Ibn sina avicenna biography of martin

This article explores the many trials of Ibn Sina, a famous medieval polymath who lived during the Islamic Golden Age. Ibn Sina, known in the west as Avicenna via the Hebrew translation of his name, is one of the most influential thinkers of the Islamic Golden Age. Ibn Sina was born in August CE. All of our information about his childhood and adolescence comes from the autobiographical narration he dictated to a pupil.

It was known as Bactra to the Greeks, and throughout much of antiquity constituted a center of Hellenism in Persia.

What was ibn sina famous for

Following a period of decline, it faced renewal as a major, cosmopolitan center during the Samanid and Ghaznavid dynasties. Soheil M. Afnan observes that Balkh was a place of extraordinary cosmopolitanism:. Nearby cities, like Bukhara, had corresponding Chinese names Pu-Ho , and there too a major Buddhist monastery stood alongside a major Islamic school.

However, it has been suggested that his father was Persian, Turkish, Arab, Chinese, or some combination thereof. Moreover, his father and brother were known to discuss other, dissident regimes of knowledge: Indian arithmetic, geometry and philosophy, though Ibn Sina neither confirms nor denies his participation in such.

Ibn sina contribution

From the age of sixteen onwards, he became obsessed with logic. In a rather intriguing anecdote, Ibn Sina claims that during this period, whenever a problem escaped him, he prayed at the mosque in order to break through whichever intellectual issue was plaguing him at the time, but whenever he felt physically weak he recovered his strength by drinking a glass of wine.

He had simultaneously taken up medicine, and at around this time, the reigning prince in Bukhara Nuh Ibn Mansur , of whom Ibn Sina was a subject, fell ill. Ibn Sina was called to treat him, and whilst he did so gained access to the famous, Samanid library at Bukhara:. This dynasty was indeed famous for their promotion of literature and their veneration of learning.