Also popularly
known as ‘Avicenna’, Ibn Sina was indeed a true polymath with his contributions
ranging from medicine, psychology and pharmacology to geology, physics,
astronomy, chemistry and philosophy. He was also a poet and an Islamic scholar
and theologian. His most important contribution to medical science was his famous book al-Qanun, known as the
“Canon” in the West. This book is an immense encyclopedia of medicine including
over a million words and like most Arabic books is richly divided and
subdivided. It comprises of the entire medical knowledge available from ancient
and Muslim sources.
This great scientist was born in around 980 A.D in the village of
Afshana, near Bukhara which is also his mother’s hometown. His father, Abdullah anadvocate of the Ismaili sect, was from Balkh
which is now a part of Afghanistan. Ibn Sina received his early eduction in his
home town and by the age of ten he became a Quran Hafiz. He had exceptional
intellectual skills which enabled him to overtake his teachers at the age of
fourteen. During the next few years he devoted himself to Muslim Jurisprudence,
Philosophy and Natural Science and studied Logic, Euclid, and the Almeagest.
Ibn Sina was an extremely
religious man. When he was still young, Ibn Sina was highly baffled by the work of Aristotle on Metaphysics so much so
that he used to leave all the
work and pray to God to guide
him. Finally after reading a manual by a famous philosopher al-Farabi, he
found the solutions to his difficulties.
Contributions and Achievements
At the age of sixteen he dedicated all his efforts to learn medicine and by the time he was
eighteen gained the status of a reputed physician. During this time he was
also lucky in curing Nooh Ibn Mansoor, the King of Bukhhara, of an illness in
which all the renowned physicians had given up hope. On this great effort, the
King wished to reward him, but the youngphysician only acquired consent to use his
exclusively stocked library of the Samanids.
On
his father’s death, when Ibn Sina was twenty-two years old, he left Bukhara and
moved to Jurjan near Caspian Sea where he lectured on logic and astronomy. Here
he also met his famous contemporary Abu Raihan al-Biruni. Later he travelled to
Rai and then to Hamadan, where he wrote his famous book Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb.
Here he also cured Shams al-Daulah, the King of Hamadan, for severe colic.
From Hamadan, he moved to
Isfahn, where he finished many of his epic writings. Nevertheless, he continued
to travel and the too much mental exertion as well as political chaos spoilt
his health. The last ten or twelve years of his life, he spent in the service of
Abu Ja’far ‘Ala Addaula, whom he accompanied as physician and general literary and scientific consultant. He died during June 1037
A.D and was buried in Hamedan, Iran.
Besides his monumental
writings, Ibn Sina also contributed to mathematics, physics, music and other
fields. He explained the concept and application of the “casting out of nines”.
He made several astronomicalobservations,
and devised a means similar to the venire, to enhance the accuracy of
instrumental readings. In physics, his contribution comprised the study of different forms
of energy, heat, light and mechanical, and such concepts as force, vacuum and
infinity.
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