Avicenna

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Persian Islamic philosopher, Avicenna. In the city of Hamadan in Iran, right in the centre, there is a vast mausoleum dedicated to an Iranian national hero. Built in 1952, exactly 915 years after his death, it’s a great conical tower with twelve supporting columns. It’s dedicated not to a warrior or a king but to a philosopher and physician. His name is Ali Al Husayn Ibn-Sina, but he is also known as Avicenna and he is arguably the most important philosopher in the history of Islam. In a colourful career Avicenna proved the existence of god, amalgamated all known medical knowledge into one big book and established a mind body dualism 600 years before Descartes and still found time to overindulge in wine and sex.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Peter Adamson 7 episodes
  Reader in Philosophy at King's College London
• Amira Bennison 10 episodes
  Senior Lecturer in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge
• Nader El-Bizri No other episodes
  Affiliated Lecturer in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge

Related episodes

• Al-Ghazali
  
  19 Mar, 2015 210 Philosophy and theory of religion
• Al-Kindi
  
  28 Jun, 2012 190 Modern Western Philosophy
• The Translation Movement
  
  2 Oct, 2008 500 Science
• Maimonides
  
  17 Feb, 2011 100 Philosophy
• Averroes
  
  5 Oct, 2006 100 Philosophy
• al-Biruni
  
  10 Jun, 2010 900 History
• Galen
  
  10 Oct, 2013 610 Medicine and health
• Maths in the Early Islamic World
  
  16 Feb, 2017 510 Mathematics
• Ibn Khaldun
  
  4 Feb, 2010 900 History
• Socrates
  
  27 Sep, 2007 180 Ancient, medieval, and Eastern philosophy
• Spinoza
  
  3 May, 2007 190 Modern Western Philosophy
• The School of Athens
  
  26 Mar, 2009 750 Painting
• St Thomas Aquinas
  
  17 Sep, 2009 180 Ancient, medieval, and Eastern philosophy
• Aristotle’s Biology
  
  7 Feb, 2019 570 Biology
• The Safavid Dynasty
  
  12 Jan, 2012 950 History of Asia
• The Hippocratic Oath
  
  15 Sep, 2011 610 Medicine and health
• Roger Bacon
  
  20 Apr, 2017 500 Science
• Persepolis
  
  7 Jun, 2018 930 History of the Ancient World
• Alcuin
  
  30 Jan, 2020 270 History of Christianity
• David Hume
  
  6 Oct, 2011 100 Philosophy

---

Programme ID: b00855lt

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00855lt

Auto-category: 181 (Islamic philosophy and theology)