Avicenna || Ibn Sina || Ibn-e-Sina || Abu Ali Sina
Avicenna, also called the (الشیخ الرئیس) “Sheikh-ul-Rais”,”Ibn Sina”, “Ibn-e-Sina”, “Grand Teacher” was born as Abu Ali Al-Hussain ibne Abdullah ibne Hasan ibne Ali Ibne Sina in August 980 in a village of Khar Maidan near Bukhara, modern day Uzbekistan. Sina was his grand grand grand-father.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
His ancestors belong to city
of Balkh (بلخ – Greek Bactria, home of the Bactrian camel, in today’s
northern city of Afghanistan), an important commercial, cultural, and politically
aware city. It was also hub of religious and intellectual life where earliest
Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity, and early Islam
coexisted.
STAY IN BUKHARA, UZBAKESTAN
Avicenna spent his initial
years in Bukhara, where he showed early signs of ability. Some historian claims
that he had memorized the Quran, as well as most of the Arabic poetry he had
read, by the age of ten years. He learned Indian arithmetic (calculus and
algebra) from a local teacher, a grocer in his neighborhood, and studied
Islamic jurisprudence on his own.
Abu Abdullah Al-Nateli (ابو
عبد اللہ النتالی), a leading philosopher of his time, educated Ibn Sina in the
sciences and advised his father to encourage him to concentrate on learning.
After completing his education from Nateli, Ibne Sina studied
sciences on his own with the help of observations, he read Greek philosophy of
Plato, Aristotle, and Ptolemy. He took up medicine at the age of thirteen years
under Abu ibne Mansur (ابو ابن منصور) and Isa ibne Yahya (عیسی
ابن یحیی), read available material, and did not find it to be a
difficult subject. At the age of sixteen years, when he started medicine by visiting
and treating patients.
TREATMENT OF EMPEROR OF BUKHARA
At age seventeen, Avicenna was
called to help in the treatment of the Samanid Emperor of Bukhara, Amir Nuh ibne
Mansur (امیر نوح ابن منصور), who was terminally ill and at that time his physicians had abandoned
all hope for his health recovery. It was the surprise for the other royal
physicians, Avicenna was able to cure the Amir. The Amir rewarded him by
appointing him as a court physician and gave him permission to use the imperial
library, which at the time contained one of the world’s best collections of
manuscripts and books. During that period, most of the time he had been
studying and research at night because during the day he was busy with the Amir
and had no time.
FATHER’S DEATH
Upon the death of his
father, Avicenna, then at the age of twenty-one years, left Bukhara and went to
Gurgan, a city of Iran. There he started on the first book of his The Canon of
Medicine (Al-Qanoon) and finished it later while in Isfahan. In Hamdan, every
night at his home, Avicenna held a circle of study where his pupils read one
part of the al-Qanoon and one part of Kitab-ul-Shifa (The Book of Healing),
which is the largest of his existent works.
Different sources verify to
Avicenna’s handsomeness and striking physique. Though he was praised for his
knowledge, he was neither modest nor charming but had great self-confidence and
a flaring character. He expected quick humor and perfection from people who
were around him and was known to go over his writing a number of times.
HIS WORK
In his life, he did lot of
work on different topics and more than two hundred of books attributed to
Avicenna, half are considered genuinely authentic, and luckily the most significant
of them survived. With the documentation of his student, Abu Ubaid Al-Juzjani
(980-1037AD), we are able to construct the chronology of his writings. Most of
his work done in Arabic while some of his work written in Persian Language.
Ibn Sina’s style was
discursive rather than assertive, more well-spoken than other scientists, and
he is also credited with the development of a new philosophical style and
terminology. He also introduced more exactitude in the use of Arabic terminology.
Sixty eight of his books are on theology and metaphysics, eleven on astrophysics,
philosophy, and physical science, four on poetry, and sixteen on medical
sciences. His second most famous book is Kitab-ul-Shifa (کتاب
الشفاء), which is an eighteen-volume philosophical encyclopedia
dealing with almost every conceivable topic.
MEDICAL WORK
“Avicenna’s Medicine represents a breath of fresh air to those
interested in the history of Western medicine” PAUL HYSEN, PH.D
Avicenna’s notable works on
medicine earned him the title “Prince of Physicians”. In a modern day, The
Canon of Medicine (Al-Qanoon) is still in print and is actively used at the
Unani medical schools of subcontinent. His book Al-Adwiyah tul Qalibiyah (الادویۃ
القلبیہ) (The Heart Remedies) was the first ever written on psychopharmacology.
Other some medical works of Ibne Sina are “The Book on Psyche”, “Relationship
of Body and Mind”, and “Origin of Grief and the Interpretation of Dreams”. The clashes
in thoughts between reasoning and divine revelation dominated Avicenna’s time
and shaped his philosophical contributions. By seeking refuge from pure
Aristotelian reason and from religious philosophy, he arrived at a synthesis
that placed him at the helm of philosophical thought.
As a physician, his death
came in the oddest of ways. He was on a military mission with the Amir of Isfahan
where he developed a severe colic and he treated himself with excessive rectal shots
which causes the severe side effects and hurt in intestine, and he died in 1037
CE of the complications of an ulcerated and perforated intestine infection.
WORK ON THE CANON OF MEDICINE (AL-QANOON FI TIBB)
Avicenna wrote his book “The
Canon of Medicine” (Al-Qanoon – Law of Medicine) in Arabic, canon means law,
the dominant language of science at that time, and since then, there has not
been an English translation of the Qanoon of Medicine directly from the
original source.
All the work of translation
in English were done from other language translations, into Latin, Urdu, and Persian,
but these translations have failed to capture the spirit of the book until Hikima
Amri & Marc Micozzi translate it from original text with practical
applications.
Avicenna was popular in
introducing precision in the use of Arabic terms. Before him, Abu Yousuf Ibne
Ishaq al-Kindi and Abu Nasr Al-Farabi had attempted to do so, but their efforts
had taken the form of aphorisms according to Soheil M. Afnan. Avicenna’s
thought and writing are considered by his passion for classification, his complex
sub-categorizing surpassed that of any Greek writer, and it is where the
medieval European philosophers learned the method. It is important to note out
that any translation and explanation of Avicenna’s book “The Canon of Medicine”
is also a reflection of the understanding of the translators. A precise transformation
of some parts of the “The Canon of Medicine” is rationally difficult for the
reader to put into proper framework, and some concepts are hard to understanding
without a broad knowledge of biological terminology.
Avicenna’s career and
writings are predominantly inspiring for his collection and synthesis of
knowledge from the entire known world, his emphasis on the practical
application of medical principles, and his preservation and dissemination of
learning to take medicine on next level forward.
IMPORTANCE OF CANON (AL-QANOON)
Recent advances in the new
sciences of molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, and pharmacology have
not substituted or moderated the basic tenets of Avicenna’s system, to the
contrary, they have revealed to us the need to describe them in light of
contemporary knowledge and to find a way to reconcile the two. Over a thousand
years, Avicenna’s The Canon of Medicine has been acknowledged essentially as
the influential encyclopedia on the Greco-Arabic-Islamic medical system. As a widespread
body of work that contains theory and practice, it follows the teachings,
interpretations, and writings of Hippocrates, Galen, Dioscorides, Rhazes,
Tabari, and Almajusi.
Further than this, the
elegance of its language and precision of terms, as well as the logical
classifications and discussions of the topics, drove the Canon of Medicine to
surpass other medical books. There is a plenty of scholarly commentaries and
books on the Canon, many confined to the first book, containing the important
theories and problems of medicine.
Ibn Sina’s medicine book “The Canon of Medicine” is
comprised of five volumes or Books:
1.
General Matters of Medicinal
Science
2.
Single Drugs Book
3.
Diseases Specific to Organs Book
4.
Diseases Not Specific to a Single
Organ
5.
The Formulary and Aqrabadhin
THE DISEASE CONCEPT IN AVICENNA’S MEDICINE
One of the most interesting
concepts of traditional medical systems, whether Chinese, Ayurveda, or Unani,
is their nearly identical disease concept as a unifying principle for all these
large and ubiquitous medical systems. It should be clear to us now that,
wherever these medical systems may have fallen short on detail, they rewarded
by expanding comprehensive, coherent, and useful general concepts that remain a
source of strength and a purpose for their existence. Not only have their conceptions
mounted the test of time, but modern medical science also now lends support and
validation to many of them.
As Ibn Sina elaborated, the
disease state starts by dystemperament (abnormal change), which is a change in
the normal temperament of an individual, or of an organ, to a new temperament
that is outside the range of normal. The temperament is an outcome of the
mixing of the four physical states: warmth, coldness, wetness (or dampness),
and dryness. Therefore, a change in one process will produce a change in the
others. Extended dystemperament imbalances the body fluids, the humors, not only
in quantity but also in quality. Thus, the state and stage of illness in Unani
medicine is based on dystemperament and humoral unevenness.
AVICENNA IN MODERN DAY
It is very significant to
keep in mind that our current Western medical system is an extension of the
Greco-Arabic-Islamic system. Not only were the Latin translations of Arabic
medical books prevalent throughout Europe, but Avicenna’s “The Canon of
Medicine” was also a standard medical textbook in several authentic medical
schools as Leipzig, Louvain, Montpellier, and Tubingen. The medical curricula
at the Universities of Vienna and Frankfurt were structured according to The
Canon of Medicine. Many prominent Western Renaissance physicians were
influenced by the Unani medicine system.
DEATH
While he was on his deathbed, his remorse
seized him; he donated his goods on the poor, restored unjust gains, freed his
slaves, and read through the Quran every three days until his death. Due to
cologne disease, he died in June 1037, at that time he was in his 56th
year, in the month of Ramadan, and was buried in Hamadan, Iran.
QUOTES OF AVICENNA
Due to his overwork, his friends
advised him to slow down and take life moderate way but he refused, however,
stating that:
"I prefer a short life with width to a narrow one with length"
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