Distinguish what a thing is from the fact that it exists.
Works, testimonies and further readings are distinguished. Dates refer to composition or first publication, as specified in each entry.
These records cover the Book of Healing, the Canon of Medicine and the Remarks and Admonitions. The Salvation, the Persian Philosophy for Ala al-Dawla, the allegories, the correspondence with al-Biruni and the many shorter treatises are not yet indexed; this is a selection, not a complete bibliography.
011012–1025
Begun at Jurjan around 1012 and continued at Rayy and Hamadan, the Canon was translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona at Toledo in the twelfth century. Printed in Latin from 1473 and in Arabic at Rome in 1593, it remained a textbook in European universities into the seventeenth century.
021016–1027
Begun at Hamadan at the request of his students and completed at Isfahan around 1027, the work was reportedly written in part without any books to hand. In the twelfth century its books on the soul and on metaphysics were translated into Latin at Toledo, where they lastingly reshaped scholastic philosophy.
03written c. 1030
Written at Isfahan in his final years and also known as Pointers and Reminders, the book uses an allusive style on purpose, to train students to rebuild the arguments. It was rarely read without a commentary: Fakhr al-Din al-Razi attacked it, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi defended it, and their works made it a central text of later Islamic philosophy.