Life and Formation
Ismaili household: Ibn Sina was born in Afshanah near Bukhara to a father who was an Ismaili official (amin) in the Samanid administration. His father regularly hosted Ismaili missionaries (da’is) in their home, and the young Ibn Sina was educated in mathematics, philosophy, and Ismaili doctrines. He later wrote that he could not accept all of the Ismaili positions but that these discussions stimulated his philosophical formation.
The prodigy: By fourteen, Ibn Sina had surpassed his teachers; by eighteen, he had independently mastered medicine. He wrote in his autobiography that he read Aristotle’s Metaphysics forty times without understanding its purpose — until he found al-Farabi’s commentary, after which everything became clear. This encounter with al-Farabi’s synthesis of Aristotle and Neoplatonism shaped Ibn Sina’s entire project.
The wandering philosopher: Ibn Sina spent his life moving between courts — Samanid Bukhara, Jurjan, Rey, Hamadan, Isfahan — serving as physician and vizier while writing philosophy in the margins of a turbulent political career. He reportedly composed sections of the Shifa’ while imprisoned.
See also: Al Farabi, Ismaili Philosophy, Ikhwan Al Safa, Abbasid Caliphate
The Philosophical System
Emanation cosmology: Ibn Sina adapted al-Farabi’s emanation scheme — from the First Intellect through ten Intellects (corresponding to the spheres) to the Active Intellect (al-‘aql al-fa”al), which illuminates human minds. This structure parallels the Ismaili cosmic hierarchy of ‘Aql-Nafs-Tabiat, though with differences: Ibn Sina’s ten Intellects are Aristotelian-Ptolemaic; the Ismaili scheme is eschatological.
The flying man: Ibn Sina’s famous thought experiment — imagine a person created in the air, blindfolded, suspended with no sensory contact with the world. This person would still be aware of themselves — the existence of the self is known by direct inner awareness independent of the body. This is Ibn Sina’s proof of the soul’s immateriality and the basis of his philosophical psychology.
Essence and existence: Ibn Sina’s distinction between essence (mahiyya) and existence (wujud) — in creatures, existence is “added” to essence and is therefore contingent; in the Necessary Existent (Wajib al-Wujud), existence is identical with essence. This distinction became one of the most influential in Islamic and European scholastic philosophy (Thomas Aquinas cited Ibn Sina extensively).
See also: Tawhid Divine Unity, Ismaili Philosophy, Hamid Al Kirmani, Nasir Khusraw
Ibn Sina and Ismaili Philosophy
Divergences: Al-Ghazali’s Tahafut al-Falasifa targeted three positions of Ibn Sina as leading to kufr: the eternity of the world (denying a beginning to creation), Allah’s knowledge only of universals (not particulars), and the resurrection of souls but not bodies. Ismaili philosophy also rejected the eternity of the world — preferring the concept of ibda’ (timeless origination) to Ibn Sina’s eternal emanation.
Convergences: Despite these divergences, Ibn Sina’s synthesis shared much with Ismaili philosophy: the hierarchical intellectual cosmology, the distinction between esoteric and exoteric knowledge, the soul’s journey from descent to return (ma’ad), and the role of the prophet-philosopher as mediator between the divine and human realms.
Nasir Khusraw’s response: The great Ismaili philosopher Nasir Khusraw, Ibn Sina’s near-contemporary, explicitly engaged with Ibn Sina’s thought — sometimes borrowing, sometimes critiquing. The Ismaili tradition absorbed Ibn Sina’s philosophical rigor while insisting on the corrections that ibda’ and ta’yid (divine support) required.
See also: Al Ghazali, Nasir Khusraw, Hamid Al Kirmani, Fayd, Tawil Esoteric Interpretation
See also: Al Farabi, Ismaili Philosophy, Ikhwan Al Safa, Abbasid Caliphate, Tawhid Divine Unity, Hamid Al Kirmani, Nasir Khusraw, Al Ghazali, Fayd, Tawil Esoteric Interpretation