Alfarabi, The Political Writings

Biography

The existing variations in the basic accounts of al-Farabi's origins and pedigree indicate that they were not recorded during his lifetime or soon thereafter by anyone with concrete information, but were based on hearsay or guesses (as is the case with other contemporaries of al-Farabi). Little is known about his life. Early sources include an autobiographical passage where al-Farabi traces the history of logic and philosophy up to his time, and brief mentions by al-Masudi, Ibn al-Nadim and Ibn Hawqal. Said al-Andalusi wrote a biography of al-Farabi. Arabic biographers of the 12th–13th centuries thus had few facts to hand, and used invented stories about his life.[32]

From incidental accounts it is known that he spent significant time (most of his scholarly life) in Baghdad with Syriac Christian scholars,[K] including the cleric Yuhanna ibn Haylan, Yahya ibn Adi, and Abu Ishaq Ibrahim al-Baghdadi. He later spent time in Damascus and in Egypt before returning to Damascus where he died in 950-1.[33]

His name was Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Farabi,[32] sometimes with the family surname al-Tarkhani, i.e., the element Tarkhan appears in a nisba.[32] His grandfather was not known among his contemporaries, but a name Awzalagh,[L] in Arabic, suddenly appears later in the writings of Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, and of his great-grandfather in those of Ibn Khallikan.[32]

His birthplace could have been any one of the many places in Central Asia—then known by the name of Khurasan. The word "farab" is a Persian term for a locale that is irrigated by effluent springs or flows from a nearby river. Thus, there are many places that carry the name (or various evolutions of that hydrological/geological toponym) in that general area, such as Farab (Otrar) on the Jaxartes (Syr Darya) in modern Kazakhstan; Farab, an still-extant village in suburbs of the city of Chaharjuy/Amul (modern Türkmenabat) on the Oxus Amu Darya in Turkmenistan, on the Silk Road, connecting Merv to Bukhara, or Faryab in Greater Khorasan (modern day Afghanistan). The older Persian[32] Parab (in Hudud ul-'alam) or Faryab (also Paryab), is a common Persian toponym meaning "lands irrigated by diversion of river water".[34][35]

Background

Iranian stamp with al-Farabi's imagined face

While scholars largely agree that his ethnic background is not knowable,[32][36][37][38] Al-Farabi has also been described as being of either Persian or Turkic origin. Medieval Arab historian Ibn Abi Usaibia (died in 1270)—one of al-Farabi's oldest biographer—mentions in his Uyun that al-Farabi's father was of Persian descent.[32][39] Al-Shahrazuri, who lived around 1288 and has written an early biography, also states that al-Farabi hailed from a Persian family.[40][41] According to Majid Fakhry, an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University, al-Farabi's father "was an army captain of Persian extraction."[42] A Persian origin has been stated by many other sources as well.[43] Dimitri Gutas notes that Farabi's works contain references and glosses in Persian, Sogdian, and even Greek, but not Turkish.[32][44] Sogdian has also been suggested as his native language[45] and the language of the inhabitants of Farab.[46] Muhammad Javad Mashkoor argues for an Iranian-speaking Central Asian origin.[47] According to Christoph Baumer, he was probably a Sogdian.[48] According to Thérèse-Anne Druart, writing in 2020, "Scholars have disputed his ethnic origin. Some claimed he was Turkish but more recent research points to him being a Persian."[49]

al-Farabi on the currency of the Republic of Kazakhstan

The oldest known reference to a Turkic origin is given by the medieval historian Ibn Khallikan (died in 1282), who in his work Wafayat (completed in 669/1271) states that al-Farabi was born in the small village of Wasij near Farab (in what is today Otrar, Kazakhstan) of Turkic parents. Based on this account, some scholars say he is of Turkic origin.[50][51][52][53][54][55] Dimitri Gutas, an American Arabist, criticizes this, saying that Ibn Khallikan's account is aimed at the earlier historical accounts by Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, and serves the purpose to "prove" a Turkic origin for al-Farabi, for instance by mentioning the additional nisba (surname) "al-Turk" (arab. "the Turk")—a nisba al-Farabi never had.[32] However, Abu al-Feda, who copied Ibn Khallekan, corrected this and changed al-Torkī to the phrase "wa-kana rajolan torkiyan", meaning "he was a Turkish man."[32] In this regard, since works of such supposed Turks lack traces of Turkic nomadic culture, Oxford professor C.E. Bosworth notes that "great figures [such] as Farabi, Biruni, and Avicenna have been attached by over enthusiastic Turkish scholars to their race".[56]

Life and education

Al-Farabi spent most of his scholarly life in Baghdad. In the autobiographical passage preserved by Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, al-Farabi stated that he had studied logic, medicine and sociology with Yuhanna ibn Haylan up to and including Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, i.e., according to the order of the books studied in the curriculum, al-Farabi was claiming that he had studied Porphyry's Eisagoge and Aristotle's Categories, De Interpretatione, Prior and Posterior Analytics. His teacher, Yuhanna bin Haylan, was a Nestorian cleric. This period of study was probably in Baghdad, where al-Mas'udi records that Yuhanna died during the reign of al-Muqtadir (295-320/908-32). In his Appearance of Philosophy (Fī Ẓuhūr al-Falsafa), al-Farabi tells us:[57]

Philosophy as an academic subject became widespread in the days of the Ptolemaic kings of the Greeks after the death of Aristotle in Alexandria until the end of the woman’s reign [i.e., Cleopatra’s]. The teaching of it continued unchanged in Alexandria after the death of Aristotle through the reign of thirteen kings ... Thus it went until the coming of Christianity. Then the teaching came to an end in Rome while it continued in Alexandria until the king of the Christians looked into the matter. The bishops assembled and took counsel together on which parts of [philosophy] teaching were to be left in place and which were to be discontinued. They formed the opinion that the books on logic were to be taught up to the end of the assertoric figures [Prior Analytics, I.7] but not what comes after it, since they thought that would harm Christianity. Teaching the rest [of the logical works] remained private until the coming of Islam when the teaching was transferred from Alexandria to Antioch. There it remained for a long time until only one teacher was left. Two men learned from him, and they left, taking the books with them. One of them was from Harran, the other from Marw. As for the man from Marw, two men learned from him..., Ibrahim al-Marwazi and Yuhanna ibn Haylan. [Al-Farabi then says he studied with Yuhanna ibn Haylan up to the end of the Posterior Analytics].

He was in Baghdad at least until the end of September 942, as recorded in notes in his Mabādeʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāżela.[E] He finished the book in Damascus the following year (331), i.e., by September 943). He also lived and taught for some time in Aleppo. Al-Farabi later visited Egypt, finishing six sections summarizing the book Mabādeʾ,[M] in Egypt in 337/July 948 – June 949 when he returned to Syria, where he was supported by Sayf al-Dawla, the Hamdanid ruler. Al-Mas'udi, writing barely five years after the fact (955-6, the date of the composition of the Tanbīh), says that al-Farabi died in Damascus in Rajab 339 (between 14 December 950 and 12 January 951).[32]


This content is from Wikipedia. GradeSaver is providing this content as a courtesy until we can offer a professionally written study guide by one of our staff editors. We do not consider this content professional or citable. Please use your discretion when relying on it.