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Query: When did Avicenna live?
Avicenna (/ˌævɪˈsɛnə/; also Ibn Sīnā or Abu Ali Sina; Persian: ابن سینا‎; c.980– June 1037) was a Persian[4][5][6] polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, thinkers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age.[7] He has been described as the father of early modern medicine.[8][9][10] Of the 450 works he is known to have written, around 240 have survived, including 150 on philosophy and 40 on medicine.[11]
The Mausoleum of Avicenna is a complex located at Avicenna Square, Hamadan, Iran.
Avicenna was born in Afsanah at 980, a village near Bukhara. His father counted as ruler of a region by the name of keramaytan. Avicenna along with his family after moving to Bukhara, continued his studies. According to Nasr, Avicenna had many teachers including Nātelī physicians Abū Manṣūr Qomrī and Abū Sahl Masīḥī. Avicenna wrote nearly 250 works on diverse sciences in medieval period including long and short treatises such as the Daneshnameh Alaei (The Book of Science Dedicated to 'Alii' al-Dawlah). Avicenna wrote Isharat when he was under the criticism of certain literary scholars, showing his skill in Arabic language by a philosophy book as Isharat. Nasr refers to the book of Isharat as the last and greatest masterpiece of Avicenna.
In terms of cosmology, according to Davidson (p. 82) "Avicenna's universe has a structure virtually identical with the structure of Alfarabi's" but there are differences in details. As in Al Farabi, there are several levels of intellect, intelligence or "nous", each of the higher ones being associated with a celestial sphere. Avicenna however details three different types of effect which each of these higher intellects has, each "thinks" both the necessary existence and the possible being of the intelligence one level higher. And each "emanates" downwards the body and soul of its own celestial sphere, and also the intellect at the next lowest level. The active intellect, as in Alfarabi, is the last in the chain. Avicenna sees active intellect as the cause not only of intelligible thought and the forms in the "sublunar" world we people live, but also the matter. (In other words, three effects.)
Avicenna, similarly, did early work in the treatment of nafs-related illnesses, and developed a system for associating changes in the pulse rate with inner feelings. Avicenna also described phenomena we now recognize as neuropsychiatric conditions, including hallucination, insomnia, mania, nightmare, melancholia, dementia, epilepsy, paralysis, stroke, vertigo and tremor.[14]
In his philosophical writings, Averroes attempted to return to Aristotelianism, which according to him had been distorted by the Neoplatonist tendencies of Muslim philosophers such as Al-Farabi and Avicenna. He rejected al-Farabi's attempt to merge the ideas of Plato and Aristotle's, pointing out the difference between the two, such as Aristotle's rejection of Plato's theory of ideas. He also criticized Al-Farabi's works on logic for misinterpreting its Aristotelian source. He wrote an extensive critique of Avicenna, who was the standard-bearer of Islamic Neoplatonism in the Middle Ages. He argued that Avicenna's theory of emanation had many fallacies and was not found in the works of Aristotle. Averroes disagreed with Avicenna's view that existence is merely an accident added to essence, arguing the reverse; something exists "per se" and essence can only be found by subsequent abstraction. He also rejected Avicenna's modality and Avicenna's argument to prove the existence of God as the Necessary Existent.
Avicenna's astronomical writings had some influence on later writers, although in general his work could be considered less developed than Alhazen or Al-Biruni. One important feature of his writing is that he considers mathematical astronomy as a separate discipline to astrology.[92] He criticized Aristotle's view of the stars receiving their light from the Sun, stating that the stars are self-luminous, and believed that the planets are also self-luminous.[93] He claimed to have observed Venus as a spot on the Sun. This is possible, as there was a transit on May 24, 1032, but Avicenna did not give the date of his observation, and modern scholars have questioned whether he could have observed the transit from his location at that time; he may have mistaken a sunspot for Venus. He used his transit observation to help establish that Venus was, at least sometimes, below the Sun in Ptolemaic cosmology,[92] i.e. the sphere of Venus comes before the sphere of the Sun when moving out from the Earth in the prevailing geocentric model.[94][95]
Abu ubaid al juzjani was a famous pupil of Avicenna. He spent many years with his master in Isfahan, becoming his lifetime companion. After Avicenna's death, he completed Avicenna's autobiography with a concluding section. He and the other students of Avicenna continued teaching in Avicenna's school in Isfahan.
Some orientalists (or those particularly influenced by Thomist scholarship) argued that Avicenna was the first to view existence ("wujud") as an accident that happens to the essence ("mahiyya"). However, this aspect of ontology is not the most central to the distinction that Avicenna established between essence and existence. One cannot therefore make the claim that Avicenna was the proponent of the concept of essentialism "per se", given that existence ("al-wujud") when thought of in terms of necessity would ontologically translate into a notion of the "Necessary-Existent-due-to-Itself" ("wajib al-wujud bi-dhatihi"), which is without description or definition and, in particular, without quiddity or essence ("la mahiyya lahu"). Consequently, Avicenna's ontology is 'existentialist' when accounting for being–"qua"–existence in terms of necessity ("wujub"), while it is essentialist in terms of thinking about being–"qua"–existence in terms of "contingency–"qua"–possibility" ("imkan" or "mumkin al-wujud", meaning "contingent being").
Some of the principles of astrology were refuted by several medieval Islamic astronomers such as Al-Farabi (Alpharabius), Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), Avicenna, Abu Rayhan al-Biruni and Averroes. Their reasons for refuting astrology were often due to both scientific (the methods used by astrologers being conjectural rather than empirical) and religious (conflicts with orthodox Islamic scholars) reasons. However these refutations mainly concerned the judicial branches of astrology rather than the natural principles of it. For example, Avicenna's refutation of astrology (in the treatise titled "Resāla fī ebṭāl aḥkām al-nojūm", Treatise against the rulings of the stars) revealed support for its overarching principles. He stated that it was true that each planet had some influence on the earth, but his argument was the difficulty of astrologers being able to determine the exact effect of it. In essence, Avicenna did not refute astrology, but denied man’s limited capacity to be able to know the precise effects of the stars on the sublunar matter. With that, he did not refute the essential dogma of astrology, but only refuted our ability to fully understand it.
In the “Commentary of the anatomy of the Canon of Avicenna”, human anatomy experts such as Patrice Le Floch-Prigent and Dominique Delaval, concluded that Ibn al-Nafis used clinical, physiological, and dissection results were used in discovering and describing the pulmonary heart circulation in humans. Through their study on the “Commentary of the anatomy of the Canon of Avicenna”, they both concluded that Nafis did indeed used dissection to acquire his results, even though the practice of dissection was banned in Muslim tradition.
Avicenna International College – AIC – (Hungarian: Avicenna Nemzetközi Kollégium) was founded in 1995 by Dr. Shahrokh MirzaHosseini and has been in operation as a preparatory college for higher education since 2000.
A number of theories have been proposed regarding Avicenna's madhab (school of thought within Islamic jurisprudence). Medieval historian Ẓahīr al-dīn al-Bayhaqī (d. 1169) considered Avicenna to be a follower of the Brethren of Purity.[34] On the other hand, Dimitri Gutas along with Aisha Khan and Jules J. Janssens demonstrated that Avicenna was a Sunni Hanafi.[26][34] However, the 14th century Shia faqih Nurullah Shushtari according to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, maintained that he was most likely a Twelver Shia.[35] Conversely, Sharaf Khorasani, citing a rejection of an invitation of the Sunni Governor Sultan Mahmoud Ghazanavi by Avicenna to his court, believes that Avicenna was an Ismaili.[36] Similar disagreements exist on the background of Avicenna's family, whereas some writers considered them Sunni, some more recent writers contested that they were Shia.[26]
Avicenna often used psychological methods to treat his patients. One such example is when a prince of Persia had melancholia and suffered from the delusion that he is a cow, and who would moo like a cow crying "Kill me so that a good stew may be made of my flesh" and would never eat anything. Avicenna was persuaded to the case and sent a message to the patient, asking him to be happy as the butcher was coming to slaughter him, and the sick man rejoiced. When Avicenna approached the prince with a knife in his hand, he asked "where is the cow so I may kill it." The patient then mooed like a cow to indicate where he was. "By order of the butcher, the patient was also laid on the ground for slaughter." When Avicenna approached the patient pretending to slaughter him, he said, "the cow is too lean and not ready to be killed. He must be fed properly and I will kill it when it becomes healthy and fat." The patient was then offered food which he ate eagerly and gradually "gained strength, got rid of his delusion, and was completely cured."
Liber Aboali Abincine de Anima in arte Alchemiae was the most influential, having influenced later medieval chemists and alchemists such as Vincent of Beauvais. However Anawati argues (following Ruska) that the de Anima is a fake by a Spanish author. Similarly the Declaratio is believed not to be actually by Avicenna. The third work (The Book of Minerals) is agreed to be Avicenna's writing, adapted from the Kitab al-Shifa (Book of the Remedy).[99] Ibn Sina classified minerals into stones, fusible substances, sulfurs, and salts, building on the ideas of Aristotle and Jabir.[100] The epistola de Re recta is somewhat less sceptical of alchemy; Anawati argues that it is by Avicenna, but written earlier in his career when he had not yet firmly decided that transmutation was impossible.[99]
The theory of motion presented by Avicenna was probably influenced by the 6th-century Alexandrian scholar John Philoponus. Avicenna's is a less sophisticated variant of the theory of impetus developed by Buridan in the 14th century. It is unclear if Buridan was influenced by Avicenna, or by Philoponus directly.[84]
In the "Al-Burhan" ("On Demonstration") section of the book, Avicenna discussed the philosophy of science and described an early scientific method of inquiry. He discusses Aristotle's "Posterior Analytics" and significantly diverged from it on several points. Avicenna discussed the issue of a proper methodology for scientific inquiry and the question of "How does one acquire the first principles of a science?" He asked how a scientist would arrive at "the initial axioms or hypotheses of a deductive science without inferring them from some more basic premises?" He explains that the ideal situation is when one grasps that a "relation holds between the terms, which would allow for absolute, universal certainty." Avicenna then adds two further methods for arriving at the first principles: the ancient Aristotelian method of induction ("istiqra"), and the method of examination and experimentation ("tajriba"). Avicenna criticized Aristotelian induction, arguing that "it does not lead to the absolute, universal, and certain premises that it purports to provide." In its place, he develops a "method of experimentation as a means for scientific inquiry."
An early formal system of temporal logic was studied by Avicenna.[74] Although he did not develop a real theory of temporal propositions, he did study the relationship between temporalis and the implication.[75] Avicenna's work was further developed by Najm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī al-Kātibī and became the dominant system of Islamic logic until modern times.[76][77] Avicennian logic also influenced several early European logicians such as Albertus Magnus[78] and William of Ockham.[79][80] Avicenna endorsed the law of noncontradiction proposed by Aristotle, that a fact could not be both true and false at the same time and in the same sense of the terminology used. He stated, "Anyone who denies the law of noncontradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned."[81]
As early as the 13th century when Dante Alighieri depicted him in Limbo alongside the virtuous non-Christian thinkers in his Divine Comedy such as Virgil, Averroes, Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucan, Socrates, Plato, and Saladin. Avicenna has been recognized by both East and West, as one of the great figures in intellectual history.
Avicenna made an argument for the existence of God which would be known as the "Proof of the Truthful" (Arabic: al-burhan al-siddiqin). Avicenna argued that there must be a "necessary existent" (Arabic: wajib al-wujud), an entity that cannot not exist[52] and through a series of arguments, he identified it with the Islamic conception of God.[53] Present-day historian of philosophy Peter Adamson called this argument one of the most influential medieval arguments for God's existence, and Avicenna's biggest contribution to the history of philosophy.[52]
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Some "orientalists" (or those particularly influenced by Thomist scholarship) argued that Avicenna was the first to view existence ("wujud") as an accident that happens to the essence ("mahiyya"). However, this aspect of ontology is not the most central to the distinction that Avicenna established between essence and existence. One cannot therefore make the claim that Avicenna was the proponent of the concept of essentialism "per se", given that existence ("al-wujud") when thought of in terms of necessity would ontologically translate into a notion of the "Necessary-Existent-due-to-Itself" ("wajib al-wujud bi-dhatihi"), which is without description or definition, and particularly without quiddity or essence ("la mahiyya lahu"). Consequently, Avicenna's ontology is 'existentialist' when accounting for being qua existence in terms of necessity ("wujub"), while it is 'essentialist' in terms of thinking about being qua existence ("wujud") in terms of contingency qua possibility ("imkan"; or "mumkin al-wujud": contingent being).
The theories of Averroes and Avicenna had a great influence on the later theory of Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274). Aquinas never doubted the Aristotelian theory of individuation by matter, but was uncertain which of the theories of Avicenna or Averroes are correct. He first accepted the theory of Avicenna that the principle of individuation is matter designated ("signata") by determinate dimensions, but later abandoned this in favour of the Averroist theory that it is matter affected by unterminated dimension which is the principle. Later still, he seems to have returned to the first theory when he wrote the "Quodlibeta".
At 22 years old, Avicenna lost his father. The Samanid dynasty came to its end in December 1004. Avicenna seems to have declined the offers of Mahmud of Ghazni, and proceeded westwards to Urgench in modern Turkmenistan, where the vizier, regarded as a friend of scholars, gave him a small monthly stipend. The pay was small, however, so Ibn Sina wandered from place to place through the districts of Nishapur and Merv to the borders of Khorasan, seeking an opening for his talents. Qabus, the generous ruler of Tabaristan, himself a poet and a scholar, with whom Ibn Sina had expected to find asylum, was on about that date (1012) starved to death by his troops who had revolted. Avicenna himself was at this time stricken by a severe illness. Finally, at Gorgan, near the Caspian Sea, Avicenna met with a friend, who bought a dwelling near his own house in which Avicenna lectured on logic and astronomy. Several of his treatises were written for this patron; and the commencement of his Canon of Medicine also dates from his stay in Hyrcania.[33]
Avicenna was born c.980 in Afshana, a village near Bukhara (in present-day Uzbekistan), the capital of the Samanids, a Persian dynasty in Central Asia and Greater Khorasan. His mother, named Sitāra, was from Bukhara;[24] his father, Abdullāh, was a respected Ismaili[25] scholar from Balkh, an important town of the Samanid Empire, in what is today Balkh Province, Afghanistan.[26] His father worked in the government of Samanid in the village Kharmasain, a Sunni regional power. After five years, his younger brother, Mahmoud, was born. Avicenna first began to learn the Quran and literature in such a way that when he was ten years old he had essentially learned all of them.[27]