Avicenna
Persian polymath, physician and philosopher (c. 980–1037)
Ibn Sina (c. 980 – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna, was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world. He was a seminal figure of the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian rulers, and was influential to medieval European medical and Scholastic thought. Avicenna is considered one of the greatest thinkers and medical scholars in history.
Often described as the father of early modern medicine, Avicenna's most famous works are The Book of Healing, a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and The Canon of Medicine, a medical encyclopedia that became a standard medical text at many medieval European universities and remained in use as late as 1650.
Besides philosophy and medicine, Avicenna's corpus includes writings on astronomy, alchemy, geography and geology, psychology, Islamic theology, logic, mathematics, physics, and works of poetry. His philosophy was of the Peripatetic school derived from Aristotelianism, of which he is considered among the greatest proponents within the Muslim world.
Avicenna wrote most of his philosophical and scientific works in Arabic but also wrote several key works in Persian; his poetry was written in both languages. Of the 450 works he is believed to have written, around 240 have survived, including 150 on philosophy and 40 on medicine.
Avicenna is also known for his unique methodological approach to his works. He combines a unique blend of empirical observation, philosophical reasoning, and logical analysis, in order to conduct his analysis and reach his conclusions.
The public source identifies “Avicenna” as persian polymath, physician and philosopher (c. 980–1037). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Avicenna, Persian and polymath.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8011. VIAF identifies the subject as 89770781. The Library of Congress control number is n80002386. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1037 and 1650.
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This entry incorporates text from “Avicenna” 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.