Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Toshihiko Izutsu, Ethico-Religious 

Concepts in the Koran (Montreal: McGill University 

Press, 1966); Fazlur Rahman, Major Themes of the 

Quran (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1980).

fana

  See 

baqa

 

and

 

fana

.

faqih

  See 

fiqh

.

faqir

  See 

dervish

.

Farabi, Abu Nasr al-

 

(ca. 870–950)   

prominent Muslim philosopher of the Middle Ages 

known for his interpretations of Aristotle and 

Neoplatonism

The first systematic thinker in Arab-Islamic 

phi

-

losophy

, al-Farabi penned the tradition’s first 

political treatise and was the first true logician 

in Islamic history. The currents of Peripatetic-

Neoplatonic thought (Peripatetic does not here 

denote an exclusively Aristotelian legacy) he 

set in motion reverberate in our own time with 

Ismaili philosophy and in the renewed interest in 

both the Illuminationist tradition (for example, 

Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs al-Suhrawardi, d. 1191) 

and the School of Isfahan (for example, m

Ullah

s

adra

, d. 1640).

As his name suggests, al-Farabi was from the 

district of Farab in Transoxiana, being of probable 

Turkish or Turkoman origin. Little information is 

available on his early life. He worked as a night 

watchman in a garden in d

amascUs

 before mov-

ing to b

aghdad

. In the turbulence of 10th-century 

Baghdad, al-Farabi mastered Arabic, becoming 

conversant in a number of other languages as 

well. He studied with Christian Aristotelians 

of the Syriac tradition, considered among the 

greatest logicians of his time. He soon surpassed 

these exemplars by virtue of his treatment of the 

entire corpus of Aristotelian logic. His educational 

regimen included not only the various branches 

of philosophy, but took in 

mathematics

, physics, 

astronomy, and 

mUsic

. Indeed, in addition to pen-

ning a handful of treatises on music, al-Farabi was 

an accomplished musician.

One of the animating purposes of al-Farabi’s 

writings on logic was the need to distinguish the 

discipline of philosophical logic from the rules (or 

logic) of grammar, the former akin to a universal 

grammar that provides the rules necessary for 

reasoning in any language, while the latter relies 

on rules generated by convention and is thus 

relative to a particular language. In his view, the 

logical and grammatical “sciences” complement 

each other. Logic likewise pertains to the arts 

K  224  

fana

---

(poetics), politics, religion, and jurisprudence, 

as it lays down the rules of reasoning peculiar to 

these respective domains (hence, there are types 

of rationality and different modes of discourse and 

argumentation).

Al-Farabi’s cosmological and metaphysical 

doctrines are the foundations upon which he 

builds—like Plato (d. ca. 347 

b

.

c

.

e

.)—the political 

philosophy explicated in his books The Virtuous 

City (al-Madina al-fadila) and the Civil Polity (al-

Siyasa al-madaniyya). He uses a Neoplatonic ema-

nationist theory crafted within the structure of 

Ptolemaic cosmology to account for God’s power 

of 

creation

. However, God, or the First Being (al-

awwal), does not, like “the One” of the ancient 

philosopher Plotinus (d. 270 

c

.

e

.), utterly tran-

scend being and thought. Rather, it is conceived 

largely along the lines of Aristotle’s Unmoved 

Mover, albeit with emanationist properties. God’s 

principal activity is, as it were, intellectual, “echo-

ing Aristotle’s conception of God’s activity as 

‘thinking of thinking’ (no¯esis noe¯seos). It is God’s 

intellectual activity which underlies God’s role 

as the creator of the universe” (Black, 189). In 

effect, al-Farabi’s First Being cleverly combines a 

Neoplatonic metaphysics of emanation, Aristotle’s 

Unmoved Mover, and the Quranic conception of 

God. It is clever insofar as it attempts to fuse the 

absolute transcendence and unity (

tawhid

) of God 

with a rational account of the world’s creation, 

albeit one at odds with the doctrine of creation 

from nothing (ex nihilo).

Al-Farabi’s political philosophy is more 

straightforwardly Platonic, outlining a grada-

tion of different kinds of polities at the apex of 

which is the ideal city dedicated to good and 

happiness. For al-Farabi, philosophy provides us 

with the highest form of knowledge or wisdom 

(hikma). But philosophy must endeavor to be 

practical. For example, the ruler(s) of the ideal 

polity arduously and artfully unites the arts and 

sciences of philosophy and prophecy, or political 

and religious leadership. In addition, the polity 

aims at realizing the virtues and happiness of its 

citizens, as the best form of life is within a prop-

erly ruled polis.

Al-Farabi valued philosophy as the highest 

form of knowledge, owing in part to its reliance 

on “scientific demonstration,” whereas he con-

fined 

theology

 to “imaginative representations,” 

resorting to the rational methods of rhetoric and 

dialectic. However rational such methods may 

be, they are not on par with the demonstrative 

method of philosophy. Moreover, the “acquired 

intellect” of the philosopher is a different medium 

from the “imaginative faculty” of the prophet, for 

prophetic revelations are the truths of philosophy 

put in understandable form for commoners. The 

rhetorical, dialectical, and political arts, in other 

words, permit wisdom to be put in a commu-

nicative form congenial to the masses. After all, 

philosophers are few and far between, but their 

wisdom and understanding should and can ben-

efit everyone.

Deemed the “second teacher” (after Aristotle, 

d. 322 

b

.

c

.

e

.) and the “second master” (after Abu 

Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, d. ca. 866 

c

.

e

.), 

al-Farabi was a great synthesizer of philosophi-

cal and theological traditions. Renowned for an 

ascetic demeanor, near the end of his life he 

returned to Aleppo in s

yria

 following a trip to 

e

gypt

. There he was associated with Sayf al-Dawla 

(918–967), a prince known for his generous 

patronage of the arts. At 80 years of age, he died 

in Aleppo. Al-Farabi’s philosophy left a decisive 

impression on i

bn

 s

ina

 (d. 1037) and was deeply 

cherished by Islamic and Jewish philosophers, 

affecting even the Latin Scholasticism of 13th-

century Europe. The great Muslim theologian 

a

bU

  h

amid

 

al

-g

hazali

 (d. 1111) found much to 

contend with in the subsequent development of 

Islamic Neoplatonism.

See also 

creation

; 

politics

 

and

 i

slam

.

Patrick S. O’Donnell