Two Essays of Avicenna
The two essays are as following:
1) Essay o repelling worry and fear of death; which contains death and fear of death and explains the reason of fear.
The author divides death and life into two groups:
1- Two kinds of life: - voluntary life - natural life
2- Two kinds of death: - voluntary death - natural death
2) Essay on the reality and advantage of saying prayer. it contains the spiritual realities of prayer; it is divided into three kinds:
####1- The essence of prayer
2- The outward and inward prayer
3- Those who take advantage of the both aspects of prayer and those who do just one of the aspects
These two essays are written in Arabic and translated into Persian.
The author
Avicenna, one of the greatest Muslim scientists and philosophers, known in the East as Abu Ali Sina and also Ibn Sina (980 – 1037). He was born near Bukhara, probably with Persian as his native language. At the age of eighteen he had mastered all the then known sciences. After the death of his father, an official of the Samanid adminstration, and the overthrow of the Samanids by the Ilekhans in 1005, he first wandered through Persia and then, from 1021 until shortly before his death, he lived at Isfahan as court physician of the Buyid rulers Shams al-Dawla and Sama al-Dawla, who by then had come under Kakuid suzerainty. He is known primarily as a philosopher and physician, Avicenna contributed also to all the sciences that were accessible in his day: natural history, physics, chemistry, astronomy, mathematics and music. He studied mathematics under “Abu Abdullah Natli”, then continued metaphysics, physics and medicine in the presence of “Abu Soheyl Masihi”. He wrote on economics, politics, moral and religious questions, Quranic exegesis and poetry. In 1654, 131 authentic and 110 doubtful works were listed in his bibliography. The following are his most famous works:
1- Book of Healing ‘of the soul’ (a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopeida)
2- The Canon of Medicine (one of the most famous books in the history of medicine)
3- The Tale of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan (a philosophical allegory)
Avicenna’s influence on medieval European philosophers such as Michael Scot, Albertus Magnus, Rager Bacon, Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas is undeniable. He died as the result of colic, in Hamedan – Iran where a monument was erected to celebrate the millennium of his birth.
Sources :
Two Essays of Avicenna