Biography

of
Avicenna
Senai Sinan Sungur
11/F [TM]
109
The Beginning of Your Life
Avicenna was born 980 in Afshana, a village near Bukhara, the capital of the Samanids, a
Persian dynasty in Central Asia and Greater Khorasan. His father, Abdullāh, was a
respected scholar from Balkh who might have converted.  It was an important town of
the Samanid Empire, in what is today Balkh Province, Afghanistan. His father worked in
the government of Samanid in the village Kharmasain, a regional power. Avicenna first
began to learn the Quran and literature in such a way that when he was ten years old he
had essentially learned all of them. According to his autobiography, Avicenna had
memorised the entire Quran by the age of 10. He learned Indian arithmetic from an
Indian greengrocer, Mahmoud Massahi and he began to learn more from a wandering
scholar who gained a livelihood by curing the sick and teaching the young. 
His Education
He also studied Fiqh under the scholar Ismail al-Zahid. Avicenna was taught some extent
of philosophy books such as Porphyry's Introduction (Isagoge), Euclid's Elements,
Ptolemy's Almagest by an unpopular philosopher, Abu Abdullah Nateli, who claimed
philosophizing. For the next year and a half, he studied philosophy, in which he
encountered greater obstacles. In such moments of baffled inquiry, he would leave his
books, perform the requisite ablutions, then go to the mosque, and continue in prayer till
light broke on his difficulties. Deep into the night, he would continue his studies, and even
in his dreams problems would pursue him and work out their solution. Forty times, it is
said, he read through the Metaphysics of Aristotle, till the words were imprinted on his
memoried.
Youth Period
He turned to medicine at 16, and not only learned medical theory, but also by gratuitous
attendance of the sick had, according to his own account, discovered new methods of
treatment. The teenager achieved full status as a qualified physician at age 18, and found
that "Medicine is no hard and thorny science, like mathematics and metaphysics, so I soon
made great progress; I became an excellent doctor and began to treat patients, using
approved remedies." The youthful physician's fame spread quickly, and he treated many
patients without asking for payment. Avicenna has faced many difficulties. She was sick,
fought, wounded, and captured. These times were an opportunity to prove and discover
his own talent. As time passed, it got more and more valuable. She eventually escaped
from the castle where she was imprisoned and returned to the Kakuyid Dynasty.
 The more brilliant the
Avicenna lightning, the quicker it
disappears.
And His Death
The remaining ten or twelve years of Avicenna's life were spent in the service of the
Kakuyid ruler Muhammad ibn Rustam Dushmanziyar, whom he accompanied as physician
and general literary and scientific adviser, even in his numerous campaigns. A severe colic,
which seized him on the march of the army against Hamadan, was checked by remedies so
violent that Avicenna could scarcely stand. On a similar occasion the disease returned;
with difficulty he reached Hamadan, where, finding the disease gaining ground, he refused
to keep up the regimen imposed, and resigned himself to his fate. His friends advised him
to slow down and take life moderately. He refused, however, stating that: "I prefer a short
life with width to a narrow one with length". On his deathbed remorse seized him; he
bestowed his goods on the poor, restored unjust gains, freed his slaves, and read through
the Quran every three days until his death. He died in June 1037, in his fifty-sixth year, in
the month of Ramadan, and was buried in Hamadan.
Thought Life
Avicenna wrote extensively on early Islamic philosophy, especially the subjects logic,
ethics, and metaphysics, including treatises named Logic and Metaphysics. Most of his
works were written in Arabic – then the language of science in the Middle East – and some
in Persian. Of linguistic significance even to this day are a few books that he wrote in
nearly pure Persian language. Avicenna's commentaries on Aristotle often criticized the
philosopher, encouraging a lively debate in the spirit of ijtihad.
Like Aristotle, Avicenna defines metaphysics as being science in terms of being. Avicenna
combines the divine philosophy (theisme) with the naturalist philosophy in his three-fold
view of the world. There is a great similarity between this theory and the Augustin
philosophy. The way Avicenna predicts for man to relate to the divine realm is a kind of
spiritual intuition. He explains this way in his works such as "Hay ibn Yakzan" and "Kitab üt-
tayr" (Bird book), according to Avicenna, God is all being, pure goodness.
His Religious Opinion
In each of his works, Avicenna took a philosophical approach to morality and divided it
into chapters. According to Avicenna, there are three types of evil;
• Physical evil, which Ibni Sina calls deficiency.
• Psychological malice; grief is seen in the form of sorrow.
• Metaphysical evil, which Ibni Sina calls "sin".
According to the philosopher, in order for the idea of good, competence and happiness to
arise, there must be evil.
Avicenna complements Fârâbî and encyclopedists in this regard, but is close to religion in
reconciling religion and philosophy. It acknowledges that belief completes the mind,
values prophets more than philosophers and shariah; She says she has two roles,
political and psychological and moral.
Effects of Avicenna Philosophy in Medieval
Europe
The works of Avicenna was translated into Latin in the twelfth century. One of these
works, "Metaphysics", was known half a century before Aristotle's Metaphysics, and the
last two books of Aristotle's Metaphysics reached the West much later, even a century
after the translation of "Healing". The works of Avicenna, especially translated in Toledo,
later became the basic textbooks of Western Universities and were read for a long time.
One of the high hills reached by the medieval Turkish Islamic philosophy, Ibni Sina, besides
being a famous medical scholar, was a philosopher who searched for the elixir of life
during his full and struggling life and left behind a library full of valuable works covering all
the sciences of the time.
 Width of life is more
Avicenna important than length
of life.
Avicenna School
Avicenna can be regarded as a school in itself within the Islamic philosophy. Behmenyar is
the closest student to the philosopher. His book "Philosophical Conversations" consists
of the answers given by Behmenyar and another of his students, ibnZayla. Abu Abdullah
Mâsumi is known as his favorite student. El-Jüzcâni, a student of Avicenna, who did not
leave his side until his death, also wrote about the life of the philosopher. Meymûn bin
Najib al- Vâsıtî, the well-known astronomer and poet Ömer Flayyam, the student of
Ömer Khayyam Ebu'l Maâlî, Behmanyar's student Ebu'l Abbas Zevkerî, Abdürrezak et-
Türkî, who studied geometry, logic and philosophy, are also considered from the
Avicenna School. Happiness is the action in which the soul cleanses and turns to Active
Mind. Thus, the person who tends to happiness will apply a kind of mystical elevation,
which the philosopher calls "cleansing of the soul".
Philosophical Structure
Logic, according to Avicenna, is a tool whether it is seen in philosophy or independent
from it. The goal of logic is to give signs that protect people from wrong. Avicenna took
logic out of psychology and based the laws of thought on psychology. His propositions and
his analysis of the doctrine of which Aristotle was its founder became classical in the
Islamic Middle Ages, and theologians also benefited from him in their works on the proof
of God, as all subsequent logicians rely on him.
Avicenna is of the opinion that all our knowledge is formed by inference from clear
principles obtained intuitively. Although he admits that the information process is formed
by sensation and perception, he claims that real knowledge is rational. He explains
empiricism in logical rationalism, according to Avicenna, being and thought are the same.
There can be no existence outside of thought. This principle connects logic and
metaphysics and grounds the way of deducting metaphysics from logic. 
Works
Avicenna has written works in almost every branch of science and has gained a reputation
especially as a philosopher. He has over one hundred and sixty works, seventeen of which
belong only to medicine. His works named "Metaphysics" and "Kitab al-Nafs" were the first
ones that were translated into Latin. "El-Şifa", which took the form of "Sufficientia" in the
Middle Ages, is a large comprehensive work of eighteen chapters that includes logic, natural
sciences, psychology, physics and metaphysics, in which only twelve pages were translated. He
wrote this work, which is the best work of Messhai philosophy, in twenty days during his stay in
Ibni Sîna Hemedân. He then writes "Al-Najat" in three parts, which is a summary of this work.
El Işârât vet-Tenbihât is a work he wrote to make corrections and changes on Al Najât. He
wrote a part of his work named "El-Kanun fi't-Tıbb" in Cürcân and Rey and completed the work
in Hemedân. It is fourteen divisions. Based on explanation and experiment. Ibni Sina wrote
works in almost every branch of science and gained a reputation especially as a philosopher.
His works translated into Latin in the Middle Ages created effects called "Avicennism".
Understanding of Science
The psychology of Avicenna is dependent on physics on the one hand and metaphysics on
the other. The plant goes down to the egoic substance. And the human soul rises up to
God with active mind. Thus, psychology is divided into two in the philosophy of
Avicenna; Rational and experimental psychology.
According to Avicenna, natural sciences are the head of metaphysics. In the ranking of
natural sciences, it starts from the actual physics and rises from various natural steps to
human beings. According to Avicenna, matter and shape in which all objects are
consisted of both logic, physics, and metaphysics.
 The knowledge of
anything, since all
Avicenna
things have causes, is
not acquired or
complete unless it is
known by its causes.
Science Assessment
Avicenna divides the sciences into "High Sciences", "Lower Sciences" and "Secondary
Sciences"; According to the higher sciences: The science of forms completely separated
from their matter. it is metaphysics and logic. According to the lower sciences: The
science of forms bound to matter, which are the natural sciences. According to the
middle sciences: The sciences that differ from their matter only in the mind, which are
mathematical sciences.

Avicenna moves from mathematics to logic and from there to metaphysics. He divides
philosophy like Aristotle into "Institutional Philosophy" and "Operational Philosophy";
The first includes natural philosophy, mathematical philosophy and metaphysics. It's
about knowing, not action. The second belongs to both action and knowledge; civic
wisdom or politics, home wisdom or economy, moral wisdom ...
My Thoughts
Avicenna is the person who laid the foundations of Mu'tazila view. When I evaluate it in
general terms, Avicenna has left many views and discoveries to the present day, and he is
a person who changed the balances of his age in terms of science. But his philosophical
and religious views have been completely abandoned today. In my opinion, these views
are inconsistent and do not conform to religion. He was exposed to the opposition of
many who came after him. Viewing events with a materialist perspective is consistent
when evaluated within science, but when they add this to the view of religion, spirituality
disappears. His legacy to those who came after him enables us to be treated with a more
modern medicine today. There are those who love him as much as he does not. I am one
of those who cannot choose which side to be on.
 People say that
Avicenna
wisdom is precious but
the world pays no
penny for it.
Senai Sinan Sungur Thanks for
Watching and
Damla Bayrak
Listening to Me