Ibn Sina (Avicenna)

Ibn Sina (Avicenna) was born in 980 in Afshana, near Bukhara (now Uzbekistan). Ibn Sina (Avicenna)'s background is described as Persian; born in Samanid Central Asia. Growing up, the family was middle class — his father was a village administrator in the Samanid state; the household hosted scholars. Cured the emir of Bukhara at 17; his Canon of Medicine taught European doctors for 600 years.

Born

980 · Afshana, near Bukhara (now Uzbekistan)

Roots

Persian; born in Samanid Central Asia

Family

Middle class

His father was a village administrator in the Samanid state; the household hosted scholars.

Education

Tutors, then self-taught; by his account had mastered medicine by 16

Started with

The emir's library

Treating the ailing ruler of Bukhara won him access to the royal library at about 17.

Affiliations & societies

None documented.

Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.

The pathway

1. 990 · age 10
   The Quran memorized

   By his own account; logic and mathematics follow with a tutor he soon outgrows.

2. 996 · age 16
   Practicing medicine

   Physicians begin studying under him, he later wrote, and treatment taught him more than books.

3. 997 · age 17
   Cures the emir

   Called to the Samanid court; his reward is the royal library of Bukhara.

4. 1002 · age 22
   The wandering years

   His father's death and the Samanid collapse send him between Central Asian and Persian courts — physician, twice vizier, once jailed.

5. 1025 · age 45
   Canon of Medicine completed

   The five-volume synthesis remains a standard European medical text into the 17th century.

6. 1027 · age 47
   Book of Healing

   A philosophical encyclopedia that shapes both Islamic and Latin scholastic thought.

7. 1037 · age 57
   Dies in Hamadan

   Roughly 240 of his works survive.