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Avicenna (Ibn Sina) 980-1037 | |
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Persian philosopher and physician, one of the main interpreters of Aristotle to the Islamic world. Avicenna wrote prolifically on science, religion, and philosophy, but many of his works have been lost. His best-known books include the million-word Al-Qānūn fī al-ṭibb (The Canon of Medicine), a systematic synthesis of the medical and pharmacological knowledge of his time. It was used as a textbook in the Middle East and, through Latin translations, in Europe for several hundred years. Avicenna's medical poem al-Urjuzah fi'l-tibb (Poem on Medicine), survived in Arabic and Latin and was widely read in Europe. "He who has white hair has a cold temperament; the hair of the warm temperament is black; he who is less cold will have tawny hair; he who is less warm will have reddish hair; the one with a balanced temperament has tawny hair mixed with red." (from Avicenna's Poem on Medicine, edited and translated by Haven C. Krueger, with a foreword by Ralph H. Major, Charles C. Thomas, 1963, p. 18) Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina, know in the West as Avicenna, was born in Afshana, near Bukhara (now in Uzbekistan), the son of a provincial governor. In his childhood Avicenna made so rapid a progress in learning, that several tutors were engaged to instruct him until he surpassed his teachers. According to his autobiography, he had known by heart the Koran at the age of ten and at eighteen he had mastered mathematics, logic and physics. Avicenna's native language was Farsi (Persian), but the language of his education was Arabic. While still in his teens, Avicenna served as the court
physician to Samanid ruler Nuh Ibn Mansur. Bukhara was the capital of
Samanid dynasty, a cultured cosmopolitan city with a large royal
library. "I found there," he said, "several rooms filled with books,
which were arranged in cases, row upon row. One room was devoted to
works on Arabic philology and poetry, another to jurisprudence and so
forth . . . I inspected the catalog of ancient [Greek] authors and
looked for the books I wanted; I saw in this collection books which few
people have ever heard and of which I myself have never seen elsewhere,
neither before or since." (Books on Fire: The Destruction of Libraries Throughout History by Lucien X. Polastron, 2007, p. 65) When the library burned down, a story
was created that Avicenna had personally set the fire
in order to prevent anyone else from becoming as learned as he
was. Avicenna devoured works of Greek philosophers and
mathematicians, including Aristotle's Metaphysics, which he read forty times and could recite it by heart, but its
importance opened to him after he read Intentions of Aristotle's
Metaphysics, an essay by al-Farabi (870-950), whom he referred as
the Second Teacher, the first being Aristotle. The
book taught him the meaning of seeing the nature of being as such.
In his own works Avicenna combined Aristotleanism and Neoplatonic
tradition with Islamic theology. His later writings showed Gnostic,
Hermeneutic and mystical tendencies, as exemplified in The Book of Admonitions. Noteworthy, Avicenna did not
produce commentaries on Aristotle, like other philosophers used to do,
but devoted himself in writing original treatises. It has been said, that Avicenna composed many of his philsophical treatises on horseback. He had an unmatched ability to shut off the world around him and be absorbed in thinking. Avicenna did not devote all his time to intellectual pursuits. "He was not a saitly character," said Bertrand Russell, "in fact he had a passion for wine and women. He was suspect to the orthodox, but was befriended by princes on account of his medical skill. At times he got into trouble owing to the hostility of Turkish mercenaries; sometimes he was in hiding, sometimes in prison." (A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, Simon & Schuster, 2008, p. 424) Avicenna's career at the court did not last long, as the
dynasty was defeated in 999 by Mahmud of Ghazna, the legendary Turkish
conqueror. Much of his life Avicenna spent travelling from court to
court in Persia, avoiding the grip of the expansive Ghaznavid rule. From Gurgan, where Avicenna met his lifetime companion Abu
Ubaid al-Juzjani (980-1037), he moved to Rayy, near modern
Teheran, and then to Hamadhan. At one point he became the vizier or prime minister to Shams
al-Dawla of the Shii Buyid dynasty. Personally they got along well. During this period Avicenna wrote Kitāb al-shifā (The
Book of the Cure, Healing, or Remedy from Ignorance) and Al-Qānūn fī al-ṭibb,
which followed in its
basic conceptions Galen and the theory of the four elements. "The
elements are the constitutive factors of Bodies. The opinion of
Hippocrates on the subject of the elements is accurate;
there are four of them: water, fire, earth, air. The proof of the
accuracy of this notion is that after death, the body returns to them
through necessity. Moreover, if it were composed of only a single
element, one would not know how to observe any living being touched by
illness." (Avicenna's Poem on Medicine, p. 15) The
Book of Healing,
which was divided into four main parts, on logic, physics, mathematics,
and metaphysics, is often said to be the longest book ever written by a
single author. Avicenna's medical treatises were based principally his
own clinical experience. "When you do not know the nature of a malady,"
he adviced, "leave it to the Nature; do not strive to hasten matters.
For either Nature will bring about the cure or it will itself reveal
clearly what the malady really is." (The Canon of Medicine, translated by O. Cameron Gruner, AMS Press, 1929, p. 468) After
Shams al-Dawlah died in 1021, Avicenna refused to continue his
administrative duties, and went into hiding. However, his whereabouts
were discovered, and he was imprisoned for four months in a castle
known as Fardajan. From Hamadhan he traveled to Esfahan (Isfahan).
There he spent the last
14 years of his life, served as physician and adviser to the local
ruler, Ala al-Dawla, and wrote most of his nearly 200 treatises. He was
a favorite of the court. Avicenna died of a colic attack in Hamadhan at the age of fifty-eight. Just before his
death he freed his slaves. Avicenna had accompanied Ala al-Dawla on
a campaing, but this time his physical strength failed due to colic and
exhaustion. Trying to rush his recovery, he took eight enemas a single
day (Avicenna by Lenn E. Goodman, Updated Edition, Cornell University Press, 2006, pp.
43-44). According to some sources Avicenna died of excessive
indulgence in wine and sex. His drinking Avicenna justified on the
ground that he was a Hanafite. Whether he had a wife and children
remains unknown. Juzjani wrote that "the master was vigorous in all his
powers, the sexual being the most powerful and predominant of his
concupiscent faculties, and he indulged it often." (Ibid., p. 43) Dante included Avicenna in Inferno (Canto IV) in the first circle of Hell with great pagan scientists and writers: Of qualities I saw the good collector, Until the end of the twelfth century, Arab civilization had a
clear lead in the medical, scientific, mathematical and philosophical
learning. The West had nobody to compare with Avicenna or the great
polymats of the previous generations, Al-Kindi (c.812-873) and
Al-Farabi (c.870-950). The Canon of Medicine
was
translated in the West by a
variety of scholars, such as John of Seville and Dominicus
Jundissalinus. Although Avicenna influenced a number of Muslim, Jewish,
and Western thinkers, his thoughts were also much criticized. Paracelsus allegedly burned a copy of the Canon of Medicine in 1527, to demonstrate his rejection of the traditional authorities. The Qānūn was used at the University of Montpellier until the 1540s. In his
later years Avicenna tried to alter perception of Islamic speculative
theology (kalam), so that it would be treated as a demonstrative
science. Most of his work on this subject have been lost.
Avicenna wrote some four hundred fifty books, about half
of which still exists. Avicenna divided beings into necessary, possible, and
impossible. One of Avicenna's major contributions to philosophy is his
distinction between essence and existence. It was adopted by Christiand
and Muslim philosophers alike. Avicenna's rational proof of the
existence of
God became standard among philosophers in both Judaism and Islam. It
was based on reasoning with the essential distinction between
contingent
and necessary existence. Avicenna's conclusion was that there must be a
Necessary Being, namely God, an Uncaused Being at the top of the
hierarchy of being. Below God, there are ten cosmic intellects. God is
the ultimate cause of all other things. St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae drew directly on Avicennian metaphysical principles. Contradicting Islamic orthodoxy, Avicenna held that only the soul, not the body, is immortal; only human beings have the rational soul. Moreover, Avicenna insisted on the eternity of the world – he did not accept creation by God ex nihilo, the universe has always existed. Thus he became the major target in the Muslim theologian al-Ghazali's book Incoherence of the Philosophers. Al-Ghazali (d. 1111) saw that the Muslim Neoplatonists were in many questions in conflict with the fundamentals of religion. Opposed their arguments of the eternity of the world, al-Ghazali stated that God's powers are infinite and He can bring the world into being or cause it to cease to exists as He pleases. After Al-Ghazali's attack on the philosophers, and determination to demolish Peripatetic (Aristotelian) school, Avicenna's thoughts were viewed with suspicion. At the European universities his books became a part of the curriculum, but not at the madrasahs of the Islamic world. However, in the Farsi-speaking area Avicenna influenced the Illuminationist school of Sufism. The Spanish-Arab philosopher Averroes
(1126-98) criticized al-Farabi, Avicenna, and their followers for distorting the teachings of the ancients in the science of
metaphysics – Avicenna was not faithful enough to Aristotle.
Averroes considered Avicenna's claim that the world is both possible
and eternal self-contradictory. Until 1927, Avicenna's alchemical text, De Mineralibus
(On Metals), was ascribed to Aristotle, but Holmyard and D.C.
Mandeville showed that it originated from Avicenna's Kitāb al-shifā. He accepted the sulphur-mercury theory of metals, basic in alchemy, but when his contemporaries believed
that
transmutation of the metals was possible, Avicenna was certain that an
alchemists cannot make improvements on nature, it was also logically
impossible, but only produce
imitations. ". . . there is no way of splitting up one metallic
combination into another. Those properties that are perceived by the
sense are probably not the differences which distinguish one metallic
species from another, but rather accidents or consequences, the
essential specific differences being unkown. And if a thing is unknown,
how is it possible for any one to endeavour to produce it or to destroy
it?" (The Philosopher's Stone: A Quest for the Secrets of Alchemy by Peter Marshall, Pan Books, 2002, p. 231) In the West Avicenna's doubts were
ignored (most likely, Roger Bacon took the sulphur-mercury theory directly from him), Latin translators tactfully omitted his arguments, and Avicenna was
celebrated as one of the forerunners of the Hermetic art. As a scientist Avicenna did not hesitate to try to prove his theories by experimental studies, when he was unconvinced by what other scientists had claimed in their works. He made observations of the stars and prepared astronomical tables. Like Aristotle, he believed that earthquakes are caused by winds. (Avicenna: His Life And Works by Soheil M. Afnan, George Allen & Unwin, 1958, p. 222) The earliest decades of his life Avicenna chronicled in his autobiography. Al-Juzjani wrote a sketch of Avicenna's life. The first book-length study specially devoted to Avicenna's metaphysics was Amélie-Marie Goichon's La distinction de l'essence et de l'existence d'après Ibn Sina (Avicenne) (1937). For further reading: Avicennas Bearbeitung der aristotelischen Metaphysik by Constantin Sauter (1912); Arabian Medicine by Edward G. Browne (1921); A Treatise on the Canon of Medicine of Avicenna by Oskar Camerson Gruner (1930); Avicenna: Scientist and Philosopher by G.M. Wickens (1952); Avicenna by Hermann Ley (1953); Avicenna: His Life and Works by Soheil M. Afnan (1958); Avicenna and the Visionary Recital by Henry Corbin (1960); Avicenna und die aristotelische Linke by Ernst Bloch (1963); Metaphysica of Avicenna by Parviz Morewedge (1973); Avicenna's Commentary on the Poetics of Aristotle: A Critical Study with an Annotated Translation of the Text by Ismail M. Dahiyat (1974); The Life of Ibn Sina; A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation by William E. Gohlman (1974); Avicenna on Theology by by Arthur J. Arberry (1979); Avicenna, Grundleger einer neuen Metaphysik by Gérard Verbeke (1983); Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Introduction to Reading Avicenna's Philosophical Works by Dimitri Gutas (1988); Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes on Intellect by Herbert A Davidson (1992); Allegory and Philosophy in Avicenna by Heath, Peter Heath (1992); Avicenna's Metaphysics in Context by Robert Wisnovsky (2003); Avicenna by Lenn Evan Goodman (2006); Avicenna (Ibn Sina): Leading Physician and Philosopher-scientist of the Islamic Golden Age by Bridget Lim and Aisha Khan (2016); The Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin Reception of Avicenna's Physics and Cosmology, edited by Dag Nikolaus Hasse and Amos Bertolacci (2018); Analytic Philosophy and Avicenna: Knowing the Unknown by Mohammad Azadpur (2020); Revisiting Ibn Sina's (Avicenna) Heritage, edited by Kadircan H. Keskinbora (2021); Ibn Sina and Mulla Sadra: On the Rediscovery of Aristotle and the School of Isfahan by Reza Hajatpour und Maha el Kaisy-Friemuth (2021); Subject, Definition, Activity: Framing Avicenna's Science of the Soul by Tommaso Alpina (2021); Philosophising the Occult: Avicennan Psychology and "The Hidden Secret" of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī by Michael-Sebastian Noble (2021); Avicenna on the Necessity of the Actual: His Interpretation of Four Aristotelian Arguments by Celia Kathryn Hatherly (2022); The Eudaimonist Ethics of al-Fārābī and Avicenna by Janne Mattila (2022); Science of the Soul in Ibn Sina's Pointers and Reminders: A Philological Study by Michael A. Rapoport (2023); The Genius of Their Age: Ibn Sina, Biruni and the Lost Enlightenment by S. Frederick Starr (2023); Islamic Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity: Leo Strauss's Relationship with al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes by Georges Tamer; translated by Ezra Tzfadya (2024); At the Roots of Causality: Ontology and Aetiology from Avicenna to Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī by Francesco Omar Zamboni (2024) Editions:
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