Al-Farabi Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Uzalagh ibn Tarkhan Abu Nasr al-Farabi (c. 870–950) probably was born in Wasij, a village area of the city of Farab in Transoxiana. Likely of Turkic origins, he has become known in modern times as al-Farabi after his city of origin rather than as Abu Nasr as was traditional among Muslim scholars.

Many of the details of al-Farabi’s life are unclear. One source is his short semiautobiographical history of philosophy, Kitab fi zuhur al-falsafah (Book on the Rise of Philosophy), which survives as a few fragments documenting several events in his life.

A prolific author, al-Farabi completed more than one hundred books dealing with logic, literary theory, politics, philosophy, and all the sciences known to the medieval world, with the exception of medicine. Al-Farabi was fluent in Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Syriac, and Greek. As a linguist he wrote several commentaries on Aristotle’s Poetics, Rhetoric, and De Interpretatione.

Al-Farabi probably completed his Quranic studies in Bukhara, where he became an Islamic judge (qadi). He was a practicing Sufi whose musical writings included discussions of the therapeutic benefits of music on the soul. These discussions were allied with his writings on psychological matters.

To complete his mastery of Arabic, al-Farabi studied in Baghdad. He also mastered the subject of logic, surpassing his teachers in the subject and dominating the field during his lifetime. One of his logic teachers, Yahanna ibn Haylan, a Nestorian Christian, made the writings of Neoplatonism available to him.

Al-Farabi traveled to Egypt and Ascalon after his stay in Baghdad. He then moved to Aleppo, where the Hamdani ruler Sayf al-Dawlah, a patron of the arts, took al-Farabi into his court.

Because of the importance of his work in philosophy, alFarabi is called the Second Teacher (al-Mu’allim al-Thani) in the history of Islamic philosophy, with the first teacher or major philosopher being al-Kindi. As a philosopher, al-Farabi was greatly influenced by Neoplatonism, expressing his metaphysical views in his work, Ibsa al-Ulum (The Enumeration of the Sciences).

Al-Farabi was the first Muslim to write works on political philosophy. He was also the greatest political philosopher of the early Middle Ages. His political works were the last of his writings and include al-Siyash al-Madaniyah (Civil Polity), al-Sirah al-Fadilah (Virtuous Regime), and al-Madinah al Fadilab (Virtuous City). In addition, his summary of Plato’s last book, Laws, was the only commentary on the book until the 1800s.

Bibliography:

Mahdi, Muhsin S. Alfarabi and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
Parens, Joshua. Metaphysics as Rhetoric: Alfarabi’s Summary of Plato’s “Laws.” Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.