Table of Contents

  • AVICENNA i. Introductory note

    M. Mahdi

    philosopher who began a movement away from explicitness about the central question of the relation between philosophy and religion.

  • AVICENNA ii. Biography

    D. Gutas

    philosopher whose biography presents the paradox that although more material is available for its study than is average for a Muslim scholar of his caliber, it has received little critical attention.

  • AVICENNA iii. Logic

    Sh. B. Abed

    philosopher whose works on logic are extant, and most of them have been published. With the exception of two Persian works, Dāneš-nāma-ye ʿalāʾī and Andar dāneš-e rag, all of his works are written in Arabic.

  • AVICENNA iv. Metaphysics

    M. E. Marmura

    a philosopher whose metaphysical system is one of the most comprehensive and detailed in the history of philosophy.

  • AVICENNA v. Mysticism

    D. Gutas

    a philosopher whose philosophical system, rooted in the Aristotelian tradition, is thoroughly rationalistic and intrinsically alien to the principles of Sufism as it had developed until his time.

  • AVICENNA vi. Psychology

    F. Rahman

    a psychology or doctrine of the soul that has an Aristotelian base with a strong Neoplatonic superstructure.

  • AVICENNA vii. Practical Sciences

    M. Mahdi

    an account of practical science that is laconic and dispersed in minor tracts and in the opening and closing passages of his comprehensive encyclopedic works.

  • AVICENNA viii. Mathematics and Physical Sciences

    G. Saliba

    referred to, in his encyclopedic work the Šefāʾ, as the mathematical sciences; includes both mathematics and astronomy.

  • AVICENNA ix. Music

    O. Wright

    from the discussion in his Ketāb al-najāt, Dāneš-nāma-ye ʿalāʾī, and Ketāb al-Šefāʾ. He considers music one of the mathematical sciences (the medieval quadrivium).

  • AVICENNA x. Medicine and Biology

    B. Musallam

    In the works of Avicenna, the two great traditions,Galen and Aristotle, intersected. Avicenna wrote the medieval textbook of Galenic medicine the Qānūn (the Canon), as well as the central medieval statement of Aristotelian biology (the Ḥayawān, the biological section of the Šefāʾ).

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  • AVICENNA xi. Persian Works

    M. Achena

    only two works in Persian have come down to us: a short book Andar dāneš-e rag (On the science of the pulse), and a treatise on philosophy.

  • AVICENNA xii. The impact of Avicenna’s philosophical works on the West

    S. Van Riet

    Western European acquaintance with Avicenna began when Latin versions of some of his Arabic works came out in the mid-12th to late 13th centuries.

  • AVICENNA xiii. The influence of Avicenna on medical studies in the West

    U. Weisser

    From the early fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth century Avicenna held a high place in Western European medical studies.

  • ĀVĪŠAN

    R. A. Parsa

    wild thyme. Varieties in Iran are carminative, stomachic, diuretic, digestive, and flatulent. They may be used for liver and respiratory disorders.

  • AVROMAN

    D. N. MacKenzie

    a mountainous region on the western frontier of Persian Kurdistan.

  • AVROMAN DOCUMENTS

    D. N. MacKenzie

    three parchments found in a cave in the Kūh-e Sālān.

  • AVROMANI

    D. N. MacKenzie

    the dialect of Avroman, properly Hawrāmi, the most archaic of the Gōrāni group.

  • AWĀʾEL AL-MAQĀLĀT

    M. J. McDermott

    a Shiʿite doctrinal work written in Baghdad.

  • AWAN

    M. W. Stolper

    name of a place in ancient western Iran, the nominal dynastic seat of Elamite rulers in the late third millennium B.C.

  • ʿAWĀREF AL-MAʿĀREF

    W. C. Chittick

    a classic work on Sufism by Šehāb-al-dīn Sohravardī (1145-1234)