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Ibn Sina, commonly called AVICENNA, was born at Kharmatain, near Bokhara, and was educated at that city. At the age of ten he is said to have shown great knowledge of the Koran, and of Hindu arithmetic. Under a scholar of note, Al-Natheli, he studied Logic, Euclid, and Hipparchian astronomy as contained in the Almagest, showing extraordinary zeal for study, and when his meditative powers flagged, restoring their balance by prayer. With mathematics and philosophy he combined the study of medicine: and is said, in his eighteenth year, to have cured the Sultan of Bokhara of a dangerous disease. At his father's death Avicenna for a short time succeeded him as Minister to the Sultan. But a change of dynasty occurring, he left that post, and spent some years in travel. His great work, the Book of the Canon in Medicine, was written in Jorjân. He held other official posts, and ultimately settled in Ispahan, where many of his works were written. He died at Hamadan, but at what age is uncertain. His works, philosophical, mathematical, and medical, are extremely numerous.
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| This biography is
reprinted from The New Calendar of Great Men. Ed. Frederic
Harrison. London: Macmillan and Co., 1920. |
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