Hamadan

The old Median capital in western Iran where Ibn Sina served as vizier, was imprisoned, and wrote much of the Canon of Medicine.

Hamadan sits high under Mount Alvand and was ancient long before Ibn Sina arrived. He cured the local ruler, was made vizier, mutinied against by the army, hidden by friends, reinstated, and later jailed by a successor. He worked through all of it. The Canon of Medicine was largely written here, in the intervals of a political career he never wanted, and it remained a standard text in European universities for six hundred years. He is buried in the city.