Avicenna: The Great Iranian Philosopher

Avicenna (980-1037 AD) was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, thinkers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age. Though he was more of a philosopher than a physician, he has been described as the father of early modern medicine. Of the 450 works he is known to have written, around 240 have survived, including 150 on philosophy and 40 on medicine.
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Avicenna’s book “The Cannon of Medicine” remained a medical authority for centuries. It set the standards of medicine in Medieval Europe and the Islamic world and was used as a standard medical textbook through the 18th century in Europe. As a philosopher, his major summa, the Shifa (Cure), had a decisive impact upon European scholasticism and especially Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus.