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Avicenna was born c. 980 in Afshana, a village near Bukhara (in present-day Uzbekistan), the capital of the Samanids, a Persian dynasty in Central Asia and Greater Khorasan. His mother, named Sitāra, was from Bukhara;[ his father, Abdullāh, was a respected scholar from Balkh, an important town of the Samanid Empire, in what is today Balkh Province, Afghanistan. He passed away 1037 in Hamadan a western Iranian city where he was buried.
He is regarded in the Oriental world even today as one of the most important physicians and scholars of all time. One peak of Oriental medicine was reached with the “Prince of physicians” as he has been reverentially named. For nearly 700 years, up until the beginning of modern medicine this universal scholar, scientist and philosopher was regarded as an undisputable authority, even in Europe.
Born to the son of a government dignitary, Avicenna was already an accomplished and celebrated scientist at the early age of sixteen. As an inheritor to a vast fortune, Avicenna led a travelling career on Persian Courts, where he was active as a physician, astronomer, politician and writer. Honored during his lifetime with the title as “Sheikh”, he spent the remaining fourteen years of his life serving as the personal physician and scientific advisor on the Court of the of an Isfahan prince.
His major work, the Canon of Medicine, with the original Arabic title “al-qanun fi at-tibb” (translated into Latin as Canon medicinae, was completed in 1030. Its scientific content inspired and paved the way for European medicine in the Christian-Latin Occident and was counted among the most significant medical textbooks in the Middle East as well as in Europe for a long time. This essential written work of the art of healing is ranked equally with the writings of Hippocrates (ca. 460 until 370 B.C.) and Galen (129 until ca. 200 A.C.) at all significant European universities.
”Kitab ash-Shifa” (“The Healing“), Avicenna´s best-known philosophical work, contains contributions about Aristotelian logic, metaphysics, natural sciences and other topics. In medieval scholastics, besides Averroes, he was the most outstanding Arab philosopher and mediator of Aristotelian philosophy and natural history. Since the 13th Century the works of Avicenna have not only been particularly adopted at medical faculties but also adhered in the philosophical and scientific spheres.
2020 Avicenna Peace Award LaureateSenator Dr. Anarkali Honaryar
Affiliation at the time of the award: Member of the National Assembly of Afghanistan
Prize motivation: Human Rights Activist
Anarkali Kaur Honaryar is Sikh Afghan politician. She is also a women's rights activist and a dentist, as well as a medical doctor. She is the first non-Muslim member of the National Assembly of Afghanistan.
When Taliban was ousted in 2001, Honaryar studied medicine at the Kabul University. She has been a member of the Loya Jirga which chose Afghanistan's interim government after the decline of Taliban, and also an Afghan Constitution Committee member. In 2006, she became a member of Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.
In 2010, Honaryar was elected for the country's Meshranoi Jirga, and she was the first non-Muslim woman to achieve the milestone, she left from her post in mid-2015.
Honaryar is a well-known human rights activist and has been awarded with the UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence. "for her work helping women who suffer from domestic abuse, forced marriages and gender discrimination and for her commitment to promote the ideals of human dignity, human rights, mutual respect and tolerance in her country." Honaryar was also chosen by Radio Free Europe's Afghan chapter as person of the year in 2009.
Currently, Dr. Honryar is a member of (Committee of Religious Affairs, Cultural and Educational in ministry of education and ministry of higher education), member of Women's Parliamentary Coalition of National Assembly, member of Afghan Women's Network, member of Afghan Minority Council, member of all Afghan Jirga in the last two decades. she also participated in Qatar's Talks with Taliban.