Avicenna
980 – 1037 Persian philosopher, physician
The Persian polymath whose medicine and philosophy ruled for centuries.
- Religion
- Muslim; his philosophy engaged deeply with theology while drawing on Aristotle and Neoplatonism.
- Affiliations
- Court physician and vizier to various Persian rulers. No secret society.
Avicenna, or Ibn Sina, wrote The Canon of Medicine, a medical encyclopedia used in Europe and the Islamic world for six hundred years. His philosophy on being, the soul, and God shaped both Islamic thought and medieval Christian scholasticism. He was among the most influential minds of the age.
Connections
- influenced Al-Farabi — Avicenna credited Al-Farabi with unlocking Aristotle for him.
- influenced Thomas Aquinas — Aquinas drew on Avicenna's metaphysics of essence and existence.