Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn Muhammad al Farabi, known simply as al-Farabi1, was a great Muslim polymath born in the 9th century, living until the first half of the 10th century when he died in 950. Little is known about the life of al-Farabi, his ethnic origin is disputed between Persian or Turkish, pending more to Persian in the most recent research by his biographers. However, his biographies usually agree with the date of birth, which would be around AD 872.

Al-Farabi was probably born in a place called Farab, which gave him the name “al-Farabi”, indicating that he belonged to that place. Some medieval historians, such as the turkish Ibn Khallekan, claims that Farabi was born in the village of Wasij (modern Otrar in Kazakhstan), close to Farab and from turkish parents.

Later he moved to Iraq, living in Baghdad, capital of the Abbasid Caliphate at the time and a great intellectual center, known mainly for its House of Wisdom, an institution that brought together scholars from all over the world, including Jews, Christians and Muslims.

As nothing was written about his life while al-Farabi was alive, information about him is scarce, leaving more of a study of his works than of his personality and history as an individual.

Spending almost all his life in Baghdad, one of the few fragments of his life is an autobiographical excerpt preserved by Ibn Abi Usaibia2, in which al-Farabi claims to have begun his studies in logic, medicine and sociology with a professor named Yuhanna bin Haylan. It is interesting to note that al-Farabi’s teacher was not a Muslim, but a Nestorian Christian cleric.

Coming to study Aristotle and his Posterior Analytics, al-Farabi would also study the work of Porphyry, Eisagoge, and later return to Aristotle again, this time studying the works Categories, De Interpretatione and the Prior and Posterior Analytics.

Works and Studies

Al-Farabi would study several different areas, and it is not by chance that he receives the title of “polymath”, having vast knowledge in the fields of logic, mathematics, music, philosophy, psychology and among other areas.

Having writings that ranged from alchemy to music, Farabi wrote works in each of these areas or at least left his masterly contribution to the posteriority of what he decided to dedicate his studies to. An example is his “The necessity of the art of the elixir”, of alchemy, or his book on music, the “Kitab al-Musiqa” (Book of Music).

Going further in the area of ​​music, al-Farabi wrote another work on the subject. While in the first (Kitab al-Musiqa) he dealt with the philosophical principles that govern music, along with its cosmic qualities and influences, his second book (Meanings of the Intellect) would deal with music therapy, addressing the therapeutic effects that music possessed in the soul3.

Philosophy

Exercising a great influence on philosophy, al-Farabi would even create his own school, later to be called “Farabism”, paving the way for other great names in Islamic philosophy, such as Avicenna, mainly through his work that sought to achieve a synthesis between philosophy and Sufism.

For Netton (2008), al-Farabi would break with the Platonic and Aristotelian tradition, starting from metaphysics to methodology (scientific method), a movement that would anticipate modernity. Uniting theory with practice in philosophy, in the political sphere he would do the opposite, freeing the practice from the theory.

Despite a certain distance between al-Farabi and Plato, his theology would still be Neoplatonist, being more than metaphysics as rhetoric, coming to discover “the limits of human knowledge” (NETTON, 2008).

The influence of al-Farabi in the area of ​​Philosophy (and also of science) would last for centuries, even when overcame by Avicenism, being considered in his period as behind Aristotle only in knowledge.

Al-Farabi, as well as other great Muslim sages of the caliber of Avicenna and Averroes after him, wrote commentaries on Aristotle’s works, as in his Al-Madina al-Fadila (The Virtuous City) where he would theorize an ideal state, as well as Plato had done in his famous work The Republic. Farabi argued that religion rendered the truth through symbols and persuasion, having as a similarity with Plato the idea that the philosopher should be a guide for the state.

Like other Muslim philosophers and from other religious traditions, al-Farabi would incorporate philosophy (in this case the Platonic view) into the Islamic context, more specifically with regard to the thoughts expressed in The Republic, adapting the ideal leader to the Muslim context. In this way, Farabi would argue that the ideal city-state was Medina when it was ruled by the Prophet Muhammad, since it was also in direct communion with Allah, as the laws came directly from God, revealed to His prophet.

Metaphysics

Regarded as the father of Islamic Neoplatonism, al-Farabi would replace the Quranic account of creation being ex nihilo (out of nothing) with the Neoplatonic theory of the emanation of the universe from a Divine Being, called by al-Farabi as “the First”, in whose existence and essence are totally one.

Not only, but al-Farabi would deny the account of Islamic predestination, arguing in his comment of Aristotle’s De Interpretatione that omniscience does not imply determinism.

Epistemology

Including elements of both Aristotle and Plato in his thinking, al-Farabi would develop a complex epistemological theory. Thus, in his work Risala fil-aql he would classify the intellect (aql) into six major categories: discernment (or prudence); common sense (what recognizes what is obvious); natural perception (which allows to be sure about fundamental truths); conscience (which distinguishes good from evil); intellect and Divine Reason, source of all energy and intellectual power.

With regard to intellect, Farabi would also divide it into four categories, namely: potential (aql bil quwwa), actual (aql bil-fil), acquired (aql mustafad) and the Agent, also called “active intellect” (aql al-faal). The first three categories mentioned would be the different states of the human intellect, while the fourth category would be what was called the Tenth Intellect in the cosmological emanation of al-Farabi.

The potential intellect would be the individual’s ability to think, something that is characteristic of all human beings, something “universal”, whereas the actual (present) intellect is when the intellect is committed to thinking. With thinking, al-Farabi meant to abstract intelligible universals from sensory forms of the objects in which they were apprehended and retained by the imagination of each individual.

Logic

Another area of ​​knowledge in which al-Farabi had a special role and a great influence was that of Logic, coming to discuss issues such as future contingents, number and the relation of the categories, as well as the relation between logic and grammar. Going further, influenced by Aristotle, but not limited to the Greek sage, he would study non-Aristotelian forms of inference, subsequently separating logic into two distinct groups: the first would be the “idea”, while the second would be the “proof”.

Al-Farabi saw logic as the path to happiness. When discussing future contingents, if the true value of statements about future contingents is determined immediately, that is, before the event happens, then everything is predetermined and free will is an illusion. Although Aristotle already discussed this in one of the first works of the great Greek studied by al-Farabi (De Interpretatione), the Muslim sage would go further in the discussion, adding to the problem the question of the foreseeing of God, defending free will against some of the theologians of his time, after all, as previously said: al-Farabi in his metaphysics denied that God’s omniscience implied a determinism.

Legacy

Having been a great writer, although a significant amount of his works were lost, 117 volumes of his writings have reached our days. Among these surviving works, 43 are on logic; 11 on metaphysics; 7 on ethics, 7 on political science; 11 commentaries; 17 on music, medicine and sociology.

Al-Farabi’s most famous work was his al-Medina al-Fadila, briefly discussed in this article, an important treatise on sociology and political science that was largely original in its time, using many elements of Platonic thought.

Al-Farabi would leave his legacy in science with his book Kitab al-Ihsa al Ulum, where he would elaborate the fundamental principles of science, also suggesting a classification system.

There are also works already mentioned in music, which along with al-Kindi would revolutionize the way that this fascinating art was seen, gaining a character of treating physical and spiritual illnesses in Muslim hospitals. However, this is not all, since Farabi also invented his own musical instruments, dominating others, just as his “pure Arab tone” is used until today in Arab music.

In physics, al-Farabi would be responsible for demonstrating the existence of the void.

In philosophy, metaphysics, logic and epistemology, he would pave the way for Avicenna. This time, al-Farabi cannot be considered an Aristotelian or a Platonic, but an original thinker who used the resources of his time to create a unique thought and which would later influence other great thinkers as well.

Thus, al-Farabi’s name came from the uncertain regions where he was born to reach the space, where he is marked in one of the asteroids of the great belt that surrounds the solar system, this in honor of one of the greatest intellectuals that emerged within the civilization of medieval Islam.

NOTES

[1] Sometimes also called Alpharabius, his name gave rise to the Portuguese word “alfarrábio”, which means “old book, of little value or utility”.

[2] 13th century physician who compiled an encyclopedic of biographies of great names in medicine, including Greeks, Romans, Indians, etc.

[3] It is worth remembering that music therapy, that is, music used to treat physical or spiritual illnesses, was widely used in medieval Islamic hospitals, being was also influenced by other Muslim thinkers besides al-Farabi, such as al-Kindi.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MAHDI, Muhsin; LERNER, Ralph Lerner. Medieval Political Philosophy. Cornell University Press, 1972.

NETTON, I. R. Allah Transcendent: Studies in the Structure and Semiotics of Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Cosmology. London and New York: Routledge, 1989.

NETTON, Ian Richard. Breaking with Athens: Al-Farabi as Founder, Applications of Political Theory By Christopher A. Colmo. Journal of Islamic Studies. Oxford University Press. 2008.

FAKHRY, Majid. Al-Farabi, Founder of Islamic Neoplatonism: His Life, Works, and Influence. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2002.

Al-Farabi. (2016, February 20). New World Encyclopedia.

LAMEER, Joep. Al-Fārābī and Aristotelian syllogistics: Greek theory and Islamic practice. E.J. Brill, 1994.