© UnknownA manuscript of Avicenna's seminal 'Canon of Medicine'
The Protection Unit of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization found the manuscript which dates from the Safavid era (1501-1736) in Iran's western province of Hamadan.
"Police forces in Hamadan recovered the manuscript, which was pilfered on May 18, this morning," said Colonel Nazari, the head of the protection unit.
"Cultural heritage experts confirmed the text is the original manuscript stolen from the museum adjacent to Avicenna's mausoleum," Nazari added.
No details about the robbery or the perpetrators was released.
Ibn Sina - also known by the Latinized version of his name Avicenna - was a celebrated physician, astronomer, alchemist, chemist, logician, mathematician, metaphysician, philosopher, physicist, poet, scientist and theologian.
He was born in 980 CE in Bukhara, Greater Khorassan of ancient Persia (today's Uzbekistan). He authored over 200 books on a wide range of topics, many of which concentrated on philosophy and medicine.
He made fundamental contributions to Western medicine and the European Renaissance, particularly Aristotelian philosophy and medicine.
He wrote the Kitab al-Shifa (Book of Healing), a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and al-Qanun fi Tibb (The Canon of Medicine), which is among the most famous books in the history of medicine.
His works were standard medical texts in Oriental and European universities up until the 18th century.
The Canon of Medicine is the principal medical work of Avicenna. It is the most famous single book in the history of medicine in both the East and the West.
The book is a systematic encyclopedia based for the most part on the achievements of Greek physicians of the Roman imperial age and on his own experiences.
The book became a classic and was used at many medical schools - at Montpellier, as late as 1650 - and is still used in the East.
He is also considered the father of the momentum concept in physics.
Avicenna died in 1037 in what is today the Iranian city of Hamadan.
...that the Iranians have prepared a really safe place for their national treasures, just in case...
In the worse case scenario, it would be another blow to humanity's history if the Persian heritage was subjected to the same looting, plundering and destruction that accompanied the US invasion of Iraq; that other cradle of civilisation.