author
Bernard Carra de Vaux
1867–1953
A French orientalist and historian of science, he wrote vividly about the Middle East and helped introduce major Islamic thinkers to European readers. His work ranges from travel writing to studies of Avicenna, astronomy, and the history of religions.
2 Audiobooks
Avicenne
by Bernard Carra de Vaux
La doctrine de l'Islam
by Bernard Carra de Vaux
About the author
Born in Bar-sur-Aube in February 1867, Bernard Carra de Vaux was a French orientalist, historian of science, and historian of religions. Reference sources agree that he spent much of his career studying the intellectual traditions of the Islamic world, and he is especially remembered for writing on figures such as Avicenna as well as for publishing accounts of his travels in the Middle East.
His bibliography shows an unusually wide range. Alongside books on Islamic thought, he worked on the history of science and took part in scholarly editing projects connected with Eastern Christian and Arabic traditions. That combination of travel, philology, and intellectual history helped make him one of the French scholars who brought medieval Islamic philosophy and science to a broader reading public.
Sources consulted for this overview agree on his birth in 1867 and place his death in Nice in the early 1950s, though I found a small discrepancy between reference pages on whether he died in late 1952 or in 1953. Because of that inconsistency, it is safest to say that he died in Nice in the early 1950s.