Avicenna Biography Quotes 6 Report mistakes

Origins and Early Education
Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abdullah ibn Sina, known in Latin as Avicenna, was born around 980 near Bukhara in the region often identified with Persian lands. Accounts preserved by his close companion Abu Ubayd al-Juzjani describe a precocious youth who mastered the Quran and the elements of literature and law by early adolescence. He then turned to mathematics, logic, and natural science. A scholar named Abu Abdallah al-Natili stayed in the family home for a time and introduced him to logic and philosophy. Avicenna quickly surpassed his teacher, working through Euclid and Ptolemy, studying medicine, and reading Aristotle so persistently that he later said he grasped the Metaphysics only after consulting a commentary attributed to al-Farabi.

At the Samanid Court and Access to Knowledge
The Samanid emir Nuh ibn Mansur, known as Nuh II, ruled in Bukhara during Avicenna's youth. Juzjani reports that Avicenna was summoned to attend the ruler during illness, and, having rendered successful assistance, was granted access to the royal library. That library contained rare manuscripts of philosophy and science and proved decisive for his formation. The collapse of the Samanid dynasty at the end of the tenth century scattered scholars and patrons across Central Asia and Iran, setting the stage for Avicenna's itinerant career.

Wandering Scholar and Public Servant
After the fall of the Samanids, Avicenna moved among the courts of Khwarazm, Rayy, Hamadan, and eventually Isfahan. In Gurganj he joined a circle that included the physician Abu Sahl al-Masihi and, in the wider region, the astronomer and polymath Abu Rayhan al-Biruni. Surviving letters attest to an intellectual exchange between Avicenna and al-Biruni on astronomy, physics, and methodology.

From Khwarazm he traveled west to Rayy, where he served as a physician during the reign of the Buyid prince Majd al-Dawla and under the authority of the prince's mother, Sayyida Shirin. He then moved to Hamadan and entered the service of the Buyid ruler Shams al-Dawla, at first as a physician and later, for a period, as vizier. Court politics were perilous; he fell from favor, was imprisoned, and then released. Juzjani recounts his dramatic departure from Hamadan in disguise to avoid further entanglements.

Isfahan Period and Literary Production
Avicenna found a more stable patron in Ala al-Dawla Muhammad, the Kakuyid ruler of Isfahan. There he enjoyed sustained support for scholarship, teaching, and writing. He composed and revised a large corpus, dictating portions to Juzjani, who served as secretary, editor, and later custodian of the texts. For Ala al-Dawla he prepared the Danishnama-yi Alai, a concise encyclopedia in Persian. He also continued work on his vast Arabic summa, the Kitab al-Shifa, and produced more compact treatises such as al-Najat and the late, aphoristic al-Isharat wa al-Tanbihat.

Works and Ideas
As a physician, Avicenna wrote the Canon of Medicine, an ambitious synthesis of Greco-Arabic medical learning organized into five books. It systematized anatomy and physiology as understood in his day, surveyed materia medica and compound remedies, and set out diagnostic and therapeutic rules. The Canon circulated widely in the Islamic world and, through translation into Latin by Gerard of Cremona, became a standard medical text in medieval Europe.

As a philosopher, he sought to harmonize Aristotelian philosophy with insights drawn from late antique Platonism and his own analysis. In metaphysics he formulated a distinction between essence and existence and argued that contingent beings require a Necessary Existent as the ultimate ground of being. His proofs for the Necessary Existent, his account of emanation, and his discussion of divine knowledge profoundly shaped later debates. In psychology he developed the famous floating or flying man thought experiment to show the soul's immediate self-awareness, supporting the claim that the human soul is immaterial and subsistent. In logic he extended the analysis of modalities, examined conditional propositions, and refined syllogistic structures, providing tools that influenced subsequent logicians across languages.

Avicenna's scientific writings range across astronomy, physics, and music theory. He discussed motion, causality, and the nature of time, often recasting Aristotelian doctrines with new distinctions. He also authored essays on ethics, politics, and the nature of love, presenting a vision in which intellectual perfection and moral cultivation are intertwined.

Circle of Associates and Correspondence
Juzjani remains the principal source for Avicenna's life and the arranger of several texts, preserving drafts and revisions after the author's death. Abu Sahl al-Masihi, earlier a close companion, influenced his medical and philosophical outlook. In Khwarazm and beyond, exchanges with al-Biruni set benchmarks for rigorous argument, with each thinker pressing the other on empirical and logical grounds. Among Avicenna's students, Bahmanyyar ibn Marzban is notable for distilling his teacher's philosophy in a systematic compendium. In later generations Nasir al-Din al-Tusi wrote a major commentary on al-Isharat, defending Avicenna's positions against critiques by thinkers such as Fakhr al-Din al-Razi.

Later Years and Death
Despite the relative calm of Isfahan, politics continued to intrude. Avicenna accompanied Ala al-Dawla on campaigns and administrative journeys. While traveling, he suffered bouts of colic. Juzjani reports that he undertook an aggressive self-treatment that weakened him. He died around 1037 in Hamadan, where he was buried. His passing closed a life marked by service at courts, relentless study, and prodigious literary output.

Transmission and Legacy
Avicenna's reputation spread quickly beyond his homeland. In the Islamic world, theologians such as al-Ghazali scrutinized and criticized the metaphysical doctrines of philosophers, with Avicenna's positions often at center stage. Yet his medical writings and logical works remained authoritative, and philosophers engaged his system for centuries. In the Latin West, translations by figures like Gerard of Cremona and Dominicus Gundissalinus carried the Canon and portions of his philosophical corpus into university curricula. Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus, among others, grappled with Avicenna's essence-existence distinction, his account of the soul, and his demonstration of the Necessary Existent, adopting and revising elements within a Christian framework.

His legacy is that of a Persian polymath whose synthesis of medicine, logic, and metaphysics set standards for systematic inquiry. The web of patrons and colleagues around him, Nuh II, Majd al-Dawla, Sayyida Shirin, Shams al-Dawla, Ala al-Dawla, Abu Sahl al-Masihi, al-Biruni, Juzjani, and Bahmanyyar, shaped his opportunities and preserved his achievements. Through them and through the vast manuscript tradition, Avicenna's works continued to animate philosophical and scientific discussion well beyond his lifetime.

Our collection contains 6 quotes who is written by Avicenna, under the main topics: Wisdom - Health - Knowledge - Reason & Logic.

Other people realated to Avicenna: Plato (Philosopher)