Introducing Avicenna's Canon of Medicine and a report on its manuscripts, translations and commentaries that are kept in Europe

The significance of the book “Canon of Medicine” by Avicenna in the world medicine originates from its comprehensiveness, purposefulness and systematic structure. This book is not only considered in Iran and the Muslim world but in Europe. Along with its numerous European editions and translations, many manuscripts are kept in Europe. We can hardly find any major libraries in Europe in which there is not at least one Arabic manuscript of this book. The introduction and review of writing’s year of these editions is one of the most important tasks that should be done by librarians from Iran, Muslim world or Europe. Failure to collect this information from Europe about the book over the past years has led to less use of European manuscripts during the reprints of the Canon of Medicine, for at least two decades in Iran as well as in Beirut. Accordingly, as the first step to fill this gap, it is necessary to present a report on the manuscripts, translations and editions of this book, based on the European libraries’ sources. Since many major European libraries are rapidly digitalizing their own manuscripts and publishing them on a virtual network, being informed about the origins of this European inventory will cause considering these manuscripts for future studies on Canon.