A Compendium on the Soul

Abu Ali ibn Sina (980–1037), known in Europe as Avicenna, was born near Bukhara and had mastered the Quran, mathematics and medicine by his teens. After curing the Samanid ruler, he was allowed into the royal library, and he later said he had read Aristotle's Metaphysics forty times without understanding it until a small commentary by al-Farabi opened it for him.

He spent his life moving between courts in Persia, often as physician and vizier, writing at night and on the road. His Canon of Medicine was taught in European universities until the seventeenth century, and his Book of Healing is one of the great works of philosophy. The library holds several of his shorter treatises, on the soul, love and logic.