Avicenna (/ˌævəˈsɛnə/; also Ibn Sīnā or Abu Ali Sina; Persian: ابن سینا‎; c. 980 – June 1037) was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, thinkers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age.He has been described as the father of early modern medicine.[6][7] Of the 450 works he is known to have written, around 240 have survived, including 150 on philosophy and 40 on medicine.

His most famous works are The Book of Healing, a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and The Canon of Medicine, a medical encyclopedia which became a standard medical text at many medievaluniversities and remained in use as late as 1650. In 1973, Avicenna’s Canon Of Medicine was reprinted in New York.

Besides philosophy and medicine, Avicenna’s corpus includes writings on astronomy, alchemy, geography and geology, psychology, Islamic theology, logic, mathematics, physics and poetry.