The leading Arabic Aristotelian of the tenth century, who wrote his own Kitāb Īsāghūjī ay al-Madkhal on the five universals.
Life
All sources agree on his name, Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Fārābī. His nisba points to the district of Fārāb on the middle Syr Darya, though Ibn al-Nadīm places his origins in Fāryāb in Khurasan, and it is not certain that he was born there. The Stanford Encyclopedia gives his birth as probably 870 (257 AH); the Encyclopaedia Iranica gives no birth date and treats the later report of his age at death as unreliable.
He studied with the Christian cleric Yūḥannā ibn Ḥaylān, probably in Baghdad, where he lived until late 330/942. He then moved to Syria and taught in Aleppo, visited Egypt in 337/948–9, and died in Damascus in Rajab 339 (December 950 or January 951). His students included Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī.
Al-Fārābī was the outstanding of the Baghdad Aristotelians, though not himself a translator. He commented on many of Aristotle’s logical works and wrote widely on the sciences, language and politics. He is known as ‘the second master’, Aristotle being the first.
Uncertain or disputed
- Birthplace (Fārāb or Fāryāb) and birth year are not certain; Iranica rejects the later claims about his ethnic origin.
- Ibn Khallikān names Abū Bishr Mattā as one of his teachers; Iranica considers this a plausible invention.
Works
- Kitāb Īsāghūjī ay al-Madkhal كِتَابُ إِيسَاغُوجِي أَيِ المَدْخَلِ — on PorphyryAn introduction on the topics of Porphyry’s Isagoge: the five universals and their relations, with brief treatments of singular and universal terms, the proposition and definition, which Porphyry only touched on (Aydınlı). Ibn Bājja wrote a taʿlīq on it (TDV). English translation by D. M. Dunlop (1956); studied by T. Kleven (2013).work
Reception
Ibn Bājja wrote a (taʿlīq) on it, and modern study of the work reads it in the light of his remarks (TDV, Aydınlı).
A Bodleian manuscript once ascribed to al-Fārābī as a on the Isagoge was shown to be the work of Ibn al-Ṭayyib (TDV; BSOAS article).
Sources (7)
- Encyclopaedia Iranica, ‘Fārābī i. Biography’
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ‘al-Farabi’
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ‘al-Farabi’s Philosophy of Logic and Language’
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ‘Arabic and Islamic Philosophy of Language and Logic’ (Tony Street)
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, ‘ÎSÂGŪCÎ’ (Abdulkuddüs Bingöl)
- Yaşar Aydınlı, ‘Fârâbî’nin “Kitâbu Îsâgûcî ey el-Medhal” Adlı Eseri’, Diyanet İlmî Dergi 52/1 (2016)
- ‘Ibn al-Ṭayyib’s commentary on the Isagoge’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (Cambridge Core)