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 hedecided 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 is Al-Qanun fi'l-Tibb("The Canon of Medicine"), a systematic encyclopediabased 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 extremelypopular in the Islamic world, but was also studied in Europeanuniversities 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 passive and creation as theact 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.