Abu 'Ali al-Husain ibn 'Abdullah ibn Sina is a well-known personality among the physicians of Unani medicine and scientists of physical sciences since medieval times. He was born in August 980 A.D. (Safar 370 A.H.) in the village of Afshana near Bukhara to Abdullah, from Balkh, the local governor of Kharmaithan, and his wife Sitareh, from Afshana. Ibn Sina is known to the West by the Europeanised Hebrew translation of his name, Avicenna (Aven Sina). Avicenna was born at a time when Bukhara was the capital and intellectual center of the Samarid dynasty, which ruled over much of Eastern Iran (Persia) and Afghanistan (Khurasan) until the rise of Mahmud of Ghazna of Afghanistan.

Ibn Sina's Al-Qanun-fil-tibb (The Canon of Medicine) is thought to be the most famous medical text book ever written. Between 1400-1600 AD, it was used as the main medical text in most European universities. Ibn Sina was more than a famous clinician or an eminent writer. He was a renowned pharmacologist, philosopher, researcher, theorist, poet, and a successful politician, with more than 276 books, essays, and treatises credited to him.