By SearchingTheMeaningOfLife

Abu-Ali- Sina or Avicenna (I’d prefer the latter) is famous enough, I think, but as I have seen and read the article of my Greek friend I was surprised about all treasures which had been come out from the orient into the west and how they were developed further in Europe but forgotten in the orient!

I am not wrong when I am just hearing from the most doctors here in the western countries that they have studied Avicenna and how genius was he.

Anyway, I think my self that the Islam had done only a good thing; at the beginning, they ( the Arabs) were very tolerant, they wanted to have so many Muslims as the could have; therefore, they did put just a rule for everyone: say Allah is great and Mohamad is his prophet. that’s all. after it, all were free to do what they wanted. And that’s why so many recoveries happened in the orients. As Dr Jung says;

There’s all about the matter of thinking and thinking, again and again. No matter what the rulers or the religion rulers try to prove, you just have to let your mind fly freely, it finds a concept to know its way going forwards.

The article begins with; this one is after… I don’t know who’s first and who’s next but the main thing is; what remains.

By https://searchingthemeaningoflife.wordpress.com/author/searchingthemeaningoflife/ With many thanks 🙏🙏💖

His intellectual abilities quickly aroused interest and, after studying in Isfahan and Tehran, he was hired by various Muslim rulers, often with the office of vizier. This “profession” has almost always been extremely dangerous, especially at the time of the decline and fragmentation of the Arab Empire.

Avicenna experienced the usual professional dangers posed by political life in the Middle East: more than once he escaped the death penalty (hair), fell victim to ransom for ransom, and spent several periods of his life in dungeons or hiding.

Back then, however, as today, there were rewards: Avicenna spent a life in fame, wealth, countless women and, of course, countless wives. Despite the ban on wine by the Qur’an, it is said that Avicenna greatly benefited from wine during his lifetime.

It remains a mystery how, in the midst of all this, he managed to steal time for his in-depth and in-deeply spiritual pursuits. Perhaps, then, the prime ministers who lived a long life did not pretend to be dying at work.

In his scientific writings, Avicenna argued that a body, to the extent that no external force is exerted on it, remains motionless at the same point or continues to move in a straight line at the same speed. This is the first law of motion, and was formulated six hundred years before Newton.

He also pointed out the inextricable links between movement and time, using evocative poetic images. If every single object in the world was immovable, then time would be meaningless. (Einstein had to appear to prove mathematically the interconnection of space with time.)

In medicine, Avicenna is considered to be the greatest physician after Galen, the greatest intellectual of Roman times in this field, and Harvey, who was to discover the blood circulation in the seventeenth century.

Avicenna’s expertise was derived directly from the occult alchemical knowledge he had inherited from al-Razi, as well as from his own alchemical research. He believed, like al-Razi, that medicine was a science. In his view, chemical or mineral medicines were far superior to the herbs and superstitions that have prevailed since time immemorial. Avicenna had compiled a long list of chemicals, their effect when administered as drugs, and the diseases they were able to cure. This pharmaceutical company (in Greek it passed – with the name “Kanon”) soon became accepted as the standard project in relation to this subject.

Avicenna’s scientific and philosophical work was at times limited by political events. Being a vizier, he fell into disfavor with the Shah of Persia, but managed to save his life by hiding. He reappeared only when the shah became seriously ill and the doctors in the courtyard, in despair, claimed that only Avicenna could save his life. Thus, the presence of Avicenna was now very important and he received assurances of his safety.

When the shah was defeated in the state war, Avicenna’s mind was seen as an integral part of the spoils and, despite having led the Persian war effort, he was immediately forced to work for the enemy. (This is an early example of a tradition that did not cease to flourish until World War II, when Russians and Americans tried to capture and employ Germans who were researching missile science, despite their cooperation with the Nazis.)

In the meantime, he continued to expand his philosophical thinking as best he could. This, like his chemistry, was based on Aristotle’s misconceptions. It encountered some additional obstacles due to the theoretical schemes imposed by the ever-strengthening Islamic Orthodoxy. Without this narrow corset, Avicenna might well have developed a truly original philosophy. His thirst for philosophical and scientific knowledge was driven by a very modern sense of existential “question”, as evidenced by his poetry:

I wish I could find out who I am,

In the world what is what I ask for.

Although he invokes ignorance, Avicenna was not one of those who gladly tolerate stupidity, and the sharpness of his character did not give him many friends. He even dismissed his medical mentor, Al-Razi, claiming that his author would have done better if he had been limited to “urine and faecal analysis.”

Avicenna died in 1037, probably poisoned.

Within a few years, Avicenna’s philosophical and medical works were widely circulated throughout the Arab world. A copy of his Canon was found very far away, in the great library of Toledo, when the Spaniards recaptured the state from the Arabs in 1095.

But even earlier, his secrets had been smuggled into Europe by Constantine the African – one of those figures who abruptly invaded the stage of history and their name is associated with a remarkable act, as well as a few events that are alluded to, but also many more, leaving us to imagine the novel of a lifetime.

Constantine the African was probably born as a Muslim in Carthage and studied in Baghdad. One fine morning, mysteriously, he appeared at Salerno Medical School, carrying with him a copy of Avicenna’s pharmacy. After translating the work into something Latin without many claims, he became a Christian monk in Monte Cassino, where he died in 1087. In the following centuries, Avicenna’s work was to be the most widely read medical text in Europe, a work in progress. as a forerunner for modern pharmaceutical science.

Excerpt from Paul Strathern’s book “Mendeleev’s Dream.”

source:  https://antikleidi.com/

Avicenna and Galen, Philosophy and Medicine: Contextualising Discussions of Medical Experience in Medieval Islamic Physicians and Philosophers

In: OriensAuthor: Kamran I. Karimullah ¹

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Farabi

https://brill.com/view/journals/orie/45/1-2/article-p105_4.xml?language=en