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). 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. Much work still remains to be done in this regard. 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. Venetian physician Benedetto Rinio likewise pointed out the irony of criticizing ibn Sina's use of earlier work when no one attacked Aristotle or Galen for the same practice. Avicenna, or Ibn Sina (980-1037), was a Muslim scientist from Iran who has had a profound and lasting influence on the field of medicine[Wikimedia Commons] Every day at … 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. 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 fact, Ghazali probably had little wealth or status to relinquish at that point. ), and finally in Isfahan (1024?–1037), in the court of ʿAlāʾ-ad-Dawla, the Kakuyid ruler of the area (Gutas 2014b-I, 6–9). Vajda, G., 1951, “Les notes d’Avicenne sur la «Théologie d’Aristote»,”. 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). He refused, however, stating that: "I prefer a short life wit h width to a narrow one with length". (Islam generally forbade the depiction of human form, though pictures were relatively rare in European books of the time, too.) Lizzini 2009). The Arabophone Jewish and Christian scholars within Islam, to 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. 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). Besides advances in medical care for expectant mothers and children, he recognized the contagious nature of tuberculosis, and the ability of diseases to spread through tainted water and soil. And Avicenna who wrote in different styles and genres to reach as many people as possible, as also noted above, clearly intended as much. This in turn could cause further worsening of physical illness. 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 was first translated into Latin in the 12th century, and translated into Hebrew in the late 15th century. 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). And in 1980, member nations of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization celebrated the 1,000-year anniversary of his birth. 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. The study was conducted at Ibn-Sina Hospital- Mukalla, a tertiary care teaching facility. 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. 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. Awais Ahmad 2. By some historians' accounts, the combined invasions of horsemen and germs practically emptied out Central Asia. 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. Death. 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. Thus began Avicenna’s lifelong itinerant career and the attendant quest for patronage and employment (Reisman 2013). Stocks of the Ibn Sina Pharmaceutical Industry rose 6.60 per cent to Tk 260 yesterday after news broke that it would form a new subsidiary to produce natural medicine products. Explore Ibn Khaldun's biography, personal life, family and cause of death. not as members of the Islamic commonwealth, accepted most of his ideas By some accounts, ibn Sina authored about 400 books and treatises, ranging in length from a few pages to hundreds of pages. His real name is Abu Ali al-Husayn Ibn Abd Allan Ibn Sina, however, he is commonly referred to under his Latinized name Avicenna… 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). 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. 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. It is also the number one cause of morbidity and mortality in Bangladesh. Accessed April 14, 2014. as it was intuitively acknowledged in the Islamic world where he is Medieval Arab historian Ibn Abī Uṣaibiʿa (died in 1270)—al-Farabi's oldest biographer—mentions in his ʿUyūn that al-Farabi's father was of Persian descent. 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. 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. Avicenna stated that there were three cognitive types of causes for death anxiety. Gutas 2014a, 377; cf. 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.