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Abu-Alial-Husain Ibn Abdullah Ibn Sina

(av-i-sen'-uh)

(980-1037 AD)

Avicenna was a Persian philosopher and physician in the MiddleAges who compiled The Canon of

Medicine, a definitive encyclopediaof Greek and Roman medical achievement.

Very influential to both the Islamic world and the Latin middleages, he was born in a village near

Bukhara in Turkistan. At theage of 18 he could consider himself an accomplished physicianand had

acquired immense philosophical knowledge as displayedin his large philosophical encyclopedias and in

his numerous smalltreatises. After the collapse of the Samanid empire in 999 he decided to leave

Bokhara , and the latter decades of his lifeare marked by some vicissitudes. About 1020 he was Vizier in

Hamadan.The last 14 years of his life were spent in the company of 'Alaad-Daula, the ruler of Isfahan,

whom he followed on all his journeysand on all his military ventures. He died in Hamadan in Isfahanin

1037. His extant writings, some of which are in his nativePersian though most are in Arabic, include an

autobiography (completedby an intimate pupil).

MedicalWorks

Avicenna's most famous medical work isAl-Qanun fi'l-Tibb("The Canon of

Medicine"), a systematic encyclopedia based for the most part on the

achievements of Greek Physiciansof the Roman imperial age and on other

Arabic works, and, to alesser extent, on his own experience (his own clinical

notes werelost during his journeys). This work not only became extremely

popular in the Islamic world, but was also studied in European un iversities for

centuries, first in a 12th-century translationby Gerard of Cremona (printed 15

times before 1500) and then ina new translation by Andrea Alpago of Belluno

(1527 and later editions).It was also the second text ever to be printed in Arabic (1593).

Philosophical Works

Avicenna's works are of a compendious nature, the most notablebeing a philosophical encyclopedia. For

Avicenna, philosophy wasthe true path to understanding. His summaries of Aristotle reveala

Neoplatonic outlook, especially in his emphasis on the dualismof mind and matter. He saw matter as

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passive and creation as the act of instilling existence into this passive substance; onlyin the divine are

being and existence one.

Bibliography

For a general account, see S. M. Afnan,Avicenna, His Lifeand Works (1958, repr. 1980); L. E.

Goodman,Avicenna(1992).

For Avicenna's medicine see J. Hirschberg and J. Lippert,Die Augenheilkunde des Ibn Sina (1902); P. de

Konining,Trois traites d'anatomie arabes (1903); O. Cameron Gruner,A Treatise on the Canon of

Medicine of Avicenna, Incorporatinga Translation of the First Book(1930); H. Jahier and A.

Noureddine,Urjuzat fi'l-Tibb (1955) .

For Avicenna's philosophy, see Heath, P., Allegory andPhilosophy in Avicenna (1992); M. Horten, Die

MetaphysikAvicenna (1907); N. Carame,Avicennae metaphysics compendium(1926); F.

Rahman,Avicenna's Psychology(1952); E. L.Fackenheim, "A Treatise on Love by Ibn

Sina," MedievalStudies (1945); J. Arberry,Avicenna on Theology(1951).

Excerpted and edited from Compuserve Grolier ElectronicEncyclopedia and the Encyclopaedia

Brittanica.