Major Works

• Book of the Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City

  - Recommended edition: Al Farabi. Alfarabi on the Perfect State. Trans. Walzer, Richard. New York, NY. Oxford University Press, 1985.
  From Book Review: “Farabi is Islam’s first and, pace Ibn Sina, perhaps greatest Islamic Neoplatonist. He is certainly more original than his successor who leaned heavily upon him. Farabi in The Virtuous City produced a work “written by a… More

• The Book of Letters

  - Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings. Ed. Muhammad Ali Khalidi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
  Excerpt: “The capacities for dialectic, sophistry, and for the uncertain or dubious philosophy must precede the capacity for the certain philosophy, which is demonstrative philosophy, since one becomes aware of demonstrations after these others (i.e.… More

• Book of Religion

  - Alfarabi: The Political Writings. Trans. Charles Butterworth. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001.
  Excerpt: “1. Religion is opinions and actions, determined and restricted with stipulations and prescribed for a community by their first ruler, who seeks to obtain through their practicing it a specific purpose with respect to them or by means of them.… More

• Selected Aphorisms

  - Alfarabi: The Political Writings. Trans. Charles Butterworth. Contains Selected Aphorisms. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001.
  Introduction by Translator: “In the Selected Aphorisms, Al Farabi begins with, then develops, a comparison between the health of the soul and that of the body. That is, somewhat abruptly, he starts his exposition by defining the health of each and… More

• Political Regime

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  • Part one found in:   Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources. Trans. Jon McGinnis and David C. Reisman. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co. Inc., 2007.
  • Part two found in:   Medieval Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook. 2nd. Edition. Eds. Joshua Parens and Joseph C. MacFarland. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011.
  Excerpt: 1. The principles by which the six types of bodies and accidents subsist are divided into six major levels, each one comprising a single kind. The First Cause is in the first level. The secondary causes are in the second. The active intellect is in… More

• Enumeration of the Sciences

  - Alfarabi. The Political Writings. Translated by Charles Butterworth. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001.  
  From the publisher: 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… More

Commentary

• Alfarabi

  - Muhsin Mahdi, "Alfarabi" in History of Political Philosophy, eds. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1987.
  Excerpt: “Alfarabi was the first philosopher who sought to confront, to relate, and as far as possible to harmonize classical political philosophy with Islam – a religion that was revealed through a prophet-legislator (Muhammed) in the form of a… More