AVICENNA (Abu `Ali al-Husain ibn `Abdallah ibn Sina) (9 7 9—I o3 7 ), the greatest of Arabian philosophers in the East, and a physician in whom Arabian medicine reached its culmina tion. Born in the province of Bukhara of a family connected with public service, Avicenna at the age of ten was well ac quainted with the Koran and Arabic classics. During the next six years he acquired a knowledge of philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. His philosophical ability was such that he had memorized the Metaphysics of Aristotle, though its meaning remained obscure until he bought, by chance, the com mentary of Alfarabi. At 17 his medical knowledge enabled him to cure the Samani ruler, Null ibn Mansur, from a dangerous illness. His chief reward was an access to the royal library.
With the ending of the Samanid dynasty in ioo4, Avicenna seems to have spent a short time in the service of the ruler of Khwarazm or Khiva, and then to have wandered about until he began his lecturing on logic and astronomy at Jurjan, near the Caspian. From there, he passed on to Rai and Karzwin, and ulti mately to Hamadan, where he occupied the office of vizier to Shams Addaula. The soldiery, however, mutinied against their nominal sovereign, and demanded that the new vizier should be put to death. Addaula consented to his banishment, but Avicenna managed to hide himself until an attack of illness induced the amir to restore him to his post. When the ruler of Isfahan cap tured Hamadan in 1024, Avicenna passed into his service as phy sician and general literary and scientific adviser. In this capacity he spent the remaining thirteen years of his life, combining hard work with frequent bouts of excessive pleasure. While marching with the army in a campaign against Hamadan, he was seized with severe colic, and died in June Io37, at the age of 58.
About 1 oo treatises are ascribed to Avicenna, and of these, the most influential was his Canon of Medicine. Although this work, like all other Arabic medical treatises, presents the doctrines of Galen and Hippocrates, modified by those of Aristotle, it was able to eclipse the Summary of Rhazes (d. c. g23), who, on ac count of his clinical observations, was one of the most original Mohammedan physicians, because of its greater method and its treatment of medical science as well as practical medicine. The Canon includes five books; the first and second treat of physi ology, pathology, and hygiene, the third and fourth deal with the methods of treating disease, and the fifth describes the com position and preparation of remedies, and includes Avicenna's personal observations. It was badly translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona (d. 1187), but the translation remained the standard text-book of medicine even until about 165o, when it was still used in the universities of Louvain and Montpellier. The best editions of this translation are those of Venice 1554, and Basle 1556. The Arabic text which was edited at Rome in has recently been re-edited in Egypt.
The second most influential work of Avicenna was his al-Shifa (the book of recovery), which includes long treatises on Logic, Physics, Mathematics, and Metaphysics. The Logic, part of the Physics (viz. Sufficientia, Dc Caelo, and Lib. sex naturalium or the De Anima), and the Metaphysics were translated into Latin by John of Spain and Gundissalinus, and passed through several editions, including that of Venice 1508. The Metaphysics has also been rendered into German in 1907 by M. Horten. The al Nadjat, which is a resume of the al-Shi f a, has been recently trans lated into Latin by Mgr. Carame under the title, Avicennae Metaphysices Compendium (Roma, 1926). Both of these works show the influence of Alfarabi on his logic, the dynamism of his physics, the empirical tendency of his psychology, and his sys tematization of Aristotle coloured by a Neoplatonic theory of the production of the world (see ARABIAN PHILOSOPHY) .
Of Avicenna's numerous other works, the Kitab el-lcharat. wa' tanbihat (the Book of Theorems) was edited in Arabic by M. Forget, 1892, and some of the mystical treatises by M. Mehren, 1892 ; the famous poem on the soul was translated into English by E. H. van Dyk (Verona, 1906) .