The Political Teaching of Avicenna

Abstract

¯, Abu ¯ 'Alial-H. usayn Ibn Sinaor Avicenna, and Abual-Walid Muh. ammad Ibn Ah. mad Ibn Rushd or Averroes - we are best acquainted with the life of Avicenna. Thanks to the efforts of his devoted pupil and long-time companion, Abu¯ 'Ubayd 'Abd al-Wah . id al- Juzjani ¯, we have something resembling an autobiog- raphy of Avicenna with a biographical appendix by al-Juzjani ¯. We learn from it that Avicenna was an assiduous and devoted learner from the days of his youth to his death. With no reticence, and very little modesty about his accomplishments, Avicenna enu- merates his early studies and details the order in which he pursued learning. His prowess as a scholar and author is presented in even more glowing terms by al- Juz ja ¯n i ¯. Avicenna was born in Afshanah in 370/980, but his family soon moved to near-by Bukhara where he began his studies. Having proved himself in the study of the Quran and related works of literature by the age of ten, he turned first to Indian mathematics and Islamic jurisprudence, then began to study philosophy. Subsequently, he set about reading Porphyry's Isagoge, logic in general, Euclid, Ptolemy's Almagest, and even- tually undertook the natural sciences and metaphysics. For the latter two pursuits, he claims, he read both the original texts - presumably Aristotle - and the com- mentaries. Such theoretical inquiries soon gave way to more practical ones as he focused his attention upon medicine. Since Avicenna found "medicine . . . not one of the difficult sciences," he "excelled in it in a very short time" (Life, pp. 24-26). Then, momentarily forgetting his earlier claim of having studied jurisprudence when only ten, Avicenna mentions that he first studied jurisprudence at the age of sixteen - engaging in disputations from time to time - and later came back to logic and to "all of the parts of philosophy." The latter two pursuits kept him very busy, but he would occasionally relieve his fatigue by drinking a goblet of wine ( Life, p. 30). After thoroughly mastering the forms of the syllogisms and their various premises, he moved on to metaphysics but found Aristotle's treatise on the subject nearly incomprehen- sible. Only his good fortune in happening upon a copy of al-Far a ¯b i ¯'s On the Goals of the "Metaphysics" saved him. These studies occupied Avicenna until the age of eighteen, at which time he found an occasion to present himself as a physician to the ailing ruler of Bukhara, Nuh . Ibn Mans . ur, and subsequently gained access to this ruler's well-stocked library. Avicenna's autobiographical account concludes with a summary account of the many books he wrote and an even more abbreviated listing of his travels. His pupil, al-Juz ja ¯ni ¯, continues the story by explaining in greater detail the trying circumstances in which Avicenna composed his works. In the process, he portrays a man who wrote at an intense, almost frenetic, pace and who used his medical knowledge to push his body beyond normal limits. The account is lightened only by al- Juzjani ¯'s passing remarks about how Avicenna would rest from his toils by drinking wine with intimate com- panions and about his extraordinary sexual appetite. The latter are worthy of note only because of the ascetic moral teaching emanating from Avicenna's pen, but it is evident that this uniquely gifted scholar's pursuit of bodily pleasure in no way kept him from his all- consuming desire for learning. Avicenna presumably had his first exposure to politics from his father, a village administrator for the same Nuh . Ibn Mans. ur of the magnificent library. After his father's death, Avicenna first accepted an adminis- trative post from this ruler, then later moved to other locales where he served as a jurist or practiced the