Tehran showcases ancient books

Tue Nov 16, 2010

Tehran's Malek Museum has mounted an exhibition of selected antique books, displaying a verity of ancient texts.

The exhibition, which coincides with Iran's book week, runs from November 15 to 21, Mehr news agency reported on Monday.

The selected books belong to the museum's collection and cover a range of subjects, including literature, history, geography, and medical science in various languages of Persian, Arabic, English and French.

An old publication of the The Canon of Medicine written by the prominent Iranian scientist, Avicenna, is also among the workd on display.

The book was originally published in Rome in 1593.

Also known as Shaykh al-Ra'is (Master and Head), Avicenna wrote about 450 works, of which only 240 have survived. Some 150 of his books are on philosophy and 40 on medicine including his magnum opus Kitab al-Shifa (The Book of Healing) which is an immense encyclopedic work.

Many literary and scientific figures were influenced by Avicenna, including the renowned poet Omar Khayyam and the celebrated 13th-century scientist Khwaja Nasir al-Din at-Tusi.

He was born in 980 AD in Afshana, near Bukhara in the Khorasan region of Iran.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/151252.html.