, Abu ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Sīnā , known in the West as Avicenna . He followed the encyclopaedic conception of the sciences that had been traditional since the time of the Greek Sages in uniting philosophy with the study of nature and in seeing the perfection of man as lying in both knowledge and action. He was also as illustrious a physician as he was a philosopher [see Ḥikma ].
Life. His life is known to us from authoritative sources. An autobiography covers his first thirty years, and the rest are documented by his disciple al-D̲j̲uzad̲j̲ānī, who was also his secretary and his friend.
He…