Previous   Next
Home » Images » 0065 Pictures From History » CPA0032226

Uzbekistan / Iran: Portrait of Avicenna / Ibn Sina impressed on a silver vase, Bu Ali Sina Mausoleum, Hamadan

Uzbekistan / Iran: Portrait of Avicenna / Ibn Sina impressed on a silver vase, Bu Ali Sina Mausoleum, Hamadan

Abu ʿAlī al-Husayn ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Sīna (c. 980, Afshana near Bukhara – 1037, Hamadan, Iran), commonly known as Ibn Sīna or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived. In particular, 150 of his surviving treatises concentrate on philosophy and 40 of them concentrate on medicine.

His most famous works are The Book of Healing, a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopaedia, and The Canon of Medicine, which was a standard medical text at many medieval universities. The Canon of Medicine was used as a text-book in the universities of Montpellier and Leuven as late as 1650. Ibn Sīna's Canon of Medicine provides a complete system of medicine according to the principles of Galen and Hippocrates.

His corpus also includes writing on philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, geology, psychology, Islamic theology, logic, mathematics, physics, as well as poetry. He is regarded as the most famous and influential polymath of the Islamic Golden Age.

Quick links to other images in this gallery: