Quote by Ibn Sina: “The soul is distinguishable from the body. It is the self that thinks and knows.”

Avicenna separates your identity from your physical form — the part of you that experiences, thinks, and understands is not simply your body. This is not mysticism; it is philosophy. The self that observes your own life is distinct from the biological machine carrying it.

Ibn Sina wrote during the Islamic Golden Age, when Persian and Arab scholars were translating, extending, and debating the works of Aristotle, Plato, and Galen. Philosophy and medicine were not separate disciplines, and questions about the nature of the soul were considered as empirical as questions about the body.

Persian polymath born in 980 CE in Bukhara, in present-day Uzbekistan, who made foundational contributions to medicine, philosophy, astronomy, and mathematics. His Canon of Medicine was used as a standard medical textbook in Europe and the Islamic world for over six centuries.