Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
looks something like a vast, unfinished concrete missile. It is loosely modelled on Qabus's
1000-year-old tower in Gonbad-e Kavus (
Click here
)
, which BuAli probably saw inaugur-
ated. Paying the entry fee (entry from west) allows you to see the single-room
museum
of
Avicenna memorabilia, his tombstone, a small library and a display on medicinal herbs.
But the tower itself is better observed from a distance.
BUALI SINA
Had you studied advanced medicine in 17th-century Europe, your 'text book' would have been the great medical
encyclopaedia,
Canon Medicinae.
Incredibly, this had been written 600 years earlier. Its author, remembered in the
West as Avicenna, was in fact the great Iranian philosopher, physicist and poet Abu Ali Ibn Sina (AD 980-1037),
'BuAli' Sina for short. If you're a fan of aromatherapy you can thank BuAli for the development of steam distilla-
tion with which essential oils are extracted. His ideas on momentum and inertia were centuries ahead of Newton's.
And (following al-Kindi and al-Farabi), his blending of Aristotle's ideas with Persian philosophy helped inspire a
golden age of Islamic scholarship. However, this philosophy rapidly led to a polarisation of views about the man
whose ego was reputedly as great as his intellect.
Born in what is today Uzbekistan, BuAli studied medicine in Bukhara where his sharp mind and photographic
memory had him running rings around his teachers. Political intrigues in Bukhara meant BuAli fled westwards to
Gonbad-e Kavus,
Click here
only to arrive as Qabus, his illustrious prospective sponsor, dropped dead. Initially
BuAli proved luckier in Hamadan, where he successfully treated the ailments of the ruling emir and was promoted
to vizier. However, when his patron died, Avicenna was thrown into prison for corresponding with Abu Jafar, a rival
ruler based in Esfahan. Four months later the Esfahanis stormed Hamadan releasing BuAli who thereupon worked
with Abu Jafar for the rest of his life, coincidentally dying while on a return trip to Hamadan some 14 years later.
Baba Taher Mausoleum
(Aramgah-e Baba Taher; admission US$3; 8am-5.30pm)
Of a similar era to the BuAli
Sina (Avicenna) Mausoleum but architecturally less successful is this heavily buttressed
mausoleum. It looks like a failed prototype for Thunderbird 3. There's little reason to go
inside unless you enjoy Persian calligraphy, inscribed here on some gently opalescent
stone wall-slabs.
MAUSOLEUM
Alaviyan Dome
(Gonbad-e Alaviyan; Shahdad Lane; admission US$1; 8am-7pm)
The name is now a
misnomer, as the 12th-century green dome, immortalised in a Khaqani reference, has long
since been removed. The dome-less brick tower remains famous for the whirling floral
stucco added in the Ilkhanid era; this ornamentation enraptured Robert Byron in
Road to
MAUSOLEUM
