Greater Khorasan or Ancient Khorasan () (also written ''Khurasan'') is a historical region of Iran mentioned in sources from Sasanid and Islamic eras which "frequently" had a denotation wider than current three provinces of Khurasan in Iran. It also included parts of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikstan,

Khorasan in its proper sense comprised principally the cities of Nishapur and Tus (now in Iran), Balkh and Herat (now in Afghanistan), Merv (now in Turkmenistan), and Samarqand and Bukhara (now in Uzbekistan). However, the name has been used in the past to cover a larger region that encompassed most of Transoxiana and Soghdiana in the north, extended westward to the Caspian Sea, southward to include the Sistan desert and eastward to the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan. Arab geographers even spoke of its extending to the boundaries of ancient India, possibly as far as the Indus valley, in what is now Pakistan. Sources from the 14th to the 16th century report that Kandahar, Ghazni and Kabul in Afghanistan formed the frontier region between Khorasan and Hindustan.

In the Islamic period, ''Persian Iraq'' and ''Khorasan'' were the two important territories. The boundary between these two was the region surrounding the cities of Gurgan and Damghan. In particular, the Ghaznavids, Seljuqs and Timurids divided their empires into Iraqi and Khorasani regions. The adjective ''Greater'' is added these days to distinguish the historical region from the Khorasan province of Iran, which roughly encompasses the western half of the historical Khorasan. It is also used to indicate that ancient Khorasan encompassed a loose collection of territories individually known by other popular names, such as Bactria, Khwarezmia, Sogdiana, Transoxiana, and Sistan or Arachosia.

Name

The name "Khorasan" is derived from Middle Persian ''khor'' (meaning "sun") and ''asan'' (or ''ayan'' literally meaning "to come" or "coming"), hence meaning "land where the sun rises". The Persian word Khāvar-zamīn (), meaning "the eastern land", has also been used as an equivalent term.

Geographical distribution

First established as a political entity by the Sassanids in the 3rd century AD, the borders of the region have varied considerably during its 1600-year history. Initially the Khorasan province of Sassanid empire included the cities of Nishapur, Herat, Merv, Faryab, Taloqan, Balkh, Bukhara, Badghis, Abiward, Gharjistan, Tus or Susia, Sarakhs and Gurgan.

It acquired its greatest extent under the Caliphs, for whom "Khorasan" was the name of one of the three political zones under their dominion (the other two being ''Eraq-e Arab'' "Arabic Iraq" and ''Eraq-e Ajam'' "Non-Arabic Iraq or Persian Iraq"). Under the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, Khorasan was divided into four major sections and each section based on a single major city. The four principal cities were Nishapur, Merv, Herat and Balkh.

In the Middle Ages, the term was loosely applied in Persia to all its territories that lay east and north east of Dasht-e Kavir and therefore were subjected to change as the size of empire changed. According to Ghulam Mohammad Ghobar, Afghanistan's current territories formed the major portion of Khorasan, as two of the four main capitals of Khorasan (Balkh, Merv, Nishapur and Herat) are now located in Afghanistan. Ghobar uses the terms ''Proper Khorasan'' and ''Improper Khorasan'' in his book to distinguish between the usage of Khorasan in its strict sense and its usage in a loose sense. According to him, Proper Khorasan contained regions lying between Balkh in the east, Merv in the north, Sistan in the south, Nishapur in the west and Herat, known as the ''Pearl of Khorasan'', in the center. Improper Khorasan's boundaries extended to Kabulistan and Hazarajat in the east, Sistan and Zabulistan in the south, Transoxiana and Khwarezm in the north, and Damghan and Gorgan in the west. It is mentioned in the Memoirs of Babur that: }}

History

Before the region was conquered by Alexander the Great in 330 BC, it was part of the Achaemenid Empire and prior to that it was occupied by the Medes. The region that became known as Khorasan in geography of Eratosthenes was called Ariana at that time, which made up part of Greater Iran or the land where Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion. The southeastern region of Ariana fell to the Kushan Empire in the 1st century AD. The Kushan rulers introduced Buddhism in the Hindu Kush and nearby areas, in what is now Afghanistan. Numerous Buddhist temples and buried cities have been found in Afghanistan. However, the region of Ariana (or Khorasan) remained predominantly Zoroastrian. One of the three great fire-temples of the Sassanids "Azar-burzin Mehr" is situated near Sabzevar in Iran. The boundary of the region began changing until the Kushans and Sassanids merged together to form the Kushano-Sassanian civilization.

During the Sassanid era, the Persian Empire was divided into four quarters, Khvarvaran in the west, Bakhtar in the north, Nīmrūz in the south and Khorasan in the east next to Sind or Hind. Khorasan in the east saw some conflict with the Hephthalites who became the new rulers in the area but the borders remained stable. Being the eastern parts of the Sassanids and further away from Arabia, Khorasan quarter was conquered after the remaining Persia. The last Sassanid king of Persia, Yazdgerd III, moved the throne to Khorasan following the Arab invasion in the western parts of the empire. After the assassination of the king, Khorasan was conquered by Muslim troops in 647 AD. Like other provinces of Persia it became one of the provinces of Umayad dynasty.

The first movement against the Arab invasions was led by Abu Muslim Khorasani between 747 and 750. He helped the Abbasids come to power but was later killed by Al-Mansur, an Abbasid Caliph. The first independent kingdom from Arab rule was established in Khorasan by Tahir Phoshanji in 821, but it seems that it was more a matter of political and territorial gain. In fact Tahir had helped the Caliph subdue other nationalistic movements in other parts of Persia such as Maziar's movement in Tabaristan.

Other major independent dynasties in Khorasan were the Saffarids (861-1003,) Samanids (875-999), Ghaznavids (963-1167), Seljuqs (1037–1194), Khwarezmids (1077–1231), Ghurids (1149–1212), and Timurids (1370–1506). It should be mentioned that some of these dynasties were not Persian by ethnicity, nonetheless they were the advocates of Persian language and were praised by the poets as the kings of Iran.

Among them, the periods of the Ghaznavids of Ghazni and Timurids of Herat are considered as the most brilliant eras of Khorasan's history. During these periods, there was a great cultural awakening. Many famous Persian poets, scientists and scholars lived in this period. Numerous valuable works in Persian literature were written. Nishapur, Herat, Ghazni and Merv were the centers of all these cultural developments.

From the 16th century to the early 18th century, Khorasan was ruled by the Shia Safavid dynasty while the region to the east by the Sunni Khanate of Bukhara and the southeast by the Sunni Mughul Empire. It was conquered in 1717, along with the rest of Persia, by the Ghilzai Afghans from Kandahar and became part of the Hotaki dynasty. Following the assassination of Nader Shah Afshar in 1747, Khorasan was annexed with the Durrani Empire or modern-day Afghanistan. In the early 19th century, much of Khorasan's western territory fell to the Qajar dynasty of Persia and remained as Iranian territory until modern day. Some of its northern areas were left under the Tsardom of Russia or later the Soviet Union.

Cultural importance

Khorasan has had a great cultural importance among other regions in Greater Iran. The literary New Persian language developed in Khorasan and Transoxiana and gradually supplanted the Parthian language. The New Persian literature arose and flourished in Khorasan and Transoxiana where the early Iranian dynasties such as Tahirids, Samanids and Ghaznavids were based.The early Persian poets such as Rudaki, Shahid Balkhi, Abu al-Abbas Marwazi, Abu Hafas Sughdi, and others were from Khorasan. Moreover, Ferdowsi, the author of Shahnameh, the national epic of Greater Iran, and Rumi, the famous Sufi poet, were also from Khorasan.

Until the devastating Mongol invasion of the thirteenth century, Khorasan remained the cultural capital of Persia. It has produced scientists such as Avicenna, Al-Farabi, Al-Biruni, Omar Khayyám, Al-Khwarizmi, Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (known as Albumasar or Albuxar in the west), Alfraganus, Abu Wafa, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, and many others who are widely well-known for their significant contributions in various domains such as mathematics, astronomy, medicine, physics, geography, and geology.

In Islamic theology, jurisprudence and philosophy, and in Hadith collection, many of the greatest Islamic scholars came from Khorasan, namely Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Abu Hanifa, Imam Bukhari, Imam Muslim, Abu Dawood, Al-Tirmidhi, Al-Nasa'i, Al-Ghazali, Al-Juwayni, Abu Mansur Maturidi, Fakhruddin al-Razi, and others. Shaykh Tusi, a Shi'a scholar and Al-Zamakhshari, the famous Mutazilite scholar, also lived in Khorasan.

Demographics

Khorasan was originally inhabited by the ancient Indo-Iranians who migrated from the north to the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex in around 2000 BC. The BMAC was a Bronze Age culture situated in the upper Amu Darya region of Khorasan. Airyanem Vaejah (''Land of Aryans''), which is mentioned in the Zoroastrian Avesta, is also believed by some scholars to be situated in the territories of Khorasan.

The Persian people appear to have been the first ethnic group to populate the region, but they began mixing with an increasing number of foreign invaders and as a result their proportionate number was reduced. Significant immigrants such as Arabs from the west since the 7th century and Turkic peoples after the Turkic migration from the north in the Middle Ages settled in the region.

The land that used to be referred to as Khorasan in the past is inhabited by a multiethnic society today. The majority are Persians (including Tajiks and some Lurs) and the rest are Uzbeks, Turkmen, Hazaras, Aymāqs, Pashtuns, Baluch, Kurds, Arabs, and others.

References

Category:History of Asia Category:History of Iran Category:Historical regions of Afghanistan Category:History of Herat Category:History of Balkh Province Category:History of Merv Category:History of Nishapur ar:خراسان الكبرى ps:خراسان bg:Хорасан ca:Gran Khorasan de:Chorasan fa:خراسان fr:Grand Khorasan hr:Veliki Horasan id:Khorasan Raya it:Grande Khorasan os:Хорасан he:ח'וראסאן pl:Chorasan sl:Veliki Horasan sr:Велики Хорасан zh:大呼罗珊

region	Greater KhorasanPersiaBuyid dynasty(Hamadan)/(Rayy)/(Qazvin)
era	Medieval era (Islamic Golden Age)
name	Ibn Sīnā (ابن سینا)Pūr Sīnā (پورسینا)Avicenna
fullname	Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā
other names	Sharaf al-Mulk, Hujjat al-Haq, Sheikh al-Rayees
birth date	c. 980
birth place	Afshana, near Bukhara (capital of Samanid Empire), in present day Uzbekistan
death date	December 10,
death place	Hamadan, Persia (Iran)
school tradition	Muslim
main interests	Medicine, philosophy, Islamic theology (kalam), physics, poetry, science
notable ideas	Father of modern medicine; Avicennian logic; concepts of inertia and momentum; important contributor to geology; pioneer of aromatherapy and neuropsychiatry
major works	''The Book of Healing'', ''The Canon of Medicine''
influences	the Qur'an, Muhammad, Ja'far al-Sadiq, Hippocrates, Sushruta, Charaka, Aristotle, Galen, Plotinus, Neoplatonism, Indian mathematics, Wasil ibn Ata, al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Rhazes, Biruni, John Philoponus
influenced	Biruni, al-Ghazali, Omar Khayyám, Fakhruddin al-Razi, Abubacer, Averroes, Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi, Tusi, Ibn al-Nafis, Scholasticism, Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, Aquinas, Jean Buridan, Giambattista Benedetti, Galileo, William Harvey, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Maimonides, M. Sibtain K. }}

Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā (Persian پورسينا Pur Sina 'son of Sina'; c. 980, Afshana near Bukhara– 1037, Hamadan, Iran), commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived. In particular, 150 of his surviving treatises concentrate on philosophy and 40 of them concentrate on medicine.

His most famous works are ''The Book of Healing'', a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopaedia, and ''The Canon of Medicine'', which was a standard medical text at many medieval universities. The ''Canon of Medicine'' was used as a text-book in the universities of Montpellier and Louvain as late as 1650. Ibn Sīnā's ''Canon of Medicine'' provides a complete system of medicine according to the principles of Galen (and Hippocrates).

He was also an astronomer, chemist, geologist, Hafiz, Islamic psychologist, Islamic scholar, Islamic theologian, logician, mathematician, Maktab teacher, physicist, poet, and scientist. He is regarded as the most famous and influential polymath of the Islamic Golden Age.

Circumstances

Avicenna created an extensive corpus of works during what is commonly known as Islam's Golden Age, in which the translations of Greco-Roman, Persian and Indian texts were studied extensively. Greco-Roman (Mid- and Neo-Platonic, and Aristotelian) texts by the Kindi school were commented, redacted and developed substantially by Islamic intellectuals, who also built upon Persian and Indian mathematical systems, astronomy, algebra, trigonometry and medicine. The Samanid dynasty in eastern part of Persia, Greater Khorasan and Central Asia as well as Buyid dynasty in the western part of Persia and Iraq provided a thriving atmosphere for scholarly and cultural development. Under the Samanids, Bukhara rivaled Baghdad as a cultural capital of the Islamic world.

The study of Quran and Hadith thrived in such a scholarly atmosphere. Philosophy, Fiqh and theology (kalam) were further developed, most noticeably by Avicenna and his opponents. Al-Razi and Al-Farabi had provided methodology and knowledge in medicine and philosophy. Avicenna had access to the great libraries of Balkh, Khwarezm, Gorgan, Rey, Isfahan and Hamadan. As various texts, such as the 'Ahd with Bahmanyar show, he debated philosophical points with the greatest scholars of the time. As Aruzi Samarqandi describes in his four articles before Avicenna left Khwarezm he had met Abu Rayhan Biruni (a famous scientist and astronomer), Abu Nasr Iraqi (a renowned mathematician), Abu Sahl Masihi (a respected philosopher) and Abu al-Khayr Khammar (a great physician).

Biography

Early life

Avicenna was born c. 980 in Afshana, near Bukhara, the capital of Samanids, a Persian dynasty in Central Asia and Greater Khorasan. His father was from Balkh, in present-day Afghanistan and his mother from Bukhara, in present-day Uzbekistan. His father, Abdullah, was a respected Ismaili scholar from Balkh, an important town of the Samanid Empire, in what is today Balkh Province, Afghanistan. His mother was named Setareh. His father was at the time of his son's birth the governor in one of the Samanid Nuh ibn Mansur's estates. He had his son very carefully educated at Bukhara. Ibn Sina's independent thought was served by an extraordinary intelligence and memory, which allowed him to overtake his teachers at the age of fourteen. As he said in his autobiography, there was nothing that he had not learned when he reached eighteen.

A number of different theories have been proposed regarding Avicenna's madhab. Medieval historian Ẓahīr al-dīn al-Baīhaqī considered Avicenna to be a follower of the Brethren of Purity. On the other hands, Shia faqih Nurullah Shushtari and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, in addition to Henry Corbin, have maintained that he was most likely a Twelver Shia. More recently, however, Dimitri Gutas demonstrated that Avicenna was a Sunni Hanafi. Similar disagreements exist on the background of Avicenna's family, whereas some writers considered them Sunni, more recent writers thought they were Shia.

Ibn Sīnā was put under the charge of a tutor, and his precocity soon made him the marvel of his neighbors; he displayed exceptional intellectual behaviour and was a child prodigy who had memorized the Qur'an by the age of 10 and a great deal of Persian poetry as well. He learned Indian arithmetic from an Indian greengrocer, and he began to learn more from a wandering scholar who gained a livelihood by curing the sick and teaching the young. He also studied Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) under the Hanafi scholar Ismail al-Zahid.

As a teenager, he was greatly troubled by the ''Metaphysics'' of Aristotle, which he could not understand until he read al-Farabi's commentary on the work. For the next year and a half, he studied philosophy, in which he encountered greater obstacles. In such moments of baffled inquiry, he would leave his books, perform the requisite ablutions (wudu), then go to the mosque, and continue in prayer (salah) till light broke on his difficulties. Deep into the night, he would continue his studies, and even in his dreams problems would pursue him and work out their solution. Forty times, it is said, he read through the ''Metaphysics'' of Aristotle, till the words were imprinted on his memory; but their meaning was hopelessly obscure, until one day they found illumination, from the little commentary by Farabi, which he bought at a bookstall for the small sum of three dirhams. So great was his joy at the discovery, made with the help of a work from which he had expected only mystery, that he hastened to return thanks to God, and bestowed alms upon the poor.

He turned to medicine at 16, and not only learned medical theory, but also by gratuitous attendance of the sick had, according to his own account, discovered new methods of treatment. The teenager achieved full status as a qualified physician at age 18, and found that "Medicine is no hard and thorny science, like mathematics and metaphysics, so I soon made great progress; I became an excellent doctor and began to treat patients, using approved remedies." The youthful physician's fame spread quickly, and he treated many patients without asking for payment.

Adulthood

Ibn Sina's first appointment was that of physician to the emir, who owed him his recovery from a dangerous illness (997). Ibn Sina's chief reward for this service was access to the royal library of the Samanids, well-known patrons of scholarship and scholars. When the library was destroyed by fire not long after, the enemies of Ibn Sina accused him of burning it, in order for ever to conceal the sources of his knowledge. Meanwhile, he assisted his father in his financial labours, but still found time to write some of his earliest works.

When Ibn Sina was 22 years old, he lost his father. The Samanid dynasty came to its end in December 1004. Ibn Sina seems to have declined the offers of Mahmud of Ghazni, and proceeded westwards to Urgench in the modern Turkmenistan, where the vizier, regarded as a friend of scholars, gave him a small monthly stipend. The pay was small, however, so Ibn Sina wandered from place to place through the districts of Nishapur and Merv to the borders of Khorasan, seeking an opening for his talents. Qabus, the generous ruler of Dailam and central Persia, himself a poet and a scholar, with whom Ibn Sina had expected to find an asylum, was about that date (1012) starved to death by his troops who had revolted. Ibn Sina himself was at this season stricken down by a severe illness. Finally, at Gorgan, near the Caspian Sea, Ibn Sina met with a friend, who bought a dwelling near his own house in which Ibn Sina lectured on logic and astronomy. Several of Ibn Sina's treatises were written for this patron; and the commencement of his ''Canon of Medicine'' also dates from his stay in Hyrcania.

Ibn Sina subsequently settled at Rai, in the vicinity of modern Tehran, (present day capital of Iran), the home town of Rhazes; where Majd Addaula, a son of the last Buwayhid emir, was nominal ruler under the regency of his mother (Seyyedeh Khatun). About thirty of Ibn Sina's shorter works are said to have been composed in Rai. Constant feuds which raged between the regent and her second son, Shams al-Daula, however, compelled the scholar to quit the place. After a brief sojourn at Qazvin he passed southwards to Hamadãn where Shams al-Daula, another Buwayhid emir, had established himself. At first, Ibn Sina entered into the service of a high-born lady; but the emir, hearing of his arrival, called him in as medical attendant, and sent him back with presents to his dwelling. Ibn Sina was even raised to the office of vizier. The emir consented that he should be banished from the country. Ibn Sina, however, remained hidden for forty days in a sheikh Ahmed Fadhel's house, until a fresh attack of illness induced the emir to restore him to his post. Even during this perturbed time, Ibn Sina persevered with his studies and teaching. Every evening, extracts from his great works, the ''Canon'' and the ''Sanatio'', were dictated and explained to his pupils. On the death of the emir, Ibn Sina ceased to be vizier and hid himself in the house of an apothecary, where, with intense assiduity, he continued the composition of his works.

Meanwhile, he had written to Abu Ya'far, the prefect of the dynamic city of Isfahan, offering his services. The new emir of Hamadan, hearing of this correspondence and discovering where Ibn Sina was hidden, incarcerated him in a fortress. War meanwhile continued between the rulers of Isfahan and Hamadãn; in 1024 the former captured Hamadan and its towns, expelling the Tajik mercenaries. When the storm had passed, Ibn Sina returned with the emir to Hamadan, and carried on his literary labors. Later, however, accompanied by his brother, a favorite pupil, and two slaves, Ibn Sina escaped out of the city in the dress of a Sufi ascetic. After a perilous journey, they reached Isfahan, receiving an honorable welcome from the prince.

Later life and death

The remaining ten or twelve years of Ibn Sīnā's life were spent in the service of Abu Ja'far 'Ala Addaula, whom he accompanied as physician and general literary and scientific adviser, even in his numerous campaigns.

During these years he began to study literary matters and philology, instigated, it is asserted, by criticisms on his style. A severe colic, which seized him on the march of the army against Hamadan, was checked by remedies so violent that Ibn Sina could scarcely stand. On a similar occasion the disease returned; with difficulty he reached Hamadan, where, finding the disease gaining ground, he refused to keep up the regimen imposed, and resigned himself to his fate.

His friends advised him to slow down and take life moderately. He refused, however, stating that: ''"I prefer a short life with width to a narrow one with length"''. On his deathbed remorse seized him; he bestowed his goods on the poor, restored unjust gains, freed his slaves, and read through the Qur'an every three days until his death. He died in June 1037, in his fifty-eighth year, in the month of Ramadan and was buried in Hamadan, Iran.

''The Canon of Medicine''

About 100 treatises were ascribed to Ibn Sina. 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 up until the 18th century.

Medicine and pharmacology

The book is known for the discovery of contagious diseases and sexually transmitted diseases, the introduction of quarantine to limit the spread of infectious diseases, the introduction of experimental medicine, clinical trials, neuropsychiatry, risk factor analysis, and the idea of a syndrome in the diagnosis of specific diseases, Ibn Sīnā adopted, from the Greeks, the theory that epidemics are caused by pollution in the air (miasma). It classifies and describes diseases, and outlines their assumed causes. Hygiene, simple and complex medicines, and functions of parts of the body are also covered. In this, Ibn Sīnā is credited as being the first to correctly document the anatomy of the human eye, along with descriptions of eye afflictions such as cataracts. It asserts that tuberculosis was contagious, which was later disputed by Europeans, but turned out to be true. It also describes the symptoms and complications of diabetes. Both forms of facial paralysis were described in-depth.

''The Canon of Medicine'' was the first book dealing with experimental medicine, evidence-based medicine, randomized controlled trials, and efficacy tests, and it laid out the following rules and principles for testing the effectiveness of new drugs and medications, which still form the basis of clinical pharmacology and modern clinical trials:

The drug must be free from any extraneous accidental quality.

It must be used on a simple, not a composite, disease.

The drug must be tested with two contrary types of diseases, because sometimes a drug cures one disease by Its essential qualities and another by its accidental ones.

The quality of the drug must correspond to the strength of the disease. For example, there are some drugs whose heat is less than the coldness of certain diseases, so that they would have no effect on them.

The time of action must be observed, so that essence and accident are not confused.

The effect of the drug must be seen to occur constantly or in many cases, for if this did not happen, it was an accidental effect.

The experimentation must be done with the human body, for testing a drug on a lion or a horse might not prove anything about its effect on man.

An Arabic edition of the ''Canon'' appeared at Rome in 1593, and a Hebrew version at Naples in 1491. Of the Latin version there were about thirty editions, founded on the original translation by Gerard de Sabloneta. In the 15th century a commentary on the text of the ''Canon'' was composed. Other medical works translated into Latin are the ''Medicamenta Cordialia'', ''Canticum de Medicina'', and the ''Tractatus de Syrupo Acetoso''.

It was mainly accident which determined that from the 12th to the 18th century, Ibn Sīnā should be the guide of medical study in European universities, and eclipse the names of Rhazes, Ali ibn al-Abbas and Averroes. His work is not essentially different from that of his predecessor Rhazes, because he presented the doctrine of Galen, and through Galen the doctrine of Hippocrates, modified by the system of Aristotle. But the ''Canon'' of Ibn Sīnā is distinguished from the ''Al-Hawi'' (Continence) or ''Summary'' of Rhazes by its greater method, due perhaps to the logical studies of the former.

The work has been variously appreciated in subsequent ages, some regarding it as a treasury of wisdom, and others, like Averroes, holding it useful only as waste paper. In modern times it has been mainly of historic interest as most of its tenets have been disproved or expanded upon by scientific medicine. The vice of the book is excessive classification of bodily faculties, and over-subtlety in the discrimination of diseases. It includes five books; of which the first and second discuss physiology, pathology and hygiene, the third and fourth deal with the methods of treating disease, and the fifth describes the composition and preparation of remedies. This last part contains some personal observations.

He is ample in the enumeration of symptoms, and is said to be inferior in practical medicine and surgery. He introduced into medical theory the ''four causes of the Peripatetic system''. Of natural history and botany he pretended to no special knowledge. Up to the year 1650, or thereabouts, the ''Canon'' was still used as a textbook in the universities of Leuven and Montpellier.

In the museum at Bukhara, there are displays showing many of his writings, surgical instruments from the period and paintings of patients undergoing treatment. Ibn Sīnā was interested in the effect of the mind on the body, and wrote a great deal on psychology, likely influencing Ibn Tufayl and Ibn Bajjah. He also introduced medical herbs.

Avicenna extended the theory of temperaments in ''The Canon of Medicine'' to encompass "emotional aspects, mental capacity, moral attitudes, self-awareness, movements and dreams." He summarized his version of the four humours and temperaments in a table as follows:

+Avicenna's four humours and temperaments
!Evidence	!Hot	!Cold	!Moist	!Dry
Morbid states		fevers related to serious humour, rheumatism
Functional power	deficient energy		difficult digestion
Subjective sensations	bitter taste, excessive thirst, burning at cardia	Lack of desire for fluids	mucous connective tissue	[[insomnia, wakefulness
Physical signs	high pulse rate, lassitude	flaccid joints	diarrhea, calefacients harmful, infrigidants beneficial	infrigidants harmful, calefacients beneficial
Relation to weather	worse in summer	worse in winter		bad in autumn

Physical Exercise: the Key to Health

The Canon of Medicine: Volume 1 of 5; Part 4 of 5: The Preservation of Health

Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine which is written in 5 volumes, only the first volume has appeared in the English Language. In the first volume, Ibn Sina divides medicine into two parts as he explains it throughout the first book: the theoretical and the practical. The theoretical part consists of, but is not excluded to, such things as: the causes of health and disease, the temperaments, the humours, the anatomy, general physiology, the breath, psychology, discussion of causes diseases and symptoms, the causes of illness, the classification of diseases, the pulse, the urine etc.

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Theoretical and Practical Medicine

Ibn Sina goes on to say that you do not get any benefit from just knowing how your body works, but rather the true benefit of medicine itself is in its practical aspect, since medicine is for the preservation of health.

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The Benefits of Exercise

Once the purpose of medicine has been set forth, then from pages 377-455, Ibn Sina divides the way of achieving health as:

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Exercise itself is divided into three main parts: The Massage (which is equivalent to massaging your muscles before you start to exercise); The Exercise itself; and lastly the Cold Bath.

Giving one of the greatest benefits of the regimen of exercise, and then explaining the extremely important and necessary need for physical exercise; Ibn Sina states:

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In what manner does Ibn Sina uses the word temperament? In saying that exercise cures diseases of temperamant

Ibn Sina divides temperament into that which is harmonious and that which is non-uniform. Ibn Sina says on pg 276-277

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The Purpose of Exercise and the Dangers of its negligence

Just before this Ibn Sina explained how accumulation of food in our body, can cause diseases, and one way to rid us of this is strong medicines. However, as he explains; this is not the ideal way, and certainly not the long-term. Thus, to make his point very clear, and show the extreme necessity of daily exercise for health, Ibn Sina states:

Massage

Before you begin to exercise it is important that you massage your muscles; as Ibn Sina says on page 385:

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Exercises

The exercises themselves are divided into 'strenuous, mild, vigorous and brisk'. On pages 379-381; Ibn Sina states the types of exercises under each type:

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There are certain important things to note once you start exercising, one is the amount, the other consistency; Ibn Sina states about the amount:

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On being consistent with exercise Ibn Sina states (on the importance of having a regimen):

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On the side note those who think themselves to be elderly, and thus think of shunning exercise, Ibn Sina write a complete chapter titled "Concerning the Elderly" in the Qanun, and states the same regimen for them, as he does for others. He states on page 433

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Bathing in Cold Water

Once you have finished exercising; it is often that the person will feel tired and fatigued; to combat this problem Ibn Sina says on page 388:

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Most importantly you should remember:

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There are two more things that are important to mention on this subject:

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Diet

Once Ibn Sina has laid the foundation of exercise being central to health, he names many exercises as running, swimming, weight lifting, polo, fencing, boxing, wrestling, long jumping, high jumping, etc. He also gives a diet to go along with the exercise:

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Lastly, the third thing mentioned is sleep; to make sure that you do not sleep during the days, and do not stay awake during the nights. From the above reading, it is clear that Ibn Sina gave advice in his book which is still the same advice medical doctors give to their patients.Daily Physical Exercise; and to defeat diseases such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, the prescription of a diet which contains high amounts of Whole Grains and little to no amounts of Refined Carbohydrates.

Psychology

Avicenna was a pioneer of [[neuropsychiatry">eye puffiness rough skin, acquired habit Foods & medicines calefacients harmful, infrigidants beneficial infrigidants harmful, calefacients beneficial Relation to weather worse in summer worse in winter bad in autumn

Physical Exercise: the Key to Health

The Canon of Medicine: Volume 1 of 5; Part 4 of 5: The Preservation of Health

Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine which is written in 5 volumes, only the first volume has appeared in the English Language. In the first volume, Ibn Sina divides medicine into two parts as he explains it throughout the first book: the theoretical and the practical. The theoretical part consists of, but is not excluded to, such things as: the causes of health and disease, the temperaments, the humours, the anatomy, general physiology, the breath, psychology, discussion of causes diseases and symptoms, the causes of illness, the classification of diseases, the pulse, the urine etc.

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Theoretical and Practical Medicine

Ibn Sina goes on to say that you do not get any benefit from just knowing how your body works, but rather the true benefit of medicine itself is in its practical aspect, since medicine is for the preservation of health.

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The Benefits of Exercise

Once the purpose of medicine has been set forth, then from pages 377-455, Ibn Sina divides the way of achieving health as:

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Exercise itself is divided into three main parts: The Massage (which is equivalent to massaging your muscles before you start to exercise); The Exercise itself; and lastly the Cold Bath.

Giving one of the greatest benefits of the regimen of exercise, and then explaining the extremely important and necessary need for physical exercise; Ibn Sina states:

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In what manner does Ibn Sina uses the word temperament? In saying that exercise cures diseases of temperamant

Ibn Sina divides temperament into that which is harmonious and that which is non-uniform. Ibn Sina says on pg 276-277

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The Purpose of Exercise and the Dangers of its negligence

Just before this Ibn Sina explained how accumulation of food in our body, can cause diseases, and one way to rid us of this is strong medicines. However, as he explains; this is not the ideal way, and certainly not the long-term. Thus, to make his point very clear, and show the extreme necessity of daily exercise for health, Ibn Sina states:

Massage

Before you begin to exercise it is important that you massage your muscles; as Ibn Sina says on page 385:

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Exercises

The exercises themselves are divided into 'strenuous, mild, vigorous and brisk'. On pages 379-381; Ibn Sina states the types of exercises under each type:

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There are certain important things to note once you start exercising, one is the amount, the other consistency; Ibn Sina states about the amount:

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On being consistent with exercise Ibn Sina states (on the importance of having a regimen):

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On the side note those who think themselves to be elderly, and thus think of shunning exercise, Ibn Sina write a complete chapter titled "Concerning the Elderly" in the Qanun, and states the same regimen for them, as he does for others. He states on page 433

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Bathing in Cold Water

Once you have finished exercising; it is often that the person will feel tired and fatigued; to combat this problem Ibn Sina says on page 388:

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Most importantly you should remember:

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There are two more things that are important to mention on this subject:

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Diet

Once Ibn Sina has laid the foundation of exercise being central to health, he names many exercises as running, swimming, weight lifting, polo, fencing, boxing, wrestling, long jumping, high jumping, etc. He also gives a diet to go along with the exercise:

}}

Lastly, the third thing mentioned is sleep; to make sure that you do not sleep during the days, and do not stay awake during the nights. From the above reading, it is clear that Ibn Sina gave advice in his book which is still the same advice medical doctors give to their patients.Daily Physical Exercise; and to defeat diseases such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, the prescription of a diet which contains high amounts of Whole Grains and little to no amounts of Refined Carbohydrates.

Psychology

Avicenna was a pioneer of hallucination, insomnia, mania, nightmare, melancholia, dementia, epilepsy, paralysis, stroke, [[vertigo (medical)">vertigo and tremor.

In ''The Canon of Medicine'', Avicenna dealt with neuropsychiatry and described a number of neuropsychiatric conditions, including melancholia. He described melancholia as a depressive type of mood disorder in which the person may become suspicious and develop certain types of phobias.

Unani medicine

Though the threads which comprise Unani healing can be traced all the way back to Galen of Pergamon, who lived in the 2nd century AD, the basic knowledge of Unani medicine as a healing system was developed by Hakim Ibn Sina in his medical encyclopedia ''The Canon of Medicine''. The time of origin is thus dated at ''circa'' 1025 AD, when Avicenna wrote ''The Canon of Medicine'' in Persia, which remains a text book in the syllabus of Unani medicine in the colleges of India and Pakistan. While he was primarily influenced by Greek and Islamic medicine, he was also influenced by the Indian medical teachings of Sushruta and Charaka.

''The Book of Healing''

Earth sciences

Ibn Sīnā wrote on Earth sciences such as geology in ''The Book of Healing'', in which he developed the concept of uniformitarianism and law of superposition in geology. While discussing the formation of mountains, he explained:

Due to his fundamental contributions to the development of geology, particularly regarding the origins of mountains, Avicenna has been called the 'Father of Geology'.

Philosophy of science

In the ''Al-Burhan'' (''On Demonstration'') section of ''The Book of Healing'', Avicenna discussed the philosophy of science and described an early scientific method of inquiry. He discusses Aristotle's ''Posterior Analytics'' and significantly diverged from it on several points. Avicenna discussed the issue of a proper methodology for scientific inquiry and the question of "How does one acquire the first principles of a science?" He asked how a scientist would arrive at "the initial axioms or hypotheses of a deductive science without inferring them from some more basic premises?" He explains that the ideal situation is when one grasps that a "relation holds between the terms, which would allow for absolute, universal certainty." Avicenna then adds two further methods for arriving at the first principles: the ancient Aristotelian method of induction (''istiqra''), and the method of examination and experimentation (''tajriba''). Avicenna criticized Aristotelian induction, arguing that "it does not lead to the absolute, universal, and certain premises that it purports to provide." In its place, he develops a "method of experimentation as a means for scientific inquiry."

Physics

In mechanics, Ibn Sīnā, in ''The Book of Healing'', developed an elaborate theory of motion, in which he made a distinction between the inclination (tendency to motion) and force of a projectile, and concluded that motion was a result of an inclination (''mayl'') transferred to the projectile by the thrower, and that projectile motion in a vacuum would not cease. He viewed inclination as a permanent force whose effect is dissipated by external forces such as air resistance.

His theory of motion is thus reminiscent of the theory of inertia, now known as Newton's first law of motion. His theory of ''mayl'' also attempted to provide a quantitive relation between the weight and velocity of a moving body, resembling the concept of momentum, a precursor to the concept of momentum in Newton's second law of motion. Ibn Sīnā's theory of ''mayl'' was further developed by Jean Buridan in his theory of impetus.

In optics, Ibn Sina "observed that if the perception of light is due to the emission of some sort of particles by a luminous source, the speed of light must be finite." He also provided a wrong explanation of the rainbow phenomenon. Carl Benjamin Boyer described Avicenna's ("Ibn Sīnā") theory on the rainbow as follows:

In 1253, a Latin text entitled ''Speculum Tripartitum'' stated the following regarding Avicenna's theory on heat:

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Psychology

Avicenna's legacy in classical psychology is primarily embodied in the ''Kitab al-nafs'' parts of his ''Kitab al-shifa''' (''The Book of Healing'') and ''Kitab al-najat'' (''The Book of Deliverance''). These were known in Latin under the title ''De Anima'' (treatises "on the soul"). The main thesis of these tracts is represented in his so-called "flying man" argument, which resonates with what was centuries later entailed by Descartes's ''cogito'' argument (or what phenomenology designates as a form of an "''epoche''").

Avicenna’s psychology requires that connection between the body and soul be strong enough to ensure the soul’s individuation, but weak enough to allow for its immortality. Avicenna grounds his psychology on physiology, which means his account of the soul is one that deals almost entirely with the natural science of the body and its abilities of perception. Thus, the philosopher's connection between the soul and body is explained almost entirely by his understanding of perception; in this way, bodily perception interrelates with the immaterial human intellect. In sense perception, the perceiver senses the form of the object; first, by perceiving features of the object by our external senses. This sensory information is supplied to the internal senses, which merge all the pieces into a whole, unified conscious experience. This process of perception and abstraction is the nexus of the soul and body, for the material body may only perceive material objects, while the immaterial soul may only receive the immaterial, universal forms. The way the soul and body interact in the final abstraction of the universal from the concrete particular is the key to their relationship and interaction, which takes place in the physical body.

The soul completes the action of intellection by accepting forms that have been abstracted from matter. This process requires a concrete particular (material) to be abstracted into the universal intelligible (immaterial). The material and immaterial interact through the Active Intellect, which is a “divine light” containing the intelligible forms. The Active Intellect reveals the universals concealed in material objects much like the sun makes color available to our eyes.

Avicennian philosophy

Ibn Sīnā wrote extensively on early Islamic philosophy, especially the subjects logic, ethics, and metaphysics, including treatises named ''Logic'' and ''Metaphysics''. Most of his works were written in Arabic - which was the ''de facto'' scientific language of the time in the Middle East, and some were written in the Persian language. Of linguistic significance even to this day are a few books that he wrote in nearly pure Persian language (particularly the Danishnamah-yi 'Ala', Philosophy for Ala' ad-Dawla'). Ibn Sīnā's commentaries on Aristotle often corrected the philosopher, encouraging a lively debate in the spirit of ijtihad.

In the medieval Islamic world, due to Avicenna's successful reconciliation between Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism along with Kalam, Avicennism eventually became the leading school of Islamic philosophy by the 12th century, with Avicenna becoming a central authority on philosophy.

Avicennism was also influential in medieval Europe, particular his doctrines on the nature of the soul and his existence-essence distinction, along with the debates and censure that they raised in scholastic Europe. This was particularly the case in Paris, where Avicennism was later proscribed in 1210. Nevertheless, his psychology and theory of knowledge influenced William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris and Albertus Magnus, while his metaphysics had an impact on the thought of Thomas Aquinas.

Metaphysical doctrine

Early Islamic philosophy and Islamic metaphysics, imbued as it is with Islamic theology, distinguishes more clearly than Aristotelianism the difference between essence and existence. Whereas existence is the domain of the contingent and the accidental, essence endures within a being beyond the accidental. The philosophy of Ibn Sīnā, particularly that part relating to metaphysics, owes much to al-Farabi. The search for a definitive Islamic philosophy separate from Occasionalism can be seen in what is left of his work.

Following al-Farabi's lead, Avicenna initiated a full-fledged inquiry into the question of being, in which he distinguished between essence (''Mahiat'') and existence (''Wujud''). He argued that the fact of existence can not be inferred from or accounted for by the essence of existing things, and that form and matter by themselves cannot interact and originate the movement of the universe or the progressive actualization of existing things. Existence must, therefore, be due to an agent-cause that necessitates, imparts, gives, or adds existence to an essence. To do so, the cause must be an existing thing and coexist with its effect.

Avicenna’s consideration of the essence-attributes question may be elucidated in terms of his ontological analysis of the modalities of being; namely impossibility, contingency, and necessity. Avicenna argued that the impossible being is that which cannot exist, while the contingent in itself (''mumkin bi-dhatihi'') has the potentiality to be or not to be without entailing a contradiction. When actualized, the contingent becomes a ‘necessary existent due to what is other than itself’ (''wajib al-wujud bi-ghayrihi''). Thus, contingency-in-itself is potential beingness that could eventually be actualized by an external cause other than itself. The metaphysical structures of necessity and contingency are different. Necessary being due to itself (''wajib al-wujud bi-dhatihi'') is true in itself, while the contingent being is ‘false in itself’ and ‘true due to something else other than itself’. The necessary is the source of its own being without borrowed existence. It is what always exists. The Necessary exists ‘due-to-Its-Self’, and has no quiddity/essence (''mahiyya'') other than existence (''wujud''). Furthermore, It is ‘One’ (''wahid ahad'') since there cannot be more than one ‘Necessary-Existent-due-to-Itself’ without differentia (fasl) to distinguish them from each other. Yet, to require differentia entails that they exist ‘due-to-themselves’ as well as ‘due to what is other than themselves’; and this is contradictory. However, if no differentia distinguishes them from each other, then there is no sense in which these ‘Existents’ are not one and the same. Avicenna adds that the ‘Necessary-Existent-due-to-Itself’ has no genus (''jins''), nor a definition (''hadd''), nor a counterpart (''nadd''), nor an opposite (''did''), and is detached (''bari’'') from matter (''madda''), quality (''kayf''), quantity (''kam''), place (''ayn''), situation (''wad’''), and time (''waqt'').

Natural philosophy

Ibn Sina and Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī engaged in a written debate, with Abu Rayhan Biruni mostly criticizing Aristotelian natural philosophy and the Peripatetic school, while Avicenna and his student Ahmad ibn 'Ali al-Ma'sumi respond to Biruni's criticisms in writing. Abu Rayhan began by asking Avicenna eighteen questions, ten of which were criticisms of Aristotle's ''On the Heavens''.

Theology

Ibn Sīnā was a devout Muslim and sought to reconcile rational philosophy with Islamic theology. His aim was to prove the existence of God and His creation of the world scientifically and through reason and logic. Avicenna wrote a number of treatises dealing with Islamic theology. These included treatises on the Islamic prophets, whom he viewed as "inspired philosophers", and on various scientific and philosophical interpretations of the Qur'an, such as how Quranic cosmology corresponds to his own philosophical system.

Ibn Sīnā memorized the Qur'an by the age of seven, and as an adult, he wrote five treatises commenting on suras from the Qur'an. One of these texts included the ''Proof of Prophecies'', in which he comments on several Quranic verses and holds the Qur'an in high esteem. Avicenna argued that the Islamic prophets should be considered higher than philosophers.

Thought experiments

While he was imprisoned in the castle of Fardajan near Hamadhan, Avicenna wrote his famous "Floating Man" thought experiment to demonstrate human self-awareness and the substantiality and immateriality of the soul. Avicenna believed his "Floating Man" thought experiment demonstrated that the soul is a substance, and claimed humans cannot doubt their own consciousness, even in a situation that prevents all sensory data input. The thought experiment told its readers to imagine themselves created all at once while suspended in the air, isolated from all sensations, which includes no sensory contact with even their own bodies. He argued that, in this scenario, one would still have self-consciousness. Because it is conceivable that a person, suspended in air while cut off from sense experience, would still be capable of determining his own existence, the thought experiment points to the conclusions that the soul is a perfection, independent of the body, and an immaterial substance. The conceivability of this “Floating Man” indicates that the soul is perceived intellectually, which entails the soul’s separateness from the body. Avicenna referred to the living human intelligence, particularly the active intellect, which he believed to be the hypostasis by which God communicates truth to the human mind and imparts order and intelligibility to nature. However, Avicenna posited the brain as the place where reason interacts with sensation. Sensation prepares the soul to receive rational concepts from the universal Agent Intellect. The first knowledge of the flying person would be “I am,” affirming his or her essence. That essence could not be the body, obviously, as the flying person has no sensation. Thus, the knowledge that “I am” is the core of a human being: the soul exists and is self-aware. Avicenna thus concluded that the idea of the self is not logically dependent on any physical thing, and that the soul should not be seen in relative terms, but as a primary given, a substance. The body is unnecessary; in relation to it, the soul is its perfection. In itself, the soul is an immaterial substance.

Other contributions

Astronomy and astrology

The practice of judicial astrology was refuted by Avicenna. His reasons were due to the methods used by astrologers in judicial astrology being conjectural rather than empirical and also due to the principles of this type of astrology conflicting with orthodox Islam. He also cited passages from the Qur'an in order to justify his refutation of astrology on both scientific and religious grounds. However, Avicenna’s refutation of astrology (in the treatise titled (''Resāla fī ebṭāl aḥkām al-nojūm'') concerned only the judicial application of astrology rather than the philosophical principles of the subject and its natural influence. He stated that it was true that each planet had some influence on the earth, but his argument was the difficulty of astrologers being able to determine the exact effect of it. In essence, Avicenna did not refute astrology, but denied man’s limited capacity to be able to know the precise effects of the stars on the sublunar matter. With that, he did not refute the essential dogma of astrology, but only refuted our ability to fully understand it.

In astronomy, he criticized Aristotle's view of the stars receiving their light from the Sun. Ibn Sīnā stated that the stars are self-luminous, and believed that the planets are also self-luminous. He claimed to have observed the transit of Venus across the Sun on May 24, 1032. However, modern scholars have questioned whether he could have observed the transit from his location at that time. He used his transit observation to demonstrate that Venus was, at least sometimes, below the Sun in the Ptolemaic cosmology.

Soon after, he wrote the ''Compendium of the Almagest'', a commentary on Ptolemy's ''Almagest''. Avicenna concluded that Venus is closer to the Earth than the Sun. In 1070, Abu Ubayd al-Juzjani, a pupil of Ibn Sīnā, claimed that his teacher Ibn Sīnā had solved the equant problem in the Ptolemaic model.

Chemistry

In chemistry, the chemical process of steam distillation was first described by Ibn Sīnā. The technique was used to produce alcohol and essential oils; the latter was fundamental to aromatherapy. He also invented the refrigerated coil, which condenses the aromatic vapours. This was a breakthrough in distillation technology and he made use of it in his steam distillation process, which requires refrigerated tubing, to produce essential oils.

As a chemist, Avicenna was one of the first to write refutations on alchemy, after al-Kindi. Four of his works on the refutation of alchemy were translated into Latin as:

''Liber Aboali Abincine de Anima in arte Alchemiae''

''Declaratio Lapis physici Avicennae filio sui Aboali''

''Avicennae de congelatione et conglutinatione lapifum''

''Avicennae ad Hasan Regem epistola de Re recta''

In one of these works, Ibn Sīnā discredited the theory of the transmutation of substances commonly believed by alchemists:

Among his works refuting alchemy, ''Liber Aboali Abincine de Anima in arte Alchemiae'' was the most influential, having influenced later medieval chemists and alchemists such as Vincent of Beauvais.

In another work, translated into Latin as ''De congelatione et conglutinatione lapidum'', Ibn Sina proposed a four-part classification of inorganic bodies, which was a significant improvement over the two-part classification of Aristotle (into ''orycta'' and metals) and three-part classification of Galen (into ''terrae'', ''lapides'' and metals). The four parts of Ibn Sina's classification were: ''lapides'', sulfur, salts and metals.

Engineering

In the chapters on mechanics and engineering in his encyclopedia ''Mi'yar al-'aql'' (''The Measure of the Mind''), Avicenna writes an analysis on the ''ilm al-hiyal'' (science of ingenious devices) and makes the first successful attempt to classify simple machines and their combinations. He first describes and illustrates the five constituent simple machines: the lever, pulley, screw, wedge, and windlass. He then analyzes all the combinations of these simple machines, such as the windlass-screw, windlass-pulley and windlass-lever for example. He is also the first to describe a mechanism which is essentially a combination of all of these simple machines (except for the wedge).

Poetry

Almost half of Ibn Sīnā's works are versified. His poems appear in both Arabic and Persian. As an example, Edward Granville Browne claims that the following Persian verses are incorrectly attributed to Omar Khayyám, and were originally written by Ibn Sīnā:

Legacy

As early as the 14th century when Dante Alighieri depicted him in Limbo alongside the virtuous non-Christian thinkers in his Divine Comedy such as Virgil, Averroes, Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucan, Socrates, Plato, and Saladin, Avicenna has been recognized by both East and West, as one of the great figures in intellectual history.

George Sarton, the author of ''The History of Science'', described Ibn Sīnā as "one of the greatest thinkers and medical scholars in history" and called him "the most famous scientist of Islam and one of the most famous of all races, places, and times." He was one of the Islamic world's leading writers in the field of medicine. He was influenced by the approach of Hippocrates and Galen, as well as Sushruta and Charaka. Along with Rhazes, Abulcasis, Ibn al-Nafis, and al-Ibadi, Ibn Sīnā is considered an important compiler of early Muslim medicine. He is remembered in Western history of medicine as a major historical figure who made important contributions to medicine and the European Renaissance. Ibn Sīnā is also considered the father of the fundamental concept of momentum in physics.

In Iran, he is considered a national icon, and is often regarded as one of the greatest Persians to have ever lived. Many portraits and statues remain in Iran today. An impressive monument to the life and works of the man who is known as the 'doctor of doctors' still stands outside the Bukhara museum and his portrait hangs in the Hall of the Avicenna Faculty of Medicine in the University of Paris. There is also a crater on the Moon named Avicenna. Bu-Ali Sina University in Hamadan (Iran), the ''ibn Sīnā'' Tajik State Medical University in Dushanbe (The capital of the Republic of Tajikistan), Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences at Aligarh, India, Avicenna School in Karachi and Avicenna Medical College in Lahore Pakistan, Ibne Sina Balkh Medical School in his native province of Balkh in Afghanistan, Ibni Sina Faculty Of Medicine of Ankara University Ankara, Turkey and Ibn Sina Integrated School in Marawi City (Philippines) are all named in his honour. In 1980, the former Soviet Union, which then ruled his birthplace Bukhara, celebrated the thousandth anniversary of Avicenna's birth by circulating various commemorative stamps with artistic illustrations, and by erecting a bust of Avicenna based on anthropological research by Soviet scholars. Near his birthplace in Qishlak Afshona, some . north of Bukhara, a training college for medical staff has been named for him. On the grounds is a museum dedicated to his life, times and work.

In March 2008, it was announced that Avicenna’s name would be used for new Directories of education institutions for health care professionals, worldwide. The Avicenna Directories will list universities and schools where doctors, public health practitioners, pharmacists and others, are educated. The project team stated “Why Avicenna? Avicenna ... was ... noted for his synthesis of knowledge from both east and west. He has had a lasting influence on the development of medicine and health sciences. The use of Avicenna’s name symbolises the worldwide partnership that is needed for the promotion of health services of high quality.”

Works

The treatises of Ibn Sīnā influenced later Muslim thinkers in many areas including theology, philology, mathematics, astronomy, physics, and music. Ibn Sīnā's works numbered almost 450 volumes on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived. In particular, 150 volumes of his surviving works concentrate on philosophy and 40 of them concentrate on medicine. ''Sirat al-shaykh al-ra’is'' (''The Life of Ibn Sina''), ed. and trans. WE. Gohlman, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1974. (The only critical edition of Ibn Sina’s autobiography, supplemented with material from a biography by his student Abu ‘Ubayd al-Juzjani. A more recent translation of the Autobiography appears in D. Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Introduction to Reading Avicenna’s Philosophical Works, Leiden: Brill, 1988.) ''Al-Isharat wa-‘l-tanbihat'' (''Remarks and Admonitions''), ed. S. Dunya, Cairo, 1960; parts translated by S.C. Inati, Remarks and Admonitions, Part One: Logic, Toronto, Ont.: Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies, 1984, and Ibn Sina and Mysticism, Remarks and Admonitions: Part 4, London: Kegan Paul International, 1996. ''Al-Qanun fi’l-tibb'' (''The Canon of Medicine''), ed. I. a-Qashsh, Cairo, 1987. (Encyclopedia of medicine.) ''Risalah fi sirr al-qadar'' (''Essay on the Secret of Destiny''), trans. G. Hourani in Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. ''Danishnama-i ‘ala’i'' (''The Book of Scientific Knowledge''), ed. and trans. P Morewedge, The Metaphysics of Avicenna, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973. ''Kitab al-Shifa’'' (''The Book of Healing''). (Ibn Sina’s major work on philosophy. He probably began to compose al-Shifa’ in 1014, and completed it in 1020.) Critical editions of the Arabic text have been published in Cairo, 1952–83, originally under the supervision of I. Madkour

''Kitab al-Najat'' (''The Book of Salvation''), trans. F. Rahman, ''Avicenna’s Psychology: An English Translation of Kitab al-Najat, Book II, Chapter VI with Historical-philosophical Notes and Textual Improvements on the Cairo Edition'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952. (The psychology of al-Shifa’.)

''Hayy ibn Yaqdhan'' a Persian myth. A novel called ''Hayy ibn Yaqdhan'', based on Avicenna's story, was later written by Ibn Tufail (Abubacer) in the 12th century and translated into Latin and English as ''Philosophus Autodidactus'' in the 17th and 18th centuries respectively. In the 13th century, Ibn al-Nafis wrote his own novel ''Fadil ibn Natiq'', known as ''Theologus Autodidactus'' in the West, as a critical response to ''Hayy ibn Yaqdhan''.

Persian Works

Danishnama-i ‘Alai

Danishnama-i ‘Alai is called "the Book of Knowledge for [Prince] 'Ala ad-Daulah". One of Avicenna's important Persian work is the Daaneshnaame (literally: the book of knowledge) for Prince 'Ala ad-Daulah (the local Buyid ruler). The linguist aspects of the Dāneš-nāma and the originality of their Persian vocabulary are of great interest to Iranian philologists. Avicenna created new scientific vocabulary that had not existed before in the modern Persian language. The Dāneš-nāma covers such topics as logic, metaphysics, music theory and other sciences of his time. This book has translated to English by Parwiz Mowewedge.

Andar Danesh-e-Rag

Andar Danesh-e-Rag is called "On the science of the pulse". This book contains nine chapters on the science of the pulse and is condensed synonpsis.

Persian Poetry

Persian poetry from Ibn Sina is recorded in various manuscripts and later anthologies such as Nozhat al-Majales.

Novels

The Physician

In the book The Physician Noah Gordon tells the illusion of a young English medical apprentice, to learn from the great master of his time. Avicenna also the novel or the path of Isfahan Sinoué Gilbert told from a human perspective Avicenna's biography with its passions and wisdom.

The manuscript of Avicenna (El Manuscrito de Avicena)

More recently, in 2011, the Spanish writer Ezequiel Teodoro has published a novel, The manuscript of Avicenna (El Manuscrito de Avicena), which recreates some moments in the life of the Persian physician.

See also

Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi

Al-Qumri

Avicennia, a genus of mangrove named after Ibn Sīnā

Avicenna Research Institute, a biotechnology research institute named after Ibn Sīnā

Ibn Sina Peak - named after the Scientist

Eastern philosophy

Iranian philosophy

Science and technology in Iran

* Ancient Iranian Medicine

*List of Iranian scientists and scholars

Science in medieval Islam

* List of Muslim scientists

* Sufi philosophy

Islamic scholars

Mumijo

References

;Attribution

Further reading

Encyclopedic articles

Primary literature

Avicenne: ''Réfutation de l'astrologie''. Edition et traduction du texte arabe, introduction, notes et lexique par Yahya Michot. Préface d'Elizabeth Teissier (Beirut-Paris: Albouraq, 2006) ISBN 2-84161-304-6.

For a list of other extant works, C. Brockelmann's ''Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur'' (Weimar, 1898), vol. i. pp. 452–458. (XV. W.; G. W. T.)

For Ibn Sina's life, see Ibn Khallikan's ''Biographical Dictionary'', translated by de Slane (1842); F. Wüstenfeld's ''Geschichte der arabischen Aerzte und Naturforscher'' (Göttingen, 1840).

Madelung, Wilferd and Toby Mayer (ed. and tr.), Struggling with the Philosopher: A Refutation of Avicenna’s Metaphysics. A New Arabic Edition and English Translation of Shahrastani's Kitab al-Musara'a.

Secondary literature

* This is, on the whole, an informed and good account of the life and accomplishments of one of the greatest influences on the development of thought both Eastern and Western. [...] It is not as philosophically thorough as the works of D. Saliba, A. M. Goichon, or L. Gardet, but it is probably the best essay in English on this important thinker of the Middle Ages. (Julius R. Weinberg, ''The Philosophical Review'', Vol. 69, No. 2, Apr. 1960, pp. 255–259)

* This is a distinguished work which stands out from, and above, many of the books and articles which have ben written in this century on Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) (A.D. 980–1037). It has two main features on which its distinction as a major contribution to Avicennan studies may be said to rest: the first is its clarity and readability; the second is the comparative approach adopted by the author [...]. (Ian Richard Netton, ''Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society'', Third Series, Vol. 4, No. 2, July 1994, pp. 263–264)

Y. T. Langermann (ed.), ''Avicenna and his Legacy. A Golden Age of Science and Philosophy'', Brepols Publishers, 2010, ISBN 978-2-503-52753-6

For a new understanding of his early career, based on a newly discovered text, see also: Michot, Yahya, ''Ibn Sînâ: Lettre au vizir Abû Sa'd''. ''Editio princeps'' d'après le manuscrit de Bursa, traduction de l'arabe, introduction, notes et lexique (Beirut-Paris: Albouraq, 2000) ISBN 2-84161-150-7.

* This German publication is both one of the most comprehensive general introductions to the life and works of the philosopher and physician Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, d. 1037) and an extensive and careful survey of his contribution to the history of science. Its author is a renowned expert in Greek and Arabic medicine who has paid considerable attention to Avicenna in his recent studies [...]. (Amos Bertolacci, ''Isis'', Vol. 96, No. 4, December 2005, p. 649)

Shaikh al Rais Ibn Sina (Special number) 1958-59, Ed. Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman, Tibbia College Magazine, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India.

Medicine

Edward G. Browne, ''Islamic Medicine'', 2002, Goodword Pub., ISBN 81-87570-19-9

Sprengel, ''Histoire de la Medicine'' (1815)

Philosophy

Amos Bertolacci, ''The Reception of Aristotle's Metaphysics in Avicenna's Kitab al-Sifa'. A Milestone of Western Metaphysical Thought'' (Leiden: Brill 2006)

Dimitri Gutas, ''Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Introduction to Reading Avicenna's Philosophical Works'' (Leiden: Brill 1988)

Michot, Jean R., ''La destinée de l'homme selon Avicenne'' (Louvain: Aedibus Peeters, 1986) ISBN 978-90-6831-071-9.

Nader El-Bizri, ''The Phenomenological Quest between Avicenna and Heidegger'' (Binghamton, N.Y.: Global Publications SUNY, 2000)

Nader El-Bizri, "Avicenna and Essentialism," ''Review of Metaphysics'', Vol. 54 (June 2001), pp. 753–778

Nader El-Bizri, "Avicenna’s ''De Anima'' between Aristotle and Husserl," in ''The Passions of the Soul in the Metamorphosis of Becoming'', ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003), pp. 67–89

Nader El-Bizri, "Being and Necessity: A Phenomenological Investigation of Avicenna’s Metaphysics and Cosmology," in ''Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology on the Perennial Issue of Microcosm and Macrocosm'', ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2006), pp. 243–261

Reisman, David C. (ed.), "Before and After Avicenna: Proceedings of the First Conference of the Avicenna Study Group" (Leiden: Brill 2003)

External links

Article on Avicenna in the Encyclopedia Iranica

Avicenna entry by Sajjad H. Rizvi in the ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy''

Avicenna (Ibn-Sina) on the Subject and the Object of Metaphysics with a list of translations of the logical and philosophical works and an annotated bibliography

Online Galleries, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries High resolution images of works by Avicenna in .jpg and .tiff format.

Category:980 births Category:1037 deaths Category:11th-century philosophers Category:Alchemists of medieval Islam Category:Aristotelian philosophers Category:Classical humanists Category:Commentators on Aristotle Category:Physicians of medieval Islam Category:People in the history of medicine Category:Persian philosophers Category:Medieval Persian people Category:Unani medicine Category:Ethicists Category:Muslim philosophers Category:11th-century physicians Category:Medieval Persian physicians Category:Persian people

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This is a list of people whose names in English are commonly appended with the phrase "''the Great''", or who were called that or an equivalent phrase in their own language. Other languages have their own suffixes such as ''e Bozorg'' and ''e azam'' in Persian and Urdu respectively.

In Persia, the title "the Great" at first seems to be a colloquial version of the Old Persian title "Great King". This title was first used by the conqueror Cyrus II of Persia.

The Persian title was inherited by Alexander III of Macedon (336–323 BC) when he conquered the Persian Empire, and the epithet "Great" eventually became personally associated with him. The first reference (in a comedy by Plautus) assumes that everyone knew who "Alexander the Great" was; however, there is no earlier evidence that Alexander III of Macedon was called "''the Great''".

The early Seleucid kings, who succeeded Alexander in Persia, used "Great King" in local documents, but the title was most notably used for Antiochus the Great (223–187 BC).

Later rulers and commanders began to use the epithet "the Great" as a personal name, like the Roman general Pompey. Others received the surname retrospectively, like the Carthaginian Hanno and the Indian emperor Ashoka the Great. Once the surname gained currency, it was also used as an honorific surname for people without political careers, like the philosopher Albert the Great.

As there are no objective criteria for "greatness", the persistence of later generations in using the designation greatly varies. For example, Louis XIV of France was often referred to as "The Great" in his lifetime but is rarely called such nowadays, while Frederick II of Prussia is still called "The Great". A later Hohenzollern - Wilhelm I - was often called "The Great" in the time of his grandson Wilhelm II, but rarely later.

Rulers

Abbas I of Persia (1571-1629), Shah of Iran

Akbar (1542-1605), ruler of the Mughal Empire of South Asia, mainly India

Alain I of Albret (1440-1522), French aristocrat

Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), King of Macedonia, Persia, Greece, Egypt, and all of Mesopotamia

Alexander I of Georgia (1386–1446), King of Georgia

Alfonso III of León (c. 848-910), King of León, Galicia and Asturias

Alfred the Great (848/849-899), King of Wessex

Antiochus III the Great (c. 241–187 BC), ruler of the Seleucid Empire

Ashoka the Great (c. 304–232 BC), Indian emperor of the Maurya dynasty

Ashot I of Iberia “the Great”(died 826/830), presiding prince of Iberia (modern Georgia),

Askia Mohammad I (c. 1442–1538), ruler of the Songhai Empire

Bhumibol Adulyadej (born 1927), King of Thailand

Bolesław I Chrobry (967-1025), sometimes called "the Great", first King of Poland

Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia (also listed in the following section)

Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke (1736-1809), founder and ruler of the Rattanakosin Kingdom (in what is now Thailand)

Cnut the Great (c. 985 or 995-1035), King of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden

Casimir III the Great (1310-1370), King of Poland

Catherine the Great (1729-1796), Empress of Russian

Chandragupta II (reigned 375-413/415), also known as Vikramaditya, ruler of the Gupta empire in India

Charlemagne (died 814), King of the Franks and Emperor of the Romans

Chulalongkorn (1853-1910), King of Siam (now Thailand)

Chlothar II (584-629), King of Neustria and King of the Franks

Conrad, Margrave of Meissen (c. 1097-1157), Margrave of Meissen

Constantine I (c. 272-337), Roman Emperor

Cyrus the Great (c. 600 BC or 576 BC–530 BC), founder and ruler of the Persian or Achaemenid Empire

Darius the Great (550 – 486 BC), third ruler of the Persian Empire

Devapala (died 850), ruler of the Pala Empire in the Indian subcontinent

Dionysius I, Greek tyrant of Syracuse

Ferdinand I of León and Castile (c. 1015–1065), King of León and Count of Castile

Frederick the Great (1712-1786), King of Prussia

Genghis Khan (1162?-1227), founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire

Gero (c. 900–965), ruler of Marca Geronis, a very large march in Europe

Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (1594-1632), King of Sweden, founder of the Swedish Empire, and noted military leader

Gwanggaeto the Great, King of Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea

Hanno the Great, the name of three leaders of Carthage, in the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd centuries BC

Henry I, Duke of Burgundy (946–1002)

Henry IV of France (1553-1610), King of France and King of Navarre

Herod the Great (73/74 BC-4 BC), King of Judea

Hugh the Great (898-956), Duke of the Franks and Count of Paris

Hugh Magnus of France (1007-1025), co-King of France

Hugh I, Count of Vermandois (1057-1101)

Humphrey I de Bohun (died c. 1123), Anglo-Norman aristocrat

Ivan III of Russia (1440-1505), Tsar of Russia

John I of Portugal (1358-1433), King of Portugal and the Algarve

John II of Aragon (1398-1479), King of Aragon and, through his wife, King of Navarre

Justinian I (483-565), Byzantine Emperor

Kamehameha I (c. 1758-1819), first King of Hawai'i

Kanishka (died c. 127), ruler of the Kushan Empire in Central Asia and parts of India

Kvirike III of Kakheti (1010-1029), King of Kakheti in eastern Georgia

Kublai Khan (1215-1294), Mongol ruler in the 13th century and Emperor of China; founder of the Yuan Dynasty

Llywelyn the Great (c. 1172–1240), Prince of Gwynedd and de facto ruler of most of Wales

Louis I of Hungary (1326-1382), King of Hungary, Croatia and Poland

Mangrai the Great (1238-1317), Lanna, northern Thailand

Emperor Meiji (1852-1912), Emperor of Japan

Mircea I of Wallachia (1355–1418)

Mithridates II of Parthia (died 88 BC), ruler of the Parthian Empire (in present day Iran)

Mithridates VI of Pontus (134 BC–63 BC), ruler of Pontus and the Bosporan Kingdom

Mstislav I of Kiev (1076-1132), Grand Prince of Kievan Rus

Narai (1633-1688), King of Ayutthaya (in what is now modern Thailand)

Naresuan (1555-1605), King of Ayutthaya

Odo the Great (died c. 735), Duke of Aquitaine

Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (912-973)

K'inich Janaab' Pakal (603-683), ruler of the Mayan city-state of Palenque

Parakramabahu I of Polonnaruwa (1123–1186), King of Sri Lanka

Peter Krešimir IV of Croatia (died 1075), King of Croatia

Peter the Great (1672-1725), Tsar of Russia

Peter III of Aragon (1239-1285), King of Aragon and King of Sicily

Pompey (106 BC-48 BC), military and political leader of the late Roman Republic, rival of Julius Caesar

Radama I (1793–1828), first king of greater Madagascar

Raja Raja Chola I (c. 947-1014), Indian emperor of the Cholas.

Rajendra Chola I (reigned 1014-1044), Tamil King of India

Ramesses II (reigned 1279 BC – 1213 BC), considered the greatest pharaoh of Ancient Egypt

Ram Khamhaeng (around 1237 to 1247-1298), King of Sukhothai (in present day Thailand)

Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona (1082-1131), also Count of Provence and various other counties

Rhodri the Great (c. 820–878), King of Gwynedd (in present day Wales)

Roman the Great (after 1160-1205), Grand Prince of Kiev

Samudragupta (c. 335–375), ruler of the Gupta empire in the Indian subcontinent

Sancho III of Navarre (c. 992-1035), King of Kingdom of Navarre

Sargon of Akkad (died c. 2215 BC), ruler of the Akkadian Empire

Sejong the Great (1397-1450), Korean king

Shapur II (309-379), king of the Sassanid Empire, Persia

Simeon I of Bulgaria (864/865-927), ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire

Stephen III of Moldavia (1433-1504), Prince of Moldavia (Romania)

Stephen Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia (c. 1308-1355), King of Serbia and Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks

Taksin (1734-1782), King of the Thonburi Kingdom (Thailand)

Timur (1336-1405), better known as Tamerlane, founder of the Timurid Dynasty

Theobald II, Count of Champagne (1090–1151), Count of Blois and of Chartres as Theobald IV, Count of Champagne and of Brie

Theodoric the Great (454-526), King of the Ostrogoths, regent of the Visigoths and a viceroy of the Byzantine Empire

Theodosius I (347-395), Roman emperor

Tigranes the Great (140-55 BC), Emperor of Armenia

Tiridates III of Armenia (285-339), King of Armenia

Umar (c. 586 to 590–644), second caliph of the Muslim Empire

Valdemar I of Denmark (1131-1182), King of Denmark

Valentinian I (364-375), Roman Emperor

Vladimir I of Kiev (c. 958-1015), ruler of Kievan Rus

Vytautas (c. 1350-1430), archduke of the Lithuanian Grand Duchy

William I, Count of Burgundy (1020-1087), Count of Burgandy and Mâcon

William V, Duke of Aquitaine (969-1030), also Count of Poitou

Xerxes I (519-465 BC), King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire (Persia)

Yu the Great (c. 2200-2100 BC), legendary ruler in ancient China

Religious figures

Abraham the Great of Kashkar (ca. 492-586), monk and saint of the Assyrian Church of the East

Abraham Kidunaia (died c. 366, hermit, priest, and Christian saint of Mesopotamia

Albertus Magnus (1193/1206–1280), medieval German philosopher and theologian

Anthony the Great (c. 251–356), early Christian saint of Egypt

Babai the Great (c. 551–628), Assyrian church leader

Basil of Caesarea (330-379), Greek bishop and theologian

Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia (also listed in the previous section)

Euthymius the Great (377-473), abbot and Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox saint

Gertrude the Great (1256-c. 1302), German Benedictine, mystic, theologian and Roman Catholic saint

Pope Gregory I (c. 540-604)

Hiyya the Great, 3rd-century rabbi, Palestine

Pope John Paul II (1920-2005)

Pope Leo I (c. 391 or 400-461)

Macarius of Egypt (c. 300-391), Egyptian hermit

Pope Nicholas I (c. 800-867)

Photius I of Constantinople (c. 810–c. 893), Eastern Orthodox saint and Patriarch of Constantinople

William of Maleval (died 1157), founder of the Catholic congregation of Williamites

Other

Beli Mawr, a figure in medieval Welsh literature and genealogies

Emmy the Great, folk singer

Matteo Rosso the Great, Roman politician and father of Pope Nicholas III

Prokop the Great, Hussite general in Bohemia

See also

Epithet

List of monarchs by nickname

List of nicknames of European Royalty and Nobility: G-I

James, son of Zebedee, also known as James the Greater, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus

Ajax (mythology), called Ajax the Greater

Notes

Category:Monarchs Great, List of people known as The Category:Greatest Nationals Category:Epithets

bs:Spisak osoba znanih kao Veliki id:Daftar tokoh dengan gelar yang Agung jv:Daftar pamimpin ingkang dipun paringi julukan Ingkang Agung la:Magnus lt:Sąrašas:Žmonės, vadinami Didžiaisiais ja:称号に大が付く人物の一覧 ru:Великий (прозвище) sl:Seznam ljudi z vzdevkom Veliki sv:Lista över personer kallade den store th:รายพระนามกษัตริย์ที่ได้รับสมัญญานามมหาราช vi:Đại đế

name	Abdul Latīf Pedrāmعبداللطيف پدرام
party	National Congress Party of Afghanistan
birth date	1963
birth place	Badakhshan Province
nationality	Afghan
Ethnicity	Tajik
residence	Kabul, Afghanistan
website	National Congress Party of Afghanistan
footnotes	}}

Abdul Latīf Pedrām (; born in 1963), Ph.D., is a politician and a Member of Parliament in Afghanistan. He emerged as a controversial figure in the press and political circles for campaigning for women's personal rights, a taboo subject in Afghanistan's culture. Currently, he is the leader of the National Congress Party of Afghanistan and is one of the nine representatives of Badakhshan province in the lower house of parliament.

Biography

Born in Badakhshan in 1963 to a Persian-speaking Tājīk family, Latīf Pedrām is a writer, poet, journalist, and professor of Persian literature. He was director of the library of the ''Hakīm Nāṣer Ḫoṣrow Balḫī Cultural Center''. First a supporter of the communist government, he soon began to openly criticize and oppose the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. He stayed in Afghanistan during most of the war years, moving around the country to be able to pursue his activities. Latīf Pedrām was finally forced into exile by the advance of the Taliban and their policies of ethnic and linguistic segregation. Before returning to Afghanistan after the demise of the Taliban, he lived for a while in France where he attempted to promote Afghanistan's Persian poetry and literature.

Political views

Latīf Pedrām is a strong supporter of federalism and secularism in Afghanistan. He denounces corruption and strongly opposes Islamic fundamentalism. He advocates an independent, but decentralized Afghanistan, and believes that the country should be divided into autonomous regions under the control of regional capitals.

Although his party is multi-ethnic and is, so far, the only opposition party that is not linked to an armed group, he is regarded by some as a Tajik nationalist politician with a "strong anti-Pashtun tone". The Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and comprise ca. 40% of the total population. Perhaps his most controversial statement is the demand for a name-change in Afghanistan. In many publications and articles, he proposed the change of the name ''"Afghanistan"'' to ''"Khorasan"'', the medieval name of the region, in order to settle some inter-ethnic feuds. His statement is based on the fact that the current name of the country is synonymous with ''"Land of Pashtuns"''.

Presidential elections 2004

Latīf Pedrām received the 5th most votes during the 2004 elections, with approximately 1.4% of the total ballots counted, and approximately 17% of the ballots in his home province Badakhshan - being the strongest of the small candidates. Following the outcome, he criticized the government and the results, saying that "large-scale fraud had occurred", which was "completely shameful." Prior to the votes, Latīf Pedrām had argued that the presidential election should be delayed because of insecurity and to arrange for the whole Afghan diaspora to vote.

2008 controversy

In February 2008, an alleged audio recording of Latīf Pedrām was aired by various TV channels in Afghanistan, claiming that Latīf Pedrām had "disrespected" and "insulted" former king of Afghanistan, Amanullah Khan, who is regarded as a "national hero" by many in the country. However, In an interview on Khorasan TV he denied this claim and said that his voice was tampered with. This led to hot editorial crossfires among the press and in the Parliament and Cabinet, echoing with ethnic conflicts when ethnic blocks were identified supporting and criticizing Latīf Pedrām. Following this, the government of Afghanistan tried banning the ''National Congress Party of Afghanistan'' and ordered that "comments about former kings, the president and Jihadi leaders are not allowed." Since the incident, Latīf Pedrām lived under house arrest in Kabul until November 2008. While expressing its concern regarding the regression of democracy in Afghanistan one year before the 2009 presidential elections, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) called for the unconditional release of Latīf Pedrām.

2009 Presidential election

In January 2009 an article by Aḥmad Madjīdyār of the American Enterprise Institute included Pedrām on a list of fifteen possible candidates in the controversial 2009 Afghan Presidential election. Preliminary results placed Pedrām eleventh in a field of 38 candidates and according to the controversial Independent Election Committee (IEC), he ultimately received 0.34% of the votes. According to IEC results, Pedrām received 6,686 votes in his home province of Badakhshan, considerably lower than the 33,510 votes he received during the 2004 presidential election.

2010 Parliamentary election

In the 2010 Afghan parliamentary election, Latīf Pedrām received 8469 votes in Badakhshan, being the third representative from that province to be elected into the parliament, after Fowzia Kūfī and Zalmay Mudjadadī.

Awards

Latīf Pedrām has received many international awards, including:

The ''Prix Hellman-Helmet'' (''Hellman-Helmet Prize'') by Human Rights Watch in July 1999

A special grant from Reporters sans Frontières in December 1998

He is also an honorary member of:

The ''International Parliament of Writers'' and a guest of the city of Suresnes in France

The ''"Association of the Persian speakers of the World"'' (''"Peyvand"'') and member of the board of editors of ''Peyvand journal''

Quotes

External links

Democracy in Danger: Latif Pedram placed under house arrest

PBS Frontline: World: Afghanistan Without Warlords, a Secular Politician

LibertyRadio.org Biography

An interview with l'Humanité (in English, January 1, 2007)

Institute for War and Peace Reporting: Abdul Latif Pedram: Intellectual Adds Controversy to Campaign

National Congress Party of Afghanistan Website

Tajikam Portal

References

Category:Persian-language poets Category:Persian-language writers Category:1963 births Category:Living people Category:People from Badakhshan Province Category:National Congress Party of Afghanistan politicians Category:Tajik poets Category:Afghan Tajik people

fa:لطیف پدرام ja:アブドゥル・ラティフ・ペドラム

Name	Ahmad Zahir
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Ahmad Zahir
Born	June 14, 1946 laghman, Afghanistan
Died	June 14, 1979 Salang, Parwan Province, Afghanistan
Genre	''Boozy''-rock, pop, ghazals
Occupation	Singer, songwriter, composer
Instrument	Harmonium, piano, accordion, Farfisa, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, combo organ
Years active	1967–1979
Label	Afghan Music, Aj Musik, EMI, Music Center }}

Ahmad Zahir (Pashto/ - ''Aḥmad Zāhir''; 14 June 1946 – 14 June 1979) was a singer, songwriter, and composer from Afghanistan. He is considered an icon of music in Afghanistan and is sometimes called the "King of Afghan music". Almost all of his songs are in Persian and based on well-recognized Persian poems, while a few are in Pashto and English.

Biography

Zahir was born on June 14, 1946 (Jauza 24, 1325 of the Jalali calendar) in Laghman. His father, Abdul Zahir, was a royal court doctor, minister of health, Prime Minister of Afghanistan between 1971 and 1972, speaker of the parliament and an influential figure in the Zahir Shah era who helped write the Constitution of Afghanistan. Ahmad Zahir belonged to the Pashtun ethnic group but he lived in Kabul, so he also used Dari language.

Ahmad Zahir attended Habibia High School in Kabul in the early 1960s. He sang and played the accordion in a band mainly consisting of his friends and classmates including Omar Sultan on guitar, Farid Zaland on congas and Kabir Howaida on piano. The band later became known as the amateur band of Habibia High School and performed in local concerts during celebratory occasions like Nowruz, Eid, and Afghan Independence Day.

He later attended and graduated from ''Daru' l-Malimeen'' ("Teachers' College") in Kabul, then continued his higher education for two more years in India to get a degree as an English instructor. Eventually, however, he decided that music was his true calling. Ahmad Zahir began his solo career composing songs based on well-recognized Persian poems. His first recorded song, "Gar Kuni Yak Nizara", was his own composition, sung in the pilu raga. He continued writing and recording songs such as "Azeezam Ba Yaadat", "Ahista-ahista", "Akhir Ay Darya", "Hama Yaranam", "Agar Sabza Boodam", "Guftam Ke Mekhwaham Tura", "Shabe Ze Shabha" and "Parween-e Man".

Zahir worked with mentors such as Ismail Azami (saxophonist), Nangalai (trumpeter), Abdullah Etemadi (drummer), and other musicians including Salim Sarmast, Naynawaz, Taranasaz, and Mas'hour Jamal. He recorded over 22 albums in the 1970s. His songs were noted for their mellifluous tone, poetic style, compelling depth, and passionate emotional evocation. His lyrics covered a wide range of subjects. Many of his songs contained autobiographical elements or political criticism of Afghanistan's government. As a result many of his recordings were destroyed by the government.

The king professionally was on the scene of Aghan Music for only 10 years at max; however, the king managed to record a record number of albums which was more than 30 albums, this was and is unheard of in any music industry around the world, to note, all these albums were superhits and widely accepted (to this date) by everyone. The kings managed to complete these recordings almost 40yrs ago with almost no technology of today's world, and all was done in live recordings. It is said the kings recorded his Arian Music Album 1 in one day, that had more than 12 songs, all live. Long live the King Ahmad Zahir...

Death and legacy

Zahir died on June 14, 1979, on his 33rd birthday. According to his son Rishad, Zahir "was assassinated by the order of a communist general named Daud Taroon, who used one of Ahmad Zahir’s best friends as an accomplice to carry out his orders". Ahmad Zahir’s political stance was at odds with the communist government of the time who claimed that he had died in a car accident. A large crowd of mourners attended Zahir's funeral in Kabul, clogging the city streets and bringing daily activities to a halt.

After his death Zahir became a national hero and his image was mythologized by the Afghan people. Because of his privileged family background, Zahir helped to establish music as a more respected profession which in turn led to the founding of The Kabul Music School in 1974.

Ahmad Zahir's son Rishad Zahir currently lives in the United States.

Discography

Afghan Music albums

''Vol. 1 - Dilak am'' (1973)

''Vol. 2 - Bahar'' (1973)

''Vol. 3 - Shab ha ye zulmane'' (1974)

''Vol. 4 - Mother'' (1974)

''Vol. 5 - Awara'' (1975)

''Vol. 6 - Ghulam-e Qamar'' (1975)

''Vol. 7 - Sultan Qalbaam'' (1976)

''Vol. 8 - Az Ghamat Hy Nazaneen'' (1976)

''Vol. 9 - Gulbadaan'' (1971)

''Vol. 10 - Yaare Bewafa'' (1977)

''Vol. 11 - Lylee'' (1977)

''Vol. 12 - Ahmad Zahir and Jila'' (1978)

''Vol. 13 - Ahange Zindagee'' (1978)

''Vol. 14 - Shab-e Hijraan'' (1979) (posthumous release)

Note: Audio cassette versions of many of Zahir's ''Afghan Music'' albums are missing some songs that are present on the original vinyl records.

Ariana Music albums

''Vol. 1 - Daard-e Dil'' (1972)

''Vol. 2 - Mosum-e Gul'' (1977)

Note: The original ''Ariana Music'' record albums contain many hidden tracks.

Music Center albums

''Vol. 1 - Ashiq rooyat Mon'' (1973)

''Vol. 2 - Neshe Gashdum'' (1976)

''Vol. 3 - Lylee Jaan'' (1977)

''Vol. 4 - Ahmad Zahir Ba Sitara Haa'' (1977)

''Vol. 5 - To Baamanee'' (1978)

Private albums

''Shamali''

''Hindi Songs''

''Afghanistan Songs''

''Agar Bahar Byayad''

''Ahmad Zahir & Nainawaaz''

''Almase-Sharq''

''Gulhaayi-Jawedan''

''Gulhayi Nafaramoshshuda''

''Khateraha''

''Khudaat-Medani Guleman''

''Laily-Laily-Jan''

''Raaze-Penhan''

''Soorodhayie-Jawedan''

''Yaad-Mandaha''

''Zindani''

Other discography information

He has over 10 private recording albums from 1965–1978.

He only recorded 2 music videos in Radio Kabul TV: "Laylee Jaan" in 1976 and "Khuda Buwat Yarret" in 1977.

Ahmad Zahir recorded several songs in ''Radio Kabul'' and ''Radio Afghanistan'' studios which later came out as albums. Eight of these albums have been released.

References

External links

AhmadZahir.com Official website

Category:1946 births Category:1979 deaths Category:Afghan musicians Category:Afghan singers Category:Pashtun people Category:Persian music

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