Al-Farabi, Founder of Islamic Neoplatonism

His Life, Works and Influence

Majid Fakhry

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781780746654
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies

The only comprehensive introduction to al-Farabi - the first Islamic philosopher to translate the works of Plato and Aristotle. This new survey from a leading scholar documents the philosopher's life, writings and achievements.

1

Life and Works

The Arab biographers are unanimous in lavishing on al-Fārābi the highest praise. His full name is given in the Arabic sources as Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Ūzalāgh Ibn Tarkhān and he is said to have been a native of Fārāb in Transoxiana and of Turkish or Turkoman origin. The earliest biographer, Ṣā‘id Ibn Ṣā‘id al-Andalusi (d. 1070), speaks eloquently of al-Fārābi’s contribution to logic. Having studied logic with Yuḥanna Ibn Ḥaylān, we are told, he soon ‘outstripped all the Muslims in that field … He explained the obscure parts (of that science) and revealed its secrets … in books which were sound in expression and intimation, drawing attention to what al-Kindi and others had overlooked in the field of analysis and the methods of instruction.’¹ He is then commended for writing an ‘unparalleled treatise’ on The Enumeration of the Sciences (Iḥā’ al-‘Ulūm) and an equally masterly treatise on the Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, on metaphysics and politics, the Civil Polity (al-Siyāsah al-Madaniyah) and the Virtuous Regime (al-Sīrah al-Fāḍṣilah), as this biographer calls al-Fārābi’s best-known treatise, The Virtuous City (al-Madīnah al-Fāḍilah). These treatises, according to Sā‘id, embody the fundamental principles of Aristotle’s philosophy, bearing on the ‘six spiritual principles and the way in which corporeal substances derive from them’,² a clear reference to the emanationist scheme of Plotinus (d. 270), confused with Aristotle in the Arabic sources, as we saw in the Introduction.

This information is supplemented in later sources by references to al-Fārābi coming to Damascus, where he worked as a garden-keeper; then he moved to Baghdad, where he devoted himself to the study of the Arabic language, which he did not know, although, we are told, he was conversant with Turkish as well as many other languages.³

In Baghdad, he soon came into contact with the leading logician of his day, Abū Bishr Matta (d. 911) and a less-known logician, Yuḥanna Ibn Ḥaylān, with whom he studied logic, as we are told in his lost tract, On the Rise of Philosophy. Apart from his travels to Egypt and Ascalon, the most memorable event in his life was his association with Sayf al-Dawlah (d. 967), the Hamdāni ruler of Aleppo, a great patron of the arts and letters. Sayf al-Dawlah appears to have had the highest regard for this philosopher of frugal habits and ascetic demeanor, who distinguished himself in a variety of ways, not least of which was music. Apart from the large Musical Treatise (Kitāb al-Musiqa al-Kabīr), coupled with treatises on Melody (Fi‘l Īqā’) and Transition to Melody (al-Nuqlah ilā’l-Īqā’) and a small musical tract, al-Fārābi is reported to have been a skillful musician. Once, we are told, he played so skillfully in the presence of Sayf al-Dawlah that his audience was moved to tears; but when he changed his tune, they laughed and finally they fell asleep, whereupon, we are told, he got up and walked away unnoticed.⁴ Following his visit to Egypt in 949, he returned to Damascus, where he died in 950.⁵

His lost tract, the Rise of Philosophy, contains additional autobiographical information. After reviewing the stages through which Greek philosophy passed from the Classical to the Alexandrian periods, he describes how instruction in logic moved from Alexandria to Baghdad, where Ibrahim al-Marwazi, Abū Bishr Matta and Yūḥanna Ibn Ḥaylān were the most distinguished teachers. Instruction in logic had been confined hitherto, we are told, to the ‘end of the existential moods’ on account of the threat the more advanced study of logic presented to the Christian faith. Al-Fārābi appears from that account to have been the first to break with that logical tradition and to proceed beyond the first parts of the Organon to the study of Analytica Posteriora (Kitāb al-Burhān).⁶ The study of Aristotelian logic had actually been confined in Nestorian and Jacobite seminaries in Syria and Iraq to the first four treatises of that logic; namely, the Isagoge of Porphyry, the Categories,on Interpretation (Peri Hermeneias) and the Analytica Priora, known in the Arabic sources as Kitāb al-Qiyās.⁷

Be this as it may, the testimony of his biographers is conclusive in highlighting al-Fārābi’s role as the first great logician, who soon outstripped both his Muslim predecessors and his Christian contemporaries, such as the above-mentioned Yūḥanna Ibn Ḥaylān and Abū Bishr Matta, his own teachers in logic.

This testimony is confirmed by al-Fārābi’s vast logical output, enough of which has survived to justify the high regard in which he was held by the ancients. This output includes a series of large commentaries (shurūh) on Analytica Posteriora, Analytica Priora, the Categories, Isagoge, Rhetorica and On Interpretation (Sharh Kitāb al-‘Ibarah), the only such commentary to have survived.⁸ To this list should be added paraphrases of Analytica Posteriora, Analytica Priora, Topica, Isagoge and Sophistica, as well as a tract on the Conditions of Certainty (Sharā’it al-Yaqīn).⁹ However, his most original logical writings consist of a series of analytical treatises intended to serve as a propaedeuntic to the study of logic, which with the exception of Porphyry’s Isagoge, or introduction to the Categories, had no parallels in ancient or medieval history. They include an Introductory Treatise (Risālah fi’l-Tawṭi’ah), the Five Sections (al-Fusūl al-Khamsah), Terms Used in Logic (al-Alfāz al-Musta‘malāh fi’l-Manṭiq) and the Book of Letters (Kitāb al-Hurūf), all of which have survived and will be discussed in Chapter 4.

Al-Fārābi’s physical and meteorological writings include commentaries on the Physics (al-Samā‘ al-Ṭabi‘ī), as that book was known in Arabic, a treatise on Changing Entities (Fi‘l-Mawjūdāt al-Mutaghayrah), the Heavens and the World (al-Samā’ wa’l-‘Ālam), the Meteorology (al-Āthār al-‘Ulawiyah), as well as a treatise on the Perpetuity of Motion and the Essence of the Soul (Fī Māhiyat al-Nafs). To these works should be added works on alchemy and astrology, the most important of which is his treatise On Valid and Invalid Astrological Inferences (Fi mā Yaṣuḥmin ‘Ilm Ahkām al-Nujūm), which has survived. He is also reported to have written a commentary on al-Majasti, as Ptolemy’s Almagest was called in Arabic.

Al-Fārābi’s metaphysical and methodological works include a Treatise on Metaphysics (Fi‘l-‘Ilm al-Ilāhi), a treatise on the Harmony of the Opinions of Plato and Aristotle (Fī‘i Ittifāq Arā’Aflātun wa Aristutālis, also known as al-Jam ‘Bayn Ra’yay al-Hakīmayn), a treatise on the Name of Philosophy (Fī Ism al-Falsafah), another on Philosophy and Its Genesis (Fi‘l-Falsafah wa Sabab Zubūriha) and finally the Enumeration of the Sciences (Iḥwa lā Yaṣuḥṣā’ al-‘Ulūm).¹⁰

In the fields of ethics and politics in which al-Fārābi excelled, a number of treatises are given in the ancient sources. The list opens with the Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City (Arā’ Ahl al-Madīnah al-Fāḍilah) and the Civil Polity (al-Siyāsah al-Madaniyah), and includes an Epitome of Plato’s Laws (Kitāb al-Nawāmīs), Select Sections (on politics) (Fusūl Murtaza’ah … min Aqāwīl al-Qudamā’), a treatise on the Attainment of Happiness (Taḥsīl al-Sa‘ādah) and a shorter tract entitled Admonition to Seek the Path of Happiness (al-Tanbīh ‘alā Sabīl al-Sa‘ādah). To these extant works should be added a commentary on the Opening Parts of Aristotle’s Ethics (Sharh Ṣadr Kitāb al-Akhlāq li-‘Arisṭuṭālīs), which is lost.

Finally, as already mentioned, al-Fārābi excelled in the theory and practice of music. His best-known work, entitled the Large Music (Kitāb al-Musiqa al-Kabīr), has survived; but he is also reported to have written shorter treatises on Melody (Fi’l-Īqā’) and Transition to Melody (al-Nuqlah ila‘l-Īqā’) and A Short Discourse on Melody (Kalām fi’l-Īqā’ Mukhtasar),¹¹ which is no longer extant, and to which reference has already been made.

1. Tabaqāt al-Umam, p. 53. Cf. al-Qifti, Tārikh al-Hukamā’, p. 277.

2. Ibid., p. 54. Cf. al-Qifti, Tārikh al-Hukamā’, p. 278.

3. Ibn Abī Usaybi‘ah, ‘Uyūn al-Anbā’, p. 606; Ibn Khillikān, Wafayāt al-A‘yān, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. LIFE AND WORKS
• 2. AL-FĀRĀBI AND THE GREEK LEGACY
• 3. THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES
• 4. AL-FĀRĀBI AS LOGICIAN
• 5. THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
• 6. EMANATION VERSUS CREATION
• 7. ETHICAL THEORY
• 8. POLITICAL THEORY
• 9. AL-FĀRĀBI AND MUSIC
• 10. AL-FĀRĀBI IN HISTORY
• Conclusion
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index