Avicenna- The Pride of Persia

By Saybhan Samat

Ali Sina Balkhi a legendary Persian scholar better known in the West as Avicenna was born in 980 AD in Afshana a village near Bukhara in Transoxiana and died in Hamadan in modern Iran in 1037 AD. Avicenna’s achievements are extraordinary indeed. He was a scholar that gained recognition and honour as an authority in several disciplines. He became famous as an astronomer, chemist, geologist, logician, paleontologist, mathematician, physicist, poet, psychologist, scientist and gnostic. Avicenna wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived. In fact, 150 of his surviving treatises concentrate on philosophy and 40 of them on medicine. The world best knows him for his contribution to medicine. His most famous works on medicine were “ The Book of Healing”, a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopedia and “ The Cannon Medicine” which was used as a text book in the medical universities of Europe and Asia as late as in 1650.

Ibn Sina is regarded as a father of modern medicine and clinical pharmacology particularly for his introduction of systematic experimentation and quantization into the study of physiology. He discovered the contagious nature of infections diseases, the introduction of quarantine to limit the spread of contagious diseases, the introduction of experimental medicine, evidence based medicine, clinical trials, randomized controlled trials, efficacy tests, clinical pharmacology, neuropsychiatry, risk factor analysis, the idea of syndrome and the importance of dietetics and the influence of climate and environment on health.

George Sarton, the author of the “ History of Science” wrote in the introduction to the “ History of Science”.___  “ One of the most famous exponents of Muslim universalism and an eminent figure in Islamic learning was Ibn Sina, known in the west as Avicenna ( 981-1037). For a thousand years he has retained his original renown as one of the greatest thinkers and medical scholars in history. His most important medical works are the Qanun ( Canon) and a treatise on cardiac drugs.

The Qanun fi-l-Tibb is an immense encyclopedia of medicine. It contains some of the most illuminating thoughts pertaining to distinction of mediastinitis from pleurisy, contagious nature of phthisis, distribution of disease by water and soil; careful description of skin troubles; of sexual diseases  and perversions and of nervous ailments.”

For his colossal scholarly distinction in medicine and several other discipline Ibn Sina was known as “ The Supreme Master” and is credited as one of the greatest thinkers both in the Islamic world and else where. His Canon Medicine, written at the age of 21 was the best known medical text in Europe and Asia for several centuries.

It is regrettable that his later day detractors slandered him on account of envy and jealousy, by accusing him of fondness for his

slave – girls and wine, they also said that Ibn Sina would resort to prayer in the mosque and drink wine at times to receive inspiration to understand the doctrine of intuition.

These slanders have not been taken seriously, and even today Ibn Sina is revered as an outstanding Persian legendary scholar known and respected world –wide especially among the medical fraternity. Avicenna now and forever will be the pride of Persia.

Irish Translation of Ibn Sīna Medical Text Discovered in Medieval Book Binding

Top image: The rediscovered fragment of Ibn Sīna’s Canon of Medicine, folded into the binding of a later book. Source: University College Cork

ED WHELAN

A recent discovery is demonstrating the influence of Islamic medicine on European physicians. A fragment from a book dating from the 1400s has revealed the influence of a Muslim Persian polymath on Irish doctors. This find is helping experts to have a better understanding of Ireland in the Middle Ages and the importance of Islamic works on the intellectual development of Europeans.

Professor Pádraig Ó Macháin, a University College Cork’s expert in Gaelic, an ancient Celtic language still spoken today, became aware of the existence of a rare book produced in Medieval Ireland. It was in the possession of a family from Cornwall, England who have owned it for generations. There were many cultural and trade connections between Medieval Cornwall and Ireland. The Professor examined the book and found, according to the Irish Independent , “a sheet, full of text in Irish, cut from a 15th-century Irish vellum manuscript .”

The fragment of text translated from Persian polymath Ibn Sīna’s work, flattened out so it can be read. ( Independent)

A Sheet of Islamic Medicine in the Bookbinding

Sections of old manuscripts were often stuffed into the spines of new books at that time, so the professor was not surprised to find a page from an old volume in the binding. In the interest of learning, the owners of the book allowed the page to be removed and it was digitized so that it could be studied. After reading the sheet, the professor was stunned as it provides evidence for cultural links between Ireland, one of the remotest parts of Medieval Europe, and the IslamicGolden Age.

The piece of manuscript in the binding was written in Medieval Gaelic and is a translation of Islamic medical work. According to the About Islam website, it is a “fragment of a translation into Irish of the ‘Canon of Medicine’ medical encyclopedia.”  The page has entries on the nature of the jaws, back, and how the nose functions.

Ibn Sīna (Avicenna). ( Public Domain )

The Canon of Medicine is in five volumes and provides a complete overview of Islamic medical scholarship and even several hundred medicines. This work was the “standard medical text in the Islamic world and across Europe, and for more than six centuries the most respected medical textbook in medieval Europe ,” reports The Guardian .

The Genius of Persian Polymath Ibn Sīna

This immense medical work was written by the famous Persian polymath Ibn Sīna (980-1053 AD), who is known as Avicenna in the West. He was a self-educated genius from Central Asia who flourished in the Islamic Golden Age, a period when Muslims studied the works of Classical Greeks and others and made enormous cultural and intellectual advances.

Ibn Sīna wrote many major works on philosophy, logic, theology, astronomy, and science, which decisively influenced, not only the Muslim world but also Europe, as it slowly emerged from the Dark Ages . His ideas on medicine and his insistence on an evidence-based approach to healthcare have been enormously influential to this day.

The discovery of a translated page credited to Ibn Sīna’s work in an Irish book is a testament to the immense prestige of Islamic learning in 15th century Europe. It shows that medicine from the Muslim world was dominant in European societies at the time. Most likely the page was from an encyclopedia that was used to train doctors in Ireland.

Irish Medieval Culture

Prof Ó Macháin states that almost one in four works written in Gaelic at the time were on medical subjects. Irish doctors often went abroad to train and the work by the Persian author was probably brought back from the continent. In the 15th century, there was a class of hereditary Irish physicians whose skills were very respected and it seemed that this was in part because of their learning in Muslim medicine.

• A History of Islam: The Second Largest Religion in Today’s World Began With a Divine Revelation

During that time, Gaelic learning and literature was being revived by powerful aristocratic patrons. The country was only nominally subject to the English crown, whose rule was confined to Dublin and its neighborhood, which was known as the ‘Pale’. Gaelic culture continued to flourish until the English victory in the Nine Years Wars (1592-1601), which ended in the colonization of much of Ireland.

Detail of illuminated script in a copy of the ‘ Canon of Medicine’ by Avicenna. ( Public Domain )

The discovery of the sheet has established a link between Ireland the Muslim world. The find is also demonstrating that Ireland was much more culturally advanced than previously thought. It proves once again that Europe was indebted to Islamic science , medicine, and learning in the Middle Ages.

Iran's share of global science production increased 19-fold after the Islamic Revolution

A group of academic elites of the country—including CEOs of knowledge-based enterprises; prominent academics who have returned from abroad; top ranking participants of Olympiads, cross-country contests and scientific festivals; outstanding academic researchers from different universities; exceptionally talented students as well as students ranking top in the 2018 cross-country university entrance exam—met with the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei, this morning October 17, 2018.

In this meeting, Ayatollah Khamenei urged officials to benefit from the ideas and recommendations of the academics in order to improve the country’s affairs and said: The intellectual elites[‘s ideas and suggestions] should be benefitted from in planning the matters of the country. Some outstanding talents enjoy both a great capability of thinking and management skills— which must be made use of.

Ayatollah Khamenei mentioned that Iran should safeguard its entity via scientific development by stating: If we do not advance in science, our enemies' threats will last permanently.

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution held: Today human science faces limits; our academic elites should participate in pushing the limits.

Ayatollah Khamenei attributed nation’s falling behind world’s scientific growth to neglecting science during the monarchical rules of the Pahlavis and Qajars over Iran, and maintained: We have lagged behind the global scientific movement for 200 years,: this is because of the Iranian talent and academic elite have been ignored.

The Supreme Leader went on to say: This talent has always existed in Iran throughout history and it stems from great personalities like Farabi, Avicenna, and Khwarizmi, and others. However, why should our country lag behind the rest of the world at a time when science has advanced at a great pace around the world?— such that during the eras of Qajar and Pahlavi, our country turned into one of the most backward countries in this respect.

Ayatollah Khamenei urged the academic and science professionals to promote Iran’s share in science production; he asserted: Our country entails about one percent of the world population; this, our share of human efforts should be at least one percent. However, during the final years of the Pahlavi Regime, Iran was producing about 1/10 percent of world science, which shows how backward we used to be!

Ayatollah Khamenei added: Today, with God’s grace, we contribute in producing science even more than our share, about 1.9 percent. This is great, yet we are not satisfied; it should increase.

Ayatollah Khamenei praised Islamic Republic of Iran’s improvements in academic activities compared to that of pre-Revolution and held: The establishment of the first university in Iran, in 1934, till 44 years late—that is in 1978, we only had 150,000 university students; whereas, today we have over 4 million university students. The two different systems are revealed in these areas. We should appreciate the Islamic Republic for this great move.

The Supreme Leader remarked that the establishment must collaborate with the academics and intellectuals to further the development of the nation and said: There should be a mutual exchange between the elites and the management system. The government must provide services for the elites, not letting the elites be left with no roles; because in this case, our country won’t advance. Today, it is proved that nothing is more influential in the country’s development than the human force. Human resources are a great capital and the enemies seek to take this wealth away from the country. The enemy seeks scientific exclusion so no other nation can gain power-producing and wealth-producing knowledge; thus, they murder scientists of other countries. This does not only happen to us. During the time the U.S. dominated Iraq, tens of Iraqi scientists were identified and killed, so that Iraq would not progress in the absence of Saddam.

Referring to the elites’ national and international impact from different points of view, Ayatollah Khamenei added: “the existence of tens of thousands of elites, is from one point of view, indicative of an authentic and real image of the country: a source for happiness and hope. Moreover, by benefitting from the scientific elites, the frameworks of management of the country’s affairs will promote: the elites’ opinions must be applied.”
He reminded his audience: “The young, active, enthusiastic, and hard-working elites’ opinions should be used in various departments including oil industry. Planning is needed for changing the petro-economy into an independent, evidence-based and resilient economy.”

Ayatollah Khamenei reiterated: “If we advance scientifically, the threats of our enemies will not last forever, and will perish.”

Then, he regarded another area of the academic elites’ influence as “playing a role in breaking global borders of science” and went on to say, “In recent centuries, our share of pushing the borders of science away has been very little; we need to extend the borders of global knowledge and discoveries by using the great capacity of Iranian scientific and academic elites.”

Ayatollah Khamenei emphasized: “All of us should be grateful to the Islamic Republic and Imam Khomeini for putting an end to the bitter past and bringing about the present advances.”

The Leader of the Revolution, then, offered a few recommendations with regard to the elites. His first recommendation was on the necessity of mutual exchange between elites and the management system of the country. In this regard he stated: “On the one hand, the officials should work more seriously to exchange with the academic and scientific elites, offer services to them and remove obstacles in their way. On the other hand, the elites should make use of all their capacity to help move the country forward.”

Ayatollah Khamenei described the qualified human resources and active and forward-moving academic and scientific elites as a great wealth and reserve for the nation, maintaining: “this source of wealth, just like all other resources, is threatened by the avarice and exploitation of the Hegemonic system, so that while getting advantage of the wealth to serve its own purposes, the hegemonic system creates exclusion, in science and technology; that is, wealth-producing and power-producing properties.”

He regarded “physical removal of the academic elites” as a method used by the hegemonic system for taking the great treasure away from the nations and mentioned—referring to the nuclear scientists of Iran: “In addition to the physical removal, cultural deviation or occupying the elites with other affairs is another method used by the hegemonic system; hence the officials and elites should be aware and cautious in this regard.

Ayatollah Khamenei praised recent effort by a group of experts to delineate a blueprint for progress, asserting: What a group of economists did recently made me extremely happy: the Iranian economists felt responsible and addressed a letter to the leader of the revolution regarding the issues of banking and liquidity and foreign currency. Though we don’t know how much these opinions are taken into account in the government, the fact that professors and young elites feel responsible about the problems of the country is very pleasing.

Finally Ayatollah Khamenei ensured his audience that; “There exist some problems regarding people’s livelihood—partly due to currency fluctuations. Yet, overall, the true image of the country, is the opposite of what the hegemonic foreigners seek to illustrate about dear Iran.