The Political Writings: "Selected Aphorisms" and Other Texts (Agora Editions)

by Al-Farabi (Editor), Charles E. Butterworth (Translator)

Alfarabi was among the first to explore the tensions between the philosophy of classical Greece and that of Islam, as well as of religion generally. His writings, extraordinary in their breadth and deep learning, have had a profound impact on Islamic and Jewish philosophy. This volume presents four of Alfarabi's most important texts, making his political thought available to classicists, medievalists, and scholars of religion and Byzantine and Middle Eastern studies. In a clear prose translation by Charles E. Butterworth, these treatises provide a valuable introduction to the teachings of Alfarabi and to the development of Islamic political philosophy. All of these texts are based on new Arabic editions. Two― The Book of Religion and Harmonization of the Two Opinions of the Two Sages, Plato the Divine and Aristotle ―appear in English for the first time. The translations of the other two works― Selected Aphorisms and chapter five of the Enumeration of the Sciences ―differ markedly from those previously known to English-language readers. Butterworth situates each essay in its historical, literary, and philosophical context. His notes help the reader follow Alfarabi's text and identify persons, places, and events. English-Arabic and Arabic-English glossaries of terms further assist the reader.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Islam, Political Science

179 pages, Paperback

First published July 25, 1985

About the author

Al-Farabi (/ˌælfəˈrɑːbi/; Arabic: ابو نصر محمد بن محمد فارابی Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Al Fārābī;, known in the West as Alpharabius (c. 872[2] in Fārāb – between 14 December, 950 and 12 January, 951 in Damascus), Born c. 872 Fārāb on the Jaxartes (Syr Darya) in modern Kazakhstan or Faryāb in Khorāsān (modern day Afghanistan) and Died in Damascus, Syria
He was a renowned philosopher and jurist who wrote in the fields of political philosophy, metaphysics, ethics and logic. He was also a scientist, cosmologist, mathematician and music scholar.
In Arabic philosophical tradition, he is known with the honorific "the Second Master", after Aristotle. He is credited with preserving the original Greek texts during the Middle Ages because of his commentaries and treatises, and influencing many prominent philosophers, like Avicenna and Maimonides. Through his works, he became well-known in the East as well as the West.

Reviews

[naseer yahya]

i dont know how many times ive read this book; and i still find myself reading it again - ive had dreams about it repeatedly... the framework of abu nasr was the most inspired ive been by any thought since islam itself... far from being just a neo-platonist... his subtlety is powerful; and organization mind-blowing in my opinion...

[Mike Arrani]

Idk why I decided to read this in the first place, as I'm not very interested in politics. This draws heavily from Platonism and Aristotelianism, but doesn't really provide much fundamentally original thought. He takes some of the less interesting and presently outdated ideas from Plato, such as an advocacy for the monarchy of enlightened rulers, and grounds the otherwise more interesting spiritual and metaphysical ideas in materialism. It is evident that he's more a fan of Aristotle than Plato and tries to downplay or degrade Plato's ideas to make them match Aristotle's and the Islamic worldview.

I think ultimately Al-Farabi's work at its best is a systematization and polemic of Greek ideas. At its worst it's a bastardization of them.

[Jaba Zautashvili]

Al-Farabi obviously did his homework (Plato & Aristotle).