Wafasalaf rabat ibn sina biography

This combined original document, in Arabic, exists in at least two recensions. These retellings differ only in the various details they introduce, which, however, have to be proven authentic in each case before they can be accepted. The trend continued until later popular tradition made of him either a saint and a mystic or a magician. Such information, even if it had survived orally in the popular tradition, lends itself easily to falsification.

Private writings by Avicenna and his disciples. Historical works. Legendary and hagiographic stories. These belong not to his biography proper but to a study of the transformation of his image in popular tradition after his death. This played a role in the reception of his authentic works in the Persian- and Turkish-speaking areas of the Islamic world and has to be studied as a separate subject.

Browne, London, index, s. For later material see A. Analysis of the autobiography. 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. 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. A miniature depicting Ibn Sina, anonymous and undated, from Wikimedia Commons.

He had simultaneously taken up medicine, and at around this time, the reigning prince in Bukhara Nuh Ibn Mansurof whom Ibn Sina was a subject, fell ill. I read these books, taking notes of their contents. This is a worldly profession, and he was really a doctor. However, there were many non-Muslim doctors more proficient in the medical field than him, so why the specific focus on Ibn Sina?

To conclude: He is not to be praised or spoken of highly because he was one of the Baatiniyyah [Cult], a severely deviant philosopher who claimed that the universe may be infinite having no beginning or end. Some clinics and schools in the Muslim lands are even named after him to honor him, which is not permissible, as mentioned by Shaykh Saalih al-Fowzaan.

This entailed detailed study of the operations of the soul in its totality and in all its functions, whether rational, animal, or vegetative. He charts in great detail the operations of all the senses, wafasalaf rabat ibn sina biography the five external senses and especially the five internal senses located in the brain—common sense, imagery where the forms of things are storedimagination, estimation judging the imperceptible significance or connotations for us of sensed objects, like friendship and enmity, which also includes instinctive sensingand memory—and how they can help or hinder the intellect in hitting upon the middle term and perceiving intelligibles more generally.

The reason that this is possible at all is again the consubstantiality and congeneric nature of all intellects, human and celestial alike. Only, as already mentioned, because of their varied circumstances, the latter think of the intelligibles directly, permanently, and atemporally, while the human intellect has to advance from potentiality to actuality in time by technical means leading to the discovery of the middle term as it is assisted by all the other faculties of the soul and body.

Avicenna is quite explicit about the need for the human intellect to be prepared and to demand to hit upon a middle term, or actively to seek an intelligible, in order to receive it. Gutas a, ; cf. Hasse The same applies to other forms of communication from the supernal world. In the case of the prophet, he acquires all the intelligibles comprising knowledge, complete with middle terms as already mentioned, because the intellective capacity of his rational soul to hit upon the middle terms and acquire the intelligibles is extraordinarily high; this capacity is coupled with an equally highly developed internal sense of imagination that can translate this intellective knowledge into language and images in the form of a revealed book that the vast majority of humans can easily understand.

This information can also be received by humans in various forms—as waking or sleeping dreams, as visions, as messages to soothsayers—depending on the level of the humoral equilibrium of the recipient, the proper functioning of his internal and external senses, and the readiness of his intellect. Somebody whose internal sense of imagination or estimation is overactive, for example, may be hindered thereby in the clear reception of dream images so that his dreams would require interpretation, while someone else not so afflicted may get clearer messages; or a soothsayer who wishes to receive information about the future has to run long and hard in order to bring about such a humoral equilibrium through the exertion, thereby preparing his intellect to receive the message.

The logistics of the reception of information from the supernal world thus varies in accordance with what is being communicated and who is receiving wafasalaf rabat ibn sina biography, but in all cases the recipient has to be ready and predisposed to receive it. All humans have both the physical and mental apparatus to acquire intelligible and supernal knowledge and the means to do so, but they have to work for it, just as they have to prepare for their bliss in afterlife while their immortal rational souls are still affiliated with the body.

To have thought so would have negated the entire philosophical project Avicenna so painstakingly constructed. This analysis and understanding of the rational soul, precisely elaborated on the basis of the Aristotelian theory but also going much beyond it, enable Avicenna to engage systematically primarily with all aspects of religion, cognitive and social alike, and secondarily with what we would call paranormal phenomena prognostication of the future, telekinesis, evil eye, etc.

All issues relating to the cognitive side of religion he added to the traditional contents of metaphysics, and those relating to the social side he added to the practical sciences. Its contents can be seen in his extensive treatment of it all at the end of the metaphysics part of The Cure, as follows. Book 9, Chapter 7: Destination of the rational soul in the afterlife and its bliss and misery; real happiness is the perfection of the rational soul through knowledge.

Book 10, Chapter 1: Celestial effects on the world: inspiration, dreams, prayer, celestial punishment, prophecy, astrology. Gutas a, — With this secure and syllogistically verified knowledge, the prophet then is in a position to legislate and regulate social life as well as have a legitimate ground for gaining consent. The subjects of all parts of practical philosophy are covered briefly also at the very end of The Cure, as follows: Book 10, Chapter 2: Proof of prophecy on the basis of the need for laws, to be enacted by the prophet legislator, in order to regulate social life which is necessary for human survival.

Chapter 3: Acts of worship as reminders of the afterlife and as exercises predisposing the rational soul to engage in intellection cf. Chapter 4: Household management. Conclusion Avicenna synthesized the various strands of philosophical thought he inherited—the surviving Hellenic traditions along with the developments in philosophy and theology within Islam—into a self-consistent scientific system that explained all reality.

Wafasalaf rabat ibn sina biography

His scientific edifice rested on Aristotelian physics and metaphysics capped with Neoplatonic emanationism in the context of Ptolemaic cosmology, all revised, re-thought, and critically re-assessed by him. His achievement consisted in his harmonization of the disparate parts into a rational whole, and particularly in bringing the sublunar and supralunar worlds into an intelligible relation for which he argued logically.

The system was therefore both a research program and a worldview. Aristotelian ethics provided the foundation of the edifice. Only the contemplative life while in the body prepares the intellect, which has to use the corporeal external and internal senses to acquire knowledge and gain the predisposition for thinking the intelligibles, for the contemplative life after death.

In understanding the goal of human life in this manner Avicenna was again being true to the Aristotelian view of divine happiness as the identity of thinker, thinking, and thought Metaphysics XII. The core conception was the life of the rational soul: because our theoretical intellects—our selves—are consubstantial with the celestial intellects, it is our cosmic duty to enable our intellects to reach their full potential and behave like the celestial ones, that is, think the intelligibles cf.

Lizzini And because we i. This is humanist ethics dictated by a scientific view of the world. Bibliography Apart from the references in the text, the bibliography also lists several recent studies on Avicenna along with some reference works. Modern Latin translation in Aug. Schmoelders, Documenta philosophiae Arabum, Bonnpp. Text in M. Abdallah b.

French translation by Goichon English translation in Heath No edition or translation available. Text in E. For various partial translations see Janssens30—35, and Janssens17— Text and French translation in H. Jahier and A. Noureddine, eds. Text in S. Nasr and M. English translation in R.