Ibn Sina (Avicenna)

Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Abu 'Ali Husayn b. 'Abdullah b. Sina (980-1035 or 1036), physician, Peripatetic philosopher, logician, mathematician, astronomer and scholar, also known as Ibn Sina, Abu 'Ali Sina (Avicenna in the West), Hujjat al-Haqq, Shaykh al-Ra'is, Sharaf al-Mulk and Imam al-Hukama' (‘Chief of the Philosophers’). He was one of the most distinguished scholars in the Islamic world, not to speak of the world at large. Abu 'Ubayd Juzjani was his original biographer, providing liberal quotations of his master. Ibn Sina was born in Bukhara, where his father, a native of Balkh, had moved in the reign of the Samanid Nuh b. Mansur (r. 976-997), joining the administration of the district of Khurmaythan.. He himself settled in the nearby village of Afshana, home of the family of the woman he married, Sitara, who became the mother of Ibn Sina there. She gave birth to his brother, Mahmud, five years later. Ibn Sina began his education by learning the Koran and general literature. He precociously memorized the Koran and a number of literary works by the age of ten to the wonderment of all and sundry. His father became attracted to Isma’ilism, going so far as to become a Da'i (missionary of the Imam), appointed by the Isma’ili Fatimid ruler of Egypt.. Ibn Sina's brother also became an Isma'ili. Ibn Sina himself resisted their calls to convert, accepting their teachings about the intellect ('aql) and the soul (nafs), but rejecting the dogma. He did follow his father in the study of the important Treatises of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa'). Later, his father sent him to a greengrocer, Mahmud Massahi, to study Indian arithmetic with him. It was at that time that a scholar, Abu 'Abdullah Husayn b. Ibrahim Tabari Natili, who claimed to be well-versed in philosophy, came to Bukhara. Ibn Sina's father provided Natili with accommodation, and Ibn Sina began studying philosophy with him at home. Ibn Sina had previously studied Islamic law (fiqh) under a scholar named Isma’il Zahid, being familiar with the polemical methods developed by the jurisprudents. Then, Ibn Sina studied Aristotle's prolegomenon to logic and made new discoveries in the course of his studies, going beyond his tutor’s competence, who tried to get the father to force his son to stick to rote learning.. Having learned the preliminaries of logic from Natili, the pupil was ready to go to a level of study outside his teacher’s domain. He, thus, turned to studying Aristotle’s Organon on his own, along with the commentaries on that work, until he gained a grasp of logic. He simultaneously studied something of Euclid's Elements with Natili, then proceeded to solve the geometrical problems on his own. He turned next to Ptolemy's Almagest with Natili, though by this time his tutor realized that it would be best for his pupil to take the initiative in doing the advance study. Ibn Sina went on to solve problems which were beyond Natili’s capacity. Natili left for Gurganj to visit the court of Abu 'Ali Ma'mun b. Muhammad Khwarazmshah. From then on Ibn Sina undertook the study of the texts and commentaries on physics and theology through his own enterprise; he then turned to medicine, mastering enough to practice. He carried on continuous research, experimenting with therapeutic methods. Simultaneously he continued his study of Islamic law, in which field he engaged in scholarly debates. Already at the age of 16 he was accepted in the company of learned physicians, working on various projects. When he was a callow 18, he healed the Samanid Nuh b. Mansur, the ruler of Khurasan, so that he was granted permission to make use of the ruler's excellent library. He became an authority in every field of study very quickly, becoming one of the most distinguished polymaths in history. He wrote his first philosophical work at the age of 20 at the behest of Abu al-Khayr 'Aruzi. After his father's death, he was given a similar administrative position at the age of 22, executing his duties with a dedication and wisdom, which impressed his contemporaries. The Samanid state was in decline at the time, and Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna easily captured Bukhara. Ibn Sina fled westward to Gurganj to the court of the Khwarazmshah 'Ali b. Ma'mun and his successor, Ma'mun b. Muhammad. When the Ghaznavid Mahmud conquered Khwarazm, he fled again, this time south to Nisa, Abiward, Tus, Gurgan and Dihistan, where Abu 'Ubayd Juzjani made his acquaintance, staying with him till the end. He went next to Rayy 1013 and to Qazwin the following year. Then he traveled to Hamadan, where he was appointed chief minister by the Daylamid ruler Shams al-Dawla. He was imprisoned for four months after Shams al-Dawla's death on the orders of his successor, Sama' al-Dawla. After his release, he traveled to Isfahan and was attached to 'Ala' al-Dawla Kakuya's court, where he taught and wrote some of his most imortant works. He lived for 14 years in peace at the Daylamid 'Ala' al-Dawla's court in Isfahan. Given his itinerant lifestyle, his sleepless all-night activity, and his inattentiveness to his health, he became afflicted with liver disorder, dying prematurely at the age of 57 while accompanying 'Ala' al-Dawla on a campaign in Hamadan, where he was buried. A mausoleum was erected for him on the occasion of the millennium anniversary of his birth.

Ibn Sina, as Avicenna, is renowned throughout the world, his works having been translated in many languages. The West first learned from him in the Middle Ages, when his writings were translated into Latin. Besides his medical and philosophical works, he also wrote important texts on astronomy, chemistry, physics, mathematics, music and natural sciences. He invented a kind of vernier (a precise measuring instrument) at the behest of 'Ala' al-Dawla for obtaining precise results in astronomical observations. In Khwarazm he was in contact with other great thinkers and scientists of the time, such as Abu Rayhan Biruni, Abu Sahl Masihi and Abu Nasr 'Iraq, and Ibn al-Khammar and Abu al-Faraj ibn al-Tabib were his contemporaries. His students included Abu al-Hasan Bahmanyar b. Marzuban, Ibn Zayla, Abu 'Abdullah Ma'sumi, and the aforementioned Juzjani. Ibn Sina was renowned as an authority in philosophy and medicine both East and West. His philosophy is a blend of Peripateticism and neo-Platonism along with an attempt to establish harmony between philosophy and Islamic doctrine.

Ibn Sina has some literary works, and there are poems, which have been attributed to him. His works include: al-Najat and al-Isharat wa 'l-tanbihat, both on logic and philosophy; al-Shifa' on theoretical philosophy; Danish-nama-yi 'Ala'i (in Persian) on philosophy; al-Mabda' wa’l-ma'ad; al-Qanun on medicine (which in its Latin version became the basic text on medicine in Europe until the 19^th century); Asbab al-huruf wa makharijuha on phonetics; al-Mawjaz al-kabir and al-Mawjaz al-saghir, both on logic; Risala Hayy ibn Yaqzan; al-Madkhal ila sina'at al-musiqi on music; and an important work on astronomy. 276 works have been attributed to him, the majority of which have been mentioned by Juzjani. 131 of these have been reliably established.

In the domain of philosophy in the Islamic and Iranian worlds his work on philosophy is probably the most comprehensive, taking into account the precedence of Aristotle and Plotinus amongst the Greeks and al-Kindi and Farabi amongst his Islamic predecessors. He did a seminal analysis the thought of Aristotle and his followers in his Shifa', which was translated into Latin and had a profound influence on St. Thomas Aquinas in his revolutionizing of Catholic doctrine.  In his effort to make philosophy and Islamic doctrine congruent, he faced the challenge of adjusting two conflicting viewpoints: on the one hand, the view that the world has no temporal beginning; and on the other, the view that the world had a beginning, and God brought it into existence ex nihilo. The approach he arrived at involved positing that the world was not created out of nothing but emanated out of divine existence, where he opined that even if a creation could be mooted, the world could never at any time be temporally distant from God. Despite his ingenious reasoning, he was still condemned by many doctrinarians as an infidel. Amongst his monumental works on philosophy the Shifa' stands out, with its four sections devoted to logic, physics, mathematics and metaphysics. Its impact on Islamic and, by extension, Christian thought is incalculable, as well as its being amongst the masterpieces of Iranian culture. His final years saw major departures in the realm of philosophical thinking, as in such works as the Hikmat al-mashriqiyya (‘Oriental Wisdom’), the preamble of which along with the section devoted to logic have survived, though the main section, treating of the exposition of this philosophy is no longer extant. The encyclopedic Qanun on medicine includes detailed accounts of human anatomy, wounds caused by surgical operations, and classification of pharmaceuticals and their use. Its Latin text constituted one of the earliest printed books in Europe. In his exposition natural sciences and mathematics are treated as branches of philosophy. He analyzed motion, force, vacuum, light, and heat in the light of his philosophy. In his well-known dialog with Biruni, he regarded as impossible the existence of vacuum and conversion of metals into each other. He also modified instruments and methods of astronomical observation, in which he participated. He provided detailed discussion on music in such works as the Shifa'. He was distinguished in Islamic-era Persia by his attention to children's education.

Asar-afarinan (1,11); Az Firdawsi ta Sa'di (152-157); A'yan al-Shi'a (6, 69-70); Buzurgan u sukhan-sarayan-i Hamadan (1, 148-149); Tarikh-i musiqi (1, 148-153); Tarikh-i falsafa dar Islam (1, 683-721); Da'irat al-ma'arif-i farsi (1, 34-35); Nama-yi danishvaran-i Nasiri (1, 89-146).