Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi (Arabic: أبو نصر محمد الفارابي, romanized: Abū Naṣr Muḥammad al-Fārābī; c. 870[1][H]— 14 December 950–12 January 951),[2] known in the Latin West as Alpharabius,[3][I] was an early Islamic philosopher and music theorist.[4] He has been designated as "Father of Islamic Neoplatonism",[5] and the "Founder of Islamic Political Philosophy".[6]
Al-Farabi's fields of philosophical interest included—but not limited to, philosophy of society and religion;[7] philosophy of Language and Logic;[8] psychology and epistemology;[9] metaphysics,[10] political philosophy,[11] and ethics.[12] He was an expert in both practical musicianship and music theory,[13] and although he was not intrinsically a scientist,[14] his works incorporate astronomy,[15] mathematics,[16] cosmology,[17] and physics.[18]
Al-Farabi is credited as the first Muslim who presented philosophy as a coherent system in the Islamic world,[19] and created a philosophical system of his own,[20] which developed a philosophical system that went far beyond the scholastic interests of his Greco-Roman Neoplatonism and Syriac Aristotelian precursors.[21][J] That he was more than a pioneer in Islamic philosophy,[22] can be deduced from the habit of later writers calling him the "Second Master",[23][24][C] with Aristotle as the first.
Al-Farabi's impact on philosophy is undeniable, to name a few, Yahya ibn Adi, Abu Sulayman Sijistani, Abu al-Hassan al-Amiri, and Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi;[25] Avicenna, Suhrawardi, and Mulla Sadra;[26] Avempace, Ibn Tufail, and Averroes;[27] Maimonides,[28] Albertus Magnus,[29] and Leo Strauss.[30] He was known in the Latin West,[31] as well as the Islamic world.
