al-Farabi
Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi (Arabic: أبو نصر محمد الفارابي, romanized: Abū Naṣr Muḥammad al-Fārābī; c. 870— 14 December 950–12 January 951), known in the Latin West as Alpharabius, was an early Islamic philosopher and music theorist. He has been designated as "Father of Islamic Neoplatonism", and the "Founder of Islamic Political Philosophy".
Abu Nasr Farabi Second Master—Magister Secundus | |
|---|---|
Portrait of Al-Farabi—Alpharabius | |
| Born | c. 870 |
| Died | c. 950 |
| Other names | Second Master |
| Notable work | Kitab al-Musiqi al-Kabir ("Grand Book of Music"), Ara Ahl al-Madina al-Fadila ("Virtuous City"), Kitab Ihsa al-Ulum ("Enumeration of the Sciences"), Risalah fi'l-Aql (Epistle on the Intellect) |
| Era | Islamic Golden Age |
| Region | Islamic philosophy |
| School | Aristotelianism · Neoplatonism |
Main interests | Political Philosophy · Philosophy of Religion · Physics · Metaphysics · Logic · Psychology · Epistemology · Ethics · Music Theory |
Notable ideas | Father of Islamic Neoplatonism, Founder of Islamic Political Philosophy |
Al-Farabi's fields of philosophical interest included—but not limited to, philosophy of society and religion; philosophy of Language and Logic; psychology and epistemology; metaphysics, political philosophy, and ethics. He was an expert in both practical musicianship and music theory, and although he was not intrinsically a scientist, his works incorporate astronomy, mathematics, cosmology, and physics.
Al-Farabi is credited as the first Muslim who presented philosophy as a coherent system in the Islamic world, and created a philosophical system of his own, which developed a philosophical system that went far beyond the scholastic interests of his Greco-Roman Neoplatonism and Syriac Aristotelian precursors. That he was more than a pioneer in Islamic philosophy, can be deduced from the habit of later writers calling him the "Second Master", with Aristotle as the first.
Al-Farabi's impact on philosophy is undeniable, to name a few, Yahya ibn Adi, Abu Sulayman Sijistani, Abu al-Hassan al-Amiri, and Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi; Avicenna, Suhrawardi, and Mulla Sadra; Avempace, Ibn Tufail, and Averroes; Maimonides, Albertus Magnus, and Leo Strauss. He was known in the Latin West, as well as the Islamic world.