26 Facts About Al-Farabi

Al-Farabi has been designated as "Father of Islamic Neoplatonism", and the "Founder of Islamic Political Philosophy".

Al-Farabi 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.

Al-Farabi was known in the Latin West, as well as the Islamic world.

Al-Farabi's grandfather was not known among his contemporaries, but a name Awzalagh, in Arabic, suddenly appears later in the writings of Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, and of his great-grandfather in those of Ibn Khallikan.

Al-Farabi made contributions to the fields of logic, mathematics, music, philosophy, psychology, and education.

Al-Farabi wrote: The Necessity of the Art of the Elixir.

Al-Farabi discussed the topics of future contingents, the number and relation of the categories, the relation between logic and grammar, and non-Aristotelian forms of inference.

Al-Farabi is credited with categorizing logic into two separate groups, the first being "idea" and the second being "proof".

Al-Farabi considered the theories of conditional syllogisms and analogical inference, which were part of the Stoic tradition of logic rather than the Aristotelian.

Al-Farabi wrote a book on music titled Kitab al-Musiqi al-Kabir.

Al-Farabi had great influence on science and philosophy for several centuries, and was widely considered second only to Aristotle in knowledge, in his time.

Al-Farabi's work, aimed at synthesis of philosophy and Sufism, paved the way for the work of Avicenna.

Al-Farabi wrote a commentary on Aristotle's work, and one of his most notable works is Ara Ahl al-Madina al-Fadila, where he theorized an ideal state, supposedly modelled on Plato's The Republic.

Al-Farabi argued that religion rendered truth through symbols and persuasion, and, like Plato, saw it as the duty of the philosopher to provide guidance to the state.

Al-Farabi incorporated the Platonic view, drawing a parallel from within the Islamic context, in that he regarded the ideal state to be ruled by the Prophet-Imam, instead of the philosopher-king envisaged by Plato.

Al-Farabi argued that the ideal state was the city-state of Medina when it was governed by Muhammad as its head of state, as he was in direct communion with Allah whose law was revealed to him.

Al-Farabi wrote a short treatise "On Vacuum", where he thought about the nature of the existence of void.

Al-Farabi's ideas are marked by their coherency, despite drawing together of many different philosophical disciplines and traditions.

Al-Farabi had a great influence on Maimonides, the most important Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages.

Al-Farabi's cosmology is essentially based upon three pillars: Aristotelian metaphysics of causation, highly developed Plotinian emanational cosmology and the Ptolemaic astronomy.

Al-Farabi says that it cannot be known by intellectual means, such as dialectical division or definition, because the terms used in these processes to define a thing constitute its substance.

Al-Farabi says it is composed of four faculties: The appetitive, the sensitive, the imaginative, and the rational, which is the faculty of intellection.

Al-Farabi compared the philosopher's role in relation to society with a physician in relation to the body; the body's health is affected by the "balance of its humours" just as the city is determined by the moral habits of its people.

Al-Farabi divided those "vicious" societies, which have fallen short of the ideal "virtuous" society, into three categories: ignorant, wicked and errant.

Al-Farabi argues that al-Farabi was using different types of society as examples, in the context of an ethical discussion, to show what effect correct or incorrect thinking could have.