him. The latter, however, based his doctrine of the univocity of being on the same text that Thomas Aquinas had used to support the opposite doctrine.

Selection was gradually practised in the corpus of Ibn Sina. He took his definitive place, together with Saint Thomas Aquinas. The distinction between essence and existence became one of the fundamentals of Thomist philosophy. It gave an explanation for the immateriality of angels; Saint Thomas's De Ente et Essentia is imbued with Avicennism. The better the theologian masters his own thought, the less he cites Ibn Sina (see the quotations in Vansteenkiste, op. cit.), but he still respects him. Saint Thomas's commentators, Cajetan and Jean de Saint-Thomas, writing respectively at the end of the 15th century and during the 17th, still allotted to Ibn Sina the place that he had taken in Thomism, the place that is definitely his.

(A.-M. Goichon)

Bibliography:

Works of Ibn Sina: Brockelmann, I, 452-8, S I, 812-29

C. A. Nallino, art. Avicenna, in Enciclop. Italiana, v, 638-9, up to 1930

O. Ergin, I. S. bibliografyasi, in Büyük Türk filosof ve tib ustadi Ibni Sina ‘ahsiyeti ve eserleri hakkinda tetkikler, Istanbul 1937, in Turkish

G. C. Anawati, Mu'allafat I. S. Essai de bibliographie avicennienne, Cairo 1950, in Arabic, manuscripts and published works

resume in French, La tradition manuscrite orientale de l'oeuvre d'Avicenne. Essai de bibliographie avicennienne, in Rev. thomiste, 1951, 407-40

A. A. Hekmat, Les oeuvres persanes d'A., in Ligue des Etats arabes, Millenaire d'A., Congres de Baghdad, Cairo 1952, 84-97

S. Naficy, Pur-e Sina (A., his life, works, thought and time), Tehran 1954, bibl. 9-53

S. M. Afnan, A., his life and works, London 1958

Yahya Mahdavi, Bibliographie d'I. S., Tehran 1954 (critical notes in Persian, signalizing manuscripts, editions, translations and numerous studies on each work). All the Persian works of Ibn Sina were published at Tehran on the occasion of his millenary, as well as some of the Arabic works lists of these works and of some Persian translations of Arabic works published in this collection by E. Rossi, Il millenario di A. a Teheran e Hamadan, in OM, 1954, 214-24. For the medical and scientific works, both texts and translations into Latin, Hebrew, Persian and modern European languages, published since 1497, the date of the publication of Gerard of Cremona's translation of the Qanun, see Index Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon-general's Office, U. S. Army, Washington, including works on I. S., i, 1880, 712-3, 2nd series, i, 1896, 819-21, 3rd series, ii, 1920, 230-1 (s.v. Avicenna), 4th series, viii, 1943, 2-3 (s.v. Ibn Sina), then Armed forces medical library catalog, i, 1955, 112 (s.v. Avicenna). Philosophical works: Except for the Najat, printed after the Qanun, Rome 1593, all editions of texts are recent

al-Qasida fi 'ilm al-Mantiq, ed. Schmoelders, 1836

Politics, ed. Margoliouth, 1887

al-Shifa', lithographed at Tehran 1303/1886

the opuscula edited by Mehren under the title Traites mystiques, Leiden 1889-94, and al-Isharat, ed. Forget, Leiden 1892, are among the oldest (see Goichon, Distinction de l'essence et de l'existence ..., XIII-XV, 506-7, and bibliographies cited). Later publications: complete critical text of al-Shifa', Cairo 1952-in the collection MemorialQd'Avicenne, IFAO, Cairo 1952-63: fasc. IV, al-Akhlaqwa-'l-infi'alat al-nafsaniyya, text established and translated by D. Remondon fasc. V, 'Uyun al-Hikma, text established by A. Badawi, and Introd., 1954 fasc. VI, Kitab al-Hudud, Livre des Definitions, text established, translated and annotated by A.-M. Goichon, 1963, augmenting by study of the Greek sources the Introduction a A., son Epitre des Definitions, trans. from the printed editions, and illuminated by numerous texts taken from the works of Ibn Sina (Paris 1933)

Ibn Sina risaleleri, several opuscula, ed. with French trans. by H. Z. Ülken, A. Ates, Istanbul 1953

al-Burhan min al-Shifa', ed. by A. Badawi, Cairo 1954 the same edited several texts, entire or fragmentary, in the collection Aristu 'ind al-'Arab, Cairo 1948

Qissat Hayy b. Yaqzan, text established and French trans. by H. Corbin, in A. et le Recit visionnaire, ii, Tehran 1954

Asbab Hudud al-Huruf [phonetics], Cairo 1332, less correctly known as Makharij al-Huruf, text ed. with Persian tr. by Parviz Natil Khanlari, Publ. Fac. Tehran 1955, no. 207, Eng. tr. by Khalil I. Semaan, Lahore 1963

al-Fann al-sadis min al-Tabi'iyyat ('ilm al-nafs) min Kitab al-Shifa', Psychologie d'I. S. d'apres son oeuvre Ash-Shifa', ed. with French trans. by Jan Bakos, Prague 1956

Urjuza fi 'l-tibb (ed. Jahier-Noureddine, see above)

Kitab al-Isharat wa 'l-tanbihat, with the commentary of Nasir al-Din Tusi, ed. by S. Dunia, Cairo 1957-8

Anthologie de textes poetiques attribues a A., published, translated and annotated by H. Jahier and A. Noureddine, Algiers 1379/1960. Translations only: Medical, see Index Catalogue

Philosophical, printed in Latin, ibid. and Goichon, Distinction ..., 507-8 (note: De Anima, 1485

Metaphysica ..., ex Dominici Gundisalvi transl., 1495

De animalibus, per Michaelem Scotum trans., 1500. Avicenne opera [...] Logyca. Sufficientia

[...] De anima, ex transl. Joannis Hispalensis et D. Gundisalvi

De animalibus ex transl. Michaelis Scoti [...] Philosophia prima, ex transl. D. Gundisalvi, 1508

Avicennae [...] Compendium de anima. De mahad [...] Aphorismi de anima. De diffinitionibus [...]. De divisione scientiarum, ab Andrea Alpago [...] versa [...] 1546)

P. Vattier, La logique du fils de Sina, Paris 1659, etc.). Since 1930: Ch. 12 of the Mathematics of the Shifa', tr. R. d'Erlanger, in La musique arabe, Paris 1935, ii, 103-245, with notes and appendix, 251-306

Livre des Directives et remarques (Kitab al-Isharat wa-'l-Tanbihat), French trans. with introduction and notes by A.-M. Goichon, Beirut-Paris 1951

Le poeme de l'Ame, French trans. by H. Masse, in Revue du Caire, June 1951, 7-9

Le Livre de science (Danishnama), trans. M. Achena and H. Masse, 2 vols., Paris 1955-7

A.-M. Goichon, Le recit de Hayy ibn Yaqzan commente par des textes d'A., Paris, 1959

Haven C. Krueger, A.'s poem on medicine, Springfield 1963, following the trans. of Opitz and Jahier

Avicenna latinus. Liber de Anima seu Sextus de Naturalibus, critical edition of the medieval Latin translation, by S. Van Riet (with an introduction on Avicenna's psychological teaching by G. Verbeke), Louvain-Leiden 1968.

II. Biography:

Autobiography of I. S. completed by al-Juzajani, preserved by Ibn al-Qifti, Ta'rikh al-Hukama', ed. Lippert, 413 (German trans. by P. Kraus in Klinische Wochenschrift, 1932, 1880-4

English trans. by A. J. Arberry, in Avicenna on theology, London 1951, 9-24

French trans. by H. Masse, in Introd. to Livre de science, 6-11)

biography by Zabidollah Safa, Persian text, French adapt. by S. Naficy, in Collection du Millenaire d'A., no 27, Teheran 1953, iv, 1-53

Y. A. Kashi, Apercu sur la biographie d'A., in Memorial Avicenne, iii.

III. Books and articles on Ibn Sina:

Innumerable, particularly since the millenary see the bibliographies cited, Nallino up to 1930, Ergin, Anawati, Mahdavi, A.-M. Goichon, Distinction ..., bibliogr. 504-20, up to 1937, and the collection A., scientist and philosopher, a millenary symposium, London 1952, bibliography after each chapter some information in Islamologie, Pareja et al., bibliography to ch. XXII, 1012-14

see also A. -M. Goichon, Avicenna e Avicennismo, in Enciclopedia filosofica, Venice-Rome 1957, i, 525-35, and 2nd ed., 1968, i, coll. 666-78 (German trans. Lexicon der Philosophie, Munich 1968, i)

S. Naficy, Bibliographie des principaux travaux europeens sur A., Tehran 1953 (63 eds. of Latin translations from 1472 to 1639). For the scientific section, see the numerous articles and books in the Library of Congress, for 1880-1943, Index Catalogue, Washington since 1879, running bibliography, Quarterly cumulative Index Medicus, Chicago

G. Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science, Baltimore 1927-50, especially vol. i. Principal studies after 1930: see text, and M. El-Hefny, Ibn Sina's Musiklehre hauptsaechlich an seinem 'Nagat' erlaeutert. Nebst Uebersetzung und Herausgabe des Musikabschnittes des 'Nagat', Berlin 1930

I. Madkour, L'Organon d'Aristote dans le monde arabe [...]. Analyse puisee [...] a un commentaire inedit d'I. S., Paris 1934

A. Birkenmajer, A.'s Vorrede zum 'Liber Sufficentiae' und Roger Bacon, in Rev. Neo-scolastique de Philosophie, 1934, 308-20

C. Fabro, A. e la conoscenza divina dei particolari, in Boll. Filosofico, i (1935), 45-54

A.-M. Goichon, Distinction de l'essence et de l'existence d'apres I. S., Paris 1937

eadem, Lexique de la langue philosophique d'I. S., Paris 1938

eadem, Vocabulaires compares d' Aristote et d'I. S., Paris 1939

M. Amid, Essai sur la psychologie d'A., Geneva 1940

M. Cruz Hernandez, La metafisica de A., Granada 1949

A. Ahmadieh, Raze darman, Tehran 1950

idem, Darman Rumatism [...] I. S., n.d.

Avicenne, Lectures on Radiodiffusion Francaise, 1951

Millenaire d'A., in Rev. du Caire, special number, June 1951

Congres de Baghdad, Ligue des Etats arabes, Cairo 1952

L. Gardet, La pensee religieuse d'A., Paris 1951

idem, La connaissance mystique chez I. S. et ses presupposes philosophiques, Paris 1952

A. A. Siassi, La psychologie d'A. et ses analogues dans la psychologie moderne, Teheran 1954

Livre du millenaire d'A. (Congress 1954), Tehran 1956

E. Troilo, Lineamento e interpretazione del sistema filosofico di A., Rome 1956, in Atti d. Accad. Dei Lincei, Memorie, Cl. di scienze morali storiche e filologiche, Sc. 8, 397-446

M. Cruz Hernandez, La distincion aviceniana de la esencia y la existencia y su interpretacion en filosofia occidental, in Homenaje a Millas Vallicrosa, 1956, ii, 351-74

idem, La nocion de 'ser' en A., in Pensamiento, 1959, 83-98

A.-A. Wolfson, Avicenna, Algazali and Averroes on divine attributes, in Homenaje a Millas Vallicrosa, ii, 545-71

O. E. Chahine, Ontologie et theologie chez A., typescript thesis, Paris 1956

A. Lobato, A. y santo Tomas en la teoria del conocimiento, Granada 1957

M. Tabit al-Fandi, Dieu et le monde: leurs rapports d'apres I. S., in BFA, xi (1958), Arabic sect., 159-80

M. A. Abu Rayyan, La critique de la philosophie d'A. par Abu 'l-Barakat al-BaÇdadi,Qin BFA., xii (1958), 17-60

I. Madkour, Le traite des Categories du Shifa', in MIDEO, v (1958), 253-78

M. Alonso Alonso, La 'al-anniya' de A. y el problema de la esencia y existencia, in Pensamiento, 1958, 311-46

G. C. Anawati, La destinee de l'homme dans la philosophie d'A., in L'homme et son destin. Actes du Ier Congres international de philosophie medievale, Louvain 1958, 257-66

A. M. Goichon, Selon A., l'ame humaine est-elle creatrice de son corps?, ibid., 267-76

M.-Th. d'Alverny, Andrea Alpago interprete et commentateur d'A., in Atti del XII Congresso internat. di filosofia, ix, 1958, 1-6

A.-M. Goichon, La theorie des formes chez A., ibid., 131-8

E. Galindo Aguilar, Anthropologie et cosmogonie chez A., in IBLA, 1959, no. 87, 287-323

M.-Th. d'Alverny, Anniyya-Anitas, in Melanges Etienne Gilson, Paris 1959, 59-91

'Ali NasuH al-Tahir, al-RuH al-khalida, nazarat fi 'ayniyyat al-Hakim al-faylasuf al-ra'is I. S., Amman 1960 (on the poem on the soul)

A. M. Goichon, La demonstration de l'existence dans la logique d'A., in Melanges H. Masse, Tehran 1963, 165-84

eadem, L'exegese coranique d'A. jugee par Averroes, in Actas del primer Congreso de estudios arabes e islamicos, 1964, 89-99

eadem, Le 'sirr', l'intime du coeur dans la doctrine avicennienne de la connaissance, in Studia semitica Ioanni Bakoá dicata, Bratislava 1965, 119-26 [see also Hayy b. yaqzan].

IV. Influence of I. S. in the West:

B. Haneberg, Zur Erkenntnisslehre des I. S. und Albertus Magnus, in Abhandl. d. philos.-philolog. Klasse d. KKnigl. bayer. Akad. d. Wissensch., xii (1868), 191-249

J. Forget, L'influence de la philosophie arabe sur la philosophie scolastique, in Rev. neo-scolastique, 1894, 385-410

C. Baeumker, Witelo ..., Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Phil. d. Mittelalters, iii/2, Münster 1908

P. Mandonnet, Les premieres disputes sur la distinction reelle entre l'essence et l'existence, in Rev. thomiste, 1910, 741-65

M.-D. Roland-Gosselin, De distinctione inter essentiam et esse apud A. et D. Thomam, in Xenia thomistica, iii (1925), 281-8

idem, Le 'De ente et essentia' de S. Thomas d'Aquin, Le Saulchoir 1926 (numerous references to A.)

E. Gilson, several articles in Arch. d'histoire doctrinale et litteraire du M. A. (Pourquoi saint Thomas a critique saint Augustin, i (1926-7), 5-127

A. et le point de depart de Duns Scot, ii, (1927), 89-149

Les sources greco-arabes de l'augustinisme avicennisant, iv (1929-30), 5-107

Roger Marston, un cas d'augustinisme avicennisant, viii (1933), 37-42

L'etude des philosophies arabes et son role dans l'interpretation de la scolastique, in Proc. of the sixth internat. Congress of phil., 1927, 592-6)

G. Sarton, op. cit., with numerous references

J. Rohmer, Sur la doctrine franciscaine des deux faces de l'ame, in Arch. d'hist. doctr. et litt. du M. A., 1927, 73-7

L. Gauthier, Scolastique musulmane et scolastique chretienne, in Rev. d'Hist. de la philos., 1928, 221-53 and 333-55 (on the real distinction between essence and existence according to A. see 246-7 and 356)

A. Forest, La structure metaphysique du concret selon saint Thomas d'Aquin, Paris 1931 (table of citations of A.)

M. de Wulf, L'Augustinisme avicennisant, in Rev. Neoscol., 1931, 11-39

W. Kleine, Die Substanzlehre Avicennas bei Thomas von Aquin, Freiburg im Breisgau 1933

Cajetan, In 'De Ente et essentia' ... Commentaria, Turin 1934

R. de Vaux, Notes et textes sur l'avicennisme latin ..., Paris 1934

J. Teicher, Gundissalino e l'agostinismo avicennizante, in Riv. Filos. Neoscolastica, 1934, no. 3

A.-M. Goichon, La philosophie d'A. et son influence enQOccident (see text)

eadem, Influence d'A. en Occident, in Encycl. mensuelle de la France d'Outre-Mer, Sept. 1952, 257-61

A. C. Crombie, A.'s influence on the medieval scientific tradition, in A., scientist Vansteenkiste (see text)

A.-M. Goichon, Un chapitre de l'influence d'I. S. en Occident: le 'De Ente et essentia' de S. Thomas d'Aquin, in Livre du Millenaire d'A., iv, 118-31

A. nella storia d. cultura medievale, Accad. dei Lincei, Rome 1957

G. Giacon, A. e Tommaso, Messina 1958

E. Gilson, A. et les origines de la notion de cause efficiente, in Atti del XII Congresso intern. di filosofia, 11958, ix, 121-30

E. Cerulli, A. et Laurent de Medicis a propos d'un passage de l' 'Altercazione', in St. Isl., xi (1959), 5-27

Th. Litt, Les corps celestes dans l'univers de saint Thomas d'Aquin, Louvain 1963, see index For medical influence see Index Catalogue, loc. cit.

Source: Encyclopedia of Islam: © 1999 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands

Ibn Sina or Avicenna (Biography, Books, Religion)

Ibn Sina, nicknamed Sharaf al-Mulk, Hujjat al-Haqq, Pur Sina, and Shaykh al-Ra’is, is an Iranian physician, philosopher, and scholar and one of the most prominent thinkers of the Islamic world. He is considered the father of early modern medicine, and his birthday is named “Doctor’s Day.”

The period of research and activity of this scientist is known as the Golden Age of Islam, which made the name of Iran more famous in the world. Among the well-known works of Ibn Sina , we can mention “The Canon of Medicine.”

In the following, we will explore the biography, works, and efforts of this great philosopher.

Table of Contents

Ibn Sina Biography

Abu Ali Sina, with the full name of Abu Ali Hussein ibn Abdullah ibn Hasan ibn Ali ibn Sina, a physician, scientist, philosopher, astronomer, writer, and great mathematician of the world, was born on the 1st of Shahrivar in the year 359 of the Persian solar calendar in a village called Kharmaythan near Bukhara, which was the center of the Samanid dynasty. He is famous in Latin as Avicenna. His father, Abdullah, was from Balkh, and his mother, Setareh, was from a village near Afshana.

Ibn Sina had a strange talent and intelligence in learning different sciences from the very beginning of his childhood. His father tried hard for his education since he was a child. He studied jurisprudence under Master Ismail Zahed. After that, his father sent him to learn logic and geometry under Abu Abdullah Natili.

He had memorized the Quran at the age of ten and knew Arabic literature, geometry, and mathematics, as well as grammar and syntax. Euclid’s Principles, Porphyry’s Introduction, and Ptolemy’s Al-Majaste are among the works that Ibn Sina studied as a child under the supervision of various teachers.

After studying Aristotle’s Metaphysics science 40 times, Ibn Sina could not understand its concept, and many doubts arose for him. With the help of Al-Farabi’s “The Aims of Aristotle’s Metaphysics,” he was able to understand it and realize its truth. He was able to learn the science of medicine by studying the writings of previous doctors, and in the shortest time, during his youth, he managed to cure the disease of the Amir of the Samanids.

The Stone Statue of Ibn Sina

As a reward, he was allowed to use the Samanid princes’ private, which further enhanced his knowledge. With his great study and intelligence, Ibn Sina was able to fully master many of the sciences of his time at the age of 18, and he owed his subsequent progress to his own personal arguments.

Ibn Sina Nationality

Ibn Sina was of Persian nationality and was born in the Bukhara region, now part of modern Uzbekistan. He lived in the Golden Age of Islam, the flourishing period of intellectual and cultural developments in the Islamic world. Although he spent most of his life in different parts of the Islamic world, including present-day Iran and Iraq, Avicenna’s Iranian heritage remained an important aspect of his identity.

Ibn Sina Religion

Ibn Sina was a Muslim who lived in the Golden Age of Islam. He was born in 980 AD in Iran. Ibn Sina’s religious beliefs were deeply rooted in Islam, and he made significant efforts to reconcile Islamic teachings with the rational research of philosophy.

While he adhered to the tenets of Islam, his philosophical works often explored complex questions about the nature of existence, the soul, and the relationship between God and the universe. Despite his profound contributions in various fields, Ibn Sina adhered to his Islamic faith throughout his life and emphasized the compatibility of reason and religion in his teachings.

Ibn Sina Books

Ibn Sina wrote about 450 works on a wide range of subjects, of which 240 have survived, including 150 texts related to philosophy and 40 texts on medicine. Most of his books were written in the official language of his time, Arabic. The most famous books of Ibn Sina are:

The Canon of Medicine (Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb)

This book, which is called “The Canon” in short, is the most important and complete work of Ibn Sina in the field of medicine. The original language of the book is Arabic, and it was translated into Farsi by Abdul Rahman Sharafkandi in the 1340s and 1360s. Until the 17th century, The Canon was taught as a medical reference book in Western universities.

Famous Avicenna Quotes

The Book of Healing (Kitab al-Shifa)

This book is the most important work of Ibn Sina and a comprehensive encyclopedia in the field of science and philosophy. The language of the book is Arabic and is divided into four sections: logic, physics, mathematics, and metaphysics. The purpose of this book is to treat or heal the ignorance of the soul and does not focus on medicine.

The Book of Knowledge for Alai (Daaneshnameh-ye Ala’i)

Ibn Sina wrote this book in Persian and even sometimes tried to replace Arabic words with Persian ones. The book is a comprehensive treatise on seven sciences, which is collected in four sections: logic, metaphysics, natural sciences, and mathematics. The main part of mathematics was lost during Ibn Sina’s lifetime.

Ibn Sina Contribution

Ibn Sina’s philosophical system is a combination of the main rules of Aristotelian-Mashai philosophy and the principles of the Neoplatonism worldview. He was very indebted to Farabi in his philosophical thinking, especially the topics related to metaphysics. Following Farabi, he began to think about the issue of existence and made a distinction between essence and existence.

Ibn Sina presented a proof known as the “proof of the Truthful” for the existence of God.

He believed in a necessary existence – that which cannot, not exist – and equated it with the Islamic concept of God. Today, this argument is considered one of the most influential medieval arguments in proving the existence of God and the most important contribution of Ibn Sina in the history of philosophy.

Ibn Sina was a devout Muslim who sought to reconcile rational philosophy with Islamic theology and intended to prove the existence of God and the creation of the world in a scientific, rational, and logical way. Until the 19th century, his perspectives on Islamic theology and philosophy wielded considerable influence, shaping the fundamental fabric of religious-Islamic school curricula.

What is Ibn Sina famous for?

Many people wonder what Ibn Sina was famous for or why he is still remembered after so many years. Ibn Sina is known for his significant contributions in various fields, such as medicine, philosophy, and science. He is often regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of the Islamic Golden Age. Avicenna’s most famous work is the Canon of Medicine, a comprehensive encyclopedia of medicine that remained a standard medical text in Europe and the Islamic world for centuries.

In addition, he made significant advances in philosophy, especially metaphysics, and provided influential arguments for the existence of God. Avicenna’s works bridged the gap between the Greek and Islamic philosophical traditions, and his ideas deeply influenced the development of Eastern and Western thought.

Ibn Sina & Art

He also has works in music that are worthy of attention primarily in terms of methodology because they can be a guide for scientific music research. He has mystical works in the language of mystery and irony and in the form of allegory, which had a clear impact on the Sufi literature of later periods and on the way of expressing mystical content.

Ibn Sina Tomb in Hamedan

He has also written about language and linguistics. He was skilled in poetry and rhetoric, which speaks of his power and mastery of the Arabic language. He also has a very important small treatise on the principles and principles of phonetics.

Ibn Sina’s works in the Persian language have been left behind, which are valuable and important in terms of the history of the evolution of this language and the recognition of its abilities and capabilities. His most famous writing in Farsi is the Encyclopedia of Ala’i.

Ibn Sina Cause of Death

During the time he lived in Isfahan, Abu Ali Sina garnered the attention of Ala al-Dawla and lived a peaceful life until Isfahan was attacked by Mas’ud Ghaznavi. In this attack, some important works of this great scientist were destroyed. This incident gave him a big blow. Following this event, Ibn Sina, who was suffering from colic, decided to go to Hamadan and live there for the rest of his life. He died on the 2nd of Tir in the year 416 of the Persian solar calendar, at the age of 57, and was buried in Hamedan.

In some sources, it has been said that colic disease was the cause of Abu Ali Sina’s death, but the cause of his death has not been mentioned definitively. His tomb is located in Bu-Ali Sina square in the center of Hamadan city. This site was registered as a national heritage of Iran in 1376 (Solar Hijri).

Ibn Sina appears as a great figure in the fields of medicine, philosophy, and science during the Golden Age of Islam. His contributions, including the Canon of Medicine and influential philosophical works, have left an indelible mark on human knowledge and shaped the course of intellectual history. To truly appreciate the legacy of this remarkable thinker, one should visit his tomb in Hamadan, Iran. Avicenna’s tomb, located in the heart of the city, is a symbol of his lasting influence and serves as a place of pilgrimage for those who seek to pay homage to his genius and wisdom.

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• Ann Saudi Med
• v.27(2); Mar-Apr 2007

Ibn Sina (Avicenna): The Prince Of Physicians

Samir s. amr.

* Dhahran Health Center, Saudi Aramco Medical Services Organization, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Abdelghani Tbakhi

† Department of Pathology, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Abu Ali Al-Hussein Ibn Abdullah Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna, was one of the most eminent Muslim physicians and philosophers of his days whose influence on Islamic and European medicine persisted for centuries. He was named by his students and followers as “Al Shaikh Al Ra’ees” or the master wise man. The Europeans called him the “Prince of Physicians”. As a thinker, he represented the culmination of Islamic renaissance, and was described as having the mind of Goethe and the genius of Leonardo da Vinci. 1

Ibn Sina was born in 980 AD in the village of Afshanah near the city of Bukhara in Central Asia, the capital of the Samani kingdom at that time, in the present country of Uzbekistan. His father, Abdullah, was from the city of Balkh and worked as a local governor for a village near Bukhara. His mother was a Tadjik woman named Sitara. Abdullah realized that his son was a prodigy child and was keen on getting the best tutors for his genius son. At the age of ten, he finished studying and memorizing the Koran by heart and was proficient in Arabic language and its literature classics. In the following 6 years, he devoted his time for studying Islamic law and jurisprudence, philosophy, logic and natural sciences. At the age of thirteen, he started studying the medical sciences. By the age of eighteen, he was a well established physician and his reputation became well known in his country and beyond. He was quoted as stating that: “Medicine is no hard and thorny science like mathematics and metaphysics, so I soon made great progress; I became an excellent physician and began to treat patients using approved remedies”. 2

A portrait of Al Hussain Ibn Abdullah Ibn Sina

When the Sultan of Bukhara, Nuh Ibn Mansour of the Samanid dynasty, became seriously ill, Ibn Sina was summoned to treat him. After the recovery of the Sultan, Ibn Sina was rewarded and was given access to the royal library, a treasure trove for Ibn Sina who read its rare manuscripts and unique books thus adding more to his knowledge. After the Sultan’s death, and the defeat of the Samanid dynasty at the hands of the Turkish leader Mahmoud Ghaznawi, Ibn Sina moved to Jerjan near the Capsian Sea. He lectured there on astronomy and logic and wrote the first part of his book “Al Qanun fi al Tibb”, better known in the West as “Canon”, his most significant medical work. Later, he moved to Al-Rayy (near modern Tehran) and had a medical practice there. He authored about 30 books during his stay there. He then moved to Hamadan. He cured its ruler Prince Emir Shams al-Dawlah of the Buyid dynasty from a severe colic. He became the Emir’s private physician and confidant and was appointed as a Grand Viser (Prime Minister). When Shams al-Dawlah died, Ibn Sina wrote to the ruler of Isfahan for a position at his court. When the Emir of Hamadan became aware of this, he imprisoned Ibn Sina. While in prison, he wrote several books. After his release, he went to Isfahan. He spent his final years serving its ruler Emir Ala al-Dawlah. He died in 1037 AD at the age of 57. He was burried in the city of Hamadan. A monument was erected in that city near the site of his grave.

It is claimed that Ibn Sina had written about 450 works, of which 240 had survived. 3 Some bibliographers list only 21 major and 24 minor works dealing with philosophy, medicine, astronomy, geometry, theology, philology and art. He wrote several books on philosophy, the most significant was “Kitab al Shifa” (The Book of Healing). It was a philosophical encyclopedia that brought Aristotelian and Platonian philosophical traditions together with Islamic theology in dividing the field of knowledge into theoretical knowledge (physics, metaphysics and mathematics) and practical knowledge (ethics, economics and politics). Another book on philosophy was “Kitab al-Isharat wa al tanbihat” (Book of Directives and Remarks).

However, his book Al Qanun fi al Tibb or simply the Canon is the most influential medical book ever written by a Muslim physician. It is a one million word medical encyclopedia representing a summation of Arabian medicine with its Greek roots, modified by the personal observations of Ibn Sina. This book was translated to Latin in the 12th century by Gerard of Cremona. It became the textbook for medical education in Europe from the 12th to the 17th century. It is stated that in the last 30 years of the 15th century, the Canon passed through 15 Latin editions and one Hebrew edition. The Canon is divided into five books, including medical therapeutics, with 760 drugs listed. The books are:

The Institutes of Medicine: Definition of medicine, its task, its relation to philosophy. The elements, juices, and temperaments. The organs and their functions.

• Part 2: Causes and symptoms of diseases.
• Part 3: General dietetics and prophylaxis.
• Part 4: General Therapeutics.
• Book II: On the simple medications and their actions.
• Book III: The diseases of the brain, the eye, the ear, the throat and oral cavity, the respiratory organs, the heart, the breast, the stomach, the liver, the spleen, the intestine, the kidneys and the genital organs.
• Part 1: On fevers.
• Part 2: Symptoms and prognosis.
• Part 3: On sediments.
• Part 4: On wounds.
• Part 5: On dislocations.
• Part 6: On poisons and cosmetics.
• Book V: On compounding of medications.

In his book, Ibn Sina correctly documented the anatomy of the eye along with description of ophthalmic conditions such as cataracts. He stated that tuberculosis was contagious. He described the symptoms of diabetes, and gave descriptions of the types of facial paralysis. He described several psychiatric disorders including the so-called disorder of love, which he considered as an obsessive disorder resembling severe depression. He described a cachectic debilitated male patient with fever. By reaching to his loved one, he quickly regained his health and strength. 4 Eight chapters in the Canon dealt with the functional neuroanatomy of the spine including the structure of the vertebrae and the various parts of the vertebral column and its biomechanics. 5 Other authors wrote about Ibn Sina contributions to perinatal medicine, including binding of infants, their sleeping quarters, bathing and feeding as well as on causes of deformity. 6 At the millenium of his birth in 1980, numerous articles were published in his honor in numerous languages, a tribute for this great Muslim physician.