An Insight into the Life of Al-Farabi

Introduction:
Born in Farab on 870 AD (approximately), Abu Nasr al-Farabi was a Muslim philosopher, logician and a significant political scientist. He took his major education in Baghdad and then after gaining the command over Arabic language he spent a considerable time under his teacher who was a Christian savant named as Abu Bishr Matta bin Younusand. Al-Farbi in this life also lived at various places including Syria, Egypt and wrote a few books during his stays. In the world of philosophy he is referred as the “Second Teacher” (Aristotle being the first) because of his vast analysis on Aristotle and his work in logic. He is also titled as the “Father” of Islamic Neoplatonism because he was the first Islamic philosopher to draw a line between philosophy and religion, and he also gave priority to reason over revelation as a source of truth. 

Al- Farabi also made a huge contribution in the shape of his books named as Kitab al-musiqa al-kabir (The Great Book of Music), Madina al-fadila (The Virtuous City), Risala fi'l-'aql (Epistle on the Intellect), Kitab al-huruf (The Book of Letters) and Kitab ihsa' al-'ulum (The Book of the Enumeration of the Sciences). He then died in 950 AD (approximately) even though the cause of his death is not clear, some accounts show him dying naturally in Damascus while the other opinion that exists is that he was killed rather than dying naturally. In general also, very little is known about the personal life of Al-Farabi because unlike other few thinkers he did not write his autobiography.

Views of Al-Farabi

Al-Farabi in general can be discussed from many aspects, but if we consider the political views of Al-Farabi then we can deduce that he was a fine political scientist and had a keen interest in the field of Islamic political history and kept very strong and clear views on the concept of ideal state and the form of its head.

Ideal State:

According to Al-Farabi, the city of Medina was in its ideal state when Muhammad (PBUH) was alive and he himself was heading the state but after he left this world, in his absence democracy is the closest form of the ideal state. Al-Farabi has given his analysis on both of the cases the head of virtuous as well as of the non-virtuous cities, the Imam will be the one who will be the ruler of the virtuous city and also of the entire world in general. Here, Al-Farabi also opposed the idea of Plato as philosopher-king being the ruler by adding more Islamic context to it with philosopher-Imam being the ruler.

Considering the virtuous city first, according to Al-Farabi the one meeting the following qualifications is eligible to become the ruler of virtuous city:

• The ruler should be physically fine in order to perform the duties in an efficient manner.
• The ruler should be mentally sound in order to understand everything and respond accordingly.
• He should be able to keep things in his mind, whatever is sees, hear, or understands and should be intelligent in order to grasp things quickly.
• He should have the personality through which he can get the things done promptly without giving much justifications and getting into huge discussions.
• He should have strong love for seeking knowledge and the ability to communicate the exact thing that he want to, without any problem.
• He should be the one always striving for good deeds and not even thinking of travelling through the wrong path.
• He should not be very much quick reactive, he should be able to control himself. Whether it be anger or any sort of passion, self-control is required.
• He should keep a very clear opinion against injustice and should always follow the path of justice, and also should be able to take fair decisions.
• He should have no interest and love for the money and the physical goods present in this world.
• He should be brave to take decisions, and being firm he should not step back once the decision is taken.

Virtuous city

Al- Farabi in continuation to this, has given his views specifically about the virtuous city that it is the political framework through which the ultimate goal of the humans that is happiness will be accomplished, and we can only have virtuous world when the people will co-operate with each other in a community in order to achieve happiness. Here Al-Farabhi opinions about the people of this city that they are held together for few purposes, like at the first place they should gain the knowledge about the actual cause of our existence and then should also gain knowledge about the material things in this world. This is also similar to the concept that first should obtain information about the spiritual existence and then about the physical one.