Ibn Sina: The Impossible Book
A novel from the series "Novels from the Lives of Scientists"
Ibn Sina's life as you have never read it: a true story told scene by scene.
What you'll learn
- Follow Ibn Sina's life from childhood to his last days as one connected story
- Understand his ideas about medicine and staying healthy through everyday examples
- See how a small book bought for 3 dirhams opens a door that a difficult book had closed
- Learn how he kept writing while moving from city to city for many years
- Meet the people who lived alongside him and shaped him, such as his teacher al-Natili, al-Biruni and his student al-Juzjani
- Tell what really happened from what the author imagined in every chapter
About this book
A sick man lies in a great house in Bukhara, and the most famous doctors of the city cannot help him. Then one of them mentions the name of a young man of about 17. He comes in, treats the patient, and asks for only one thing in return: that they open the door of the library for him.
This is a novel, not a biography. It starts with a boy from the village of Afshana asking about the stars, follows him learning arithmetic from a grocer, then as a young man who overtakes his teacher and reads one book 40 times until he understands it, and then as a doctor moving from city to city, dictating his great book of medicine, the Canon, to his student al-Juzjani. The events, dates and names are real, and the story is told in scenes and dialogue as if you were watching it.
The science is explained with pictures from daily life: a pulse that works like a rhythm, ice floating on water, a seashell in mountain rock, a pair of scales in a grocer's shop. No equations and no difficult terms. A final section tells you clearly what is real and what is imagined in every chapter.
The book is written in Arabic.
Who this book is for
- Young readers aged 13 to 18
- Lovers of novels and life stories
- Parents looking for useful reading for their children
- Teachers
- Anyone who loves science but not equations
Why read this book
- 14 chapters in 240 pages
- Real events, dates and names
- Simple, gripping Arabic
- A line drawing at the start of every chapter
