By Darius Sepehri
September
30, 2020
Over a
thousand years ago, Nuh ibn Mansur, the reigning prince of the medieval city of
Bukhara, fell badly ill. The doctors, unable to do anything for him, were
forced to send for a young man named Ibn Sina, who was already renowned,
despite his very young age, for his vast knowledge. The ruler was healed.
A
miniature of Avicenna. Wikimedia Commons
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Ibn Sina
was an 11th century Persian philosopher, physician, pharmacologist, scientist
and poet, who exerted a profound impact on philosophy and medicine in Europe
and the Islamic world. He was known to the Latin West as Avicenna.
Ibn Sina’s
Canon of medicine, first translated from Arabic into Latin during the 12th
century, was the most important medical reference book in the West until the
17th century, introducing technical medical terminology used for centuries
afterwards.
‘Arabic
Medicine’, 1907, by Veloso Salgado. NOVA Medical School, Lisbon.
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Ibn Sina’s
Canon established a tradition of scientific experimentation in physiology
without which modern medicine as we know it would be inconceivable.
For
example, his use of scientific principles to test the safety and effectiveness
of medications forms the basis of contemporary pharmacology and clinical
trials.
Avicenna
has been in the news recently due to his work on contagions. He produced an
early version of the germ theory of disease in the Canon where he also
advocated quarantine to control the transmission of contagious diseases.
Uniquely,
Avicenna is the rare philosopher who became as influential on a foreign
philosophical culture as his own. He is regarded by some as the greatest
medieval thinker.
Maverick and Prodigious
Ibn
Sina’s birthplace, Bukhara. Author provided
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He was born
Abdallāh ibn Sīnā in 980AD in Bukhara, (present day Uzbekistan, then part of
the Iranian Samanid empire). Avicenna was prodigious from youth, claiming in
his autobiography to have mastered all known philosophy by 18.
Ibn Sina’s
output was extraordinarily prolific. One estimate of his body of work counts
132 texts. These cover logic, natural philosophy, cosmology, metaphysics,
psychology, geology, and more. Some of these texts he wrote while on horseback,
travelling from one city to another!
His work
was a virtuosic kind of encylopedism, gathering the various traditions of Greek
late antiquity, the early Islamic period and Iranian civilisation into one
rational knowledge system covering all of reality.
Ibn Sina’s
texts were forged out of the colossal Graeco-Arabic translation movement that
took place in medieval Baghdad. They then played a key role in the Arabic to
Latin translation movement that brought Aristotle’s philosophy back, in a
highly enriched manner, into Western thought.
A
Latin commentary on Ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine by Italian physician Gentilis
de Fulgineo, 1477. Welcome LIbrary.
This
was a chapter in the story of large-scale transmission of knowledge from the
Islamic world to Europe.
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From the
12th century on, Avicenna shaped the thought of major European medieval
thinkers. Thomas Aquinas’s writings feature hundreds of quotations from
Avicenna regarding issues such as God’s providence. Aquinas also sought to
refute some of Ibn Sina’s positions such as that which argued the world was
eternal.
Book of Healing
Ibn Sina’s Kitāb al-Shifā, The Book of Healing,
was as influential in Latin as his medical Canon.
Divided
into sections covering logic, science, mathematics and metaphysics, it produced
highly influential theses on the distinction between essence and existence and
the famous Flying Man thought experiment, which aims to establish how the soul
is innately aware of itself.
Drawing
of viscera, Ibn Sina’s ‘Qanun fi al-Tibb’ (Canon of Medicine) Welcome Images
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A Medical Pioneer
Ibn Sina’s
Canon brilliantly synthesises Islamic medicine with that of Hippocrates (460 –
370 BC) and Galen (129 – 200 AD). There are also elements of ancient Persian,
Mesopotamian and Indian medicine. This was supplemented by Ibn Sina’s extensive
medical experiences.
A
doctor visits a patient in a 14th-century Persian miniature. Austrian National
Library. Photograph by Bridgeman/ACI
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In the
Canon, Avicenna introduced diagnoses and treatments for illnesses unknown to
the Greeks, being the first doctor to describe meningitis. He made new
arguments for the use of anaesthetics, analgesics, and anti-inflammatory
substances.
Looking
forward to modern notions of disease prevention, Avicenna proposed adjustments
in diet and physical exercise could heal or prevent illnesses.
Avicenna
was also vital to the development of cardiology, pulsology, and our
understanding of cardiovascular diseases.
Ibn Sina’s
detailed descriptions of capillary flow and arterial and ventricular
contractions in the cardiovascular system (the blood and circulatory system)
assisted the Arab-Syrian polymath Ibn al Nafis (1213-1288), who became the
first physician to describe the blood’s pulmonary circulation, the movement of
blood from the heart to the lungs and back again to the heart.
This
happened in 1242, centuries before scientist William Harvey arrived at the same
conclusion in 17th century England.
Doctor
taking woman’s pulse, from a medieval manuscript of Ibn Sina’s Canon. Welcome
Images
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Holistic Medicine
Another
innovative aspect of Ibn Sina’s Canon is its exploration of how our body’s
well-being depends on the state of our mind, and the interaction between the
heart’s health and our emotional life.
This
connection has been seen in the last few months, with doctors describing
increases in heart damage due to the psycho-emotional pressures of the
pandemic.
Ibn Sina’s
advocacy for an interrelated, organic and systems-based understanding of health
gives his thought universal, ongoing relevance.
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Darius Sepehri is a Doctoral Candidate,
Comparative Literature, Religion and History of Philosophy, University of
Sydney
Original Headline: Avicenna: the Persian polymath
who shaped modern science, medicine and philosophy
Source: The Conversation
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-personalities/ibn-sina-11th-century-persian/d/122995
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