Farabi
Farabi (Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi) (Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Tarkhan ibn Uzalagh al-Farabi) (Abu Nasr ibn Muhammad ibn Tarkhan ibn Auzlagh al-Farabi) (Abu al-Nasr Muhammad ibn al-Farakh al-Farabi) (al-Pharabius) (Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Tarḫān ibn Awzlaġ al-Fārābi) (Alpharabius) (b. c. 872 – d. between December 14, 950 and January 12, 951). Muslim polymath and one of the greatest scientists and philosophers of Persia and the Islamic world of his time. He was also a cosmologist, logician, musician, psychologist and sociologist. He became known in the West under the names of Alfarabius (Alpharabius) and Avennasar (Abunaser).
Al-Farabi was a major contributor to philosophy, logic, sociology and science. He was best known as the “Second Teacher” (al-Mou’allim al-Thani), Aristotle being the first. Al-Farabi was largely responsible for cementing the position of Peripatetic philosophy at the core of nearly all philosophic thought in the Islamic world (and also, derivatively, much of the Christian world) through such an extensive series of written commentaries on Aristotle’s works that philosophical studies thereafter were dominated by his commentaries. Al-Farabi’s other major achievement was the creation of a cogent theory of an Islamic political philosophy based on Plato’s notions of supreme ruler-philosopher. This theory allowed a rational explanation of prophecy and the relatively unique role of prophetic revelation in a particular time and place. It also provided a universal definition of the purpose and goal of human society and government in general.
Al-Farabi, whose Latin name is Alfarabius, was born in Farab, Transoxiana (now Uzbekistan), of Turkish parentage. His ancestors were originally of Persian descent and his father was a general. After completing his education at Farab and Bukhara, he moved to Baghdad for higher studies, where his teachers were Christian Syrians expert in Greek philosophy. In Baghdad, al-Farabi studied several languages, science and technology, and philosophy. He also traveled to Damascus and Egypt for further studies. Eventually he came to live at the court of Sayf ad-Dawla (916-967), the ruler of Aleppo (now in Syria). Al-Farabi died a bachelor in Damascus in 950.
Al-Farabi was a qadi (a judge) in the early years of his long career. He eventually decided to take up teaching as his profession. Al-Farabi showed remarkable competence in several languages. Due to his exceptional talents in several branches of science and philosophy, he received the attention of King Saif al-Dawla at Halab (Aleppo). However, due to some unfortunate circumstances, he suffered great hardships and was once demoted to the position of caretaker of a garden.
Al-Farabi’s major contributions were in logic, philosophy and sociology. He also contributed immensely to mathematics, science, medicine, and music. He was also an encyclopedist. Al-Farabi’s great contribution in logic was that he made the study of logic systematic by dividing the subject into two categories: takhayyul (idea) and thubut (proof). Al-Farabi attempted to reconcile Platonism and Aristotelism with theology and wrote commentaries on physics, logic, and meteorology. Al-Farabi held the belief that philosophy and Islam are in harmony. He proved the existence of the void in his contribution to physics. His book Kitab al-Ihsa al-‘Ulum presents fundamental principles and classification of sciences from a fresh perspective.
Al-Farabi wrote several books on sociology, the most famous of which is the book entitled ‘Ara Ahl al-Madina al-Fadila’ (The Model City). It is a significant contribution to sociology and political science. He also wrote books on metaphysics and psychology that included his original work. Al-Farabi states that an isolated individual cannot achieve all the perfections by himself and without the aid of many other individuals. It is the innate disposition of every man to join another human being or other men in the labor he ought to perform. Therefore, to achieve what he can of that perfection, every man needs to stay in the neighborhood of others and associate with them.
Al-Farabi was also an expert in music. He contributed to musical notes and invented several musical instruments. Al-Farabi could play his instruments so well as to make people laugh or weep. His book on music, entitled Kitab al-Musiqa, was well known.
Al-Farabi wrote a large number of books in several fields that include his original contribution. One hundred seventeen books are known to have survived. Of these, forty-three books are on logic, seven each on political science and ethics, eleven on metaphysics, and twenty-eight books on medicine, sociology, music and commentaries. Al-Farabi’s book ‘Fusus al-Hikam was used as a text book of philosophy for several centuries in Europe. He had great influence on science and philosophy for several centuries.
Al-Farabi, like many other Muslim philosophers, traveled widely, visiting centers of learning and meeting with the learned masters of his time. He spent the last few years of his life in Aleppo, at the court of Sayf-ad-Dawlah.
Al-Farabi was one of the earliest Islamic thinkers to transmit to the Arab world the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle (which he considered essentially identical), thereby greatly influencing such later Islamic philosophers as Avicenna and Averroes.
Influenced in his metaphysical views by both Aristotle and the Neoplatonist Roman philosopher Plotinus, al-Farabi posited a Supreme Being who had created the world through the exercise of rational intelligence. He believed this same rational faculty to be the sole part of the human being that is immortal, and thus he set as the paramount human goal the development of the rational faculty. Al-Farabi gave considerably more attention to political theory than did any other Islamic philosopher, adapting the Platonic system (as developed in Plato’s Republic and Laws) to the contemporary Muslim political situation in The Perfect City.
Al-Farabi was the first Islamic philosopher to uphold the primacy of philosophical truth over revelation, claiming that, contrary to the beliefs of various other religions, philosophical truth is the same throughout the world. He formulated as an ideal a universal religion in which all other existing religions are considered symbolic expressions of the universal religion. Of about 100 works by al-Farabi, many have been lost, including his commentaries on Aristotle. Many others have been preserved in medieval Latin translations only. In addition to his philosophical writings, al-Farabi compiled a Catalogue of Sciences, the first Muslim work to attempt a systematization of human knowledge. He also made a contribution to musical theory in his Great Book of Music.
Al-Farabi’s philosophy represents the first serious attempt in Islamic philosophy to bring about a rapprochement between the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. It was toward this end that he wrote many commentaries and expositions on Plato’s and Aristotle’s treatises. Despite such commentaries, he came to be known for his works on logic and political philosophy. In logic, ethics, and metaphysics he followed Aristotle; in politics he preferred Plato.
Al-Farabi argues that all existing beings are divided into necessary and possible existents. Necessary beings exist by virtue of themselves and need no external cause of their existence. Possible beings are those that can exist or not exist, and their existence requires an external cause. Farabi then goes on to argue that if one were to strip all the accidental (unnecessary) attributes of a existent thing, what would be left is the essence of that thing. Therefore, all existent beings for Farabi consist of an essence to which existence is added. It is only God, Farabi tells us, for whom essence and existence are one and the same.
Farabi’s views on the origin of the world seem to have been influenced by the Neoplatonic doctrine of emanation. According to Farabi, God, in contemplating himself, emanates an intellect from himself and from this intellect, which contemplates itself, emanates the Second Intellect, and so forth until the Tenth Intellect, which Farabi calls the “Agent Intellect.” These intellects, for Farabi, provide the intermediary world between the incorporeal world and ours, the world of generation and corruption.
Al-Farabi, who interprets Aristotle’s account of the intellects in his own way, argues that Aristotle believes in four different intellects. These intellects are: Intellect in Potentiality, which he identifies with the human soul and its ability to think; Intellect in Actuality, which is their realization within the corporeal world of the intelligible; the Acquired Intellect, which to him is attained when the intellect in actuality reflects upon the intelligible; and finally there is the Agent Intellect, which is the cause of thinking.
Al-Farabi is perhaps the greatest logician of Islam. He undertook an extensive study and critique of the entire Aristotelian Organon. His principal contributions to logic were his analysis of principles of syllogistic reduction, his emphasis on hypothetical and disjunctive syllogisms (arguments involving “if ... then ...” and “either ... or ...” premises), his discussion of induction, and his account of the use of the categorical syllogism in arguments by analogy. In addition to these significant contributions, he also offered an in-depth treatment of the status of future contingencies and the determination of future events.
Post-Farabi Muslim logicians remained under his influence. Even those who modified or criticized his views often came to know of Aristotle through his eyes. The most notable example is Ibn Sina (Avicenna), who was highly influenced by Farabi’s view on logic.
Al-Farabi believed that there is but one fundamental religion and that the various religions were manifestations of it. Affirming the truth of all religions, al-Farabi maintained that each religion is applicable to its particular milieu. All religions, therefore, are like points on the circumference of a circle aiming at the center, which is God. What differentiates people is not the variety of religions they profess, but ignorance of the fact that all persons are manifestations of God on different planes of reality and at different stages of spiritual progress.
Expanding upon the oneness of truth, Farabi elaborates on the notion of prophecy. Farabi’s interpretation of prophecy, a view that brought condemnation from orthodox scholars, led him to consider a prophet as someone who has mastered philosophy as well as spirituality. A prophet in Farabi’s view is a perfect human being, one who has actualized all of that person’s intellectual and spiritual potentialities. According to Farabi, the traditional concept of prophecy, in which God chooses a prophet based on his own will, is incorrect.
Once human perfection is attained, the prophet assumes two responsibilities, being a philosopher and being a statesman. The acquired intellect of the philosopher through its contact with the Agent Intellect brings about illumination, which Farabi identifies as revelation (wahy). The prophet, in addition to being a perfect philosopher, is a perfect statesman whose primary responsibility is to govern the state justly. In order to govern, the prophet must use his illuminated intellect to make decisions that will insure the common good of the people.
For Farabi, the philosophical mind at the peak of its development becomes like matter to the Active Intellect. Prophets are those who have attained this state and go beyond the philosophical truth to imaginative truth, which is then transformed into symbols, figures, and actions, through which societies can be moved towards a greater degree of moral insight and ethical practice.
Since all things come into being from a single cause, Farabi declares, a good state follows the principle of having a prophet-philosopher as the ruler, and hence the cause of the good state. The prophetic aspect of the ruler enables him to communicate with the masses, who understand only the language of persuasion. The prophet’s philosophical side, on the other hand, allows the prophet as ruler to speak to the intellectual elite, who can understand reasoning and will accept only that which is rationally justifiable. This view of the prophet as ruler also implies that the principles of religion ultimately are consistent with philosophical principles and that the apparent inconsistency between religion and philosophy stems from the failure to realize that each one is designed for a different task.
According to Farabi, the human being has an innate yearning for community life, and as such attains happiness only within the state. Following Plato, Farabi believes that people are happy if and only if they fulfill the function for which they were created. Since human beings are unequal in that they have various capacities for service, it is therefore the responsibility of the state to insure that its citizens are placed where their true nature can best be utilized.
Like Plato in the Republic, Farabi models his ideal state after the human body. As a natural model in which there exists a hierarchy consisting of mind, spirit, and body. The highest level in this hierarchy -- the mind -- has a natural right to dominate and harmonize the lower levels. In government, accordingly, the prophet is the “unruled ruler,” who governs by virtue of his divine wisdom.
Some historians of philosophy contend that Farabi was likely a Shi‘ite since he was patronized by Sayf ad-Dawlah, a Shi‘ite king, and therefore his political philosophy should be viewed in that context. That is, the ruler of the Farabian state would resemble a Shi‘ite imam, who as possessor of divine wisdom, with access to esoteric truth, is therefore qualified to rule.
Since a good state is a natural state and it is only natural for human beings to want to be happy, it is the responsibility of the state to insure that its citizens be happy, according to Farabi. He treats the subject of happiness and its attainment extensively.
There are three alternative interpretations of the nature of happiness according to Farabi: happiness as a purely theoretical activity, happiness as a practical activity exclusively, and happiness as a harmonious combination of the theoretical and the practical.
Arguing that theoretical excellence brings about practical excellence, Farabi concludes that it is the task of philosophy to actualize the perfection of the theoretical. Accordingly, Farabi argues that human perfection as the ultimate goal is achieved by a rapprochement of theoretical and practical reason. Although Farabi contended that theoretical perfection is to be sought through metaphysical inquiry, there are indications that Farabi believed that, practically speaking, theoretical perfection could not be attained even in the best of cases.
Although the practical component of happiness is presented by Farabi as a private activity of a moral nature, true happiness, according to him, is possible only within the context of a society. Thus, Farabi emphasizes the necessity of a perfect political order and a supreme ruler whose virtuous character can bestow happiness upon the citizens. The purpose of life for Farabi is the full development of the rational faculty and the attainment of truth through philosophical contemplation. Such an end in life can be fulfilled only in well-organized societies wherein just rulers govern. However, to be just one needs the type of theoretical wisdom that makes it possible to devise practical laws. Farabi states that those societies that are governed by rulers who are the repositories of philosophical wisdom are “good societies," while others are "ignorant" or “misguided" societies.
Abu al-Nasr Muhammad ibn al-Farakh al-Farabi see Farabi
Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi see Farabi
Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Tarkhan ibn Uzalagh al-Farabi see Farabi
Avennasar see Farabi
Alfarabius see Farabi
Second Teacher see Farabi
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