From the 3rd until the 11th century, biology was essentially an Arab science. Although the Arabic scholars themselves were not great innovators, they discovered the works of such men as Aristotle, translated those works into Arabic, studied them, and wrote commentaries about them.

Of the Arab biologists, Abu ali ibn Sina (980-1037 AD), also known as Avicenna, from medieval Persia is particularly noteworthy. His work, AL-FADIL ALI ALKARI (The Book of Healing), is a scientific and philosophical encyclopedia. He was a self-taught doctor, practicing medicine since the age of sixteen. The Book of Healing continued to be translated into Hebrew and Latin through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The book is split into four parts: logic, natural sciences, mathematics, and metaphysics, which relies much on Aristotle, is primarily an Arabic work. In it the author emphasized the unity of nature and recognized relationships between different groups of organisms. Because Avicenna believed that earth contained both male and female elements, he found the Greek doctrine of spontaneous generation (life emerging from mud) to be quite reasonable.