Al Farabi
Al Farabi
Al Farabi
al- Fārābī
(10,481 words)
Table of Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
4. Political ideas
5.
6. Bibliography
The third aspect is al-Fārābī’s belief that, in spite of its comprehensiveness, the body
of knowledge inherited from the Greeks contained lacunae, some of which may have
been intrinsic to it, while others may have resulted from the process of transmitting
and translating knowledge from one culture to another. He therefore regarded it as a
priority to expound on specific points of doctrine that were lacking, obscure, or
insufficiently elaborated upon, notably, with respect to metaphysics and linguistic
theory and specific sciences such as music and astronomy. In spite of these points, it
is often difficult to distinguish what al-Fārābī would have regarded as the mere
paraphrasing and explanation of an established doctrine from what he would have
considered a personal departure from, or elaboration upon, the ancient sources.
Al-Fārābī himself taught a younger generation of Syriac scholars, chief among them
Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī (d. 363/974). Again in this case, there is some continuity between the
works of Yaḥyā and those of al-Fārābī, pointing to a general philosophical milieu in
which Muslims, Jews, and Christians gathered and exchanged ideas freely and
constructively, albeit sometimes polemically. The Syriac milieu in which al-
Fārābī evolved is vital to our understanding of his philosophical formation and
intentions, and it sheds much light on the form and content of his philosophical
production. Through the Syriac translators and the living tradition of Syriac
philosophising—as embodied in Mattā, who bridged the Syriac and Arabic trends—
al-Fārābī had privileged access to the works of the Aristotelian commentators of
late antiquity, which are constantly lurking in the background of his interpretation of
Aristotle and shaped many of his more personal philosophical views. Moreover, the
emphasis al-Fārābī put on the genre of the commentary is characteristic of his
affiliation with this Syriac milieu, which had itself adopted this late antique practice.
Yet, in spite of al-Fārābī’s close ties to the Syriac thinkers, his philosophical priorities
and intellectual originality distinguished him from his peers; these scholars
developed divergent interpretations of the philosophical issues they addressed. For
example, a quick comparison of al-Fārābī’s and Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī’s works on the theme
of unity, the Risālat al-wāḥid wa-l-waḥda (“Treatise on the one and oneness”)
and al-Maqāla fī l-tawḥīd (“The treatise on divine oneness”) respectively, shows
their profound differences in dealing with a similar theme.
Another key aspect of the intellectual milieu in which al-Fārābī flourished consists
of the various Muslim philosophical and theological circles that existed in Baghdad
in the early fourth/tenth century. Three individuals and groups should be mentioned
here. Although difficult to assess, al-Fārābī’s knowledge of the philosophy and
science produced by al-Kindī (d. c. 256/870) and the “Kindī circle” during the
third/ninth century appears to have been limited, although it has been argued that
the influence of al-Kindī and his school on al-Fārābī was greater than might be
assumed at first (Janos, Method, 235–56, 266–9, 279–82). Also important is al-
Fārābī’s possible reaction to the philosophical system of his older contemporary Abū
Bakr al-Rāzī (d. 312/925), an original philosopher and brilliant physician who
entertained pagan ideas and did not conform to Islamic dogma. Finally, the necessity
for al-Fārābī to reckon with the theories of the Arabic
theologians (mutakallimūn) also defined his intellectual and social milieu. This
group split into various factions and schools and lacked cohesiveness, but, according
to some studies, al-Fārābī was probably influenced by certain Muʿtazilī doctrines
(Rudolph, Al-Fārābī und die Muʿtazila; Rudolph, Reflections), notably with regard
to theology, as was the case earlier also with al-Kindī. On the basis of compelling
formal parallels, Ulrich Rudolph has argued that the structure and contents of some
of al-Fārābī’s works mirror Muʿtazilī theological treatises produced during the
third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries (Rudolph, Reflections). Finally, al-
Fārābī may have written some works, such as On the void and a treatise addressed
to Ibn al-Rāwandī (fl. 235/850), with the specific aim of refuting specific theological
theses (Rudolph, Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī, 403).
The various extant works ascribed to al-Fārābī present a wide diversity of genres,
approaches, and style and defy easy categorisation. His corpus reflects some of the
philosophical practices he inherited from late antiquity (especially his endorsement
of the propaedeutic and commentary genres), and literary developments that shaped
the early Arabic philosophical output (e.g., the genre of the short treatise,
called risāla or maqāla). He also participated, to some extent, in the encyclopaedic
tendencies of his time by composing various highly synthetic philosophical
compendia covering a wide array of disciplines. His corpus, as it has come down to
us, may be divided broadly into five parts: (a) the propaedeutic or methodological
works providing instruction in the philosophical curriculum and its method,
particularly points of logic; (b) commentaries, mostly on Aristotle; (c) short treatises
on various specific and technical subjects; (d) philosophical compendia covering
various topics in a systematic and integrated way; and (e), polemical works, mostly in
defence of Aristotelian tenets. These writings testify to al-Fārābī’s intellectual
diversity and his intention not only to transmit but also to reshape the philosophical
tradition that he had inherited from the Greek and Syriac thinkers who preceded
him.
In spite of the upsurge of interest in the study of al-Fārābī, several major challenges
remain. There is still much uncertainty concerning the historical development and
structure of al-Fārābī’s corpus, about which we possess little information. There is, to
begin with, disagreement among scholars concerning the authorship of several works
attributed to al-Fārābī, striking examples of which are the Kitāb al-Jamʿ bayna
raʾyay al-ḥakīmayn Aflāṭūn al-ilāhī wa-Arisṭūṭālīs (“Agreement between the views
of the two philosophers, the Divine Plato and Aristotle”) and the Jawābāt li-masāʾil
suʾila ʿanhā (“Answers to questions asked [to al-Fārābī]”). Various interpretations
of these problematic texts have been proposed, ranging from the interventionism of
scribes or students of al-Fārābī (Rashed, On the authorship) to deliberate
dialectical contradictions—or what Vallat calls “contestable topoi”—on al-Fārābī’s
part for didactic purposes (Vallat, Farabi, 308 ff.; Vallat, al-Fārābī, 349–50), to a
developmentalist and chronological approach (Janos, Method). To complicate
matters, several minor treatises attributed to al-Fārābī, both in the Arabic tradition
and by modern scholars, probably belong to the circle of Ibn Sīnā, if they were not
composed by Ibn Sīnā himself; this seems to be the case notably of ʿUyūn al-
masʾāil (“Fundamental questions”), al-Taʿlīqāt (“Notes”), Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (“The
gems of wisdom”), and possibly Risāla fī ithbāt al-mufāraqāt (“On establishing the
existence of the immaterial existents”). These textual issues point to the great need
for additional investigation into the manuscript transmission of al-Fārābī’s corpus
and, in many cases, for the improvement on the existing editions of his works, some
of which were produced almost a century ago.
Another problem is that major facets of al-Fārābī’s philosophy remain poorly known
to modern researchers, chiefly because of the incomplete transmission of his corpus.
A case in point is al-Fārābī’s views on the question of the immortality of the human
soul, which were presumably discussed in his commentaries on Nicomachean
ethics and On the soul. As these works are lost, al-Fārābī’s doctrines can barely and
only painstakingly be sketched from his surviving works and from quotations
gleaned from the works of later authors. Moreover, al-Fārābī’s commentaries on
the Physics and Ptolemy’s Almagest are likewise not known to have survived, thereby
hindering a precise assessment of his potential contribution to physics and
astronomy. There is, therefore, a stark realisation that major works by al-
Fārābī (mostly large commentaries) dealing with mathematics, physics, ethics, and
even possibly metaphysics are lost and that we are obliged to reconstruct these
aspects of his philosophy from other, comparatively minor, writings. Research
priorities should be to pursue the task of editing and translating al-Fārābī’s extant
works, clarifying their stylistic and doctrinal connections and their chronological
status, and refining our understanding of his contribution to the various topics and
issues he inherited from the late antique background.
Al-Fārābī’s works contain two differing accounts of the order of learning that follows
the acquisition of logic. In his work Taḥṣīl al-saʿāda (“The attainment of happiness”)
the Second Teacher advises students to begin with the study of arithmetic and
geometry and move on gradually to the study of optics, music, astronomy and
mechanics, before embarking on physics. These mathematical objects of knowledge
are, according to al-Fārābī, the ones “in which perplexity and mental confusion are
less likely to occur,” an approach indebted to the Neoplatonic and ultimately Platonic
emphasis on the didactic quality of mathematics (al-Fārābī, Taḥṣīl, 129). Once these
have been mastered, one proceeds to physical pursuits. In physics the four causes
(material, formal, efficient, and final) are sought. The physical inquiry requires that
one proceed inductively from effects to causes in search of yet higher principles, until
one reaches the celestial bodies, whose existence, in turn, can be explained only by
positing higher immaterial principles. At this point, the student begins his inquiry
into metaphysics, which marks the end of natural philosophy.
A divergent program of study, not explicitly formulated but implicitly reflected in the
structure of al-Fārābī’s two philosophical compendia, Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna
al-fāḍila (“The principles of the views of the inhabitants of the virtuous city”)
and Mabādiʾ al-mawjūdāt (“The principles of existents”), known also as al-Siyāsa
al-madaniyya (“The political regime”), proceeds from the more theoretical to the
more practical disciplines. Instead of the scheme presented above, these treatises
open with a discussion of theology and cosmology, detailing the various levels of
existents that constitute the cosmos: God, the separate intellects, and the celestial
bodies and souls. Only then are sublunary physics, human psychology, and political
and ethical theories tackled, the idea being that these lower existents and the areas of
knowledge to which they correspond depend ontically on the higher principles
discussed in the first section of these works. The orientation that governs these
treatises is therefore an ontological and causal one, with the various existents being
arranged hierarchically from the most primary and fundamental to the more
deficient and material. Although al-Fārābī does not explicitly articulate such a
curriculum in his works, he obviously considered this disciplinary order to possess a
didactic appeal, as it informs the structure of his two most famous treatises.
Knowledge in general and the human soul’s transition from potentiality to actuality
is made possible by the activity of the Agent Intellect, which is the tenth intellect of
al-Fārābī’s cosmology. It is a separate, immaterial being that is always in actuality
and whose relation to human thought is like that of the sun to human vision.
Through its assistance, the human mind can abstract forms from their material
substrates and apprehend them as intelligibles. Al-Fārābī’s conception of the Agent
Intellect betrays a particular interpretation of Aristotle’s On the soul III.5 informed
by the commentators, although the precise sources and textual genealogy underlying
the Arabic philosophers’ theory of the Agent Intellect are still the objects of research.
Al-Fārābī follows the Aristotelian programme more faithfully than do these two
thinkers, as he regards metaphysics as the discipline that investigates al-wujūd al-
muṭlaq (being in itself, or absolute being) and its various attributes and properties.
As can be seen from his Fī aghrāḍ al-ḥakīm fī kull maqāla min al-kitāb al-mawsūm
bi-l-ḥurūf (“On the aims of the books of Aristotle’s Metaphysics”) and Book of
particles, al-Fārābī considered the subject matter of metaphysics to include a set of
questions focusing primarily on existence and related concepts, such as unity and
multiplicity, cause and effect, and potentiality and actuality; on ascertaining the first
principles and scientific axioms of the sciences; and on investigating the immaterial
principles of existence and God (Druart, Al-Farabi, emanation; Bertolacci,
Ammonius; Bertolacci, From al-Kindī). In al-Fārābī’s treatment of metaphysics, the
first issue stands out. Indeed, he regarded existence and oneness as the two most
general concepts of reality and those that deserve the most careful analysis,
contributing new insight and theories to an ancient discussion on these concepts
(Menn, Al-Fārābī’s Kitāb al-ḥurūf; Menn, Fārābī in the reception). As shown by
his Book of particles and the short treatise On the one, al-Fārābī was also aware of
the intricate relation between metaphysical reflection and linguistic usage,
continuing and amplifying in these two works the approach sketched in Book Delta
of the Metaphysics.
The cosmos, as al-Fārābī conceived it, consists of a finite sphere in which there is
no void. The heavens contain nine main concentric spheres that carry the planets and
stars around a fixed, spherical earth located at the centre of the universe. From the
sphere of the moon upward, the corporeal existents were thought to be eternal and
unchanging, each consisting of an immaterial substrate and a permanent and unique
form, and to be in perpetual circular motion. Al-Fārābī’s theories of celestial
motion—as far as they can be reconstructed from the existing evidence—are
characterised by a combination of astronomical considerations on the one hand and
physical and metaphysical premises on the other. Among the latter are the
postulation of the uniqueness of the celestial substance associated with circular
motion and the idea that the motion of the planets is caused by the contemplation of
the celestial souls of the higher immaterial principles. Each of these souls, which
inhere in, animate, and move the various celestial bodies, is constantly engaged in
the contemplation of God and the separate intellect responsible for its causation, as
well as its own essence.
Below the sphere of the moon is the world of generation and corruption, whose
unceasing changes are caused by the various influences transmitted by the heavens.
These influences consist both of forms transmitted by the Agent Intellect and of
powers (quwā) resulting from the various motions of the planets and spheres.
According to al-Fārābī, the Agent Intellect is also responsible for the apparition of
prime matter (al-mādda al-ūlā). Whether prime matter itself possesses intrinsic and
autonomous existence when devoid of all forms is unclear and difficult to determine
on the basis of the evidence al-Fārābī provides, but its chief function is to provide
the ultimate substrate for the existence of subsequent levels of materiality.
Accordingly, every sublunary corporeal existent consists of a combination of the four
elements—fire, air, water, and earth—in various forms, which, in turn, explain the
differences in bodily humours, temperaments, and qualities among animals. These
four elements can also assume a pure state, with the sphere of fire being the highest,
adjacent to the sphere of the moon, followed by those of air, water, and earth.
Although many parallels have been noted between al-Fārābī’s works and the Graeco-
Arabic sources, no precedent encapsulating the structure of al-Fārābī’s cosmology
and its related theory of intellective causality has been found. He seems to be the first
in the early Islamic context to uphold a cosmological model that both thoroughly
combines Ptolemaic, Aristotelian, and Neoplatonic theories and explicitly posits a
level of secondary causes to account for the existence, sustenance, and activity of the
lower corporeal beings. As such, this model exercised a profound influence on later
Arabic thought through the intermediation of Ibn Sīnā, who endorsed its broad
features but modified it considerably.
There is, nevertheless, still much disagreement among scholars about how these
Neoplatonic features square with al-Fārābī’s conception of Aristotle’s metaphysics.
One issue is whether he regarded the model of efficient causation he developed—that
is, the idea that the existence of each entity, whether material or immaterial, is
caused by a higher ontological principle—as a genuinely Aristotelian doctrine or as a
doctrinal elaboration whose aim was to expand and complete Aristotle’s
metaphysical program. Equally vexed are the issues of whether al-Fārābī was aware
of the provenance and authorship of the Arabic Neoplatonic texts (which are
attributed to Aristotle in the Arabic tradition) and how he envisaged their relation to
the Metaphysics. Finally, these two issues are connected directly to the problem of
the doctrinal discrepancies in the Fārābīan corpus and the authenticity of some of his
works. This cluster of problems is important insofar as it affects our understanding of
al-Fārābī’s general metaphysical project and what he sought to achieve in
interpreting ancient thought.
One of the thorniest issues concerns al-Fārābī’s theories of immaterial causation and
divine creation, as there seems to be some inconsistency in the views laid out in his
various works. Modern interpretations have varied greatly, in defining the nature
and extent of these textual differences and in trying to make sense of the evidence. At
stake here is not only the unity of the Fārābīan corpus but also notions of
philosophical coherence. The main problem is that al-Fārābī seems in some works
to defend the view of God’s creation of the entire world in or with time and from
nothing, while in other works he focuses on God’s causation of a single immaterial
effect and develops a model of eternal causation involving the autonomous and
variegated agency of the separate intellects. Moreover, he defends the theses of
divine will and knowledge in some works while omitting or rejecting these theories in
others.
No consensus regarding these various questions has so far been reached, in spite of
various interpretations of the evidence (Druart, Al-Farabi, emanation; Druart, Al-
Farabi, emanationism; Mahdi; Galston, Re-examination; Vallat, Farabi;
D’Ancona; Bonadeo, in al-Fārābī, L’armonia; Rashed, On the authorship;
Genequand; Janos, Method, 203–333; Rudolph, Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī, 427–34). In
any case, al-Fārābī’s understanding of Aristotle’s metaphysics was, in essence, a
product of the late antique tradition. It is this “transformed Aristotle,” together with
the various layers of Neoplatonic interpretations and accretions that it implies, that
was his principal source of inspiration for his approach to metaphysics and theology.
Some scholars have accordingly referred to al-Fārābī’s “neo-Aristotelianism”
(Reisman), which continues the late antique trend of interpreting and transforming
Aristotelian thought in light of philosophical exegesis.
4. Political ideas
Much has been written on al-Fārābī’s views on religion, politics, and the ideal society,
but little effort has been devoted to connecting these aspects of his thought with his
metaphysics (for an exception, see Vallat, Farabi). It is still unclear how much of his
interest in the political and religious ramifications of his metaphysical and
cosmological model was inspired by the Syriac context in which he learned
philosophy—several Syriac thinkers directly associated with him seem to have
devoted themselves to similar pursuits (Watt, Christianity)—but defining the relation
between philosophical learning on the one hand and the kind of knowledge obtained
through scriptures and revelation on the other seems to have been common to many
Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers of this epoch.
Especially influential in this regard was the interpretation put forth by Muhsin
Mahdi and inspired by the theories of Leo Strauss. According to Mahdi, al-Fārābī’s
philosophy consists chiefly of a kind of rhetorical and dialectical system aimed at
establishing an ideal politico-philosophical society congruent with the Islamic
revelation. Moreover, Mahdi’s thesis hinges on the belief that al-Fārābī maintained
a sharp distinction between esoteric and exoteric works, in an attempt to conceal his
true doctrine from the masses. Although this interpretive paradigm was adopted by
other scholars (notably Galston, Politics, and Parens), Mahdi’s general claims
concerning the nature of al-Fārābī’s philosophy and his interpretation of Arabic
political theory have been challenged (notably by Gutas, Study; Vallat, Farabi;
Janos, Method). As Vallat has shown, al-Fārābī’s political thought—if we can speak of
“political thought” at all in a mediaeval Islamic context (Gutas, Study)—is essentially
dependent on, and a continuation of, his metaphysical reflection and his views on the
order and hierarchy of existence and learning. Indeed, the microcosms of the
individual and of the political entity should be organised in accordance with the
fundamental laws governing the universe, with the result that the best political
system is one constructed on a sound philosophical foundation and a thorough grasp
of scientific laws and principles. This belief is textually and structurally apparent in
al-Fārābī’s philosophical compendia, in that he switches to a discussion of politics
only after having treated theology, cosmology, and physical and psychological issues.
Al-Fārābī’s ideal polity is, like Plato’s, a society in which the life and conduct of the
citizens would be ordered and dictated by philosophical principles and cognisance of
the greater good. There is clearly an idealistic vein running through al-Fārābī’s
political deliberations, traceable partly to his interest in the Republic and the Laws,
parts of which he knew through compendia, and partly to ideas emanating from
Middle Platonic (Walzer, in al-Fārābī, Al-Farabi on the perfect state) or
Neoplatonic (O’Meara) political thought. But al-Fārābī was, at the same time,
highly pragmatic and realistic in his realisation that most political regimes and
religious systems are either deficient or downright corrupt. Indeed, he held a
strikingly relativistic estimation of the development of human religions, claiming no
absolute right or priority for any of them (not even Islam) but simply acknowledging
their constantly evolving structures as a result of cultural and social contingencies.
Accompanying this view is the fundamental and idiosyncratic Fārābīan notion that
religions are, in the best cases, essentially mimetic of deeper philosophical truths,
which they convey through dialectical, rhetorical, or poetical means. As a corollary,
their followers and practitioners apprehend only opinions, symbols, or images, not
the philosophical principles in themselves. This, in turn, means that knowledge can
easily be lost or distorted as a result of the poor intellectual and moral standards of
the community in question. This inherent shortcoming in religious undertakings
explains al-Fārābī’s hope for the establishment, at least theoretically, of a
philosophical polity governed by a philosopher-prophet who is able to translate the
intelligibles he obtains from the Agent Intellect into modes of expression appropriate
to society at large, while respecting philosophical truths. As philosophical education
is, nevertheless, restricted to a minority, it is clear that al-Fārābī, while demoting
religion to a secondary position, nonetheless recognised its practical utility and
perhaps even its necessity in the unfolding of human history.
Damien Janos
Bibliography
Works of al-Fārābī
Jawābāt suʾila ʿanhā, in al-Aʿmāl al-falsafiyya, ed. Jaʿfar Āl Yāsīn, Beirut 1992
Jamʿ bayna raʾyay al-ḥakīmayn, ed. and trans. Cecilia Martini Bonadeo, L’armonia
delle opinioni dei due sapienti, il divino Platone e Aristotele, Pisa 2008, ed. and
trans. Fawzi Mitri Najjar and Dominique Mallet, L’harmonie entre les opinions de
Platon et d’Aristote, Damascus 1999
Kitāb al-Burhān, in al-Manṭiq ʿinda l-Fārābī, ed. Mājid Fakhrī, Beirut 1987
Kitāb Taḥṣīl al-saʿāda, in al-Aʿmāl al-falsafiyya, ed. Jaʿfar Āl Yāsīn, Beirut 1992
Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila, ed. and trans. Richard Walzer, Al-Farabi on
the perfect state, Oxford 1985
Maqāla fī wujūb ṣināʿat al-kīmiyāʾ, ed. Aydin Sayılı, in Fârâbî’nin Simyanın Lüzûmu
Hakkındaki Risalesi (Al-Fārābī’s Article on Alchemy), ed. Aydin Sayılı, Belleten. Türk
Tarih Kurumu 15 (1951) (Ankara), 65–79
Risāla fī l-ʿaql, trans. Philippe Vallat, Épître sur l’intellect, Paris 2012 (includes
Onto-noétique. L’intellect et les intellects chez Fārābī)
Risāla fī l-khalāʾ. Fārābī’s article on vacuum, ed. Necati Lugal and Aydin
Sayılı, Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlaridan 15/1 (1951) (Ankara), 1–16, 21–36
Other sources
Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, ed. Gustav Flügel, Joahnnes Roediger, and August
Müller, Leipzig 1871–2 (for a comprehensive list of the primary sources on al-
Fārābī, see Rudolph, Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī).
Studies
Shukri B. Abed, Aristotelian logic and the Arabic language in Alfārābī, Albany 1991
Peter Adamson (ed.), In the age of al-Fārābī. Arabic philosophy in the fourth/tenth
century, London 2008
Peter Adamson, The Arabic sea battle. Al-Fārābī on the problem of future
contingents, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 88 (2006), 163–88
Charles Burnett, Arabic into Latin. The reception of Arabic philosophy into Western
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to Arabic philosophy (Cambridge 2005), 370–404
Charles Burnett, Euclid and al-Farabi in MS Vatican, Reg. Lat. 1268, in Words,
texts and concepts cruising the Mediterranean Sea, ed. R. Arnzen and J. Thielmann
(Leuven 2004), 411–36
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examples in early Arabic philosophy, in Andreas Speer and Lydia Wegener
(eds.), Wissen über Grenzen. Arabisches Wissen und lateinisches Mittelalter (Berlin
2006), 379–405
Dimitri Gutas, The study of Arabic philosophy in the twentieth century. An essay on
the historiography of Arabic philosophy, BrisMES 29/1 (2002), 5–25
Damien Janos, Al-Fārābī, creation ex nihilo, and the cosmological doctrine of K. al-
Jamʿ and Jawābāt, JAOS 129/1 (2009), 1–17
Joep Lameer, Al-Fārābī and Aristotelian syllogistics. Greek theory and Islamic
practice, Leiden 1994
Stephen Menn, Al-Fārābī’s Kitāb al-ḥurūf and his analysis of the senses of
being, ASP 18 (2008), 59–97
Chaim Meir Neria, Al-Fārābī’s lost commentary on the ethics. New textual
evidence, ASP 23/1 (2013), 69–99
Marwan Rashed, Al-Fārābī’s lost treatise On changing beings and the possibility of a
demonstration of the eternity of the world, ASP 18/1 (2008), 19–58
Ulrich Rudolph, Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī, in Ulrich Rudolph and Renate Würsch
(eds.), Philosophie in der islamischen Welt (Basel 2012), 363–457
Ulrich Rudolph, Al-Fārābī und die Muʿtazila, in Camilla Adang, Sabine Schmidtke,
and David Sklare (eds.), A common rationality. Muʿtazilism in Islam and
Judaism (Würzburg 2007), 59–80
Dominique Salman, The medieval Latin translations of Alfārābī’s works, The New
Scholasticism 13 (1939), 245–61
John W. Watt, Al-Fārābī and the history of the Syriac Organon, in A. Kiraz
(ed.), Malphono w-Rabo d-Malphone. Studies in honor of Sebastian P.
Brock (Piscataway NJ 2008), 751–78
John W. Watt, Christianity in the renaissance of Islam. Abū Bishr Mattā, al-Fārābī,
and Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, in Martin Tamcke (ed.), Christians and Muslims in dialogue in
the Islamic Orient of the Middle Ages (Christlich-muslimische Gespräche im
Mittelalter) (Beirut and Würzburg 2007), 99–112
Mauro Zonta, Arabic philosophical texts, Jewish translation of, in Henrik Lagerlund
(ed.), Encyclopedia of medieval philosophy, Dordrecht and New York 2011
Mauro Zonta, The reception of al-Fārābī’s and Ibn Sīnā’s classifications of the
mathematical and natural sciences in the Hebrew medieval philosophical
literature, Medieval Encounters 1/3 (1995), 358–82.