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AVICENNA vii. Practical Sciences Avicenna’s account of practical science is laconic and dispersed in minor tracts and in the opening and closing passages of his comprehensive encyclopedic works. The hope that he might some day write a comprehensive account of practical science, which he expresses at the beginning of the…

AVICENNA viii. Mathematics and Physical Sciences Introduction. What is understood by mathematics and physical sciences in this context is what Avicenna himself referred to in his encyclopedic work the Šefāʾ, as the mathematical sciences, which included both mathematics and astronomy, and the physical sciences (ṭabīʿīyāt), which included the usual Aristotelian…

AVICENNA x. Medicine and Biology Introduction: Avicenna between Aristotle and Galen. At the time of Avicenna natural philosophy and medicine overlapped, sharing a large area of the field that today we call biology. But they were two distinct traditions, in the important sense that each had its own literature and…

AVICENNA xi. Persian Works Only two works in the Persian language by Avicenna have come down to us: a short book entitled Andar dāneš-e rag (On the science of the pulse, also known as Resāla-ye nabż), and a treatise on philosophy in the broadest sense entitled Dāneš-nāma (Book of science)….

AVICENNA xii. The Impact of Avicenna’s Philosophical Works in the West Western European acquaintance with Avicenna began when Latin versions of some of his Arabic works came out in the period between the mid-twelfth and the late thirteenth century. These versions were products of a great translation movement which brought…

AVICENNA xiii. The Influence of Avicenna on Medical Studies in the West From the early fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth century Avicenna held a high place in Western European medical studies, ranking together with Hippocrates and Galen as an acknowledged authority. His works had a formative influence on the scholastic medicine…

ĀVĪŠAN, wild thyme. The genus Thymus of the family Labiatae (mint family) comprises a number of fragrant aromatic undershrubs, with very small leaves and whorls of small purplish, nectar-bearing flowers in the axils of the leaves or at the ends of the branches. The Kotschy thyme (āvīæān-e bārīk, Thymus kotschyanus…

AVROMAN (Hawrāmān, Persian Owrāmān), a mountainous region on the western frontier of Persian Kurdistan. It extends for approximately 50 km, from a point west of Marīvān (46° 0’ east longitude, 35° 30’ north latitude) south-eastwards to the confluence of the two branches of the river Sīrvān (46° 20’ east longitude,…

AVROMAN DOCUMENTS, three parchments found in a cave in the Kūh-e Sālān, near Šār-e Owrāmān (see Avroman), and brought in 1913 by Dr. Saʿīd Khan Kordestānī to London, where they were acquired by the British Museum. Two of the documents, dated 225 and 291 of the Seleucid era ( =…

AVROMANI, the dialect of Avroman, properly Hawrāmi, is the most archaic of the Gōrāni group. All Gōrāni dialects exhibit a number of phonological features which link them with the dialects of central Iran and distinguish them from Kurdish. While the main Gōrāni language area, to the west of Kermānæāh, is an…

AWAN, name of a place in ancient western Iran, the nominal dynastic seat of Elamite rulers in the late third millennium B.C.; its location is unknown. Three rulers of Awan form the fourth post-diluvium “dynasty” in at least four manuscripts of the Sumerian King List. Only the beginning of the…

AWĀʾEL AL-MAQĀLĀT FI’L-MAḎĀHEB AL-MOḴTĀRĀT (Principal theses of selected doctrines), a Shiʿite doctrinal work written in Baghdad by Shaikh Abū ʿAbdallāh Moḥammad b. Moḥammad b. Noʿmān al-Mofīd (d. 413/1022; q.v.) probably between the years 396 and 406/1005-16. In it (p. 1) Shaikh al-Mofīd defines his position, which he calls that of…

AWḤAD-AL-DĪN KERMĀNĪ, ḤAšMED B. ABI’L-FAḴR, a famous mystic of the 6th/12th century. Dates of his death given in different sources range from 562/1166 to 635/1238. Since he was a contemporary of Shaikh Šehāb-al-dīn Sohravardī (d. 632/1235) and Moḥyī-al-dīn b. ʿArabšāhī (d. 638/1241), the most probable of these given dates must…

AWḤADĪ MARĀḠAʾĪ, SHAIKH AWḤAD-AL-DĪN (or ROKN-AL-DĪN) B. ḤOSAYN (born ca. 673/1274-75 in Marāḡa and died there in 738/1338), a poet who flourished in the reign of Abū Saʿīd Bahādor Khan (r. 716/1316-736/1335), the ninth Mongol Il-khan of Iran. He is usually surnamed Marāḡaʾī, but also mentioned as Awḥadī Eṣfahānī because…

AWLĪĀʾ (more fully, awlīāʾ allāh, the “friends of God”), a term commonly translated in European languages as “saints” or the equivalent. The term, of which the singular is walī, derives from Koran 10:62: “Verily the friends of God—there is no fear upon them, neither shall they grieve.” It occurs also…