Encyclopedia of Philosophy: AL-R-Z/ AND AL-F-R-B/

« cultural particularities.

Political philosophy includes consideration of the relations between philosophy and religion,which for al-F&r&b( meant the defence of philosophy.

A number of his works fit into this class.

The Enumeration ofthe Sciences surveys the encyclopaedia of scientific knowledge which the Arabs have built up through theirphilology, their translations from the Greek and their own creative work: grammar and linguistics, logic, mathematics(in the broad sense of the quadrivium along with mechanics), physics, metaphysics, politics and two exclusivelyIslamic branches of knowledge: fiqh or jurisprudence and kal&m, defensive or polemical theology (about which al-F&r&b( manifests considerable reserve, whereas he recognizes the usefulness of fiqh).

Although the chapters onthese two Islamic subjects seem not to fit in with the rest of the work, al¬F&r&b( had promised, in his prologue, todeal with the branches of knowledge ‘which are being followed at the present time', a qualification which now isseen to have its rationale.

The Agreement of the Two Sages is intended to show that, despite appearances to thecontrary, Plato and Aristotle do not contradict each other.

This subtle, at times even enigmatic work, is at leastclear in its aim.

Starting from a definition and analysis of the content of philosophy, it attempts to reveal a deepunity among the main doctrines which make it up and so to assert its value against those who attack it, andguarantee its place in the field of knowledge and thought.

Side by side with this treatise is the collection consistingof The Attainment of Happiness, The Philosophy of Plato and The Philosophy of Aristotle ([2.3], [2.4]).During the course of his life, al-F&r&b( was able to observe the crumbling of the Abb&ssid caliphate's power.

Inevery part of the empire minor, practically independent princely dynasties sprang up.

During al-Muqtadir's caliphate(298/908 to 320/930) there were thirteen vizirs, amd two rival caliphates were formed: the Fatimid in Egypt and theUmayyad in Spain.

Between al-Muqtadir's death and al-F&r&b('s own, four caliphs were overthrown or assassinated.Not unexpectedly, then, al-F&r&b( was aware of the importance of politics and the philosophical problems posed byit.

They formed the subject of many of his works, and were emphasized even in books of his which also dealt withother areas.

His most extensive political work is called Principles of the Opinions of the Citizens of the Best City.Here al-F&r&b( considers the city and its government by placing it within a wider scheme of macrocosm andmicrocosm, in which the structure of the greater and lesser worlds is seen to be similar at every level.

Thisstructure is hierarchical: its elements (the celestial spheres,the faculties of the soul, the bodily organs, the inhabitants of cities) are each seen to depend on somethingsuperior, which is the basis for their initial and continuing existence.

Al-F&r&b( gives a clear description of theemanation of the celestial intelligences and their spheres, one which Avicenna will copy and fill out in detail.

Thecity should be organized and run by a legislator who combines being ‘wise, prudent and a philosopher'.

From theagent Intellect there come into the legislator's potential intellect the intelligible forms which make up his knowledge,whilst also putting his imagination to work so that he becomes an ‘annunciatory prophet', who can inculcate thebest laws in the people through persuasion and thus achieve the aim of political science: to establish the happinessof the city.

The legislator will, then, be both philosopher and prophet: he will combine philosophy and religion.Especially in the Book of Letters and the Book of Religion, al-F&r&b( asserts the priority of philosophy to religion,which ‘follows' it: ‘good religious laws are subordinate to the universal principles of practical philosophy'.

Religion issubordinate to philosophy in the way that imagination is to the intellect, and persuasive discourse to demonstration.These ideas are linked to various ancient philosophical themes: Platonic (the role of the legislator) and Aristotelian(the position of rhetoric).

Al-F&r&b( is certainly nearer than al-R&z( to the Islamic view of religion and the state, inthat he accepts the existence of prophets and gives a rational explanation for it.

But, by sharp contrast with al-Kind(, his doctrine is laicized: it keeps the form of Islam but subverts its content.

The philosophical religion aboutwhich he theorizes ends by placing the philosophical theology of the Greek philosophers above the teaching of God'smessengers ([2.8]).This is not the place for a history of Islamic theology (the kal&m), nor even a sketch of it.

This kind of speculativetheology began even before the end of the first century, the product of the need to express and defend in formallanguage the truths first formulated in the Qu'r&n.

Its main themes included the structure of created being, therelation of human actions to God's absolute power and how God should be conceived.

Only the Mu‘tazilite school,which began in the second century, need be mentioned here, since it was the first to deal with the central points oftheology and arrange them into a doctrinal whole; and since, moreover, its exponents were accused of being closeto the fal&sifah.

The Mu‘tazilites—who differed between themselves on many matters—were agreed that the goodcan be known by reason, apart from revelation; that man creates his own acts.

They emphasized the absolute unityof God: his names are many, but not his attributes.

And some of them engaged in profound speculations about thestatus of non-existing things (for instance, things before God created them, or those things which God knows willnever exist).

These are genuinelyphilosophical themes, and it is legitimate to speak of a metaphysics or physics of the kal&m—but one which has acharacteristic vocabulary, set of concepts and structure different from those of falsafah.

Their paths are differentbut, quite often, they intersect.

Without some knowledge of the kal&m, there are important features of Arabicphilosophy which will not be properly understood ([2.21], [2.39]).At the same period there were other writers connected in one way or another with the central tradition of falasfah.First, the collective work of the Ikhw&n al-¬af&' (Brothers of Purity) should be mentioned.

It was producedthroughout the tenth century AD.

It consists of fifty¬two letters, written in a style which is more accessible andpersuasive than that of the philosophers and theologians.

Taken together, the letters make up an encyclopaediawhich is Neoplatonic in its arrangement and concepts, spiritual in content and religious in its basis.

The Ikhw&nshould be placed within Shi‘ism or, rather, on its edges, since they were Isma‘(lites.

Theirs was an hierarchicalorganization of initiates.

Although they therefore have a rather special place within Islam as a whole, their methodof speculation illustrates how the Shi‘ites accepted far more readily than the Sunnis the connection betweenphilosophy and religion.

Like the Mu‘tazilites, the Ikhw&n held that truth was originally given in a divine revelationwitnessed by the philosophical sages as well as the prophets.

Whilst it is just to compare this idea to lateNeoplatonism, it also has a precise place in the intellectual and spiritual history of Islam in this particular period.

Onthe one hand, it provided a way to recognize the value of ancient traditions, especially those in what was now the. »