Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-'Ibadi

Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-‘Ibadi
Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-‘Ibadi (Hunayn ibn Ishaq) ('Abu Zayd Hunayn ibn 'Ishaq al-'Ibadi) (Hunain ibn Ishaq)  (Johannitius)  (b. 808, al-Ḥirah, near Baghdad, Iraq - d. 873, Baghdad) was a scientist and translator. He was the most important mediator of ancient Greek science to the Arabs. He is credited with an immense number of translations from Greek into Syriac and Arabic, among them those of Hippocrates and Galen. He also composed numerous original works, mainly on medical subjects, and had a special interest in ophthalmology.

Hunayn ibn Ishaq was a famous and influential Assyrian Nestorian Christian scholar, physician, and scientist, known for his work in translating scientific and medical works in Greek into Arabic and Syriac during the glory years of the Abbasid Caliphate. Ḥunayn ibn Isḥaq was the most productive translator of Greek medical and scientific treatises. He was originally from southern Iraq but he spent his working life in Baghdad, the center of the great ninth-century Greek-into-Arabic/Syriac translation movement. Impressively, Hunayn's translations did not require corrections at all. This perfection possibly came about because he mastered four languages: Arabic, Syriac, Greek and Persian. He studied Greek and became known among the Arabs as the "Sheikh of the translators." Hunayn’s method was widely followed by later translators.

Hunayn ibn Ishaq, in full Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi, Latin name Johannitius, was an Arab scholar whose translations of Plato, Aristotle, Galen, Hippocrates, and the Neoplatonists made accessible to Arab philosophers and scientists the significant sources of Greek thought and culture.
Hunayn was a Nestorian Christian who studied medicine in Baghdad and became well versed in ancient Greek. He was appointed by Caliph al-Mutawakkil to the post of chief physician to the court, a position that he held for the rest of his life. He traveled to Syria, Palestine, and Egypt to gather ancient Greek manuscripts, and, from his translators’ school in Baghdad, he and his students transmitted Arabic and (more frequently) Syriac versions of the classical Greek texts throughout the Islāmic world. Especially important are his translations of Galen, most of the original Greek manuscripts of which are lost.

Hazarfen Ahmed Celebi

Hazarfen Ahmed Celebi

Hazarfen Ahmed Celebi (Hezârfen Ahmed Çelebi) was a legendary Ottoman aviator of 17th-century Constantinople (present day Istanbul), purported in the writings of traveller Evliya Çelebi to have achieved sustained unpowered flight.
 

The title "Hazarfen" was given by Evliya Celebi to Ahmed Celebi. The title means "a thousand sciences.

The 17th century writings of Evliyâ Çelebi relate this story of Hazarfen Ahmed Çelebi, circa 1630-1632:

"First he practiced by flying over the pulpit of Okmeydanı eight or nine times with eagle wings, using the force of the wind. Then, as Sultan Murad Khan (Murad IV) was watching from the Sinan Pasha mansion at Sarayburnu, he flew from the very top of the Galata Tower and landed in the Doğancılar Square in Üsküdar, with the help of the south-west wind. Then Murad Khan granted him a sack of golden coins, and said: 'This is a scary man. He is capable of doing anything he wishes. It is not right to keep such people,' and thus sent him to Algeria on exile. He died there".

—Evliyâ Çelebi

Harun al- Rashid

Harun al-Rashid
Harun al-Rashid (Harun ar-Rashid) (English: "Aaron the Upright," "Aaron the Just," or "Aaron the Rightly Guided") (March 17, 763 – March 24, 809). Fifth and most famous Abbasid Caliph (r.786-809). He was the son of the third Abbasid caliph, al-Mahdi (r. 775-785), and succeeded to the throne on the death of his brother al-Hadi (r. 785-786).

Thanks to the “Thousand and One Nights,” Harun al-Rashid is almost a legendary figure which obscures his true historic personality. In fact, his reign initiated the political disintegration of the Islamic empire.

Syria, inhabited by tribes with Umayyad sympathies, remained the bitter enemy of the ‘Abbasids and Egypt witnessed risings due to poor administration and arbitrary taxation. The Umayyads had been established in Spain in 755, the Idrisids in the Maghrib in 788 and the Aghlabids in Ifriqiya in 800. Besides, unrest flared up in Yemen, and the Kharijites rose in rebellion in Daylam, Kirman, Fars and Sistan. Revolts also broke out in Khurasan. A great part of Harun al-Rashid’s fame was due to his interest in Holy War against the Byzantines, in which he occasionally participated personally. From 791 to 809, Harun’s empire was at war with the Byzantine Empire, and in 807 his forces occupied the Byzantine province of Cyprus. He also paid attention to naval power.

The period of Harun al-Rashid’s reign marked a notable development of culture. Until 803, administrative power was entrusted to Yahya ibn-Khalid (d. about 803), the grand vizier, or councillor of state, and head of the illustrious family of the Barmakids. During this time, Baghdad, the capital of Harun’s realm, became the most flourishing city of the period. Tribute was paid to the caliph by many rulers, and splendid edifices were erected in his honor at enormous cost. He is said to have exchanged gifts with Charlemagne. However, Arabic sources do not substantiate that such an exchange ever occurred.

Harun was a generous patron of learning, poetry, and music, and his court was visited by the most eminent Muslims of the age. He was celebrated in countless songs and stories, and is perhaps best known to the Western world as the caliph whose court is described in the Arabian Nights. Toward the end of his reign, Harun was influenced to depose the Barmakids, and in 803 he imprisoned the grand vizier. 
Harun ruled from 786 to 809, and his time was marked by scientific, cultural and religious prosperity. Art and music also flourished significantly during his reign. He established the legendary library Bayt al-Hikma ("House of Wisdom").

Since Harun was intellectually, politically and militarily resourceful, his life and the court over which he held sway have been the subject of many tales: some are claimed to be factual but most are believed to be fictitious. Among what is known to be fictional is The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, which contains many stories that are fantasized about Harun's magnificent court and even Harun al-Rashid himself. 

The caliph virtually dismembered the empire by apportioning it between his two sons al-Amin and al-Ma’mun. The caliph died while on his way to put down an insurrection in the eastern part of his empire.
Harun ar-Rashid see Harun al-Rashid
“Aaron the Upright” see Harun al-Rashid
"Aaron the Just" see Harun al-Rashid
"Aaron the Rightly Guided"see Harun al-Rashid

Harbi

Harbi
Harbi, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Ishaq al- (Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Ishaq al-Harbi) (9th century). Author of Al-Hammam and its Manners, a book on the appropriate protocol of bathing in hammams -- bath houses.

During the age of the Roman Empire, the Romans developed a bathing process. For the Romans, the bath was in an elaborate building complex, complete with a medium heated room or Tepidarium, a hot steam room or Caldarium, and a room with a cold plunge pool or Frigidarium. In some of the larger baths there were other sections with changing rooms called Apodyterium, a reading room and sports area. But these bathing centers were for the rich and political elite only.

With the demise of the Roman Empire, the bathing centers were abandoned. While these baths fell into disrepair as the Roman Empire lay in tatters, on the other side of the Mediterranean the Arabs, who had been under Roman rule in countries like Syria, inherited the tradition of using the bath. Instead of the waters becoming stagnant as the Romans left, the Arabs and then the Muslims gave them special promotion because of Islam's emphasis on cleanliness, hygiene and good health.

The bath house, or hammam, was a social place and it ranked high on the list of life's essentials. The Prophet Muhammad proclaimed that "cleanliness is half the faith." Hammams then were elaborate affairs with elegant designs, decor and ornamentation. Under the Mameluke and Ottoman rule, they were especially sumptuous buildings in their rich design and luxurious decorations, furnished with beautiful fountains and decorative pools.

The hammam was, and still is, a unique social setting for Muslim communities, playing an important role in the social activities of the community. As an intimate space of interaction for various social groups, it brought friends, neighbors, relatives and workers together regularly to undertake the washing ritual in a partying atmosphere. Group bonds strengthened, friendships rekindled and gossip was swapped. This therapeutic ritual was carried out by both men and women at separate times, with the women usually bathing in daylight and men in the evening and night.

The intrigue and sociability at the hammam did not just stop at scrubbing and gossip, as traditionally the setting played a significant role in matchmaking. In conservative communities such as those of North Africa, women who were looking for suitable brides for their sons would go to the hammam. Here they had the perfect opportunity to have a closer look at the bride to be and select the most physically fit.

It is also customary in many parts of the Muslim world for the new bride to be taken with her friends to the hammam, where she is prepared, groomed and adorned in stylized designs with henna, the herbal paste that leaves a reddish/brown color on the hair, hands and feet. The groom is also escorted there the night before he meets his bride.

The art of bathing in hammams is guided by many rules, such as: men must always be covered in "lower" garments, and women are forbidden to enter if men are present. Quite a few books have been written about the art of bathing in hammams, including Al-Hammam and its Manners from the 9th century by Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Ishaq al-Harbi.

Hamawi

Hamawi, Yaqut ibn 'Abdullah al-Rumi al-
Yaqut ibn 'Abdullah al-Rumi al-Hamawi (1179–1229) (Arabic: ياقوت الحموي الرومي‎) was an Islamic biographer and geographer renowned for his encyclopedic writings on the Muslim world. "al-Rumi" ("from Rûm") refers to his Greek (Byzantine) descent; "al-Hamawi" is taken after Hama, Syria, and ibn-Abdullah is a reference to his father's name, Abdullah. The word yāqūt means ruby or hyacinth.

Yaqut was working as a slave to a trader, Askar ibn Abi Nasr al-Hamawi, who lived in Baghdad, Iraq. His master taught him accounting and trading and sent him to trade on his behalf. He later freed him of his obligations and that enabled Yaqut to dedicate himself to his scholarly tasks. He was one of the last scholars who had access to the libraries east of the Caspian Sea before the Mongol invasion of Central Asia. He travelled to the peaceful scholarly city of ancient Merv in present-day Turkmenistan. There Yaqut spent two years in libraries, learning much of the knowledge he would later use in his works. Yaqut spend the last few years of his life in Aleppo and died there.
The works of al-Hamawi include the following:

• Kitāb mu'jam al-buldān (معجم البلدان "Dictionary of Countries")
• Mu'jam al-udabā', (معجم الأدباء "Dictionary of Writers") written in 1226.
• al-Mushtarak wadh'ā wal-Muftaraq Sa'qā (المشترک وضعا والمفترق صعقا ), a version of which was printed in 1845 by Ferdinand Wüstenfeld.
  • Al-Mushtarik

Hakam II

Hakam II
Hakam II ( al-Hakam II al-Mustansir ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman III) (Al-Hakam II ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III) (January 13, 915 - October 16, 976). Umayyad Caliph of Cordoba (r.961-976). He enlarged and embellished the Great Mosque of Cordoba, and gradually became the suzerain of all the Christian princes of the north. In 966, the Normans made a new attempt to land in Spain. Al-Hakam’s reign was one of the most peaceful and fruitful of the Cordoban dynasty.

Al-Hakam II succeeded to the Caliphate after the death of his father Abd ar-Rahman III in 961. He secured peace with the Christian kingdoms of northern Iberia, and made use of the stability to develop agriculture through the construction of irrigation works. Economical development was also encouraged through the widening of streets and the building of markets.

He was fond of books and learning, and amassed a vast library with 400,000 books (this was sacked in the Berber siege of Cordoba in 1100). He even sent his agents to purchase 'first edition' books from the Muslim east, such asKitab al-Aghani (Book of Songs) by Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani.

During his reign, a massive translation effort was undertaken, and many books were translated from Latin and Greek into Arabic. He formed a joint committee of Arab Muslims and Iberian Mozarab Christians for this task.

His building works included an expansion of the main mosque of Cordoba (962-966), the Mezquita, and the completion of the Royal residence Medina Azahara (976), which Abd ar-Rahman III had begun in 936.

As well, the famous physician, scientist, and surgeon Abu al-Qasim (Abulcasis) was active in Al-Hakam's court during his reign.

Whilst the internal administration was left increasingly to the Vizir Al-Mushafi, General Ghalib was gradually gaining influence as leader of the army. He was chiefly pre-occupied with repulsing the last Norman attacks (966, 971), and with the struggle against the Zirids and the Fatimids in northern Morocco. The Fatimids were defeated in Morocco in 974, while Al-Hakam II was able to maintain the supremacy of the Caliphate over the Christian states of Navarre, Castile and Leon.

In his youth his loves seem to have been entirely homosexual. He was known to have openly kept a male harem. This exclusivity was a problem, since it was essential to produce an heir. A resolution was reached by his taking a concubine who dressed in boys' clothes and was give the masculine name of Jafar.

He was succeeded by his son, Hisham II al-Mu'ayad, who was a nominal ruler under the Hajib (Grand Vizier) al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir.

al-Hakam II al-Mustansir ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman III see Hakam II
Al-Hakam II ibn 'Abd al-Rahman IIIsee Hakam II

Ghazali

Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al- (Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali) (Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazzali) (Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad at-Tusi al-Ghazali) (Algazel) (Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī) (1058-1111). Muslim theologian, jurist, original thinker, mystic, and religious reformer. His great work Revival of the Religious Sciences made Sufism an acceptable part of orthodox Islam.

Al-Ghazali is most famous for his contributions to Islamic philosophical theology (kalam), jurisprudence (fiqh), and mysticism (tassawwuf, or Sufism). He is also known as Algazel in the West. Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Tusi al-Shafi‘i al-Ghazali was born in 1058 in Tus [Khorman], near Meshed (Mashhad), Iran. Al-Ghazali was born into a family of scholars and mystics. He was first influenced by his father, who was a pious dervish, and later by a Sufi friend of his father, not to mention his brother, who is recognized as a distinguished mystic. Despite the presence of Sufis around him, al-Ghazali showed a great deal of interest in jurisprudence and speculative sciences.

Al-Ghazali’s father died while al-Ghazali was still very young but al-Ghazali had the opportunity of getting an education in the prevalent curriculum at Nishapur and Baghdad. His studies at Nishapur were guided by al-Juwaini, the Imam al-Haramain, until the latter’s death in 1085. Soon he acquired a high standard of scholarship in religion and philosophy.

Al-Ghazali studied with such masters as Muhammad al-Radadhkhani al-Tusi, Abu Nasr al-Isma‘ili, as well as with al-Juwaini, -- the “Imam al-Haramain.” Ghazali, who at one point was studying in the Nizamiyyah Academy, became the disciple of ‘Ali al-Farmadhi al-Tusi, through whom he became further acquainted with the theoretical as well as practical aspects of Sufism. He then applied himself to austere forms of ascetic practices, but to his dismay did not attain the desired spiritual states. This, in addition to the fact that al-Ghazali’s intellectual thirst was too strong to allow him to forget the intellectual pursuit of truth, contributed to his growing skepticism.

Having gained an excellent reputation as a scholar, in 1091 al-Ghazali was appointed by Nizam al-Mulk (1018-1092), an ardent al-Ghazali admirer and the vizier to the Seljuk sultan, to teach at Nizamiyya University in Baghdad, which was recognized as one of the most reputed institutions of learning in the golden era of Muslim history.

At this point in his life, al-Ghazali was the chair at the Nizamiyyah Academy and one of the supreme judges known for his numerous commentaries on jurisprudence. Although having attained such titles as the “Proof of Islam” (hujat al-Islam), the “Renewer of Religion”(mujaddid al-dini), and the “Ornament of Faith” (Zain al-Din), Ghazali was inwardly going through an intellectual and spiritual crisis. In his quest for certainty, he had begun to question the position of the scholastic theologians who derived the validity of their ideas from dictums of faith that they, the theologians, considered to be axiomatic. His doubt soon spread to other facets of his belief, and the inner turmoil of teaching the orthodox positions on the one hand and questioning them on the other intensified his spiritual crisis.

Adding to his spiritual crisis was the fact that al-Ghazali’s patron, Nizam al-Mulk was assassinated in 1092 by Batinites (Isma‘ilis) who were terrorizing the eastern empire, supported by the Fatimid authorities in Egypt.

In 1095, al-Ghazali’s personal crisis of faith reached a climax. He relinquished his position, left his family, and became an ascetic. This was a period of mystical transformation as al-Ghazali dedicated himself to the mystical quest, Sufism. An era of solitary life, devoted to contemplation and writing then ensued, which led to the authorship of a number of enduring books.

In the eleven years following his resignation, al-Ghazali traveled widely. During this time, al-Ghazali visited Mecca, Alexandria, Jerusalem (which he left shortly before its capture by the Crusaders) and Damascus. After ten years of wandering and meditation, he accepted another teaching position in Nishapur but left it shortly afterward and retired to Tus, where he composed his most influential work, the massive Ihya ulum al-din (The Revivification of the Religious Sciences). The work contains four volumes of ten books each. The first volume opens with two books that discuss knowledge and the foundations of religious orthodoxy. It then proceeds to a discussion of ibadat, that is, ritual purity, worship, the pillars of Islam, and other religious practices.

The second volume focuses on adat, the conduct of daily life, and the third and fourth volumes analyze the interior life. The third addresses muhlikat, those practices that lead to damnation. This is not a dry catalog of vices but an often subtle and astute inquiry into psychological and ascetic theory. Volume four explores those actions that lead to salvation (munjiyat) in terms that resonate strongly with the stages and states of the Sufi mystical path of repentance, patience, gratitude, fear, and hope.

In 1106, the vizier Fakhr al-Mulk, son of al-Ghazali’s former patron Nizam al-Mulk, convinced him to return to public life as professor at the Nizamiyya in Nishapur. Soon afterwards, al-Ghazali wrote his autobiography Al-munqidh min al-dalal (Deliverance from Error), which encapsulates his own personal religious crisis as well as his intellectual stance vis-a-vis Islamic philosophy and sectarian movements like that of the Batinites. Al-Ghazali’s own training in philosophy had begun under al-Juwaini, but while teaching at Baghdad he had pursued privately a thorough study of Arab Neoplatonism exemplified in the works of al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. Before his crisis he published a stinging refutation of their work in Tahafut al-falasifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers or The Destruction of the Philosophers).

In his autobiography, al-Ghazali does not reject philosophy outright. Logic and philosophical methodology are acceptable as long as they do not contradict the truth of God’s word, which is ultimately inaccessible to the fallible human intellect. Al-Ghazali’s personal crisis convinced him that philosophical theology and law were by themselves inadequate means to knowledge of God. It is mysticism that affords the seeker a true personal taste (dhauq) of the divine. Both mysticism and the religious sciences must be pursued if one is fully to experience Islamic life.

A short time before his death, al-Ghazali retired again to Tus, where he established a Sufi convent (a khanaqah). There he taught his disciples and directed their spiritual progress.

Al-Ghazali died on December 18, 1111. He is revered by Muslims and non-Muslims alike as an intellectual giant who wedded philosophical method to theology and established mysticism on a firm intellectual base within the mainstream Muslim community.

Al-Ghazali made major contributions in religion, philosophy and Sufism. A number of Muslim philosophers had been following and developing several viewpoints of Greek philosophy, including the Neoplatonic philosophy, and this was leading to conflict with several Islamic teachings. On the other hand, the movement of Sufism was assuming such excessive proportions as to avoid observance of obligatory prayers and duties of Islam. Based on his brilliant scholarship and his personal mystical experience, al-Ghazali sought to rectify these trends, both in philosophy and Sufism.

In philosophy, al-Ghazali upheld the approach of mathematics and exact sciences as essentially correct. However, he adopted the techniques of Aristotelian logic and the Neoplatonic procedures and employed these very tools to lay bare the flaws and lacunas of the then prevalent Neoplatonic philosophy and to diminish the negative influences of Aristotelianism and excessive rationalism. In contrast to some of the Muslim philosophers, e.g., al-Farabi, he portrayed the inability of reason to comprehend the absolute and the infinite. Reason could not transcend the finite and was limited to the observation of the relative. Also, several Muslim philosophers had held that the universe was finite in space but infinite in time. Al-Ghazali argued that an infinite time was related to an infinite space. With his clarity of thought and force of argument, he was able to create a balance between religion and reason, and identified their respective spheres as being the infinite and the finite, respectively.

In religion, particularly mysticism, al-Ghazali cleansed the approach of Sufism of its excesses and re-established the authority of the orthodox religion. Yet, he stressed the importance of genuine Sufism, which he maintained was the path to attain the absolute truth.

Al-Ghazali was a prolific writer. His most noted books include Tuhafat al-Falasifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), Ihya al-‘Ulum al-Islamia (The Revival of the Religious Sciences), The Beginning of Guidance, and Deliverance from Error. Some of his works were translated into European languages in the Middle Ages. He also wrote a summary of astronomy.

Al-Ghazali’s influence was deep and enduring. He is one of the greatest theologians of Islam. His theological doctrines penetrated Europe and influenced Jewish and Christian scholasticism. Indeed, several of al-Ghazali’s theses appear to have been adopted by Thomas Aquinas in order to similarly re-establish the authority of orthodox Christian religion in the West. So forceful were al-Ghazali’s arguments in the favor of religion that he was accused of damaging the cause of philosophy compelling Ibn Rushd (Averroes) to write a rejoinder to al-Ghazali’s Tuhafat.

Al-Ghazali documented his internal struggle and the religious solution he finally achieved in The Deliverance from Error (or The Deliverer from Error), a work that has been compared to The Confessions of Saint Augustine. In this work, al-Ghazali describes his examination of kalam (orthodox Muslim scholasticism), falsafa (metaphysics based on those of the Greeks) and t’lim (the doctrine of those who accept, without criticism, the teaching of an infallible Imam) before deciding for Sufism.

Al-Ghazali’s great work is the The Revival of the Religious Sciences (The Revivification of the Religious Sciences). In The Revival of the Religious Sciences, al-Ghazali presented his unified view of religion incorporating elements from all three sources formerly considered contradictory: tradition, intellectualism, and mysticism. The work has been considered the greatest religious book written by a Muslim, second only to the Qur’an.

After having mastered the methods of philosophy, al-Ghazali set out to refute the Neo-platonic theories of other Muslim philosophers, particularly those of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), which were opposed to such orthodox religious doctrines as that of the creation, the immortality of the soul, and divine providence. The resultant attack on philosophical theory and speculation, set forth in al-Ghazali’s Destruction of the Philosophers (or The Incoherence of the Philosophers), was in large measure responsible for the eventual decline of the element of rationalism in Islam.

Assuming that reason leads to certainty and a firm ground upon which one can establish belief, al-Ghazali immersed himself in the study of philosophy. To his dismay, he then discovered that reason goes only so far. It fails to bring about ultimate certainty. Al-Ghazali alluded to inconsistencies among the philosophers and discussed twenty points on which, according to al-Ghazali, they could be proven to be mistaken.

With his hope for attaining certainty dashed, al-Ghazali collapsed, physically and mentally going through an intense state of despair, losing his appetite and power of speech. Having become convinced that truth is not attainable through the study of jurisprudence or philosophy, he began a mystical journey in 1095 when he left Baghdad for Damascus, where he practiced austere forms of ascetic practices. al-Ghazali wandered in Islamic lands for eleven years, during which time he meditated and engaged himself in ascetic practices, until he returned to his native city of Tus. From then on al-Ghazali either taught or spent time in seclusion.

In travelling on his intellectual journey, al-Ghazali questioned everything that can be questioned, searching for a truth which could not be doubted. In his search for the indubitable truth, al-Ghazali questioned the original identity of the self or the “I” before the self is placed within the context of a given religion. Believing himself to have found the “I” which serves as the foundation of knowledge, al-Ghazali touched on a number of epistemological issues. He pointed to the dubious nature of sense perception and of reality itself.

Having criticized the traditional views of the Peripatetics’ epistemology, al-Ghazali went on to offer a critique of four classes of knowers: mystics, Batinis, theologians, and philosophers. As to mystics, al-Ghazali was opposed to those Sufis who did not observe the religious law (shari‘a) and who propagated the Doctrine of the Unity of Being (wah dat al-wujud), which for him had pantheistic implications. Al-Ghazali was vehemently against the Isma‘ili Shi‘ites, also referred to as the Batinis, for they rejected the shari‘a and argued that only an infallible Imam has access to truth.

According to al-Ghazali, theologians were blameworthy only for their methodology, and not for the content of their discussion. Al-Ghazali (who in the opinion of many, remained a theologian for his whole life despite his criticism of them) found the attempt to establish a reason-based theology a futile effort. Theology, he argued, does not begin with axiomatic principles, but with premises whose validity should ultimately be accepted on the basis of faith alone.

In the autobiographical al-Munqidh min al-dalal (The Deliverer [Deliverance] from Error), al-Ghazali describes how his intense pursuit of truth led him to investigate all academic disciplines available to an educated medieval Muslim. None, including Sufism, satisfied him because, as he discovered, truth was gained only through immediate experience. Oral instruction and the study of Sufism were no substitute for walking in the Way. After agonizing self-examination, al-Ghazali resigned his post at the prestigious Baghdad Nizamiyya Madrasa.

For more than ten years, al-Ghazali remained outside public life, opting for solitary reflection interrupted only by consultations with “men of the heart”-- consultations with Sufis. However, al-Ghazali did not merely meditate he also wrote. The resulting spiritual diary was a formidable book, one that surpassed all his previous literary productions in scope and insight.

Entitled Ihya ‘ulum ad-din (The Bringing to Life of the Sciences of Religions or The Revival of the Religious Sciences, al-Ghazali’s diary is a survey of the entire range of Muslim theological, philosophical, devotional, and sectarian thought in the eleventh and twelfth centuries of the Christian era. The mystical fervor of the Ihya is cloaked in a tight schematic garb. It is divided into two parts, each of which has two quarters, the first two with matters of the heart, corresponding to the most common Sufi dyad, the outer -- the Zahir-- and the inner -- the Batin. Each of the quarters, in turn, has ten books, for a total of forty books, a number whose symbolic reference to the forty-day retreat of Sufis was not lost on al-Ghazali’s contemporaries.

The Ihya, despite its length of over one thousand pages, was widely read and quoted in Arabic. Al-Ghazali himself rendered it into a Persian abridgment entitled Kimiya-yi sa’adat (The Elixir of Happiness). Other adaptations, translations, and commentaries appeared throughout the medieval, and even into the modern, period.

Having mastered Greek philosophy -- in particular Aristotle -- as well as his Muslim counterparts, al-Ghazali wrote Intentions of the Philosophers (Maqasid al-falasifah) and a lucid exposition of Aristotelian philosophy entitled Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-falasifah), in which by the dialectical method he attempted to destroy the philosophers’ positions.

Al-Ghazali divides the philosophers into three groups: the materialists (dahriyyun), who reject the existence of God and argue for the eternity of the world; the theists (ilahiyyun), who accept the existence of God; and the naturalists (tabi ‘iyyun), who are not necessarily opposed to the existence of a creator, but who argue against the immortality of the soul.

Al-Ghazali, whose thorough understanding of the philosophers’ position had led him to believe that pursuing reason alone would lead to the destruction of religion and morality, considered the philosophers to be heretical on three accounts: For accepting the eternity of the world, for denying God’s knowledge of particulars, and for denying bodily resurrection.

Acceptance of the eternity of the world entails making the world co-eternal with God, an unacceptable conclusion to the orthodoxy, al-Ghazali points out. Philosophers argue that the eternity of the world follows by necessity from three fundamental axioms: (1) Nothing comes out of nothing, or to put it differently, something cannot come from nothing; (2) Given a particular cause, the effect necessarily and immediately follows; (3) A cause is different from and external to the effect.

Al-Ghazali offers a series of arguments against the axioms that philosophers regard to be self-evident. In numerous arguments, he alludes to inconsistencies within these axioms. The denial of God’s knowledge of particulars necessitates God’s relative ignorance, a position unacceptable by the Islamic credo. Furthermore, the denial of bodily resurrection is contrary to numerous Qur’anic references concerning bodily resurrection. The philosophers, al-Ghazali argues, make the following three claims as the basis for denying the belief in bodily resurrection: (1) There is no logical necessity that bodies be resurrected in their physical forms, (2) If there are no bodies in the hereafter, there can be neither pain nor pleasure in the other world, (3) Hell and Heaven in their physical sense do not exist, they are of a purely spiritual nature.

Al-Ghazali then proceeds to argue against the above premises, using the rationalistic method of the Peripatetics. Al-Ghazali specifically criticizes the philosophers for holding twenty fallacious opinions to which the use of reason has led them. Among the fallacious views al-Ghazali attributes to the Peripatetics in his Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-falasifah): The world has no beginning and no end; God did not create the universe ex nihilo; God is simple and has no quiddity (distinguishing character); God can know nothing but himself; God cannot know particulars; heavenly bodies have animal souls that move by volition; miracles are impossible; human souls are not immortal; and corporeal resurrection is impossible.

Al-Ghazali contends in his critique of the above notions that through faith and faith alone can one come to the truth. The reliance on reason leads only to frustration and incoherence.

Al-Ghazali undertook a scathing attack against several philosophical positions, among them the theory of divine emanation. Al-Ghazali meticulously demonstrates that the theory of emanation propagated by philosophers fails to achieve the very purpose for which philosophers have postulated it. First, it does not solve the problem of how multiplicity came from unity and second, it fails to retain the divine unity that the theory of emanation is supposed to safeguard.

On the question of God’s knowledge of particulars, al-Ghazali is adamant that God knows all the particulars and anything short of this acknowledgment negates God’s omniscience. Even Ibn Sina, who accepts God’s omniscience, is criticized by Ghazali for stating that even though God knows everything, he does so in a universal way, that is, in a way that is beyond the spatio-temporal (space-time) limitations of human cognition.

Knowing that philosophers base many of their arguments on the law of cause and effect, al-Ghazali critically analyzes it. His criticism, which is very similar to David Hume’s argument, maintains that the relationship between a cause and the effect is not a logical necessity. Knowledge of the causal relations between fire and burning or water and wetness is not based on reasoning about necessary relations, but on sense observation.

Having argued against the necessary connection between a cause and its effect, al-Ghazali uses this to offer an explanation of the phenomenon of miracle. To those who argue for the impossibility of miracles on the ground that a miracle violates natural laws, al-Ghazali’s critique of causality explains how the continuity of the so-called “laws” of nature can be disrupted without violating any law.

Al-Ghazali elaborates extensively on ethics and moral problems. Relying on the Qur’anic concepts, he uses Aristotelian notions to shed light on some of the complex issues. One of the issues that al-Ghazali was particularly interested in was the problem of free will and determination and how that is related to the problem of human choices.

Al-Ghazali, both as a theologian and a jurist, believed that causal determinism is incompatible with moral responsibility. To solve the problem he offers an ingenious argument that contains three levels: first, there is the level of the material world, where events occur out of necessity; second, there is the sensuous world, where there is relative freedom of action; and finally there is the Divine realm, where there is absolute free will.

Al-Ghazali realizes the significance of having free will, since without it Heaven and Hell would be meaningless. Having established the relative nature of human will, al-Ghazali discusses vices and virtues and man’s duty to exercise his noble gift of free will to do what is good. He defines vices as desires of the flesh and ego (nafs) that lead to bodily excesses such as unrestrained sex; overindulgence in food; misuse of speech; love of wealth, position, name, and self-assertion. There are also sicknesses of the soul that ought to be cured by such virtues as repentance; renunciation of the materialistic world; abstinence from giving in to the desires of flesh; spiritual poverty or emptiness, which signifies a desire and ability to be filled by divine truth; patience; reliance on God as the spiritual center of the world; and finally love, the most important of all virtues. Love, for al-Ghazali, leads to an unmediated mode of cognition between the human being and God (‘arif). This subject was extensively treated in the post-Ghazali period and it reached its climax in the School of Isfahan during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Persia.

Al-Ghazali has sometimes been compared unfavorably with his younger brother, Ahmad al-Ghazali, a Sufi Shaikh and consummate poet. Both men charted new directions for the future course of Muslim spirituality, but to date the prolific and scholarly Abu Hamid al-Ghazali has attracted the greater attention.

History now records that Abu Hamid al-Ghazali was a major figure in the intellectual life of medieval Islam. As a jurist, al-Ghazali defended the integrity of the Sunni creed, and was especially concerned to show its superiority to the system of the Nizari Ismailis, a Shi‘ite sectarian group whose speculations attracted and challenged him. As a scholastic theologian, al-Ghazali inherited the Neoplatonic philosophical categories introduced into Islam through Arabic translations from Greek, popularized by the rationalist, free-thinking Mu’tazila movement and elaborated by the Turkish metaphysician al-Farabi and his Persian successor, Ibn Sina. Al-Ghazali reworked the dialectical categories of earlier Muslim theologians such as al-Ash’ari and his own teacher, al-Juwayni, but it was as a mystic that he attained his greatest fame and effected his most lasting influence.

Philosophers rarely have an impact on the history of philosophy through their lives as well as through their ideas. Al-Ghazali, however, is such a figure in that various phases of his life left an indelible mark on the history of Islamic philosophy by strengthening Sufism while curtailing the influence of rationalistic philosophy, particularly in the eastern part of the Islamic world.
Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazzali see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Ghazzali, al- see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad at-Tusi al-Ghazali see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Algazel see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
“Proof of Islam” see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-

Ghafiqi

Ghafiqi, Muhammad al-
Ghafiqi, Muhammad al- (Muhammad ibn Qassum ibn Aslam al-Ghafiqi) (d. 1165). Spanish-Arab scholar and oculist of the twelfth century. His Guide of the Oculist is regarded as a summary of all the knowledge of ophthalmology possessed by the Arabs of both the Islamic East and West in the author’s time.

Al-Ghafiqi lived and practiced in Cordoba, writing a book entitled The Right Guide in Ophthalmic Drug.  The book is not just confined to the eye but gives details of the head and diseases of the brain.  Al-Ghafiqi's treatment of the eye disease trachoma was utilized until World War I. 

A bust of al-Ghafiqi is in the municipal hospital of Cordoba and was erected in 1965 to commemorate the 800th anniversary of his death.

Muhammad al-Ghafiqi see Ghafiqi, Muhammad al-

Firdausi

Firdausi
Firdausi (Abu’l-Qasim Firdausi) (Abdul Qasim Mansur) (Firdawsi or Ferdowsi) (935-1020). One of the greatest Persian poets who is best known as the author the epic, Shahnama --The Book of Kings.

Firdausi was not on good terms with the monarch of his time, the Ghaznavid sultan Mahmud ibn Sebuktegin, not only because Firdausi was a Shi‘a, Mahmud being a Sunni, but also because the sultan showed a lack of interest in Firdausi's work and because the poet was dissatisfied with the inadequacy of his compensation.

Shahnama (The Book of Kings), amounting in several manuscripts to some 60,000 verses, speaks of the beneficial activities of the first kings of Persia on behalf of humanity and of their struggle against the demons which infest the world. The assassination of the son and successor of one of these mythical kings by two brothers started an endless cycle of wars of revenge between the Persians and the nomadic Turanians of Central Asia. The exploits of the heroes are interwoven with love-stories by which Firdausi became the founder of the romantic narrative poem which was to have such a lasting legacy in Persia. The last part of the poem is more historical and recounts the reigns of the Sasanian kings.

The tragic life of Firdausi underscores his lyrical brilliance and monumental achievement as author of the Shahnama. The Shahnama is a mathnavi -- a rhyming couplet in approximately 60,000 distichs (verses having two lines). The idiomatic Persian of the Shahnama minimizes not only non-Persian themes and people but also non-Persian, specifically Arabic, words. The Shahnama extols the importance of kingship as the most lofty status to which heroes may aspire.

Firdausi has been called the Homer of Persia. Born in the village of Bazh near Tus in Khurasan, he belonged to the landed gentry. It is clear from his own poetry that he received a sound education and was well versed in the legends and traditional history of pre-Islamic Iran. As a youth, he was a man of adequate means which enabled him to devote thirty years of his life to composing the Shahnama without the support of a royal court.

He was married at the age of 28 and some eight years later began the work for which he is most famous, the great epic poem Shahnama (or Shah nameh). The work is based on a poem by the tenth century Persian poet Dakiki. Firdausi spent 35 years writing this epic and completed it in 1010, when he was about 70 years old.

Firdausi undertook the composition of his monumental work around the year 980, shortly after the death of Abu Mansur Daqiqi, another poet from Tus, who had been composing a national epic of his own (most probably under the patronage of the Samanid amir Nun ibn Mansur) when his sudden death left the work unfinished. The Samanids had fostered a keen interest in the history of pre-Islamic Iran, and already more than one prose Shahnama, mainly based on the Pahlavi Kvadai-namag (translated into Arabic in the eighth century), had appeared. The most important version was the Abu Mansuri Shahnama which was produced in Tus in 957.

Firdausi also versified isolated episodes before he obtained Daqiqi’s work, which he incorporated into his Shahnama. At the beginning of his career, he had the support of some local dignitaries in Tus, but, living mainly on the income of his family estate, he experienced dire poverty at advanced age. His main source was the Abu Mansuri Shahnama (now lost except for the introduction), but he also used other materials, including oral traditions. The first version of Firdausi’s Shahnama was finished in 994 and the revised version in 1010.

Firdausi’s epic would have probably been received with honors at the court of the Samanids, but by the time it was finished Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna was the master of eastern Iran. Although a Turk by birth, Sultan Mahmud had gathered a large number of Persian poets at his court and was served by the vizier Isfarayini, whose patronage of Persian letters was well known. It is possible that Firdausi, as an old man badly in need, had been sending portions of his work to the court at Ghazna (probably to Isfarayini) in the hope of securing royal support. Finally, he decided to present his epic personally. However, the Shahnama was not received well by the king, who, being attuned to hearing only panegyric poetry and not familiar with the Iranian lore, could not really appreciate the value of the Shahnama. The fact that Mahmud was a fanatical Sunni and Firdausi a Shi‘ite must have laid the groundwork for the hard feelings to which the poet refers. Besides, Isfarayini, his main supporter at the court, had fallen from favor. According to an early source, an unhappy encounter with the king resulted in Firdausi’s writing a satire published only after the poet’s death. Firdausi spent the rest of his life running from the reach of Mahmud, who had threatened him with death. Finally, pardoned by the sultan, he came back to his native town, where he died a poor man.

Firdausi’s Shahnama contains 60,000 rhyming couplets, making it more than seven times the length of Homer’s Iliad. It deals first with the legendary Persian kings: Gayumart, Hoshang, Tahmuras, and the most famous of the group, Jamshid, who reigned for 500 years during the golden age of the earth. Following this happy period, came the evil rule of the Arab Dahhak, or Zohak, who was tempted by Ahriman, his own ancestor. As a result, Dahhak fell into sin, becoming more and more evil until Kavah, a smith, rebelled and established his leather apron as the banner of revolt. Finally, the tyrant was bound and confined beneath Mount Demavend on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Soon after this point in the poem, an episode of considerable beauty is inserted. It recounts the loves of Zal, of the royal line of Persia, and Rudabah, the daughter of the king of Kabul. Their union resulted in the birth of the most romantic of all the heroes of the Shahnama, Rustam, who occupies a position in Iranian legend somewhat analogous to that of Hercules in Greek and Latin literature. The epic progresses through Persian legend to historic times, tracing the reigns of the Sasanian kings down to the Muslim conquest and the death of Yazdigird III in 641. Thus, the work constitutes a valuable source for the early history of Persia, which is necessary to supplement the accounts given in the old Persian cuneiform inscriptions and the Avesta. In addition to his poetic incentive, Firdausi had a distinctly patriotic motive in writing the Shahnama. He plainly desired to keep alive in the hearts of his people the faith of their ancestors and the glories of their deeds so that the Persians would not become mere puppets under Arab domination.

The epic contains an introductory eulogy of the tenth century Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni, to whom the work is dedicated. Firdausi went to Mahmud’s court to present his work as a tribute and was awarded the sum of 20,000 dihrams. The amount was less than he had been led to expect. The disappointed poet took his revenge by departing to Herat and there writing a bitter satire on Mahmud, which he sent to the sultan as a substitute for his former eulogy. Firdausi then fled to Herat, and from there to Tabaristan, where the reigning prince protected him. He later settled in Baghdad where he composed an epic of 9000 couplets, Yusuf and Zuleikha (Yusuf and Zulaykha). The work is an Arabic version of the biblical story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, a favorite theme of Asian poets. In his old age, Firdausi retired to his native town near Tus, where, according to legend, he received Mahmud’s forgiveness just before his death. The Shahnama is perhaps best known to English readers through Sohrab and Rustum, a poem by the English poet Matthew Arnold, which is based on the Persian epic.

Firdausi has had a profound and lasting influence on Persian literature and, indeed, on the spirit of the people of modern day Iran. His Shahnama was the model and inspiration for most later Muslim epic poetry.

In the scientific annals, Firdausi's Shahnama was instrumental in depicting a story about man's first attempts to fly.

The ancient Egyptians left behind many paintings demonstrating their desire to fly, depicting pharaohs soaring with wings. The Chinese and the Greeks had mythical stories and legends about flying, as did the Sassanians. Their most popular story is the one recounted by Firdausi in his Shahnama -- his Book of Kings. In Firdausi's book, a certain King Kai Kawus was tempted by evil spirits to invade heaven with the help of a flying craft that was a throne, attached to whose corners were four long poles pointing upward. Pieces of meat were placed at the top of each pole and ravenous eagles were chained to the feet of the throne. As the eagles attempted to fly up to the meat, they carried the throne up, but, inevitably, they grew tired and the throne came crashing down.

Abu’l-Qasim Firdausi see FirdausiFirdawsi see FirdausiFerdowsi see FirdausiAbdul Qasim Mansur see FirdausiMansur, Abdul Qasim see FirdausiHomer of Persia see Firdausi

Fihri

Fihri

Fatima Muhammad Al-Fihri (? – 880) (فاطمة محمد الفهري, nicknamed Oum al Banine, meaning the mother of the kids) was a Muslim woman chiefly known as the founder of the world's first academic degree-granting institution of higher education, which is still in operation today as the University of Qarawiyyin in Fes, Morroco.

Fatima Al-Fihri was the child of Muhammad Al-Fihri, a wealthy businessman from the Fihrids family. She migrated along with her father from the city Kairouan located in present-day Tunisia to Fes located in current day Morocco. She also had a sister named Mariam.

After Fatima and Mariam inherited their deceased father's fortune, they decided to support the construction of mosques or educational institutions such as the Qarwiyyin mosque as a Waqf  (a religious endowment) or Sadaqah Jariya (voluntary charity) for their deceased father. In 859, Fatima founded the world's first academic degree-granting institution of higher education, which is still in operation today as the University of Qarawiyyin in Fes, Morroco. The University of Qarawiyyin was regarded as being a major intellectual center in the Mediterranean and its excellent reputation even led Gerber of Auvergne to go there to study. Auvergne later went on to become Pope Sylvester II and has been given the credit of introducing Arabic numerals and the concept of "zero" to the rest of Europe.

Her sister Mariam is said to have been responsible for the construction of the Al-Andalus (Andalusian) Mosque in Fes .

Fazari

Fazari
Fazari (al-Fazari). Name of two noted mathematicians.

(Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Habib ibn Sulaiman ibn Samura ibn Jundab al-Fazari) 8th century Muslim mathematician and astronomer of either Arab or Persian background. He recorded the first known mention of the Ghana empire. Although he lived at the court of the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad, the fame of Ghana reached him, and he referred to Ghana as “the land of gold.”

Al-Fazari was the mathematician and astronomer at the Abbasid court of the Caliph Harun al-Rashid. He is not to be confused with his son Muhammad al-Fazari, also an Astronomer. He composed various astronomical writings (on the astrolabe, on the armillary spheres, on the calendar).

The Caliph ordered him and his son to translate the Indian Astronomical text, The Sindhind along with Yaqub ibn Tāriq, which was completed in Baghdad about 750 C.C., and entitled Az-Zīj ‛alā Sinī al-‛Arab. This translation was possibly the vehicle by means of which the Hindu numerals were transmitted from India to Islam.

He died in 777 C.C.

Abu abdallah Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Fazari(d. 796 or 806) was a Muslim philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. He is not to be confused with his father Ibrahim al-Fazari, also an astronomer and mathematician.

While some sources refer to him as an Arab, other sources state that he was a Persian.

Al-Fazari translated many scientific books into Arabic and Persian. He is credited with having built the first astrolabe in the Islamic world.

Along with Yaqub ibn Tariq and his father he helped translate the Indian astronomical text by Brahmagupta (fl. 7th century), the Brahmasphutasiddhanta, into Arabic as Az-Zīj ‛alā Sinī al-‛Arab, or the Sindhind. This translation was possibly the vehicle by means of which the Hindu numerals were transmitted from India to Islam.
al-Fazari see Fazari
Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Habib ibn Sulaiman ibn Samura ibn Jundab al-Fazari see Fazari
Abu abdallah Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Fazari

Farghani

Farghani
Farghani (Abu’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani) (Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī)(Alfraganus) (9th century C.C.). Persian astronomer from Farghana who is known in the West as Alfraganus.

Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī was a Persian astronomer and one of the famous astronomers in the 9th century of the Christian calendar. He was involved in the measurement of the diameter of the Earth together with a team of scientists under the patronage of al-Ma'mūn in Baghdad. His textbook Elements of astronomy on the celestial motions, written about 833, was a competent descriptive summary of Ptolemy's Almagest. It was translated into Latin in the twelfth century and remained very popular in Europe until the time of Regiomontanus. Dante Alighieri's knowledge of Ptolemaic astronomy, which is evident in his Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy) as well as other works such as the Convivio, seems to have been drawn from his reading of Alfraganus. In the seventeenth century the Dutch orientalist Jacob Golius published the Arabic text on the basis of a manuscript he had acquired in the Near East, with a new Latin translation and extensive notes.

Later al-Farghani moved to Cairo, where he composed a treatise on the astrolabe around 856. There he also supervised the construction of the large Nilometer on the island of al-Rawda (in Old Cairo) in the year 861.

The crater Alfraganus on the Moon is named after him.
Abu’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani see Farghani
Alfraganus see Farghani
Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī see Farghani

Farabi

Farabi
Farabi (Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi) (Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Tarkhan ibn Uzalagh al-Farabi) (Abu Nasr ibn Muhammad ibn Tarkhan ibn Auzlagh al-Farabi) (Abu al-Nasr Muhammad ibn al-Farakh al-Farabi) (al-Pharabius) (Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Tarḫān ibn Awzlaġ al-Fārābi) (Alpharabius) (b. c. 872 – d. between December 14, 950 and January 12, 951). Muslim polymath and one of the greatest scientists and philosophers of Persia and the Islamic world of his time. He was also a cosmologist, logician, musician, psychologist and sociologist. He became known in the West under the names of Alfarabius (Alpharabius) and Avennasar (Abunaser).

Al-Farabi was a major contributor to philosophy, logic, sociology and science. He was best known as the“Second Teacher” (al-Mou’allim al-Thani), Aristotle being the first. Al-Farabi was largely responsible for cementing the position of Peripatetic philosophy at the core of nearly all philosophic thought in the Islamic world (and also, derivatively, much of the Christian world) through such an extensive series of written commentaries on Aristotle’s works that philosophical studies thereafter were dominated by his commentaries. Al-Farabi’s other major achievement was the creation of a cogent theory of an Islamic political philosophy based on Plato’s notions of supreme ruler-philosopher. This theory allowed a rational explanation of prophecy and the relatively unique role of prophetic revelation in a particular time and place. It also provided a universal definition of the purpose and goal of human society and government in general.

Al-Farabi, whose Latin name is Alfarabius, was born in Farab, Transoxiana (now Uzbekistan), of Turkish parentage. His ancestors were originally of Persian descent and his father was a general. After completing his education at Farab and Bukhara, he moved to Baghdad for higher studies, where his teachers were Christian Syrians expert in Greek philosophy. In Baghdad, al-Farabi studied several languages, science and technology, and philosophy. He also traveled to Damascus and Egypt for further studies. Eventually he came to live at the court of Sayf ad-Dawla (916-967), the ruler of Aleppo (now in Syria). Al-Farabi died a bachelor in Damascus in 950.

Al-Farabi was a qadi (a judge) in the early years of his long career. He eventually decided to take up teaching as his profession. Al-Farabi showed remarkable competence in several languages. Due to his exceptional talents in several branches of science and philosophy, he received the attention of King Saif al-Dawla at Halab (Aleppo). However, due to some unfortunate circumstances, he suffered great hardships and was once demoted to the position of caretaker of a garden.

Al-Farabi’s major contributions were in logic, philosophy and sociology. He also contributed immensely to mathematics, science, medicine, and music. He was also an encyclopedist. Al-Farabi’s great contribution in logic was that he made the study of logic systematic by dividing the subject into two categories: takhayyul (idea) and thubut (proof). Al-Farabi attempted to reconcile Platonism and Aristotelism with theology and wrote commentaries on physics, logic, and meteorology. Al-Farabi held the belief that philosophy and Islam are in harmony. He proved the existence of the void in his contribution to physics. His book Kitab al-Ihsa al-‘Ulum presents fundamental principles and classification of sciences from a fresh perspective.

Al-Farabi wrote several books on sociology, the most famous of which is the book entitled ‘Ara Ahl al-Madina al-Fadila’ (The Model City). It is a significant contribution to sociology and political science. He also wrote books on metaphysics and psychology that included his original work. Al-Farabi states that an isolated individual cannot achieve all the perfections by himself and without the aid of many other individuals. It is the innate disposition of every man to join another human being or other men in the labor he ought to perform. Therefore, to achieve what he can of that perfection, every man needs to stay in the neighborhood of others and associate with them.

Al-Farabi was also an expert in music. He contributed to musical notes and invented several musical instruments. Al-Farabi could play his instruments so well as to make people laugh or weep. His book on music, entitled Kitab al-Musiqa, was well known.

Al-Farabi wrote a large number of books in several fields that include his original contribution. One hundred seventeen books are known to have survived. Of these, forty-three books are on logic, seven each on political science and ethics, eleven on metaphysics, and twenty-eight books on medicine, sociology, music and commentaries. Al-Farabi’s book ‘Fusus al-Hikam was used as a text book of philosophy for several centuries in Europe. He had great influence on science and philosophy for several centuries.

Al-Farabi, like many other Muslim philosophers, traveled widely, visiting centers of learning and meeting with the learned masters of his time. He spent the last few years of his life in Aleppo, at the court of Sayf-ad-Dawlah.

Al-Farabi was one of the earliest Islamic thinkers to transmit to the Arab world the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle (which he considered essentially identical), thereby greatly influencing such later Islamic philosophers as Avicenna and Averroes.

Influenced in his metaphysical views by both Aristotle and the Neoplatonist Roman philosopher Plotinus, al-Farabi posited a Supreme Being who had created the world through the exercise of rational intelligence. He believed this same rational faculty to be the sole part of the human being that is immortal, and thus he set as the paramount human goal the development of the rational faculty. Al-Farabi gave considerably more attention to political theory than did any other Islamic philosopher, adapting the Platonic system (as developed in Plato’s Republic and Laws) to the contemporary Muslim political situation in The Perfect City.

Al-Farabi was the first Islamic philosopher to uphold the primacy of philosophical truth over revelation, claiming that, contrary to the beliefs of various other religions, philosophical truth is the same throughout the world. He formulated as an ideal a universal religion in which all other existing religions are considered symbolic expressions of the universal religion. Of about 100 works by al-Farabi, many have been lost, including his commentaries on Aristotle. Many others have been preserved in medieval Latin translations only. In addition to his philosophical writings, al-Farabi compiled a Catalogue of Sciences, the first Muslim work to attempt a systematization of human knowledge. He also made a contribution to musical theory in his Great Book of Music.

Al-Farabi’s philosophy represents the first serious attempt in Islamic philosophy to bring about a rapprochement between the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. It was toward this end that he wrote many commentaries and expositions on Plato’s and Aristotle’s treatises. Despite such commentaries, he came to be known for his works on logic and political philosophy. In logic, ethics, and metaphysics he followed Aristotle; in politics he preferred Plato.

Al-Farabi argues that all existing beings are divided into necessary and possible existents. Necessary beings exist by virtue of themselves and need no external cause of their existence. Possible beings are those that can exist or not exist, and their existence requires an external cause. Farabi then goes on to argue that if one were to strip all the accidental (unnecessary) attributes of a existent thing, what would be left is the essence of that thing. Therefore, all existent beings for Farabi consist of an essence to which existence is added. It is only God, Farabi tells us, for whom essence and existence are one and the same.

Farabi’s views on the origin of the world seem to have been influenced by the Neoplatonic doctrine of emanation. According to Farabi, God, in contemplating himself, emanates an intellect from himself and from this intellect, which contemplates itself, emanates the Second Intellect, and so forth until the Tenth Intellect, which Farabi calls the “Agent Intellect.” These intellects, for Farabi, provide the intermediary world between the incorporeal world and ours, the world of generation and corruption.

Al-Farabi, who interprets Aristotle’s account of the intellects in his own way, argues that Aristotle believes in four different intellects. These intellects are: Intellect in Potentiality, which he identifies with the human soul and its ability to think; Intellect in Actuality, which is their realization within the corporeal world of the intelligible; the Acquired Intellect, which to him is attained when the intellect in actuality reflects upon the intelligible; and finally there is the Agent Intellect, which is the cause of thinking.

Al-Farabi is perhaps the greatest logician of Islam. He undertook an extensive study and critique of the entire Aristotelian Organon. His principal contributions to logic were his analysis of principles of syllogistic reduction, his emphasis on hypothetical and disjunctive syllogisms (arguments involving “if ... then ...” and “either ... or ...” premises), his discussion of induction, and his account of the use of the categorical syllogism in arguments by analogy. In addition to these significant contributions, he also offered an in-depth treatment of the status of future contingencies and the determination of future events.

Post-Farabi Muslim logicians remained under his influence. Even those who modified or criticized his views often came to know of Aristotle through his eyes. The most notable example is Ibn Sina (Avicenna), who was highly influenced by Farabi’s view on logic.

Al-Farabi believed that there is but one fundamental religion and that the various religions were manifestations of it. Affirming the truth of all religions, al-Farabi maintained that each religion is applicable to its particular milieu. All religions, therefore, are like points on the circumference of a circle aiming at the center, which is God. What differentiates people is not the variety of religions they profess, but ignorance of the fact that all persons are manifestations of God on different planes of reality and at different stages of spiritual progress.

Expanding upon the oneness of truth, Farabi elaborates on the notion of prophecy. Farabi’s interpretation of prophecy, a view that brought condemnation from orthodox scholars, led him to consider a prophet as someone who has mastered philosophy as well as spirituality. A prophet in Farabi’s view is a perfect human being, one who has actualized all of that person’s intellectual and spiritual potentialities. According to Farabi, the traditional concept of prophecy, in which God chooses a prophet based on his own will, is incorrect.

Once human perfection is attained, the prophet assumes two responsibilities, being a philosopher and being a statesman. The acquired intellect of the philosopher through its contact with the Agent Intellect brings about illumination, which Farabi identifies as revelation (wahy). The prophet, in addition to being a perfect philosopher, is a perfect statesman whose primary responsibility is to govern the state justly. In order to govern, the prophet must use his illuminated intellect to make decisions that will insure the common good of the people.

For Farabi, the philosophical mind at the peak of its development becomes like matter to the Active Intellect. Prophets are those who have attained this state and go beyond the philosophical truth to imaginative truth, which is then transformed into symbols, figures, and actions, through which societies can be moved towards a greater degree of moral insight and ethical practice.

Since all things come into being from a single cause, Farabi declares, a good state follows the principle of having a prophet-philosopher as the ruler, and hence the cause of the good state. The prophetic aspect of the ruler enables him to communicate with the masses, who understand only the language of persuasion. The prophet’s philosophical side, on the other hand, allows the prophet as ruler to speak to the intellectual elite, who can understand reasoning and will accept only that which is rationally justifiable. This view of the prophet as ruler also implies that the principles of religion ultimately are consistent with philosophical principles and that the apparent inconsistency between religion and philosophy stems from the failure to realize that each one is designed for a different task.

According to Farabi, the human being has an innate yearning for community life, and as such attains happiness only within the state. Following Plato, Farabi believes that people are happy if and only if they fulfill the function for which they were created. Since human beings are unequal in that they have various capacities for service, it is therefore the responsibility of the state to insure that its citizens are placed where their true nature can best be utilized.

Like Plato in the Republic, Farabi models his ideal state after the human body. As a natural model in which there exists a hierarchy consisting of mind, spirit, and body. The highest level in this hierarchy -- the mind -- has a natural right to dominate and harmonize the lower levels. In government, accordingly, the prophet is the “unruled ruler,” who governs by virtue of his divine wisdom.

Some historians of philosophy contend that Farabi was likely a Shi‘ite since he was patronized by Sayf ad-Dawlah, a Shi‘ite king, and therefore his political philosophy should be viewed in that context. That is, the ruler of the Farabian state would resemble a Shi‘ite imam, who as possessor of divine wisdom, with access to esoteric truth, is therefore qualified to rule.

Since a good state is a natural state and it is only natural for human beings to want to be happy, it is the responsibility of the state to insure that its citizens be happy, according to Farabi. He treats the subject of happiness and its attainment extensively.

There are three alternative interpretations of the nature of happiness according to Farabi: happiness as a purely theoretical activity, happiness as a practical activity exclusively, and happiness as a harmonious combination of the theoretical and the practical.

Arguing that theoretical excellence brings about practical excellence, Farabi concludes that it is the task of philosophy to actualize the perfection of the theoretical. Accordingly, Farabi argues that human perfection as the ultimate goal is achieved by a rapprochement of theoretical and practical reason. Although Farabi contended that theoretical perfection is to be sought through metaphysical inquiry, there are indications that Farabi believed that, practically speaking, theoretical perfection could not be attained even in the best of cases.

Although the practical component of happiness is presented by Farabi as a private activity of a moral nature, true happiness, according to him, is possible only within the context of a society. Thus, Farabi emphasizes the necessity of a perfect political order and a supreme ruler whose virtuous character can bestow happiness upon the citizens. The purpose of life for Farabi is the full development of the rational faculty and the attainment of truth through philosophical contemplation. Such an end in life can be fulfilled only in well-organized societies wherein just rulers govern. However, to be just one needs the type of theoretical wisdom that makes it possible to devise practical laws. Farabi states that those societies that are governed by rulers who are the repositories of philosophical wisdom are “good societies," while others are "ignorant" or “misguided" societies.


Abu al-Nasr Muhammad ibn al-Farakh al-Farabi see Farabi
Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi see Farabi
Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Tarkhan ibn Uzalagh al-Farabi see Farabi
Avennasar see Farabi
Alfarabius see Farabi
Second Teacher see Farabi

Dinawari

Dinawari
Dinawari (Abu Hanifa al-Dinawari) (Abu Hanifah Ahmad ibn Dawud Dinawari) (828-896). Arab scholar of Iranian origin. Among other works, he wrote a well-known history [Akhbâr al-tiwâl ("General History")] from a Persian point of view.

Ābu Ḥanīfah Āḥmad ibn Dawūd Dīnawarī was a Persian polymath excelling as much in astronomy, agriculture, botany and metallurgy and as he did in geography, mathematics and history. He was born in Dinawar, (halfway between Hamadan and Kermanshah in western Iran). He studied astronomy, mathematics and mechanics in Isfahan and philology and poetry in Kufa and Basra. He died on July 24, 896 at Dinawar. His most renowned contribution is Book of Plants, for which he is considered the founder of Arabic botany. He is also considered among the very first writers to discuss the ancestry of the Kurds. He wrote a book about this subject called Ansâb al-Akrâd (Ancestry of the Kurds).

Dinawari's Akhbâr al-tiwâl ("General History") has been edited and published numerous times, but has not been translated into a Western language.

On the other hand, al-Dinawari is considered the founder of Arabic botany for his Kitab al-Nabat (Book of Plants), which consisted of six volumes. Only the third and fifth volumes have survived, though the sixth volume has partly been reconstructed based on citations from later works. In the surviving portions of his works, 637 plants are described. He also discusses plant evolution from its birth to its death, describing the phases of plant growth and the production of flowers and fruit.

Parts of al-Dinawari's Book of Plants deals with the applications of Islamic astronomy and meteorology to agriculture. It describes the astronomical and meteorological character of the sky, the planets and constellations, the sun and moon, the lunar phases indicating seasons and rain, the anwa (heavenly bodies of rain), and atmospheric phenomena such as winds, thunder, lightning, snow, floods, valleys, rivers, lakes, wells and other sources of water.

Parts of al-Dinawari's Book of Plants deals with the Earth sciences in the context of agriculture. He considers the Earth, stone and sands, and describes different types of ground, indicating which types are more convenient for plants and the qualities and properties of good ground.

The works al-Dinawari include:

In mathematics and the natural sciences:

1. Kitâb al-jabr wa'l-muqâbila ("Book of Algebra")
2. Kitâb al-nabât ("Book of Plants")
3. Kitâb al-kusuf ("Book of Solar Eclipses")
4. Kitâb al-radd alâ rasad al-Isfahâni ("Refutation of al-Isfahani's Astronomical Observations")
5. Kitâb al-hisâb ("Book of Arithmetics")
6. Bahth fi hisâb al-Hind ("Analysis of Indian Arithmetics")
7. Kitâb al-jam' wa'l-tafriq ("Book of Arithmetics")
8. Kitab al-qibla wa'l-ziwal ("Book of Astral Orientations")
9. Kitâb al-anwâ' ("Book of Weather")
10. Islâh al-mantiq ("Improvement upon Logic")

In the social sciences and humanities:

1. Akhbâr al-tiwâl ("General History")
2. Kitâb al-kabir ("Grand Book" in history of sciences)
3. Kitâb al-fisâha ("Book of Rhetorics")
4. Kitâb al-buldân ("Book of Geography")
5. Kitâb al-shi'r wa'l-shu'arâ ("Book of Poetry and Poets")
6. Ansâb al-Akrâd ("Ancestry of the Kurds").


Abu Hanifa al-Dinawari see Dinawari
Abu Hanifah Ahmad ibn Dawud Dinawarisee Dinawari