Abu Nasr Al-Farabi

Who is Abu Nasr Al-Farabi?

Abu Nasr Al-Farabi was born in the city of Farab (also called Otrar), on the Syr Darya river in what is now southern Kazakhstan, and became one of the most influential philosophers of the Islamic Golden Age. He studied and later taught in Baghdad, Damascus, and Aleppo, mastering logic, metaphysics, political philosophy, and music theory. His extensive commentaries on Aristotle earned him the honorific "the Second Teacher" (after Aristotle himself), and his synthesis of Platonic and Aristotelian thought with Islamic philosophy shaped subsequent generations of scholars including Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and, through Latin translation, medieval European thinkers. His treatise Al-Madina al-Fadila (The Virtuous City) outlined a model of an ideal, philosophically governed society, while his Kitab al-Musiqa al-Kabir (The Great Book of Music) was a foundational work of music theory in the Islamic world. Kazakhstan honors him as a symbol of the region's historical contribution to world scholarship; the country's largest university, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University in Almaty, bears his name.

Sources: Al-Farabi, Al-Madina al-Fadila (The Virtuous City), 10th century · Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture (Routledge, 1998) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, entry on "al-Farabi"