 Unquestionably the most important faylasuf—fundamental to the subsequent Arabic Islamic tradition, but highly influential too on Jewish and Latin philosophy—was  Ibn Sīnā  (before 980–1037; known in Latin as “Avicenna”, see entries on  Ibn Sina’s logic,  Ibn Sina’s metaphysics,  Ibn Sina’s natural philosophy).  Avicenna was born in present-day Uzbekistan and spent his life in the Eastern part of the Islamicate world, serving various princes in the area (he was also a renowned doctor and writer on medicine). He distinguished his approach sharply from that of the “Westerners”, the Baghdad Peripatetics. Like them, he considered himself an Aristotelian. But whereas they sought to expound Aristotle’s texts line by line, Avicenna believed his genius allowed him to present the underlying truth in Aristotle’s thought, by rearranging, rethinking and systematizing it. His output consisted mostly, therefore, of philosophical encyclopaedias each covering much of the range of Aristotle’s work, longer—such as The Cure—or shorter—such as Pointers and Reminders, the presentation most distant from Aristotle’s texts and most studied by his Arabic successors.