Muslim Institute North annual lecture.
Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbdallāh ibn Sīnā (980-1037 CE) is amongst the most influential philosophers in history. Known in the Latin West under the name of Avicenna, Ibn Sīnā played a pivotal role in the history of philosophy and science within the Muslim world and beyond during the Golden Age of Islam.
Ibn Sīnā gained fame at a young age as a prodigy in philosophy and medicine. After serving as a physician at the courts of Isfahan and Hamadhan, he authored what is arguably the most important medieval book in medicine, the Canon of Medicine. Translated into Latin in the 12th century, it remained one of the most widely read sources on medicine until the early modern period. In the Islamic world, Ibn Sīnā became the main authority in medicine, replacing Galen in this role.
If, in medicine, Ibn Sīnā replaced Galen, then in philosophy, he did so with Aristotle. Before Ibn Sīnā, philosophy in the Islamic world was largely focused on reacting against and developing Aristotelian philosophy. After Ibn Sīnā, the spotlight shifted to his philosophy. Ibn Sīnā proposed a new system of metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and epistemology that significantly reformed Aristotelian philosophy, aligning it with the religious and intellectual realities of the Islamic world. This system largely defines Islamic philosophical thought up to the present day.
The Muslim Institute inaugural annual Ibn Sina lecture took place on Friday 26th April 2024 at the Civic Hall, Leeds.
The lecture was accompanied by an Islamic art and artefacts exhibition, part of the collection of Razwan Baig, who gave guided lectures for audiences throughout the afternoon in the run-up to the lecture.
The keynote speaker was Dr Fedor Benevich, University of Edinburgh.
The 2nd annual lecture was held on 31st May 2025. Keynote speaker Professor Syma Khalid (University of Oxford) spoke on ‘Modern Medicine and the Legacy of Ibn Sina’. The lecture was held in Bradford to coincide with the 2025 UK City of Culture year long programme of events.
