Abu Ali al-Hussain Ibn Abdallah Ibn Sina was born in
980 A.D. at Afshaneh near Bukhara. The young Abu Ali received his early
education in Bukhara, and by the age of ten had become well versed in the study
of the Qur'an and various sciences. He started studying philosophy by reading
various Greek, Muslim and other books on this subject and learnt logic and some
other subjects from Abu Abdallah Natili, a famous philosopher of the time.
While still young, he attained such a degree of expertise in medicine that his
renown spread far and wide. At the age of 17, he was fortunate in curing Nooh
Ibn Mansoor, the King of Bukhhara, of an illness in which all the well-known
physicians had given up hope. On his recovery, the King wished to reward him,
but the young physician only desired permission to use his uniquely stocked
library.
By 21, he was also given an administrative post and
soon wrote his first book. Avicenna was now an established physician and
political administrator, professions he continued to practice in the courts of
various Iranian rulers, heads of the numerous successor states of Iran that
emerged during the disintegration of the Abbasid authority.
On his father's death, he left Bukhara and travelled
to Jurjan where Khawarizm Shah welcomed him. There, he met his famous
contemporary Abu Raihan al-Biruni.
Later he moved to Ray and then to Hamadan, where he
wrote his famous book Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb. Here he treated Shams
al-Daulah, the King of Hamadan, for severe colic. From Hamadan, he moved to
Isphahan, where he completed many of his monumental writings. Nevertheless, he
continued travelling and the excessive mental exertion as well as political
turmoil spoilt his health. Finally, he returned to Hamadan where he died in
1037 A.D.
He was the most famous physician, philosopher,
encyclopaedist, mathematician and astronomer of his time. His major
contribution to medical science was his famous book al-Qanun, known as the "Canon" in the West. The Qanun fi al-Tibb is an immense encyclo- paedia of medicine
extending over a million words. It surveyed the entire medical knowledge
available from ancient and Muslim sources. Due to its systematic approach,
"formal perfection as well as its intrinsic value, the Qanun superseded Razi's Hawi, Ali Ibn Abbas's Maliki, and even the works of Galen, and
remained supreme for six centuries". In addition to bringing together the
then available knowledge, the book is rich with the author's original
eontribution. His important original contribution includes such advances as
recognition of the contagious nature of phthisis and tuberculosis; distribution
of diseases by water and soil, and interaction between psychology and health.
In addition to describing pharmacological methods, the book described 760 drugs
and became the most authentic materia medica of the era. He was also the first
to describe meningitis and made rich contributions to anatomy, gynaecology and
child health.
Avicenna wrote 99 books, almost all in Arabic, the
language of religious and scientific expression in the entire Muslim world at
that time. However, two of his works, the `Daneshnameh-e-Alai' (Encylopedia of
philosophical sciences) and a small treatise on the pulse, were written in
Farsi, his native language. He wrote about natural philosophy and astronomy,
theology and metaphysics, medicine, psychology, music, mathematics and physical
sciences and he is also the reported author of Persian quatrains and short
poems:
"Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate I rose, and on the
Throne of Saturn sate, And many a knot unravelled by the Road, But not the
Master-knot of Human Fate."
His philosophical encyclopaedia Kitab al-Shifa was a monumental work, embodying a vast
field of knowledge from philosophy to science. He classified the entire field
as follows: theoretical knowledge: physics, mathematics and metaphysics; and
practical knowledge: ethics, economics and politics. His philosophy synthesises
Aristotelian tradition, Neoplatonic influences and Muslim theology.
Ibn Sina also contributed to mathematics, physics,
music and other fields. He explained the "casting out of nines" and
its applica- tion to the verification of squares and cubes. He made several
astronomical observations, and devised a contrivance similar to the vernier, to
increase the precision of instrumental readings. In physics, his contribution
comprised the study of different forms of energy, heat, light and mechanical,
and such concepts as force, vacuum and infinity. He made the important
observation that if the perception of light is due to the emission of some sort
of particles by the luminous source, the speed of light must be finite. He propounded
an interconnection between time and motion, and also made investigations on
specific gravity and used an air thermometer.
In the field of music, his contribution was an
improvement over Farabi's work and was far ahead of knowledge prevailing else-
where on the subject. Doubling with the fourth and fifth was a 'great' step
towards the harmonic system and doubling with the third seems to have also been
allowed. Ibn Sina observed that in the series of consonances represented by (n
+ 1)/n, the ear is unable to distinguish them when n = 45. In the field of
chemistry, he did not believe in the possibility of chemical transmutation
because, in his opinion, the metals differed in a fundamental sense. These
views were radically opposed to those prevailing at the time. His treatise on
minerals was one of the "main" sources of geology of the Christian
encyclopaedists of the thirteenth century. Besides Shifa his well-known treatises in philosophy are al-Najat and Isharat.
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