Avicenna (Ibn Sina): biography of the famous physician and philosopher

All of them have contributed impressively to world thought, offering very interesting reflections on the most varied topics they could talk about in their corresponding times.

• We recommend you read: “The 15 best philosophers of the Middle Ages (biography and theories)”

Who was Ibn Sina (Avicenna)?

However, whether due to cultural bias or simple carelessness, we forget that it is not only the West that has offered a thoughtful vision of how to see the world around us.

While Europe suffered a momentary but at the same time serious loss of Hellenistic knowledge, the Islamic civilization kept them treating them as the great treasures that they were, allowing them to be studied by the philosophers of the Muslim countries.

It is here that Ibn Sinah comes into the picture, called with the Latinized word of Avicenna, one of the greatest Islamic philosophers and great followers of Aristotelian thought, who laid the foundations for the philosophy of people much later than his time, such as Descartes.

Biography of Avicenna

Let’s see the interesting life of Avicenna, let’s learn about his great feats when he was just a child, as well as knowing the tense situation in which he had to live, becoming almost an exile in his own country.

Early Years

Avicenna, whose original name was Abū ‘Ali al-Husayn ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Ali ibn Sinā, was born in Afshana, present-day Uzbekistan, in the year 980. His father was a Sunni regional government official under the Samanid dynasty in the Great Khorasan.

Even as a child, the young Ibn Siná showed certain strengths that would be highlighted in later years. At just 10 years old, he memorized the entire Koran, in addition to learning Hindu arithmetic .

In later years he studied fiqh or Islamic law under the tutelage of the Sunni scholar Ismail al-Zahid. In addition, he had the opportunity to study the Isagoge of the Greek philosopher Porphyry, the Elements of Euclid and the Almagest of Claudius Ptolemy.

As a teenager, he had the opportunity to read, without fully understanding, Aristotle’s Metaphysics. In fact, Avicenna assured during his lifetime that he read this work more than 40 times without understanding what the Greek philosopher wanted to convey with it.

At 16, he began his studies in medicinetag. He not only learned theoretical knowledge about this discipline, but also had the opportunity to invent new methods and treatments while dealing with patients.

When he turned 18 years old, Avicenna already had a reputation for being a good doctor, which made him quite famous in Ancient Persia thanks to the fact that, in addition to caring for countless patients, he did not usually ask for financial reward for it.

Adult Life

Avicenna’s first great milestone was to treat the emir Nuh II, who was able to recover in 997 from a serious illness. As a reward, Avicenna had access to the royal Samanid library.

He was not able to enjoy his newly won privilege for long, as the library was burned down and, unfortunately for Avicenna, his enemies accused him of being the perpetrator of the fire. At the age of 22, Ibn Sina suffered the loss of his father. Added to this, the Samanid dynasty came to an end in 1004.

Due to this, he was forced to travel through the Persian territories in the face of the new political situation and the changes in the regime. In several cities he worked as a scholar as well as a poet, doctor, philosopher and scholar of multiple fields of knowledge of medieval Islamic society.

The political rivalries between the new leaders of the Persian emirates hung over Avicenna, who was arrested by one of them as an act of revenge and provocation towards the other.

Fortunately, Avicenna managed to escape and return to Isfahan, where he was warmly received by the new prince of the region.

Later life and death

The last decade of the Persian physician’s life was spent serving the Kakuyid ruler Muhammad ibn Rustam Dushmanziyar.

During these years, Avicenna suffered from increasingly strong colic, associated with his years in which he was constantly on the run in order to preserve his life.

Despite the fact that he was recommended, as a result of his new illness, to maintain a quiet lifestyle, he himself assured, more or less with these words, that he preferred to have a short and active life rather than a long but unexciting one .

He died in June 1037 in Hamadan, at the age of fifty-eight.

Constructions

Avicenna’s work is very extensive and covers the most varied topicstag. He studied practically everything that could be found in the Islamic countries of the Middle Ages: grammar, mysticism, music, religion, law, geometry… these are just a few of the knowledges that the famous Persian philosopher and scientist addressed.

Among all these topics, his visions of metaphysics and also of psychology stand out, which, in a certain way, represented an advance for his time, especially if his thought is related to that of a much later philosopher such as René Descartes.

Metaphysics

For Avicenna, the noblest science was theology. According to the philosopher’s thought, theology is the discipline that is responsible for the study of the necessary being: God. The rest of beings are not necessary, but contingent.

For Avicenna, God is a being who is very simple, perfect, ineffable and immutable, something that is uniqueand, therefore, indivisible and cannot be multiplied.

From here, and anticipating Cartesian thought, Avicenna maintains that God cannot conceive of himself in any other way than by existing.

The notion of being is the first that appears in the human mind, when we already begin to ask ourselves from our childhood the why of things. We perceive ourselves, therefore we exist.

Psychology

Avicenna was a notable scholar of Aristotelian thought, which is why his vision of psychology, understood in a more spiritual sense, leads him to Aristotle’s Treatise on the Soul. Avicenna understands the soul as the operating principle of an organized body. The soul is the perfection of something, and that something is the body itself.

However, Avicenna differs slightly from Aristotle in conceiving a somewhat Platonic vision of the soul , attributing priority to it over one’s own body.

For him, this was so because the body, regardless of whether it exists or not, necessarily needs a soul to be able to carry out such basic functions as nutrition or interaction, that is, what he called ‘acts of life’ .

In his work, the soul comes to acquire such a central role that there comes a time when he affirms that the ‘I’ and the soul are the same thing.

Also, Avicenna considered that a person can realize the existence of his own soul in an intuitive and immediate way, since human beings are capable of reflecting on ourselves, without the need to resort to the senses to reach this end.

As an example, the philosopher explains the case of the flying man: if we imagine a man who is flying, without touching the ground, without seeing or hearing, although he does not receive any sensory stimulation, he will know that he exists and will be aware of it.

Along the same lines as Aristotelian thought, Avicenna chooses to divide the human soul into three species, based on the operations it carries out: vegetative, sensitive and rational .

The vegetative soul is in charge of the most basic in physiological terms, such as nutrition, reproduction and growth. The sensitive part is responsible for perception and movement, while the third is more related to cognitive abilities and will.

Bibliographic references

• Adamson, P. & Taylor, R. C. (2005.), The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
• Bertolacci, A., (2006) The Reception of Aristotle’s Metaphysics in Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifā’, Brill, Leiden,.
• Gutas, D., (1988) Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Introduction to Reading Avicenna’s Philosophical Works, Brill, Leiden,.
• Hasse, D. (2000), Avicenna’s De Anima in the Latin West, Warburg Institute, London,
• Wisnovsky, R. (2001.), Aspects of Avicenna, Markus Weiner Press, Princeton.