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

• The Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle

  - Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Trans. Muhsin Mahdi. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1962.
  Excerpt: “1. First he investigated the human things that make man enviable as to which of them constitutes the perfection of man as man, for every being has a perfection. Thus he investigated whether man’s perfection consists only in his having… 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

Other Works

• Directing the Attention to the Way to Happiness

  - Medieval Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook. 2nd. Edition. Eds. Joshua Parens and Joseph C. MacFarland. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011. pp. 13-53.
  Excerpt: “1. The human things through which nations and citizens of cities attain earthly happiness in this life and supreme happiness in the life beyond are of four kinds: theoretical virtues, deliberative virtues, moral virtues, and practical arts. 2.… More

Commentary

• Du Coran à la Philosophie

  - Langhade, Jacques. Du Coran à la Philosophie. Damas: Institut Français de Damas, 1994.
  Overview:  This extremely informative book offers a summary of Alfarabi’s teachings on language, religion, and philosophy, as well as extensive historical and religious background to them.

• Alfarabi and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy by Muhsin Mahdi

  - Mahdi, Muhsin. Alfarabi and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
  Overview:  The final work of perhaps the most important scholar of Alfarabi in the past generation was unfortunately left incomplete. The essays it contains, many of which have also been published elsewhere, are nonetheless extremely illuminating. Excerpt:… More

• Y-a-t-il une pensée politique dans le Kitāb al-Ḥurūf d’al-Fārābī?

  - Gannagé, Emma. “Y-a-t-il une pensée politique dans le Kitāb al-Ḥurūf d’al-Fārābī?” In Mélanges d’Université Saint-Joseph: Volume LVII 2004, pp. 229-257.
  Overview: Discusses some of the more puzzling aspects of the second chapter of the Book of Letters, such as the relationship between philosophy and religions and the political hierarchy of human arts.

• An Islamic Philosophy of Virtuous Religions by Joshua Parens

  - Parens, Joshua.  An Islamic Philosophy of Virtuous Religions: Introducing Alfarabi. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006.
  Overview: This cogent effort to situate al-Farabi’s thought within the broader context of the political conditions of the Islamic world contains good discussions of war, tyranny, religion, and world government. Excerpt: “Now more than at any time… More

• Milla in al-Fārābī and the Brethren of Purity

  - Heck, Paul L. “Milla in al-Fārābī and the Brethren of Purity.” In In the Age of Alfarabi: Arabic Philosophy in the Fourth/Tenth Century. Ed. Peter Adamson. London: Warburg Institute, 2008.
  Overview:  An effort to explain Alfarabi’s somewhat unusual attitude toward religion, and compare it with another important philosophical text from the same era. Volume Description: The papers in this volume were given at a conference held at the Warburg… More

• Escaping the Scholastic Paradigm: The Dispute between Strauss and His Contemporaries about How to Approach Islamic and Jewish Medieval Philosophy

  - Parens, Joshua.  “Escaping the Scholastic Paradigm: The Dispute between Strauss and His Contemporaries about How to Approach Islamic and Jewish Medieval Philosophy,” in Encountering the Medieval in Modern Jewish Thought, 203–227, eds. Aaron Hughes and James Diamond. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012.
  Overview: Shows how disputes over the interpretation of Alfarabi are linked to the larger issue of the difference between Christian and Judeo-Islamic thought. Excerpt: “At first it might appear to be a mere accident that many of the same contemporary… More