Ibn Sina

Ibn Sina (Latinized as Avicenna; full name Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina) was among the most influential philosophers and physicians of the medieval world. Later tradition honored him as al-Shaykh al-Ra'is, "the preeminent master." Our fullest source for his life is an Autobiography he dictated to his student Abu Ubayd al-Juzjani, which al-Juzjani continued after Ibn Sina's death; scholars caution that such a self-portrait is partly a literary self-presentation, not a neutral record.

He was born near Bukhara, in Transoxiana, and educated there under Samanid rule, reportedly mastering medicine and philosophy while still young. The collapse of Samanid power set him on a lifelong, itinerant search for patronage across the courts of greater Persia, working as physician, administrator, and twice as vizier. He composed two monumental works: the philosophical summa al-Shifa' ("The Cure/Healing") and the medical encyclopedia al-Qanun fi al-Tibb ("The Canon of Medicine"), the latter a standard text in Europe for centuries.

In metaphysics he developed a system of necessary emanation (fayd), in which all things proceed from a single Necessary Existent. Historians describe this as a transformation of earlier Neoplatonism and a development of al-Farabi, not a simple repetition; he accepted emanation while rejecting other Neoplatonic claims. Whether his philosophy is compatible with revealed religion was contested for centuries — al-Ghazali criticized several of his positions — and these remain debated questions of interpretation, not settled verdicts. He died in 1037 (428 AH) at Hamadan and was buried there.