Avicenna: An Islamic Philosopher and Scientist

Avicenna: An Islamic Philosopher and Scientist

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to enlighten and explore the great personality that left his unforgettable mark on the world; Avicenna. This paper explores the life of Avicenna and the major works of him in the fields of science, philosophy, chemistry and mathematics. Abu 'All al- ?usain ibn 'Abd Allah ibn Slna, the philosopher and scientist known to the medieval West as Avicenna, was born in AD 980 (AH 370) in a village, near Bukhara in what is now the ex-Soviet republic of Uzbekistan. His mother was Turkish and his father Persian. The first thirty years cover his autobiography. His friend and secretary al-Juzajani has left an account of the rest of his life. If we may take his own account at its face value, Avicenna was an extraordinarily precocious child with a keen analytical intelligence, a spectacular memory and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. By the age of 14, he had absorbed whatever knowledge his teachers could offer him.

Nevertheless, his most important writing was “The Book of Healing”, which even got translated into Latin parts. Among them, exercised the greatest influence in the Middle Ages were Logic, Philosophy of Nature, Psychology and Metaphysics. At 16 he was directing the work of well-established physicians. His skill in contemporary medicine brought him a rich reward. Avicenna treated emir of Khurasan was for a serious illness and made a robust recovery. Hence, his reputation as a physician established in the highest levels of society. In consequence, he freely used the magnificent library of the Samanid royal family to perfect his knowledge of science and philosophy of his time. He took all knowledge for his province, and his interests covered logic, mathematics, astronomy, natural history and medicine, and indeed anything which can be studied in a systematic way. This was the general practice of many of the savants of his day.

Contribution in Science, Medicine, Philosophy, Mathematics, Chemistry and Astronomy

In order to give a just estimate of Avicenna's interest and importance is not easy. The sheer magnitude and detail of his work is daunting to anyone who wants to understand it. To cover the contemporary range of human knowledge from mathematics and music to astronomy, physics and natural history and to psychology, theology and metaphysics is astonishing enough. Nevertheless, to infuse into that detailed survey an impressive deal of original work puts him into a very elite company indeed. The names of Aristotle and Leibniz come to mind as achievers on this scale. Moreover, when we consider the conditions in which he had to work—in his scanty leisure time at best and on long tiring journeys or in prison at worst, we can only wonder and admire.

Avicenna's primary concern was not so much to know facts as to systematize them; his curiosity was blunted by his synthetic tendencies. A proclivity for system-building was a failing of much obsolete work. However, it was not Avicenna's worst fault. He was more to blame for generalizing on ...