Abstract

This paper will examine several narratives pertaining to Shaykh Abū ‘Alī Sīnā, known more widely as either Ibn Sīnā or Avicenna, as recounted in the Badāyi‘ al-vaqāyi‘ of Zayn al-Dīn Maḥmūd Vāṣifī, a work which was completed in Tashkent and dedicated to Abū’l-Muẓaffar Hasan Sulṭān b. Kīldī Muḥammad Sulṭān, a prince of the Abu’l-Khayrid Shībānid dynasty, in 1538-39. Vāṣifī devoted an entire chapter of the Badāyi‘ al-vaqāyi‘ to the figure of Ibn Sīnā, wherein he related popular tales regarding Ibn Sīnā which would have been in circulation in Mavarannahr, particularly in Bukhara, during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. An examination of the Ibn Sīnā narratives provided by Vāṣifī in the Badāyi‘ al-vaqāyi‘ will serve to broaden our knowledge of how one of the greatest polymaths in the history of the Muslim world was popularly remembered in his Central Asian homeland centuries after his passing.