Abu Ali Miskawya

Abu Ali Miskawya, Persian philosopher, physician and historian from Rayy (932-1030). Writing in Arabic, he was one of the particularly brilliant intellectual generation who worked in Buyid (Shi’ite dynasty of Daylam origin which marked the so-called “Iranian intermezzo” between the Arab domination of early Islam and the Seljuq occupation of Baghdad in 1055) Persian and Iraq between 961 and 1039. His philosophical views were mostly influenced by Plato and Aristotle. Among Muslims philosophers, he considered Kindi, Abu Uthman Dameshqi and Abul Hasan#### Ameri. Miskawya was known as “the third master”. As a philosopher, he is distinguished by the central importance he attached to ethics. His universal history from the Flood to the year 980 is original only in the last part dealing with the Buyids.

Works:
1- Experiences of the nations (his most famous historical work)
2- Purification of Ethics (his most famous philosophical work)
3- The minor victory “al-Fawz al-Asghar” (on dogmatic philosophy in 3 sections, including theism, knowledge of the soul, and resurrection and prophecy)
4- The Drinks (on alchemy)
5- Book on pharmacology
6- The eternal wisdom

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