A Doctor Tells His Own Story: Ibn Sina in Bukhara

Read how Islam spread to Central Asia, then source a famous scholar's memoir.

From Mecca to Bukhara

Read the passage. Then answer the questions.

From Mecca to Bukhara

1Islam began in the Arabian city of Mecca in the early 600s. Muslims believe that, starting about 610, God sent revelations to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel, and that these revelations form the Quran. In 622 Muhammad and his followers moved to Medina, a journey called the hijra. By his death in 632, much of Arabia had joined the Muslim community.

2Under the caliphs who led Muslims after Muhammad, Arab armies won Syria, Egypt and Persia within about twenty years. In the early 700s they pushed into Central Asia and took Bukhara and Samarkand, rich oasis cities on the Silk Road. At first, many people there kept their old religions. Over the next two centuries, through marriage, trade and the work of teachers, more and more of them became Muslims.

3In the 800s and 900s, the Samanids, a Persian Muslim family, ruled much of Central Asia from Bukhara. Caravans stopped there with silk, paper, glass, horses and furs. Caravanserais, walled inns built about a day's journey apart, sheltered traders and their animals along the roads. Bukhara's rulers paid scholars and poets and gathered a great royal library. Scholars across the Muslim world wrote in Arabic, so a doctor in Bukhara could read books written in Baghdad or Cairo.

4Muslim scholars translated Greek, Persian and Indian books and built on them. Numerals that came from India, including a sign for zero, spread through the Muslim world. Large cities had hospitals where doctors treated patients and trained students. Ibn Sina, born near Bukhara about 980, became one of the most famous of these scholars. His first language was Persian, but he wrote most of his books in Arabic. His Canon of Medicine, finished about 1025, joined Greek and Arabic medical knowledge with his own observations. It was translated into Latin in the 1100s, and European universities taught from it until the 1600s.

Based on paragraph 2, how did many people of Bukhara come to be Muslims?

A. After the Samanids moved there from Baghdad
B. Quickly, in the same year the Arab armies arrived
C. Gradually, over about two centuries of contact
D. After Ibn Sina's Canon spread across Central Asia

Using paragraphs 2 and 3, which detail best explains why goods from many lands reached Bukhara?

A. It was the capital of the Arab caliphs in the 600s.
B. It was the city where the hijra ended in 622.
C. It was a port on the shores of the Indian Ocean.
D. It was an oasis city on Silk Road caravan routes.

Use paragraphs 3 and 4. Sort each detail: did it mainly help goods travel, or knowledge travel?

Walled inns a day's journey apartArabic as a shared language of scholarsCaravans carrying glass and fursTranslations of Greek and Indian booksA Latin version of the Canon of Medicine

Helped goods travel	Helped knowledge travel

A merchant in Bukhara about 1000 must add up a long list of prices. Based on paragraph 4, which tool from India would help him most?

A. Numerals with a sign for zero
B. Latin letters from European schools
C. The walled courtyard of a caravanserai
D. Paper money printed by the caliph

Source a memoir

Read the sourcing note and the excerpt. Then answer the questions.

Sourcing note: Years after the events, when he was a grown man, Ibn Sina told the story of his youth to his student al-Juzjani, who wrote it down. Al-Juzjani first met him in 1012 and finished the life story after his teacher died in 1037. The excerpt is adapted from English translations.

Excerpt from Ibn Sina's account of his life
"My father moved to Bukhara during the reign of the Samanid ruler Nuh ibn Mansur. Teachers of the Quran and of literature were brought for me, and by the age of ten I had finished the Quran and much literature, so that people were amazed. My father sent me to a vegetable seller who knew Indian arithmetic, and I learned it from him.
Then I took up medicine. Medicine is not one of the difficult sciences, so I excelled in it in a very short time, and well-known doctors began to study it with me. I also visited the sick, and from that experience I learned ways of treatment that cannot be described. I was then sixteen years old.
The ruler Nuh ibn Mansur fell ill, and his doctors could not cure him. They mentioned my name, so I was called, and I joined them in treating him. I asked permission to enter his library. It had many rooms, with chests of books piled on one another. I saw books whose names many people have never heard. By the age of eighteen I had finished with all these sciences."

Ibn Sina told this story about himself many years later. Which claim should a historian be most careful about accepting as told?

A. That he learned arithmetic from a vegetable seller
B. That medicine was easy and he excelled in a very short time
C. That the ruler Nuh ibn Mansur once fell ill
D. That his father moved to Bukhara under Nuh ibn Mansur

Which detail from the passage best supports Ibn Sina's claim that he became a skilled doctor?

A. Arab armies took Bukhara in the early 700s.
B. Universities taught from his Canon for centuries.
C. Caravanserais sheltered traders along the roads.
D. The Samanids were a Persian Muslim family.

Underline the sentence from the excerpt that shows Ibn Sina learning from patients, not from books.

Medicine is not one of the difficult sciences, so I excelled in it in a very short time, and well-known doctors began to study it with me.I also visited the sick, and from that experience I learned ways of treatment that cannot be described.I asked permission to enter his library.I saw books whose names many people have never heard.

Ibn Sina learned Indian arithmetic from a vegetable seller. Together with paragraph 4, what does this detail suggest?

A. Ibn Sina invented the numerals that later reached Europe.
B. Vegetable sellers in Bukhara had mostly come from India.
C. Numerals from India had reached everyday traders in the market.
D. Arithmetic was taught in the ruler's library in those years.

Why did Ibn Sina most likely ask to enter the ruler's library?

A. It held rare books that few people had ever seen.
B. He needed a quiet place to treat the ruler in secret.
C. He wanted to sell his own books to the ruler's doctors.
D. He was paid to repair the chests that held the books.

10.

Use paragraph 4 and the excerpt.

Ibn Sina was born about 980. He says he had finished with "all these sciences" at age eighteen, which was about the year .

11.

Claim: Ibn Sina's success depended on the Islamic world around him as well as on his own talent. Do you agree? Use at least one detail from the excerpt and one from the passage as evidence, and explain your reasoning.