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The Book of Healing

book by Avicenna

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 21, 2025
Entity authorityQ1030940 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Book of Healing (Arabic: کتاب الشفاء, romanized: Kitāb al-Shifāʾ; Latin: Sufficientia; also known as The Cure or Assepha)is a scientific and philosophical encyclopedia written by Abu Ali ibn Sīna (also known as Avicenna). He most likely began to compose the book in 1014, completed it around 1020, and published it in 1027.

This work is Ibn Sina's major work on science and philosophy, and is intended to "cure" or "heal" ignorance of the soul. Thus, despite its title, it is not concerned with medicine, in contrast to Avicenna's earlier The Canon of Medicine (5 vols.) which is, in fact, medical.

The book is divided into four parts: logic, natural sciences, mathematics (a quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy), and metaphysics. It was influenced by ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle; Hellenistic thinkers such as Ptolemy; and earlier Persian/Muslim scientists and philosophers, such as Al-Kindi (Alkindus), Al-Farabi (Alfarabi), and Al-Bīrūnī.

Sciences

Astronomy

In astronomy, the book proposes the theory that Venus is closer to Earth than the Sun.

Chemistry

Ibn Sina's theory on the formation of metals combined the alchemical sulfur-mercury theory of metals (although he was a critic of alchemy) with the mineralogical theories of Aristotle and Theophrastus. He created a synthesis of ideas concerning the nature of the mineral and metallic states.

Earth sciences

Toulmin and Goodfield (1965), commented on Avicenna's contribution to geology:Around A.D. 1000, Avicenna was already suggesting a hypothesis about the origin of mountain ranges, which in the Christian world, would still have been considered quite radical eight hundred years later

Paleontology

Ibn Sina also contributed to paleontology with his explanation of how the stoniness of fossils was caused.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “The Book of Healing” as book by Avicenna. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Book, Healing and book.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1014, 1020, 1027, 1965—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1014, 1027—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Book, Healing and book providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “The Book of Healing”, the useful work is to connect “book by Avicenna” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 21, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1030940. VIAF identifies the subject as 205793807. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1014, 1020, 1027 and 1965.

Critical limits

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Book of Healing” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.