Introducing: Persian of Interest

About this episode

Before Europe built its universities, before the Renaissance "rediscovered" science, and before the West even had the vocabulary to describe diseases, there was a young man from the Persian heartlands who was diagnosing rulers, running clinical trials, and building a system of knowledge that would dominate European medical schools for over 600 years. His name was Ibn Sina — you might know him as Avicenna. This week on Persian of Interest, Kaveh takes Shauhin on a wild ride through the life of a 10th-century Persian polymath who was too smart for his own good: a child genius who became a physician at 17, a vizier he never wanted to be, a fugitive who wrote his masterpiece by candlelight on the run, and a man whose ideas about medicine, philosophy, and the universe were centuries ahead of anyone else on Earth. Also: how much of his work was lost to book burnings, why he's the only non-Greek in The School of Athens, and whether Doogie Howser was secretly Persian. It's part history lesson, part cultural reclamation, and part excuse for two middle-aged friends to hang out. They welcome corrections and look forward to hearing from you! Have a figure you'd like them to cover? Email sh