Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/169

Rh from Balkh, filled the post of tax-collector in the neighbouring town of Harmaitin, under Nuh ibn Mansir, the Samanide emir of Bokhara. On the birth of Avicenna s younger brother the family migrated to the capital, then one of the chief cities of the Moslem world, and famous for a culture which was older than its conquest by the Saracens. Avicenna was put in charge of a tutor, and his precocity soon made him the marvel of his neighbours, as a boy of ten who knew by rote the Koran and much Arabic poetry besides. From a greengrocer he learnt arithmetic ; and higher branches were begun under one of those wandering scholars, who gained a livelihood by cures for the sick and lessons for the young. Under him Avicenna read the Isagoge of Porphyry, and the first pro positions of Euclid. But the pupil soon found his teacher to be but a charlatan, and betook himself, aided by com mentaries, to master logic, geometry, and the Almagest. Before he was sixteen he not merely knew medical theory, but by gratuitous attendance on the sick had, according to his own account, discovered new methods of treatment. For the next year and a half he worked at the higher philosophy, in which he encountered greater obstacles. In such moments of baffled inquiry he would leave his books, perform the requisite ablutions, then hie to the mosque, and continue in prayer till light broke on his difficulties. Deep into the night he would continue his studies, stimulating his senses by occasional cups of wine, and even in his dreams problems would pursue him and work out their solution. Forty times, it is said, he read through the metaphysics of Aristotle, till the words were imprinted on his memory ; but their meaning was hopelessly obscure, until one day they found illumination from the little com mentary by Alfarabius, which he bought at a bookstall for the small sum of three drachmae. So great was his joy at the discovery, thus made by help of a work from which he had expected only mystery, that he hastened to return thanks to God, and bestowed an alms upon the poor. Thus, by the end of his seventeenth year, he had gone the round of the learning of his time ; his apprenticeship of study was concluded, and he went forth a master to find a market for his accomplishments.

His first appointment was that of physician to the emir, whom the fame of the youthful prodigy had reached, and who owed him his recovery from a dangerous illness. Avicenna s chief reward for this service was access to the royal library, contained in several rooms, each with its chests of manuscripts in some branch of learning. The Samanides were well-known patrons of scholarship and scholars, and stood conspicuous amid the fashion of the period, which made a library and a learned retinue an indispensable accompaniment of an emir, even in the days of campaign. In such a library Avicenna could inspect works of great rarity, and study the progress of science. When the library was destroyed by fire not long thereafter, the enemies of Avicenna accused him of burning it, in order for ever to conceal the sources of his knowledge. Meanwhile, he assisted his father in his financial labours, but still found time to write some of his earliest works for two wealthy patrons, whose absolute property they became. Among them was the Collectio, one of those short synopses of knowledge which an author threw off for different patrons.

At the age of twenty-two Avicenna lost his father. The Samanide dynasty, which for ten years had been hard pressed between the Turkish Khan of Kashgar on the north and the rulers of Ghazni on the south, came to its end in December 1004. Avicenna seems to have declined the offers of Mahmud the Ghaznevide (who, like his compeers, was rapidly gathering a brilliant cortege of savants, includ ing the astronomer Albiruni), and proceeded westwards to the city of Urdjensh in the modern district of Khiva, where the vizier, regarded as a friend of scholars, gave him a small monthly stipend. But the pay was small, and Avicenna wandered from place to place through the districts of Nishapur and Merv to the borders of Khorasan, seeking an opening for his talents. In the restless change which threw the several cities of Iran from hand to hand among those feudal emirs of the Buide family, who disputed the fragments of the caliphate, the interests of letters and science were not likely to be regarded. Shems al-Maali Kabus, the generous ruler of Deilem, himself a poet and a scholar, with whom he had expected to find an asylum, was about that date (1013) starved to death by his own revolted soldiery. Avicenna himself was at this season stricken down by a severe illness. Finally, at Jorjan, near the Caspian, he met with a friend, who bought near his own house a dwelling in which Avicenna lectured on logic and astronomy. For this patron several of his treatises were written ; and the commencement of his Canon of Medicine also dates from his in Hyrcania.

He subsequently settled at Rai, in the vicinity of the modern Teheran, where a son of the last emir, Medj Addaula, was nominal ruler, under the regency of his mother. At Rai about thirty of his shorter works are said to have been composed. But the constant feuds which raged between the regent and her second son, Shems Addaula, compelled the scholar to quit the place, and after a brief sojourn at Kaswin, he passed southwards to Hama dan, where that prince had established himself. At first he entered into the service of a high-born lady ; but ere long the emir, hearing of his arrival, called him in as medical attendant, and sent him back with presents to his dwelling. Avicenna was even raised to the office of vizier ; but the turbulent soldiery, composed of Koords and Turks, mutinied against their nominal sovereign, and demanded that the new vizier should be put to death. Shems Addaula consented that he should be banished from the country. Avicenna, however, remained hidden for forty days in a sheikh s house, till a fresh attack of illness induced the emir to restore him to his post. Even during this perturbed time he prosecuted his studies and teaching. Every evening extracts from his great works, the Canon and the Sanatio, were dictated and explained to his pupils ; among whom, when the lesson was over, he spent the rest of the night in festive enjoyment with a band of singers and players. On the death of the emir Avicenna ceased to be vizier, and hid himself in the house of an apothecary, where, with intense assiduity, he continued the composi tion of his works. Meanwhile, he had written to Abu Jaafar, the prefect of Ispahan, offering his services ; but the new emir of Hamadan getting to hear of this corre spondence, and discovering the place of Avicenna s conceal ment, incarcerated him in a fortress. War meanwhile continued between the rulers of Ispahan and Hamadan ; in 1024 the former captured Hamadan and its towns, and expelled the Turkish mercenaries. When the storm had passed Avicenna returned with the emir to Hamaddn, and carried on his literary labours ; but at length, accompanied by his brother, a favourite pupil, and two slaves, made his escape out of the city in the dress of a Sufite ascetic. After a perilous journey they reached Ispahan, and received an honourable welcome from the prince. The remaining ten or twelve years of Avicenna s life were spent in the service of Abu Jaafar Ala Addaula, whom he accompanied as physician and general literary and scientific adviser, even in his numerous campaigns. During these years he began to study literary matters and philology, instigated, it is asserted, by criticisms on his style. But amid his rest less study Avicenna never forgot his love of enjoyment. Unusual bodily vigour enabled him to combine severe III 20 