ABU 'ALI AL-HUSAYN B. 'ABDULLAH B. AL-HASAN IBN 'ALI IBN SINA, KNOWN AS AVICENNA (D.1037 AD), KITAB AL-SHIFA ('THE BOOK OF HEALING'), COPIED BY AHMED IBN 'ALI AL-SHIRAZI, PERSIA, TIMURID, DATED 897 AH/1492 AD

Christie's London, 27 April 1993, lot 62.

N. Safwat, A Collector’s Eye. Islamic calligraphy in Qur’ans and other manuscripts, London 2010, no.56, pp.222-3.

The shamsa on f.1a gives us the name of ‘Ala ibn al-Husain b. ‘Ali al-Shaqi and the date Rabi’ I 898 AH/1492 AD. ‘Ala ibn al-Husain must have been the commissioner of this impressive volume. Another ownership note gives the name Muhammad ibn Hasan al-Tusi.

Ibn Sina was born in 980 AD in Afshana near Bukhara, in Greater Khurasan. His native language was Persian, but, like the majority of scholars of the period, he wrote in Arabic. Thanks to his father's position as an official in the Samanid government, Ibn Sina was given a fine education and his precocity is said to have been such that he quickly surpassed his teachers in knowledge and problem-solving skills. At the age of eighteen, he became a qualified physician and was hailed for curing the Amir of Khurasan of a severe illness. As a most precious reward he was given access to the extensive library of the Samanid princes, where he would spend countless hours immersed in scholarly work. Known as Avicenna in the West, Ibn Sina can be regarded as the most influential writer in the history of medicine. His unparalleled al-Qanun fi'l tibb or 'The Canon of Medicine', completed circa 1025 AD, gathered the totality of medical knowledge at the time. A dedicated intellectual, he spent the latter part of his life at Isfahan, unexpectedly dying during an expedition to Hamadan in 1037 AD. 

The Kitab al-shifa is divided into four sections, on logic, physics, mathematics and metaphysics. In it Ibn Sina discusses the necessary existence of God, the non-material nature of the human soul and the mind, the perception and the sensations. There are eight copies of this work in the British Library, the earliest of which is dated 485 AH/1092-93 AD (Or. 11190; see Stocks & Baker 2001, p.196). Two copies are in the John Rylands Library, Manchester (Mingana 1934, pp.615-9, nos.378-9). A copy dated 898 AH/1493 AD sold recently at Christie’s London, 26 October 2017, lot 3. See also Brockelmann, GAL, I. 454 and S., I. 815.