He was born in Afsana, a village near Bukhara, the capital of the Samanids, a Persian dynasty in Central Asia and Greater Khorasan.
Avicenna memorized the Quran by the age of ten, and as an adult, he wrote five treatises commenting on suras from the Quran.
Avicenna’s independent thought was served by an extraordinary intelligence and memory, which allowed him to overtake his teacher at the age of fourteen. He wrote his first book, a compendium entitled Majmu (Compedium) at the age of 21.
About 100 treatises were ascribed to Avicenna. Some of them are tracts of a few pages. Others are works extending through several volumes. His 14-volume The Canon of Medicine (Al-Qanoon fi al-Tibb, The Laws of Medicine) was a standard medical text in Europe and the Islamic world until the 17th century).
Among Avicenna’s first works translated by various schools of translators were the principal parts of his most detailed and longest philosophical treaties Kitab as-Shifa’. Several parts of Avicenna’s major philosophical encyclopedia as-Shifa’ were translated into Latin, mainly in Toledo at the end of the twelfth century and in Burgos at the end of the thirteenth century.
Avicenna
