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Avicenna, the most influential of Islamic philosophers, produced The Healing as his magnum opus on his religious and political philosophy. Now translated by Michael Marmura, The Metaphysics is the climactic conclusion to this towering work. Through Marmura’s skill as a translator and his extensive annotations, Avicenna’s touchstone of Islamic philosophy is more accessible than ever before. In The Metaphysics, Avicenna examines the idea of existence, and his investigation into the cause of all things leads him to a meditation on the nature of God. From this discussion, Avicenna develops a theory of divine causation that synthesizes Neoplatonic, Aristotelian, and Islamic ideas. Within this emanative scheme, Avicenna establishes some of the basic ideas of his religious and political philosophy, as he discusses the divine attributes, divine providence, the hereafter, and the ideal “virtuous” city with its philosopher-prophet as the human link between the terrestrial and heavenly realms. With this edition, The Metaphysics can now be better seen as one of the most masterful works of classical Islamic philosophy.
Author
(Arabic: ابن سينا) Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā, known as Abū Alī Sīnā (Persian: ابوعلی سینا، پورسینا) or, more commonly, Ibn Sīnā or Pour Sina, but most commonly known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna (Greek: Aβιτζιανός, Avitzianós), (c. 980 - 1037) was a polymath of Persian origin and the foremost physician and philosopher of his time. He was also an astronomer, chemist, geologist, Hafiz,, logician, paleontologist, mathematician, Maktab teacher, physicist, poet, and scientist. Ibn Sīnā studied medicine under a physician named Koushyar. He 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). ابن سينا هو أبو علي الحسين بن عبد الله بن الحسن بن علي بن سينا، عالم اشتهر بالطب والفلسفة واشتغل بهما. ولد في قرية (أفشنة) بالقرب من بخارى (في أوزبكستان حاليا) من أب من مدينة بلخ (في أفغانستان حاليا) و أم قروية سنة 370هـ (980م) وتوفي في مدينة همدان (في إيران حاليا) سنة 427هـ (1037م). عرف باسم الشيخ الرئيس وسماه الغربيون بأمير الأطباء و أبو الطب الحديث. وقد ألّف 200 كتاب في مواضيع مختلفة، العديد منها يركّز على الفلسفة والطب. إن ابن سينا هو من أول من كتب عن الطبّ في العالم ولقد اتبع نهج أو أسلوب أبقراط و جالينوس. وأشهر أعماله كتاب الشفاء وكتاب القانون في الطب.
