TEHRAN -- A range of scientific and cultural programs will be held across Iran during National Avicenna Commemoration Week, running from August 17 to 23, to highlight the intellectual legacy of the celebrated Persian physician and philosopher.
Inshaallah Rahmati, head of the Avicenna Scientific and Cultural Foundation, said the national week was established in 2023 with the support of Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. 
The initiative brings together academic, cultural and executive institutions to organize programs dedicated to studying and commemorating Avicenna’s legacy.
Rahmati referred to The Life of Avicenna, written by Abu Ubayd al-Juzjani, one of the renowned scholar’s students, noting that differences between lunar, Gregorian and Solar Hijri calendars, as well as the existence of multiple versions of the biographical text, have resulted in several dates being considered for Avicenna’s birth.
He said August 17 and 18 are observed as Avicenna’s birth dates in parts of Central Asia, including Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, while Iran’s official calendar designates August 23 as Avicenna Commemoration Day and National Physicians’ Day.
Given the number of academic conferences and commemorative events held across the country, authorities decided to designate the period from August 17 to 23 as National Avicenna Commemoration Week.
According to Rahmati, an academic conference was held in Bukhara on August 17 as part of scientific cooperation between Iran’s Avicenna Foundation and its counterpart in Uzbekistan. Further academic gatherings followed on August 18 and 19, organized respectively by the Association for the Preservation of Iran’s National Treasures and the Institute for Iranian and Eurasian Studies (IRAS).
Scholars specializing in Avicenna from Iran, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan participated in the events, presenting research and lectures on the philosopher’s medical and philosophical heritage.
Rahmati also highlighted the annual ceremony held at Avicenna’s mausoleum in Hamadan on August 23. 
For more than two decades, government officials, religious figures, academics, physicians, cultural figures, artists and members of the public have gathered at the mausoleum to pay tribute to the philosopher and physician, with a military band performance and the laying of wreaths.
A symbolic medical oath ceremony for medical students is also held at the mausoleum as part of the commemoration.
This year’s ceremony will be organized by Hamadan University of Medical Sciences with support from the provincial governor’s office and cultural and academic institutions. 
A conference titled “Hamadan, World Center of Iranian Medicine” will also be held on the
  morning of August 23, while the Academy of Sciences and the Iranian
 Association of Philosophy and Wisdom will organize another academic conference in Tehran that afternoon.
Rahmati said one of the principal responsibilities of the Avicenna Foundation is to publish the scholar’s works and treatises and promote his legacy internationally.
On August 24, the foundation will hold the 21st annual Avicenna commemoration, titled “The Sage of the Millennia,” from 8 a.m. to noon. 
The event will be organized in cooperation with the provincial government, the Association for the Preservation of Iran’s National Treasures, the provincial Department of Culture, the Iranian Philosophers’ Assembly and the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution.
Six prominent Iranian scholars specializing in Avicenna studies are scheduled to deliver academic presentations. Among the speakers named by Rahmati are Abdolhussein Khosropanah, secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, as well as academics Akbari, Saeedi-Mehr, Houshangi and Arzaei.
An additional academic program will be held that afternoon by the Institute for Research on the Written Heritage of Iran, bringing together Iranian Avicenna scholars and researchers from abroad through online participation.