wn autobiographical writings and those of contemporaries tell us how he was occupied for long hours each day as a physician (often at the court of one or another Arabic prince). His court duties often also included administrative ones, sometimes directly concerned with medical issues and sometimes not, for his patrons often relied upon his intelligence, memory and meticulousness in a wide range of areas of polity (Heilbrun and Bynum, 2000, p. 15).
After attending to his duties throughout the day, Avicenna would spend almost every night with his students writing both his medical and his philosophical works (although more usually the former) and carrying on scientific, medical and ethical discussions with both his students and sometimes other scholars. He sometimes made clinical notes of his own cases or those of his students, but these notes have been lost to history over the course of his wanderings. After the scholarly work of each night was over, Avicenna and his students would enjoy musical performances and feasting until nearly dawn. Clearly, one of Avic
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