The Book of Healing

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Overview

The Book of Healing (Kitab al-Shifa) is the great philosophical encyclopedia of Ibn Sina, known in Latin Europe as Avicenna. Written in the early eleventh century, it covers logic, natural science, mathematics and metaphysics in the Aristotelian tradition while introducing original ideas on existence and the soul. Parts were translated into Latin and shaped medieval European thought. It also contains the famous floating man thought experiment, a short exercise in self-awareness.

Context

Ibn Sina was born about 980 near Bukhara in Central Asia and died in Hamadan in 1037. He worked in an age of translation from Greek into Arabic, when Aristotle and Plato were studied by Muslim scholars, and he served as physician and adviser at several courts. He wrote in Arabic and Persian, and his philosophical writing set the agenda for later Islamic thought.