The Unrivaled Legacy Of Avicenna--And How Much Of It He Owes To "Jacob The Jew"

The unrivaled legacy of Avicenna is an article by Kourosh Ziabari. Ziabari is actually as interesting as Avicenna is.

From Wikipedia:

Kourosh Ziabari (Persian: کوروش ضیابری), (Born 27th of April 1991) is a young Iranian journalist, media correspondent and literary author. He was born in Rasht, the capital city of Guilan province, a littoral state of South Caspian Sea, where he grew up in a journalist family.
He began learning English as a foreign language when he was 6 years old; thereafter he used to learn the essentials of journalism and mass communications under the supervision of his parents and soon became a junior journalist whose pieces and articles would appear in the local magazines and papers in Guilan.

If you check out the rest of the short Wikipedia article, you'll see that he has interviewed "political commentator and linguist" Noam Chomsky (ie, the radical) and "famous German political prisoner" Ernst Zündel (that would be the debunked Holocaust denier)--but also Nobel Prize laureates and intellectuals.

The 19 year old's article notes Avicenna's greatness:

Historically, Iran has been a land of prominent, influential figures in science, letters, arts and literature whose impact on the global civilization will remain in place forever. Throughout its ancient history, Iran has introduced numerous people to the world who have been among the most impressive, notable and valuable figures in their own field of expertise.

Although the European nations usually boast of being the foremost pioneers and harbingers in various fields of science and arts, they know well that they owe to the Persians the achievement of many peaks and breakthroughs which they introduce as being theirs. Persians have been traditionally skilful and dexterous in different branches of astronomy, mathematics, physics, medicine, psychiatry, architecture, philosophy, theology and literature and the unparalleled names of Ferdowsi, Rumi, Rhazes, Rudaki, Biruni, Al-Farabi, Al-Khawrizmi and Avicenna attest to the fact that Iran has been perpetually a land of science, knowledge and conscience in which cleverness grows and talent develops.

No doubt.

Just one thing I'd like to point out for now: the debt that Avicenna owes to..."Jacob the Jew". Here is page 97 from Raphael Patai's The Jewish alchemists, from Google Books:



Personally, I think that it's great that Avicenna learned such wisdom from "Jacob the Jew"
Pity that Iran hasn't.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

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