SOURCE: "Ibn Sīna," in A History of Muslim Philosophy, with Short Accounts of Other Disciplines and the Modern Renaissance in Muslim Lands, Vol. One, edited by M. M. Sharif, Otto Harrassowitz, 1963, pp. 480-506.

In the following excerpt, Rahman surveys Avicenna's metaphysics, philosophy of mind, epistemology, and philosophy of religion, and briefly discusses Avicenna's influence in the East and West.

In the history of philosophical thought in the Medieval Ages, the figure of ibn Sīna (370/980-428/1037) is, in many respects, unique, while among the Muslim philosophers, it is not only unique but has been paramount right up to modern times. He is the only one among the great philosophers of Islam to build an elaborate and complete system of philosophy—a system which has been dominant in the philosophical tradition of Islam for centuries, in spite of the attacks of al-Ghazāli, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzi...