Al-Farabi

Abū Nasr Muhammad ibn al-Farakh al-Fārābi (in Persian: محمد فارابی) or Abū Nasr al-Fārābi (in some sources, known as Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Tarkhan ibn Uzalagh al-Farabi), also known in the West as Alpharabius, Al-Farabi, Farabi, and Abunaser (870–950 CE) was an Islamic philosopher and scientist and one of the greatest scientists and philosophers of his time.

Biography

Al-Farabi's imagined face appears on the currency of the Republic of Kazakhstan

There is no consensus or sufficient evidence to decide the matter of al-Farabi's ethnic origins. The existing variations in the basic facts about al-Farabi's origins and pedigree indicate that they were not recorded during his lifetime or soon thereafter by anyone with concrete information, but were rather based on hearsay or guesses. The earliest known documents were written some 300 years after al-Farabi's death.

Some historians, such as medival Turkish historian Ibn Khallekān and authoritative encyclopedia's like Britannica 1911, claim that Farabi was born in the small village of Wasij near Farab (in what is today Otrar, Kazakhstan) of Turkic parents. The older Persian form Parab is given in the historical account Hodud al-'alam for his birthplace. The oldest known document regarding his heritage, written by the medival Arabic historian Ibn Abi Osaybe'a, mentions that al-Farabi's father was of Persian descent. Ibn al-Nadim, among other historians, states Farabi's origins (in Flügel p.263) to lie in Faryab in Khorasan ("men al-Faryab men ardhµ Khorasan"). Faryab is also the name of a province in today's Afghanistan.

But what is known with certainty is that after finishing his early school years in Farab and Bukhara, Farabi arrived in Baghdad to pursue higher studies in 901. He studied under a Christian cleric who abandoned lay interests and engaged in his ecclesiastical duties, and he remained in Baghdad for well over 40 years and acquired mastery over several languages and fields of knowledge.

Contributions

Farabi made notable contributions to the fields of mathematics, philosophy, medicine and music. As a philosopher and Neo-Platonist he wrote rich commentary on Aristotle's work. He is also credited for categorizing logic into two separate groups, the first one being idea and the second being proof. Farabi wrote books on sociology and a notable book on music titled Kitab al-Musiqa (The Book of Music). He played and invented a varied number of musical instruments and his pure Arabian tone system is still used in Arab music (Touma 1996, p.170). Farabi is also famous for his demonstration of the existence of void in physics.

Farabi had great influence on science and knowledge for several centuries. Unfortunately the book Theology of Aristotle, which he relied upon, was eventually revealed to be the work of Plotinus, a neo-Platonic philosopher. Nevertheless, he was regarded as the Second Teacher in philosophy for centuries. His work, aimed at synthesis of philosophy and sufism, paved the way for Ibn Sina's work.

Farabi saw religion as a symbolic rendering of truth, and, like Plato, saw it as the duty of the philosopher to provide guidance to the state. Influenced by the writings of Aristotle, in The Ideas of the Citizens of the Virtuous City and other books, he advanced the view – heretical for a Muslim – that reason is superior to revelation. He engaged in rationalistic questioning of the authority of the Qur'an and rejected predestination.

See also

• List of polymaths
• List of Muslim scientists
• Charles Butterworth
• Islamic scholars

Sources

• Habib Hassan Touma (1996). The Music of the Arabs, trans. Laurie Schwartz. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press. ISBN 0931340888
• Majid Fakhry, Al-Farabi, Founder of Islamic Neoplatonism: His Life, Works, and Influence, Oxford: Oneworld Publications, (2002), ISBN 1-85168-302-X
• Christoph Marcinkowski, "A Biographical Note on Ibn Bajjah (Avempace) and an English Translation of his Annotations to Al-Farabi's Isagoge". Iqbal Review (Lahore, Pakistan), vol. 43, no 2 (April 2002), pp 83–99.

External links

• Hakim Abou Nasr Farabi at irib.ir
• Abu Nasr al-Farabi at muslimphilosophy.com
• al-Fārābi — brief introduction by Peter J. King
• Muslimheritage Tarkan al-Farabi and his philosophical thinking