Avicenna — Abu 'Ali al-Husayn ibn 'Abd Allah ibn Sina

(980-1037)

The “Leonardo da Vinci of the Muslim World,” known as Avicenna in the West. Born in
Bukhara, today Uzbekistan. Wrote on theology, metaphysics, astronomy, philology, poetry, and
medicine, including Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb (The Cannon of Medicine), a codification of all existing
medical knowledge that was used as a reference in Europe well into the fifteenth century. Ibn
Sina’s philosophy is based on an ontological foundation in which God, the Necessary Being
(wajib al-wujud), is the only being which is pure Goodness, the source of all existence.
Everything else derives its being (mahiyya) and its existence (wujud) from the Necessary Being
and hence is contingent upon God. The contingent beings (mumkin al-wujud) are then divided
into two kinds: (1) Those which are necessary in the sense that they cannot “not be;” they are
contingent by themselves but receive from the First Cause the quality of being necessary. These
beings are the simple substances (mujarradat). And (2) beings which are only contingent, the
composed bodies of the sublunary world which come into being and pass away. Ibn Sina
attempted to integrate Greek philosophy and Islam in an original synthesis which places God at
the center of philosophy based on the self-evident truths.

Among Ibn Sina’s medical works, Canon of Medicine, is the ordered Summa of all the medical
knowledge up to his time. Divided into five books, this major work of Islamic medical tradition
was used as the basic textbook for teaching medicine for seven centuries both in the East as well
as in the West. Translated by Gerard of Cremona between 1150 and 1187, the Canon formed the
basis of teaching at all European universities. It appears in the oldest known syllabus of teaching
given to the School of Medicine at Montpellier, dating from 1309, and in all subsequent ones
until 1557.

Ibn Sina’s influence on the subsequent developments of intellectual thought is vast. In the
Muslim world, his philosophy was instrumental in the emergence of Ishraqi (Illuminist) school
of Suhrawardi. Ibn ‘Arabi combined Ibn sina's work with other doctrines and Mulla Sadra
integrated it into the intellectual perspectives of Shi‘ism. In the West, Thomas Aquinas used
some of his proofs in the Catholic theology and although the Renaissance brought a violent
reaction against him, Ibn Sina holds a secure place in the history of Western philosophy through
his influence on major Christian philosophers.