Janos-Method Structure and Development in Al Farabi's Cosmology

8/20/2019 Janos-Method Structure and Development in Al Farabi's Cosmology

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Method, Structure, and

Development in al-Fārābī’s

Cosmology

By

Damien Janos

LEIDEN • BOSTON2012


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Tis book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Janos, Damien. Method, structure, and development in al-Farabi’s cosmology / by Damien Janos. p. cm. -- (Islamic philosophy, theology, and science, ISSN 0169-8729 ; v. 85) Based on the author’s thesis (Ph. D.)--McGill University, 2009. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 978-90-04-20615-1 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Farabi. 2. Islamic cosmology. I. Title.

B753.F34J36 2012 181’.6--dc23

2011042136

ISSN 0169-8729ISBN 978 90 04 20615 1ISBN 978-90-04-21732-4 (e-book)

Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, e Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing,IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in aretrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NVprovided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to Te Copyright Clearance Center,222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.


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o my family and my wife Eurydice


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CONENS

Acknowledgements ....................................................................................xiAbbreviations ............................................................................................xiii

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1

I Cosmology, the Sciences, and the Scientific Method ........................11

1. e Late Antique Greek and Early Islamic Contexts ...................111.1. Some Biographical Notes ........................................................121.2. e Dual Legacy of Greek Astronomy and

Philosophy ................................................................................161.3. Early Islamic Cosmological Trends .......................................261.4. Cosmology in al-Fārābī’s Philosophical Treatises

and the Problem with Mahdi’s Hypothesis ...........................382. Astronomy and its Place in the Philosophical Curriculum ........43

2.1. Astronomy and Astrology and their Subject Matter ........... 44

2.2. Te Principles of Astronomy ..................................................572.3. e Primacy of Metaphysics and its Impact

on Cosmology ..........................................................................732.4. Al-Fārābī and the Later hay ʾah radition .............................82

3. Demonstration and Analogy: A Tension inal-Fārābī’s Method ............................................................................843.1. e Evidence for and against Demonstration ......................843.2. e Limits of Human Knowledge and the Role

of Analogy .................................................................................943.3. Transferred Terms (asmāʾ manqūlah) and

ransference (naqlah) ..............................................................984. Conclusion ......................................................................................111

II e Architecture of the Heavens: Intellects, Souls, and Orbs ......1151. e Celestial Bodies ......................................................................115

1.1. Orbs, Spheres, Planets, and Stars ........................................1151.2. Al-Fārābī and Ptolemy on the Planetary Models .............119

1.3. e Celestial Souls ................................................................1282. Te Separate Intellects ................................................................1422.1. Te Origin of al-Fārābī’s Ennadic Scheme .......................1422.2. A New Problem ...................................................................162


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viii

2.3. e Nature, Activity, and Knowledge of theSeparate Intellects ...............................................................167

2.4. e Special Case of the Agent Intellect ............................1742.5. Intellect and Form ...............................................................176

3. e First (al-awwal ) ....................................................................1804. Unity and Multiplicity .................................................................1905. Conclusion ...................................................................................201

III Matter and Creation: A Shi in Paradigms? .................................2031. Te Nature of Celestial Matter ...................................................203

1.1. Al-Fārābī’s Hylic erminology ..........................................203

1.2. A Survey of Celestial Matter in al-Fārābī’sPhilosophy ...........................................................................206

1.3. Four Explanations of al-Fārābī’s eoryof Substrate (mawd ụ̄ʿ) .........................................................222

2. e Origin of Matter: From Creationism to EternalCausation ......................................................................................2352.1. Aether and Creationism: An Exercise

in Harmonization ................................................................236

2.2. Ih ̣

s ̣

āʾ

and Aghrād ̣

: Two Transitional Works? ....................2562.3. A Common Cosmogonical Paradigm ..............................2662.4. Conclusion ...........................................................................2792.5. Falsafat Arist ụ̄t ạ̄līs ...............................................................2832.6. e Eternalist Paradigm: Ārā ʾ, Siyāsah, ah ṣ ị̄l,

Fus ụ̄l , and Fī l-ʿaql ...............................................................2862.7. Causation, Compositeness, and the Celestial

Substrate ...............................................................................3043. Strengthening the Developmentalist Hypothesis ....................312

4. Conclusion ...................................................................................325

IV Te Aporia of Celestial Motion.......................................................3331. e Various Motions of the Heavenly Bodies .........................3332. Te Causes of Celestial Motion .................................................339

2.1. Nature and Motion: An Impasse .......................................3392.2. Quwwah ...............................................................................3452.3. Intellection as a Cause of Motion .....................................348

3. e Problem of the Particular Motions of the Planets ...........355

3.1. Ibn Sīnā and the Dierent Models of PlanetaryMotion ..................................................................................356


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ix

3.2. A Hypothetical Reconstruction of al-Fārābī’sKinematic Model .................................................................362

3.3. Celestial Kinematics and the Classication of theSciences in falsafah .............................................................369

4. Conclusion ...................................................................................376

Conclusion ...............................................................................................379

Appendix 1 ...............................................................................................383Appendix 2 ...............................................................................................397Bibliography .............................................................................................403

Index .........................................................................................................427


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

is book grew out of my Ph.D. dissertation submitted to McGillUniversity in February 2009. While some of the views expressed areidentical, the bulk of the book has been rewritten and its structuredrastically modified. I have found it particularly challenging to achievethis task, and this for two main reasons. First, the scholarship onal-Fārābī is increasing rapidly, and it is difficult to keep track of all the

new studies being published on this fascinating and enigmatic thinker.In the mere two years since the completion of my dissertation, scores ofarticles have appeared, some of them of crucial relevance to the con-tents of this work. Second, virtually every aspect of al-Fārābī’s philo-sophical system is the object of controversy or serious disagreementamong scholars. Tis is true not only of his main philosophical doc-trines, but also of the authorship or authenticity of many of his works.Even his exact name and place of birth are disputed, which shows theintractable nature of the subject.

In spite of these challenges, I strove in the present work both to syn-thesize the recent scholarship on al-Fārābī’s metaphysics and cosmol-ogy and to open new analytical perspectives in order to contribute to aresolution of some of the most outstanding problems regarding histhought. In this regard, there are many people I have had a chance tomeet these last few years who have helped me in various ways with myresearch. I am grateful to all of them, but I would like to express myprofound gratitude in particular to:

– My former supervisors at the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGillUniversity, Professor Robert Wisnovsky and Professor Jamil F.Ragep. eir support and encouragement during and aer my stud-ies at McGill played a decisive role in the writing of this book, andI greatly benefited from their nuanced and penetrating approach tothe study of Greek and Arabic intellectual history. At McGill, I amalso grateful to Professor Carlos Fraenkel, Professor Stephen Menn,Mrs. Sally Ragep, Mr. Adam Gacek, Eliza Tasbihi, and Heather

Empey.– At Ruhr-Universität Bochum, I am indebted to Professor GerhardEndress and Professor Hans Hinrich Biesterfeldt and, at the IKGF


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Consortium, Professor Volkhard Krech, Professor Stefan Reichmuth,Dr. Marion Steinicke, to my former colleagues, Professor Jason

Neelis, Dr. Georgios Halkias, Dr. Abhishek Singh Amar, Dr. AlMakin, as well as to the other scholars I had the chance of meetingduring my stay in Bochum.

– In Göttingen, my deepest appreciation goes to Professor SebastianGünther, Professor Jens Scheiner, and Dr. Monika Winet, as well asto my other colleagues at the EDRIS Courant Research Centre“Education and Religion” at Georg-August Universität (funded bythe German Initiative of Excellence). Many thanks also to HamadaHassanein for his help with some of the Arabic transliterations.

Finally, I benefited greatly from the knowledge and insight of Professorérèse-Anne Druart, Professor Hans Daiber, Professor Frank Griel,Professor Heidrun Eichner, Dr. Anna Akasoy, Dr. Philippe Vallat, andDr. Olga Lizzini, all of whom provided valuable feedback on sectionsof this book or on some of the ideas it broaches. I am grateful to all ofthem, but take full responsibility for any shortcomings and for theinterpretations articulated in this study.


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ABBREVIATIONS

CAG=Commentaria in Aristotelem graeca.EI 2=Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition.EI 3=Encyclopaedia of Islam, Tird Edition.

Proclus:Elements=Elements of Teology

Alexander of Aphrodisias: Mabādiʾ=Risālah fī mabādiʾ l-kull

Neoplatonica arabica: Mah ḍ ̣al-khayr=Kalām fī mah ḍ ̣al-khayr

Al-Fārābī: Aghrād =̣Fī aghrād ̣al-h ạkīm fī kull maqālah min al-kitāb al-mawsūm

bi-l-h

ụrūf Ārāʾ=Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīnah al-fād ịlahBurhān=Kitāb al-burhānDaʿāwā=Al-daʿāwā l-qalbiyyahFī l-ʿaql=Risālah fī l-ʿaql Fī mā yanbaghī=Fī mā yanbaghī an yuqaddama qabl taʿallum

al-falsafahFus ụ̄l=Fus ụ̄l munt ạzaʿahFus ụ̄l mabādiʾ=Fus ụ̄l mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīnah al-fād ịlahH

ụrūf=Kitāb al-h

ụrūf Ih ṣ ạ̄ʾ=Kitāb ih ṣ ạ̄ʾ l-ʿulūmIthbāt=Risālah fī ithbāt al-mufāriqāt Jamʿ=Kitāb al-jamʿ bayna ra ʾyay al-h ạkīmayn Jawābāt=Jawābāt li-masāʾil suʾila ʿanhā Mūsīqā=Kitāb al-mūsīqā l-kabīr Radd=Al-radd ʿalā Yah ̣ yā l-Nah ẉī Siyāsah=Al-siyāsah al-madaniyyah

ah

ṣ ị̄l=Kitāb tah

ṣ ị̄l al-sa

ʿādahaʿlīqāt=Kitāb al-taʿlīqāt

ʿUyūn=ʿUyūn al-masāʾil


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Ibn Sīnā:Ishārāt=Kitāb al-ishārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt

Mabdaʾ=Al-mabdaʾ wa-l-maʿād Najāh=Kitāb al-najāhShifāʾ=Kitāb al-shifāʾ

Maimonides:Guide=Te Guide of the Perplexed


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1 See notably Vallat (2004), Colmo (2005), and Parens (2006).2 De Smet (2008).

INRODUCION

Al-Fārābī (d. 950 CE), also known as the ‘Second eacher’ or ‘SecondMaster’ (al-muʿallim al-thānī ) afer Aristotle in the Arabic tradition,is unanimously regarded as one o the great philosophers o theMiddle Ages. As early as 1869, the Bohemian orientalist MoritzSteinschneider published a detailed study o this thinker’s lie andworks, thereby inaugurating a long tradition o Fārābīan scholarship

in the West. However, in spite o the sustained academic interest thiswork triggered and the publication o several recent books devoted toal-Fārābī, his cosmology has not yet been the object o a specializedmonographic study.1 Tis is regrettable, given the crucial role it playedin shaping the subsequent development o medieval Arabic and Jewishthought. Al-Fārābī’s cosmological model was the one adopted by IbnSīnā (or Avicenna) (d. 1037 CE); it was (in its Avicennan orm) themain object o attack o al-Ghazālī’s (d. 1111 CE) ahāfut al-falāsifah;and it was this same model that was in turn deended and criticized by

Ibn Rushd (d. 1198 CE) and Maimonides (d. 1204 CE). As D. De Smetrecently showed, it also exercised a deep influence on the Ismāʿīlī tradi-tion and especially on H ạmīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī (d. 1021 CE).2 Teproound and variegated legacy o al-Fārābī’s cosmology in Arabicintellectual history calls or a sustained investigation and a clearerunderstanding o this aspect o his philosophy.

Tis study provides a new interpretation o al-Fārābī’s cosmologyand philosophical development through an analysis o the Greek andArabic sources and a contextualization o his lie and thought in thecultural and intellectual milieu o his time. It attempts to reconstruct acomprehensive yet nuanced picture o al-Fārābī’s theories o the struc-ture and essence o the heavenly world, o the various principles thatgovern it, as well as o the human capacity to study it. On the one hand,the book analyzes a cluster o key cosmological and metaphysical con-cepts, namely, celestial substance, causation, intellection, and motion,whose articulation in al-Fārābī’s works marked an important shif inearly Arabic intellectual history. In addition to partially tracing the


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3 A precedent or this approach may be ound in Morrison’s study (2007); see also

Janos (2011) or Ibn Sīnā. Morrison ocuses on the dialectic between Arabic astronomyand theology in the works o the ourteenth-century author al-Nīsābūrī and examineshow these two disciplines mutually shaped one another. His book opens many interest-ing avenues or uture research.

genealogy o these concepts in the ancient Greek philosophical back-ground, the book seeks to identiy some o the stages o adaptation and

transormation they went through in the early Arabic context and todefine the new meaning they acquired in al-Fārābī’s thought as a resulto this process. On the other hand, al-Fārābī’s philosophical activity isdefined in light o the social, cultural, and intellectual climate o hisday. Te main purpose o this dual textual and contextual approach isto study al-Fārābī’s thought as the philosophical expression o a par-ticular time and place, namely, the vibrant and cosmopolitan societyo tenth-century Baghdad. Tis approach, which has not been ullyexploited in the past in Fārābīan studies, can best enable us to grasp the

historical development o his philosophical ideas. While it is not with-out its own pitalls, this ramework provides a valuable corrector to theahistorical approach that has so ofen been relied upon to interpretal-Fārābī’s philosophy.

Emphasis is placed on the relation between astronomy, physics,and metaphysics, the ‘chie cosmological sciences,’ and on how thesedisciplines interrelate in terms o both methodology and content inthe Second eacher’s cosmology. Te study adopts an interdiscipli-

nary ramework that bridges the history o astronomy and philosophyand pays special attention to the place o astronomical theories in theSecond eacher’s cosmology, an issue that is still poorly understoodwith regard to this thinker and to the falāsifah in general. In thatsense, this book may be regarded as a case study o how astronomicaltheory fits into the broader philosophical system o a medieval philoso-pher.3 o what extent is this science reconciled—or does it converselyinterere—with the other philosophical disciplines? o what extent isal-Fārābī’s astronomical model indebted to Ptolemy (d. ca. 168 CE),

and how does it relate to the Arabic astronomical tradition? What roledo astronomy, physics, and metaphysics play in explaining the causeso celestial motion, a crucial problem in medieval cosmology? In orderto shed light on these issues, I examine the interactions—and some-times the tensions—between these sciences in al-Fārābī’s works. Tisapproach has the advantage o bringing together various disciplines


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that have evolved in separate directions over time, but which manymedieval thinkers regarded as being closely linked or interrelated.

Al-Fārābī’s method and his interpretation o the various philosophi-cal and scientific sources are analyzed in detail. One o the study’soverarching aims in this regard is to show that al-Fārābī was able toelaborate a new cosmological model chiefly as a result o a sustainedand creative interpretive approach to the Greek and Arabic textualtraditions. I argue that al-Fārābī’s philosophical method should beregarded as a complex exegetical process whose main eature was theinterpretation o Aristotle’s theories in light o the late antique philo-sophical tradition, consisting o both commentaries on Aristotle and

independent works. Various in-depth case studies o how al-Fārābībrought about this project are provided: his interpretation o Aristotle’sunmoved movers, o celestial matter, and o the intellectual activity othe immaterial existents are a ew striking examples discussed in theanalysis. It is in this sense that one may speak o al-Fārābī’s harmoniz-ing project, which extended not only to the various currents o Greekphilosophy, especially late antique Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism,but also included the works o ancient Greek astronomers, especially

Ptolemy. Te cosmological synthesis that emerged rom his protractedengagement with these texts was due both to volitional and accidentalactors, but it resulted in any case in the elaboration o a new cosmo-logical paradigm that provided later thinkers with a ramework or rec-onciling astronomy with physics and metaphysics.

Tis cosmological model may be seen as the culmination o a longintellectual development marked by several tensions, which are alsodiscussed in the study. Indeed, al-Fārābī’s exegetical approach was nei-ther static nor monolithic, and it underwent various shifs in direction

and perspective due to his dynamic understanding o the Greek worksand actors emanating rom his social and cultural environment.Accordingly, a central thesis articulated in this book is that al-Fārābī’scosmology underwent a clear evolution and can be divided into twodistinct periods, which correspond to two different cosmological mod-els or paradigms and to a rough chronology o his lie and output.Trough a discussion o the doctrinal and bio-bibliographic evidence,chapter 3 introduces a ‘developmentalist hypothesis,’ according towhich al-Fārābī’s cosmology shifed rom a creationist position, which

he upheld during his early Baghdad period, to an eternalist positionthat crystallized during a later phase o his lie and coincides with theend o his stay in Baghdad and his travels to Syria and Egypt.


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4 Druart (1984a), Maróth (1994), D’Ancona (1995 and 2000), and Vallat (2004).

In addition to classiying and analyzing the evidence supporting thishypothesis, this study attempts to explain some o the social and reli-

gious actors that may have triggered this development and enabledal-Fārābī’s mature cosmological theories to materialize. In conjunctionwith the examination o the Greek philosophical sources, the bookcontextualizes al-Fārābī’s cosmology within the intellectual climate ohis day, in order to reconstruct a more comprehensive picture o hisintellectual trajectory and o his shifing philosophical priorities. Teanalysis ocuses, among other issues, on his intellectual ormation inChristian philosophical and theological circles in Baghdad, his likelyamiliarity with al-Kindī’s (d. afer 870 CE) and Abū Bakr al-Rāzī’s

(d. 925 CE) works and legacies, as well as his awareness o recent devel-opments in Arabic science, especially Arabic astronomy. An approachthat combines these cultural and biographical actors together with astudy o the Greek sources can best explain the complexity o theSecond eacher’s thought and the apparent discrepancies in his works.

In connecting al-Fārābī chiefly with the late antique Greek traditiono philosophical exegesis, this book builds on several scholarly contri-butions in Fārābīan studies, especially those o M. Maróth, C. D’Ancona,

and P. Vallat, and is also indebted more broadly to studies on al-Fārābī’sNeoplatonism, especially by .-A. Druart.4 Accordingly, this studyocuses particularly on the Greek commentatorial tradition andespecially the legacies o Alexander o Aphrodisias (fl. ca. 200 CE),Temistius (d. ca. 390 CE), Simplicius (d. ca. 560 CE), Philoponus(d. ca. 570 CE), and Proclus (d. 485 CE), whose works played a decisiverole in shaping both the specific issues that al-Fārābī addressed in hiscosmology and the solutions he elaborated. I devote a special place inthe analysis to the Arabic translations and adaptations o Proclus’

works, especially Mah ḍ ̣ al-khayr , the Arabic version o Elements ofTeology , since this work was the likely medium through whichal-Fārābī assimilated Proclean ideas. I attempt to explain how al-Fārābīused the Proclus arabus as a conceptual apparatus to construe Aristotle’scosmology in a new light and to articulate original solutions to oldcosmological problems, as can be seen with respect to celestial sub-stance, existence, and motion. Moreover, al-Fārābī’s exegetical achieve-ment and his complex theory o celestial causality and intellectiondefine him as an exponent o certain key aspects o Neoplatonic


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5 M. Rashed (2008 and 2009).

metaphysics in Islam and as an heir to the late antique pagan philo-sophical worldview. Consequently, al-Fārābī is presented throughout

the analysis as an active and creative agent, rather than as a passiverecipient, o the Greek philosophical heritage, and one who keenlyadapted and transormed it to fit his own philosophical project.

In carrying out this source criticism, this study ocuses on severaltexts rom late antiquity and rom within the Fārābīan corpus itselthat have been either ignored or have not been the object o extendeddiscussion in the secondary literature on al-Fārābī. Tis is the case, orinstance, o several late antique physical and metaphysical commentar-ies, such as Alexander’s and Simplicius’ commentary on and paraphrase

o On the Heavens, Temistius’ paraphrase o Metaphysics, Geminus’astronomical works, Ptolemy’s Almagest and Planetary Hypotheses,and Alexander’s and Syrianus’ commentaries on Metaphysics. I alsodevote much attention to the various texts orming the Neoplatonicaarabica, which have seldom been the object o a detailed comparativeanalysis. In this connection, this study pays particular attention to theorm in which al-Fārābī read these works, since the process o translat-ing rom Greek to Arabic was ofen accompanied by a air amount o

doctrinal adaptation, as can be seen with regard to the various Arabic versions o Aristotle’s Metaphysics and the Proclus arabus. Illuminatingal-Fārābī’s interpretation o these works in the orm in which he readthem appears a necessary step to ully grasp the development o hiscosmology.

With regard to al-Fārābī’s corpus, the study ocuses primarily on hismain philosophical treatises, such as Ārāʾ and Siyāsah, but it also dealswith understudied works such as Mūsīqā and Burhān, as well as manyother logical treatises, which contain a wealth o inormation on

al-Fārābī’s scientific method and cosmological doctrines. In addition,both the main chapters o the book and appendix 1 include texts whoseattribution to al-Fārābī remains uncertain. Tis is the case o aʿlīqāt ,ʿUyūn, Ithbāt , Daʿāwā, and more importantly o Jamʿ and Jawābāt , twoworks whose authorship has recently been questioned by M. Rashed.5 An investigation o their cosmological contents is called or, both inorder to settle their status vis-à-vis the Fārābīan corpus and to high-light the ofen interesting cosmological theories they ormulate.


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6 Several monographs ocusing on cosmology and creation in the works o indi- vidual Arabic authors have been published recently; see or instance İskenderoğlu(2002), Acar (2005), Youse (2008), and Griffel (2009). Al-Fārābī’s place at the begin-ning o the Arabic philosophical tradition makes it all the more important to betterunderstand his views on these topics.

7 Notable examples are Galston (1990), Butterworth (in al-Fārābī 2001a), Colmo(2005), and Parens (2006). But the last decade has also witnessed the publication oseveral studies that either question the existence o a Fārābīan ‘political philosophy’

(Gutas 2002, 2003, and 2004b) or analyze it by avoiding Mahdi’s interpretive paradigmand by connecting it with other aspects o al-Fārābī’s thought; see Crone (2003 and2004), Gannagé (2004), and especially Vallat (2004), whose book provides a new andcompelling discussion o this topic in light o late antique philosophy. An original

Te results accumulated throughout this study and the new develop-mentalist interpretation it articulates question previous ideas con-

cerning al-Fārābī’s philosophical affiliations and the structure o hiscorpus. In doing so, it participates in the ongoing debate concern-ing many aspects o al-Fārābī’s thought and works and intends to offernew insight into these vexed issues. Te present book challenges the

view that the Fārābīan corpus can be divided neatly into ‘Aristotelian’works and ‘personal’ or ‘Neoplatonic’ works, and it proposes a newdivision o the Fārābīan corpus in light o the developmentalist hypoth-esis. In this respect, the analysis also reassigns a new status to worksthat have recently been considered spurious or o doubtul author-

ship, and it discusses some o the reasons that can account or the dis-crepancies between these works and the rest o the Fārābīan corpus.Moreover, it provides an alternative explanation o al-Fārābī’s use othe Neoplatonica arabica and o its place in his metaphysics, definingit as a key actor underlying the evolution o his thought. Finally, thestudy also redefines the much studied concept o emanationism in lighto his general metaphysics o causation, thereby challenging the seman-tic specificity o this concept in his cosmology. In so doing, this book

seeks to establish al-Fārābī’s cosmology and his views on the questiono the creation o the world firmly within the current scholarly discus-sion o these issues in Arabic intellectual history.6

Attaining these goals will provide an alternative to the interpretiveparadigm o al-Fārābī’s philosophy elaborated by M. Mahdi, which hasuntil recently prevailed in Fārābīan studies. Although several mono-graphs on al-Fārābī have appeared in recent years, they ocus primarilyon his political philosophy and perpetuate either explicitly or implicitlythe Strauss-Mahdi paradigm, with the result that al-Fārābī’s cosmology

has still not received the thorough study it deserves.7

As D. Gutas has


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attempt to connect al-Fārābī’s political theories with Isma ʿīlī ideas had also been made

by Daiber (1991).8 Gutas (2002, 24); see also Gutas’ (2003) review o Mahdi’s book entitled Alfarabiand the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy .

9 Mahdi (2001, 82, 121–122, 124).

written, “the prevalence o the Straussian interpretation o al-Fārābīhas had a chilling effect on mainstream studies o this very significant

philosopher.”8 o Mahdi’s claim that al-Fārābī elaborated a “politicalcosmology” devoid o scientific value and designed to stand merely asa metaphor or the inhabitants o the virtuous city, this book arguesthat it should be regarded rather as a coherent worldview grounded inthe most up-to-date physical, metaphysical, and astronomical theorieso his time.9

Chapter 1 deals with al-Fārābī’s methodology, which rests on acomplex conceptualization o the scope and interrelatedness o thesciences. Te central question that inorms the discussion is an episte-

mological and methodological one: through which rational means anddisciplines can human beings study the heavens and know the princi-ples that govern them? Emphasis is placed on the method o astronomy,its relation to physics and metaphysics, the various techniques used orestablishing its principles, the place o observation and experience, andthe nature o the proos associated with these sciences. In addition, theconnection between al-Fārābī’s logical and metaphysical treatises isalso addressed, with the view o showing the interplay between these

various acets o his thought.Chapters 2 to 4 ocus on some key doctrines o al-Fārābī’s cosmol-ogy. Chapter 2 reconstructs the basic structure o his cosmologicalmodel and discusses the various physical and immaterial entities thatconstitute it. It provides an analysis o the Greek and Arabic sourcesal-Fārābī consulted and sheds light on his interpretive approach tothese texts. In this respect, the study addresses specific cosmologicalquestions that are crucial to understand the Second eacher’s cosmol-ogy, and by implication, the later history o Arabic cosmology. How did

he interpret the Aristotelian theory o the unmoved movers in Metaphysics Book Lambda? How do these movers relate to the celestialorbs? What role does the principle o intellect play in his cosmologyand what texts may have shaped his views on the subject? Tis chapterprovides a clearer understanding o the place o Aristotelian and


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10 For an analysis o this topic, see Davidson (1972 and 1992), Lucchetta (in al-Fārābī1974), Geoffroy (2002), and Vallat (“L’intellect selon Fārābī: la transormation du savoiren être,” orthcoming).

Neoplatonic sources in al-Fārābī’s cosmology and o how he interpretedthem and used them to devise his own system.

Chapter 3 surveys and collects the disparate and ragmented evi-dence on celestial matter that can be ound in al-Fārābī’s corpus, withthe aim o reconstructing his views on this important cosmologicalquestion. His views on celestial matter are urthermore contextual-ized within the debate about the creation o the world, raising the ques-tion o how God and the immaterial beings relate to the physicalcosmos. Te analysis ocuses primarily on the concepts and terminol-ogy o causation articulated in the Second eacher’s works, particularlywith respect to how they are applied to the various immaterial beings

o his cosmology. Al-Fārābī’s debt to Neoplatonic thought is empha-sized through a comparative analysis o his works and the Greek andArabic Proclus, enabling a more nuanced assessment o his affilia-tion to late antique metaphysics and o his attitude toward Islamicmonotheism.

Finally, chapter 4 attempts to reconstruct the Second eacher’s the-ory o celestial motion on the basis o the rare passages dealing withthis question in his works and by using evidence drawn rom Ibn Sīnā’s

treatises. Particular attention is devoted to the role played by physics,metaphysics, and astronomy in al-Fārābī’s explanations o how the orbsand planets move, to the question o kinematic causality, and to therelation between the separate intellects and the celestial orbs. Tischapter provides insight into various key issues that should be o inter-est to those interested in the history o medieval kinematics.

Te study thereore provides a detailed analysis o a cluster oconcepts—celestial matter, intellection, causation, and motion—whichconstitute the building blocks o al-Fārābī’s cosmological model and

define him both as an heir and creative contributor to the cosmologicallegacy o late antiquity. On the other hand, it will not deal at any lengthwith the much studied question o the nature and role o the AgentIntellect in al-Fārābī’s philosophy, since technically speaking, the AgentIntellect is exclusively occupied with the sublunary world and plays norole in superlunary causation and motion. Little will be said about therelated issues o how the Agent Intellect impacts on human intellectionand on the epistemological connection between the human intellectand the heavenly world.10


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Given al-Fārābī’s importance or the subsequent history o medievalthought, this study should be o interest to those dealing with Jewish,

Christian, and Islamic cosmology and metaphysics. In addition, it provides a comparative analysis o Ibn Sīnā’s and al-Fārābī’s views onnumerous themes. Hence, the results should also be o interest to stu-dents o Ibn Sīnā’s philosophy and o the post-Avicennan philosophicaltradition in Islam.


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1 It should be stressed rom the outset that al-Fārābī and medieval Arabic thinkersin general do not use a specific term to express our modern notion o ‘cosmology.’

Rather, as this study will show, their cosmology consisted o various disciplines, espe-cially astronomy, physics, metaphysics, and sometimes astrology, whose relations varyrom one system to another. It is insoar as these thinkers attempted to provide a sys-tematic and rational interpretation o the cosmos using the various sciences availableto them that one may legitimately speak o ‘medieval cosmology.’

2 Al-Fārābī’s Ārāʾ and Siyāsah seem to possess a unique structure when compared toother works o the Greek and Arabic philosophical traditions, but as Maróth (1995,105–106) and Genequand (in Alexander 2001, 21–22) have shown, they do sharestructural parallels with Alexander’s Mabādiʾ. Rudolph (2008) has argued that theirormat can be ruitully compared to contemporary kalām works. At any rate, thesetreatises are usually reerred to as ‘emanationist,’ due to the so-called doctrine o ema-nationism they articulate. In spite o the ambiguity o this concept in al-Fārābī’s meta-

physics and the act that I will question its specificity in a later section o this book(ch. 3, 2.6.), I decided to ollow this common appellation or the sake o convenience,although I will also reer to them as the ‘metaphysical’ works. I have used Najjār’s edi-tion or Siyāsah (al-Fārābī 1964), as well as the English translation o the first section o

CHAPER ONE

COSMOLOGY, HE SCIENCES, ANDHE SCIENIFIC MEHOD

1. Te Late Antique Greek and Early Islamic Contexts

Al-Fārābī’s cosmology can be explained by the legacy o Greek science

and philosophy on the one hand and the intellectual developments thatcharacterized early Islamic civilization on the other.1 With regard tothe ormer, al-Fārābī inherited a dual cosmological tradition: an astro-nomical one embodied chiefly in the Ptolemaic works, as well as per-haps in some minor astronomical treatises by various Greek authors;and a philosophical one contained in the Aristotelian corpus and itscommentaries, as well as the Arabic adaptations o Neoplatonic works,especially the Proclus arabus and Plotinus arabus. Tis duality isreflected in the Fārābīan corpus itsel: while his commentary on

Almagest was inscribed in an ancient astronomical tradition thatendured until his time, his so-called ‘emanationist’ treatises, Ārāʾ andSiyāsah, cover a variety o physical, metaphysical, and political issuesand are more in the vein o philosophical works such as Plato’s imaeus and Republic, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, and Proclus’ Elements of Teology .2


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this work by McGinnis and Reisman (2007, 81–104). As or Ārāʾ, I have relied on bothWalzer’s (al-Fārābī 1985a) and Nādir’s (al-Fārābī 1985b) editions. Te ormer containssome lacunae and has been criticized (see Mahdi 1990a), but it occasionally provides abetter reading than the latter. Unless otherwise stated, all English translations are takenrom McGinnis and Reisman and Walzer.

3 Gutas (1982a); Vallat (2004, 11–25). Legends and olklore, just as much as valid

historical inormation, are the stuff o al-Fārābī’s lie, but Gutas has dely sorted outthese various threads and provided a solid critical account o the Second eacher’scareer. I, or my part, preer to adhere to this ‘minimalist’ account, except with respectto the issue o al-Fārābī’s birthplace and to his intellectual ormation with the Christianthinkers, two crucial points concerning which Vallat’s arguments seem convincing andopen several avenues or urther research.

4 As stated above, I ollow Vallat and others on this point. Te alternative place obirth, Fāryāb (or Fāriyāb), mentioned by Ibn al-Nadīm and apparently avored byGutas (1982a, 210–211) in his critical evaluation o the biographical sources strikes meas less plausible. First, one may rightly assume that i al-Fārābī had been born in orhailed rom Fāryāb, he would have been known as ‘al-Fāryābī’ and not as ‘al-Fārābī,’ thetwo names being written and pronounced differently in Arabic. But the Arabic tradi-

tion seems unanimous on this point. Second, one o the names attributed to al-Fārābī,‘ibn ạrkhān,’ (sometimes in nisbah orm ‘al- ạrkhānī’), even by some o the early bio-graphical sources, such as Ibn al-Nadīm, is clearly an Arabicized orm o a urkicname. Regardless o whether it reers to al-Fārābī’s grandather, as has been suggested,

Hence, one may rom the outset raise the questions o how al-Fārābīperceived this heritage, whether he attempted to achieve a reconcilia-

tion o these two disciplinary traditions, and how his corpus wasadapted accordingly. In turn, this raises the question o the place occu-pied by astronomy, physics, and metaphysics in al-Fārābī’s approach tocosmology. Te degree o his acquaintance with contemporary astro-nomical research and his interest in scientific methodology are actorsthat should be taken into consideration. Tese questions will orm thebackdrop o chapter 1, but first I wish to say a ew words concerningal-Fārābī’s biography.

1.1. Some Biographical Notes

I will not provide a detailed account o al-Fārābī’s biography in whatollows, since very ew acts about his lie are known with certainty.Moreover, readers can now choose between two authoritative accounts,a skeptical and ‘minimalist’ article by D. Gutas, and a more elaborateyet speculative account by P. Vallat.3 Rather, I will limit mysel to high-lighting a ew aspects o al-Fārābī’s lie that can help us to better under-stand the ormation and development o his philosophy. Abū Nas ṛ

al-Fārābī was born in 870 CE, most likely in the district o Fārāb situ-ated on the Jaxartes River (also known as Syr Darya) in urkestan.4


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or to another member o his amily, it agrees with the previous point in suggestingal-Fārābī’s ransoxanian origin, a not altogether surprising hypothesis given the

number o thinkers active in Baghdad during the ninth and tenth centuries who origi-nated rom this region.5 Barthold [and Spuler] EI 2, Le Strange (1905, 484–485), and Barthold (1977,

176–9), who also provide the reerences to the Arabic geographic works.

Surprisingly, al-Fārābī’s birthplace has never been properly discussedin scholarly works on this thinker, and so a ew comments are in order.

Far rom being a cultural backwater, the broad regions o Khurāsānand ransoxania had been or centuries an arena o exchange and inter-action between peoples o various linguistic and religious backgrounds,including pagans, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, and later Christians andMuslims. Hellenistic influences also reached these regions as a resulto Alexander the Great’s eastern campaigns and the establishment oHellenistic kingdoms in Asia. Moreover, this vast geographic areaentertained commercial and cultural contacts with the urkic peoplesand ultimately with China through land routes heading north. Fārāb

itsel, the district in which al-Fārābī was presumably born, was by nomeans negligible. According to al-Muqaddasī, who flourished in thetenth century CE, it consisted o several towns, including one, Fārāb(named aer the district), which boasted ortifications, a communalmosque, markets, and a citadel, and was allegedly inhabited by some70,000 people.5 Even allowing or some exaggeration, this indicatesthat Fārāb was not an insignificant settlement. Al-Fārābī is said to havebeen born either in Fārāb itsel or in the nearby village o Wasīj, but in

either case his early years would have been spent in this cosmopolitanand culturally multi-aceted environment, a act which can help toexplain his later views on the relativity o religions vis-à-vis the univer-sality o philosophy.

In view o this regional history and o the existence o urban centersin the heart o Fārāb, it is likely that al-Fārābī’s philosophical ormationbegan beore his arrival in Baghdad. Apart rom the district o Fārābitsel, there were several other cities in ransoxania and Khurāsān,which, by the late ninth and early tenth century, hosted a vibrant and

diverse intellectual scene. Merw, or instance, possessed an importantlibrary and was a cultural center characterized by Christian, Islamic,and Hellenistic eatures. Several Christian thinkers, including al-Fārābī’steacher Yūh ạnnā ibn H ạylān (d. between 908-932 CE) and Ibrāhīm oMerw, the teacher o Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus (d. 940 CE), as well as


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6 See al-Fārābī’s autobiographic account, sometimes called Fī z ụhūr al-falsafah, pre-served by Ibn Abī Us ạybiʿah (1965, 604); see also Zimmermann (1981, cv-cvi); andLandron (1994, 93). Te interpretation o the historical data given by al-Fārābī con-cerning the transmission o ancient philosophy to the Middle East via the SyriacChristians has been debated by scholars; see notably Stroumsa (1991), Lameer (1997),Gutas (1999), and more recently Watt (2008).

7 Van Ess (1980).8 Holmberg EI 2.9 Ibn Abī Us ạybiʿah (1965, 604) and Zimmermann (1981, cv ff.). Te latter provides

the most substantial discussion o al-Fārābī’s relation to the Christian thinkers o histime.

the influential Barmakid amily, hailed rom this city.6 Merw andKhurāsān in general were the home o a school o theology that pro-

duced several notable thinkers, such as Ibn al-Rāwandī (fl. 850 CE) andAbū l-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī al-Balkhī (d. 931 CE), whose writings may havebeen known to al-Fārābī.7 Finally, Merw was the city rom which theʿAbbāsid revolution was launched, indicating its proound ideologicaland religious importance during this period. Tus, it seems plausiblethat al-Fārābī acquired the rudiments o his education in the cities oransoxania and Khurāsān, even though it cannot be decided with cer-tainty when and under which circumstances he first arrived inBaghdad.

Perhaps the most significant aspect o al-Fārābī’s biography I wish tohighlight here—and one about which we possess crucial evidence—ishis early intellectual ormation at the hands o Nestorian Christianthinkers. Although al-Fārābī’s relation with the Nestorians is attestedaer his arrival in Baghdad, it is possible that he had been in contactwith them prior to his arrival in the City o Peace, since the Nestorianshad established a solid presence throughout the north-eastern Islamiclands, especially Merw. It is rom this city—an important center o

Nestorian thought and culture—that missionaries travelled to CentralAsia and even China to spread their aith.8 At any rate, al-Fārābī him-sel asserts that he studied logic with the Christian Yūh ạnnā ibn H ạylān,a report later confirmed by al-Masʿūdī, and he in addition probablyattended some o the classes o Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus, anotherNestorian thinker whom he surely met and whose translations oAristotle he presumably read. Finally, it would seem that al-Fārābī alsostudied grammar with Ibn al-Sarrāj (d. 929 CE).9 From what we cangather rom this scarce biographical inormation, then, Yūh ạnnā ibn

H ạylān and Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus are the two individuals who arelikely to have had the strongest philosophical impact on the young


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10 See Endress EI 2 and Ferrari (2005). For the study o logic in the Syriac traditionand its relation to al-Fārābī, see Watt (2008).

al-Fārābī. For this reason, and because they will be requently men-tioned throughout this book, it is worthwhile to say more about these

two figures.Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus al-Qannāʾī, henceorth Mattā ibn Yūnus,

was fluent in both Syriac and Arabic and was one o the outstandingrepresentatives o the Christian Aristotelian circle in early tenth-century Baghdad. He studied first in the religious school o Mār Māriat Dayr Qunnā and then in the City o Peace with a group o scholarswho allegedly had come rom Merw. Apart rom his debate with theArabic grammarian Abū Saʿīd al-Sīrāī, Mattā ibn Yūnus is chieflyknown both or his numerous translations o Aristotle rom Syriac and

or his own commentaries on some o these Peripatetic works. It is per-haps not insignificant that Mattā ibn Yūnus chose to translate Posterior Analytics and Metaphysics, as well as other Aristotelian works dealingwith the heavens and their impact on the sublunary world—part o Onthe Heavens and its paraphrase by Temistius, On Generation andCorruption with the commentaries o Alexander and Olympiodorus,and Meteorology with Olympiodorus’ commentary—or these are pre-cisely the works that shaped al-Fārābī’s cosmological method and doc-

trines. Tis list o works points to the important place that cosmologyoccupied alongside logic in the circle that developed around Mattā ibnYūnus, an interest that was apparently transmitted rom teacher todisciple.10

Chiefly because his works have survived only in ragmentary state, iat all, but also because his debate with Abū Saʿīd al-Sīrāī has monopo-lized the attention o scholars, Mattā ibn Yūnusʾ surviving writingshave been hardly studied at all. Tis hampers any attempt to comparehis theories to those o al-Fārābī. It also makes our understanding o

how indebted the latter was to his teacher in the physical and meta-physical fields more difficult. While I already alluded to the commoninterest these philosophers shared in cosmology, it is likely that Mattāibn Yūnusʾ influence on al-Fārābī extended to specific concepts andtheories. For instance, some o Mattā ibn Yūnusʾ cosmological views oncreation and causation, on the substance o the heavens, and on theirimpact on the sublunary world may have been instrumental in orient-ing al-Fārābī’s early cosmological position. For this reason, one section


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11 See Vallat (2004, 19 ff.). While tantalizing, this hypothesis requires additional evi-dence, especially given the semi-mythical status o H ạrrān in the Arabic historio-graphic sources.

12 Habby (1997) has assembled virtually all the known inormation on Ibn H ạylān.

o this book (ch. 3, 2.3.3.) will be devoted to analyzing the survivingexcerpts o Mattā ibn Yūnusʾ commentary on Physics and exploring the

potential influence his cosmological views had on al-Fārābī.While we possess some valuable inormation concerning Mattā ibn

Yūnusʾ lie and works, virtually nothing is known about al-Fārābī’sother official teacher, Yūh ạnnā b. H ạylān, who is described by al-Fārābīhimsel as his main instructor in logic. Even though some scholars havespeculated that the two men studied in H ạrrān, we possess virtually noevidence on the circumstances surrounding their encounter.11 None oIbn H ạylān’s works has survived, and the biographical data that can beretrieved rom the sources is meager and limited to a ew scattered bio-

graphical remarks.12 Yet when taken together, these acts concerningal-Fārābī’s education at the hands o Christian thinkers are importantand should be taken into account when assessing various aspects o hisworks and thought. Tey explain rom the outset some o the strikingeatures o al-Fārābī’s output: its emphasis on logic and cosmology, itsinclusion o numerous commentaries on Aristotle, and its concernabout the relation between religion and philosophy. Tese elementswill, on several occasions in this book, be brought to the ore o the

discussion in an effort to combine a doctrinal and biographical analysiso al-Fārābī’s philosophy.Te biographical sketch given above shows that al-Fārābī’s interest in

cosmology first developed as a result o his philosophical ormationwith the Christian Peripatetics, especially in connection with the com-position o his own commentaries on the physical works o theAristotelian corpus. It is to this aspect o his output and to the variouskinds o Greek and Arabic sources that shaped al-Fārābī’s cosmologythat I presently wish to turn.

1.2. Te Dual Legacy of Greek Astronomy and Philosophy

1.2.1. Aristotle, the Late Antique Commentators, and al-Fārābī ʾsCommentatorial Activity

Like most medieval cosmologists, al-Fārābī relied primarily onAristotle’s On the Heavens, Physics, and Metaphysics, which had been


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13 For the translation and reception o these texts in Syriac and Arabic, see Peters

(1968), Endress (1966, 1995, and 1997b), Martin (1989), Luna (1989), Bertolacci (2001and 2005b), Hugonnard-Roche (2003), and Tillet (2003).14 Ibn al-Qi ị̄ (1903, 279–280), Ibn Abī Us ạybiʿah (1965, 608–609); see also Ibn

al-Nadīm (1970, vol. 2, 599–602, 629). For the surviving excerpt o al-Fārābī’s com-mentary on Aristotle’s Physics, see Birkenmajer (1935). Tis work appears to have been very influential and was requently cited by later Arabic authors when they redactedtheir own Physics commentary; see Lettinck (1994, 260, 308–311, 315, 491, 602, 606,614, 639, 644, 650).

15 Still extant, however, is Aghrād ,̣ which is not a commentary, but rather a briesummary o the aim o the various books o Metaphysics. See al-Fārābī (1999c) or theArabic text, Druart (1982b) or a French translation, and McGinnis and Reisman(2007, 78–81) or an English translation. Ibn Sīnā reports in his autobiography that he

could only grasp the true aim o Metaphysics aer having chanced upon al-Fārābī’s Aghrād ;̣ see al-Bayhaqī (1935, 16), who reports the anecdote; and Gutas (1988, 240–242) and Bertolacci (2001 and 2005a) or the relevant excerpt and the impact this workhad on Ibn Sīnā’s metaphysics.

translated into Arabic at least once beore or during his lietime.13 TeseAristotelian works provided medieval thinkers with a coherent and

elaborate cosmological model, whose various theories, however, werenot always easy to reconcile with one another. Many o the cosmologi-cal issues studied by al-Fārābī, such as the substance o the heavenlybodies, the organization o the heavenly orbs, their intellection andmotion, and their relation to God, stem rom these seminal works. Butin many instances, he departs rom Aristotle by developing his owninterpretations, salient examples being his theories o heavenly matter,intellection, causation, and motion (discussed in ch. 2–4).

Apart rom some o his propaedeutic works, such as Ih ṣ ạ̄ʾ, Fī mā

yanbaghī , and Falsafat Arist ụ̄t ạ̄līs, al-Fārābī’s amiliarity with the Aris-totelian corpus can be gauged rom his commentaries on the Organon and rom the bibliographic inormation concerning his commentato-rial activity. While his commentaries on or summaries o Categories,On Interpretation, opics, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, as well ason Rhetoric, are all extant, Ibn al-Qi ị̄ and Ibn Abī Us ạybiʿah also men-tion other commentaries on Physics, On the Heavens, and Meteorology ,which surely contained a wealth o inormation on al-Fārābī’s cosmol-

ogy, but which unortunately have not survived, except or a shortexcerpt o Physics preserved in Latin.14 On the other hand, al-Fārābīdoes not seem to have written a ull commentary on Metaphysics,a somewhat surprising act given the importance o Book Lambdain his cosmology.15 Hence, in spite o the act that virtually all o thecommentaries al-Fārābī wrote on natural philosophy have vanished,the bio-bibliographic reports indicate that he assiduously studied the


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16 For a detailed discussion o al-Fārābī’s logical studies with the ChristianPeripatetics, see Zimmermann (“Introduction,” in al-Fārābī 1981a). Te importancedevoted to cosmology in al-Fārābī’s works is clearly visible in his emanationist trea-tises, but it can also be perceived in his summary o Aristotle’s philosophy entitledFalsafat Arist ụ̄t ạ̄līs. Tis work quickly surveys crucial concepts o Aristotelian physics,such as time, but discusses in excessive detail the place and nature o the elements inthe cosmos.

17 It is well known that al-Fārābī’s commentaries had a proound impact on subse-quent thinkers, especially on those hailing rom the Western part o the dār al-Islām.Ibn Bājjah, Ibn Rushd, and Maimonides made extensive use o the Fārābīan commen-taries in their cosmological, psychological, and logical writings, developing and criti-cizing some o his ideas in the process.

18 Apart rom the connection with these Christian scholars, themselves translatorso and/or commentators on the Aristotelian corpus, this seems supported by the reportin Ibn al-Nadīm’s Fihrist (1970, vol. 2, 599–602, 629), which surprisingly mentions onlyal-Fārābī’s commentaries and not his mature metaphysical works. It is noteworthy that

main works o the Aristotelian corpus, with a special emphasis on theOrganon and on the physical treatises, many o which deal with the

heavens and cosmological phenomena.Tis emphasis on logic and cosmology can be explained convinc-

ingly by al-Fārābī’s early philosophical training with the ChristianPeripatetic thinkers, who on the one hand specialized in the study othe Organon, and on the other hand showed a marked interest orAristotle’s cosmology and translated many works dealing with thistopic.16 Tis highlights the continuity between the philosophical activ-ity o Mattā ibn Yūnus and al-Fārābī and helps us to better understandsome o the roots o his thought. Tat al-Fārābī quickly attained profi-

ciency in this adapted curriculum and in the study o Aristotelian logicin particular is attested by the Arabic historiographical tradition, whichdescribes him by the honorific title o ‘Second eacher’ or ‘SecondMaster.’ Tis title at once shows the importance o his commentatorialworks and his esteemed status as an interpreter o the Stagirite in theArabic tradition, even though our knowledge o this aspect o his phi-losophy is in many ways ragmentary.17

Al-Fārābī’s extant commentaries are valuable not only or their

capacity to help us understand how he interpreted Aristotle, but alsobecause they provide some insight into his philosophical method andthe evolution o his thought. In this respect, and although little isknown about the chronology o al-Fārābī’s works, it may be assumedthat he wrote most o his commentaries during an early phase o hislie, when he was studying under Yūh ạnnā ibn H ạylān and possiblyMattā ibn Yūnus in Baghdad.18 Te practice o writing commentaries


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Ibn al-Nadīm was active shortly aer al-Fārābī’s death and may even have been ayounger contemporary o the philosopher or a ew years in Baghdad. Since al-Fārābīpresumably wrote most o his commentaries during his early Baghdad phase, these arethe works that Ibn al-Nadīm would have primarily known and to which he would havehad easy access. On the other hand, and as will be argued later on, the emanationisttreatises were presumably written during the end o al-Fārābī’s stay in Baghdad, as wellas during his sojourn in Syria and Egypt, which might explain why they are not men-tioned in Fihrist .

19 For Yah ỵā ibn ʿAdī’s activity as a commentator, see Endress (1977) and Kraemer

(1992, 108 ff.).20 For K. al-qiyās, see al-Fārābī (1963 and 1985c), Gyekye (1972), and Lameer

(1994); or ʿIbārah, see Zimmermann’s analysis (in al-Fārābī 1981a), and Black (2006);or Khat ạ̄bah, see al-Fārābī (1971a), Black (1990), and Aouad (1992).

was very common in the Christian intellectual milieu he requented inBaghdad and may be regarded as a continuation o the Alexandrian

academic tradition, which had also devoted a privileged place to thewriting o commentaries and to the study o logic in its philosophicalcurriculum. Yūh ạnnā ibn H ạylān and Yah ỵā ibn ʿAdī, a teacher andstudent o al-Fārābī respectively, were well-known translators o, andcommentators on, the Aristotelian corpus and contributed actively tospreading Aristotelian philosophy to the Middle East.19 Regardless ohow much credibility should be ascribed to the traditional narrativeconcerning the transmission o the Alexandrian philosophical curricu-lum to Baghdad, it is undeniable that al-Fārābī’s early philosophical

phase is inscribed in a well-established tradition o commentatorialwriting and studying that has its roots in late antiquity, but one o whosemain offshoots flourished in Syriac circles in ninth- and tenth-centuryBaghdad.

Te historical context sketched above represents the first hint thatal-Fārābī’s philosophical initiation and his interpretation o Aristotlewere shaped by some o the social, cultural, and intellectual circum-stances prevailing in the Baghdad o his time. In turn, this indicates

that al-Fārābī’s approach to philosophy may have evolved throughouthis career, as he gradually distanced himsel rom this early philosophi-cal ramework characterized mainly by the study o Aristotle and thewriting o commentaries. Research on al-Fārābī’s logical works, such asK. al-qiyās and K. mudkhal ilā l-qiyās, K. al-ʿibārah, and K. al-khat ạ̄bah (works based on Prior Analytics, On Interpretation, and Rhetoric respec-tively), has shown that rom the very outset, he did not slavishly ollowAristotelian logic in an uncritical way, but rather developed his owntheories and elaborated on several concepts merely alluded to in the

original Greek texts.20

As this book will show, the same may be said


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21 Maimonides (1963, vol. 2, 309); see chapter 3 or a uller discussion o this passageand celestial matter.

22 Ibn Sīnā and H ạmīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī, to name but two thinkers, adopted someo the key eatures o al-Fārābī’s cosmology. Although they considerably modified

al-Fārābī’s scheme, their model o a heaven divided into nine sections each associatedwith one or several separate intellects is directly indebted to the philosophy o theSecond eacher. For al-Kirmānī, see De Smet (1995, 282–284, 380; 2007, 488, and note33; and 2008). I will say more about Ibn Sīnā’s cosmology later on.

about al-Fārābī’s cosmological theories. By way o illustration, accord-ing to Maimonides in Guide, al-Fārābī’s Physics commentary argued

that different degrees o celestial matter should be ascribed to the di-erent types o celestial bodies in the heavens. Tis view not only marksan elaboration on Aristotle’s aether theory as it is exposed in On theHeavens, but also differs rom al-Fārābī’s own doctrine o celestial sub-stance as it appears in his other works, especially in his metaphysicaltreatises.21 Tis simple act suggests that al-Fārābī’s no longer extantcommentaries on On the Heavens and Physics may have already initi-ated a process o transormation o Aristotle’s cosmology, thus pointingto a creative approach to these cosmological problems early in al-Fārābī’s

lie. It also raises the possibility (explored in detail in chapter 3 o thisbook) that the views articulated in the presumably early commentato-rial works such as Physics and On the Heavens were later abandoned byal-Fārābī when he wrote his mature philosophical treatises.

Needless to say, the loss o al-Fārābī’s commentaries on Physics, Onthe Heavens, and Meteorology represents a tremendous impediment orour understanding o his cosmology. Te loss o On the Heavens is par-ticularly acute due to the place that this work traditionally occupies in

the cosmological systems o ancient and medieval thinkers. Tis isall the more true in the case o al-Fārābī, who appears to have elabo-rated a new cosmological model in Ārāʾ and Siyāsah that had a lastinginfluence on subsequent thinkers.22 Te disappearance o al-Fārābī’scommentaries on Physics and On the Heavens also renders an assess-ment o his relation to the ancient commentators more difficult. It wascustomary or Greek exegetes to discuss the views o previous or con-temporary authors in their own account o Aristotle’s works. On theHeavens in particular was one o the most debated texts and became

a locus o scholarly contention in the late antique period. Te Greekphilosopher Simplicius offers a good example o this practice: a wealtho inormation about other thinkers (e.g., Alexander o Aphrodisias,Ammonius son o Hermeias, and Philoponus) can be extracted rom


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Chapter 3 will argue that al-Fārābī’s doctrine o celestial matter in his emanation-ist works owes an unquestionable debt to the cosmology o Alexander o Aphrodisiasand Temistius; yet their names are not mentioned directly. Tis need hardly surpriseus, since al-Fārābī rarely reers to other thinkers by name, except in those works whichare meant to summarize the doctrine o a particular philosopher, such as Falsafat

Aflāt ụ̄n and Falsafat Arist ụ̄t ạ̄līs.24 Te Neoplatonic texts translated and adapted into Arabic are collectively known

as Neoplatonica arabica and consist chiefly o the Plotinus arabus (itsel composed oTeology of Aristotle, the Sayings of the Greek Sage, and Epistle on Divine Science spuri-ously attributed to al-Fārābī) and the Proclus arabus, mostly known through adapta-tions o Proclus’ Elements of Teology . For the Plotinus arabus, see Badawī (1977b),Aouad (1989), and Adamson (2002a). Te present study will ocus especially on the

Arabic versions o Proclus’ Elements, which survived in Arabic in different orms: theexcerpts assembled and studied by Endress (1973) (to these must be added an addi-tional excerpt identified by Zimmermann 1994); the Liber de causis, known in Arabicas Kalām fī mah ḍ ̣al-khayr , which was edited by Badawī (1977a), and analyzed and

his commentary on this work. But because al-Fārābī’s commentarieson the Aristotelian physical treatises have vanished, we have only lim-

ited inormation about his exegetical method and the degree o his reli-ance on the late antique Greek commentators. Tis problem iscompounded by the act that he is usually reluctant to mention previ-ous thinkers by name and to acknowledge the debt he owes them,which makes it difficult to gauge the originality o his thought.23

In spite o this, the bio-bibliographic sources ascertain that al-Fārābīcould have read several late antique Greek commentaries on logic,natural philosophy, and metaphysics in addition to the Aristotelianworks. Most o these commentaries were translated into Arabic either

beore or during al-Fārābī’s lie and had become part and parcel o thephilosophical education o his day. For instance, he may have consultedall or part o Alexander’s and Philoponus’ commentaries on Physics,Alexander’s commentary on On the Heavens and on some chapters o Metaphysics, as well as Temistius’ paraphrases o the two latter works.Tis inormation is crucial to understand al-Fārābī’s cosmology, whichoen builds upon the theories that these thinkers articulated in theirattempt to tie up the loose ends in Aristotle’s thought and legacy. When

one realizes that Mattā ibn Yūnus and Yah ̣yā ibn

ʿAdī, who belonged tothe same Baghdadi circle as al-Fārābī, figure prominently among the

translators o these Greek commentaries, then the connection betweenal-Fārābī and the late antique authors acquires a new significance.

Finally, and as a complement to Aristotle and the late antiquecommentaries, al-Fārābī read Arabic recensions or adaptations oNeoplatonic works, although he did not write commentaries on them.24


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translated into English by aylor (1981); and finally Liber de causis II , edited by Tilletand Oudaimah (2001–2002), which is another version o Mah ḍ ̣al-khayr and whichpresents several divergences rom its better known homonym. Mah ḍ ̣ al-khayr andLiber II , which consist o 31 and 29 propositions respectively as opposed to Proclus’original 211, deal mostly with the structure o the intelligible world and the relationbetween the One and the other intelligible entities. Te most comprehensive studies othese Proclean texts are to be ound in aylor (1981 and 1986), D’Ancona (1995), andD’Ancona and aylor (2003).

25 Al-Fārābī’s relation to Neoplatonism has been widely discussed and debated inthe scholarly literature. See notably the studies by Galston (1977), Ivry (1990), Druart(1987a and 1992), and more recently Vallat (2004). In spite o this, ew detailed com-

parative analyses o the terminology and concepts in al-Fārābī’s writings and in theNeoplatonica arabica have been conducted. For recent attempts, see Vallat (2004 andid., “Al-Farabi’s arguments or the Eternity o the World,” orthcoming), and Janos(2010a).

Although little is known about the context in which these works werestudied—they do not seem to have occupied a central place in the cur-

riculum o al-Fārābī’s Christian teachers—they nonetheless played a vital role in shaping some o his cosmological and metaphysical doc-trines.25 Tese works devote much attention to the cosmic principles osoul and intellect and their various effects, the nature o the stars, theinfluence o the celestial bodies on the sublunary world, not to mentionthe many excerpts that discuss creation and causality. Tat al-Fārābīknew this corpus well, especially the Proclus arabus, and integratedseveral o its theories into his own cosmological model will representone o the main results o the source analysis provided in this book. As

chapters 2 and 3 will show, nowhere is this Neoplatonic dimensionmore explicitly and orceully expressed than in al-Fārābī’s conceptiono the activity and causation o the intellectual substances and o howGod relates to the world. As a result, his theories sometimes departsignificantly rom Aristotle’s doctrine. What remains to be clarified,however, is whether he genuinely ascribed these works to Aristotle ordid so only or apologetic reasons, and the degree to which the corpushe consulted differs rom the recensions now in our possession. Te

oregoing remarks aimed to delineate the late antique philosophicalsources that al-Fārābī could have read and used to elaborate his cos-mology. o complete this picture, it is necessary to say a ew wordsabout al-Fārābī’s reception o the Greek astronomical sources.

1.2.2. Did al-Fārābī Write a Commentary on Ptolemy’s Almagest?

In addition to his various commentaries on Aristotle, al-Fārābī iscredited by the bio-bibliographers with a commentary on Ptolemy’s


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26 See al-Qi ị̄ (1903, 279,17–18) and Ibn Abī Us ạybiʿah (1965, 608).27 For the Arabic translations o Almagest , see Ibn al-Nadīm (1970, vol. 2, 639) andoomer (1984, 2). No edition o the entire Arabic version o Planetary Hypotheses

exists to this day. Troughout this book, I relied on the reproduction o the Arabicmanuscript by Goldstein (1967), the complete Spanish translation executed by GarcíaBlanco and Cano Ledesma (Ptolemy 1987), and Morelon’s (1993) French translation oBook One. Saliba (2007, ch. 1–3) provides a detailed discussion o the cultural andsocial circumstances surrounding the translation o the Greek astronomical works intoArabic and especially the reception o Ptolemy’s works in the Islamic astronomicalcircles. In the case o Hypotheses, there is no direct evidence that al-Fārābī knew or readthis work, although it would be surprising i he ignored its existence, since it wasknown to earlier and contemporary astronomers. Chapter 4 will show that Hypotheses underlies some crucial points o his theory o celestial kinematics.

28 For the Arabic ragments o Aratus, see Honigmann (1950). Geminus’ Introductionto the Phenomena and Simplicius’ commentary on On the Heavens are not mentionedby the bio-bibliographers in their surveys o the Arabic translations, although it is pos-sible that some excerpts o these works were known to Arabic thinkers.

Almagest .26 Al-Fārābī had direct access to Ptolemy’s main astronomicalworks, as both Almagest and Planetary Hypotheses were translated into

Arabic during the ninth century.27 Te impact o these Ptolemaic workscan be elt throughout his corpus. Te arrangement and order o theplanets as described by al-Fārābī, his views on the various motions othe orbs, and his endorsement o the epicycles and eccentrics areall Ptolemaic elements that he integrates in his cosmology. In additionto these oundational Ptolemaic writings, it is possible that al-Fārābīalso had access to more minor Greek astronomical works (such as partso Aratus’ poem), as well as excerpts rom Geminus’ (fl. first centuryCE) Introduction to the Phenomena, and Simplicius’ commentary on

On the Heavens, two works which contain significant passages on theastronomical method.28 In any case al-Fārābī’s knowledge o ancientGreek astronomy was substantial enough or him to write about itsmethod and to take its findings into account when elaborating his owncosmology.

Te question o whether al-Fārābī truly penned a commentary(sharh )̣ on Ptolemy’s Almagest is important, since it has a direct bearingon the proper understanding o his cosmology. Yet it is also a com-

plicated one that has generated much conusion. In what ollows,I describe chronologically the various stages in the history o this puz-zle. According to the medieval bio-bibliographers, the Second eacherwrote a commentary on Almagest as part o his mathematical output,which both al-Qi ị̄ and Ibn Abī Us ạybiʿah mention under the titleSharh ̣kitāb al-majist ị̄ , although al-Fārābī himsel never reers to it in


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29 Brockelmann (1996, vol. 1, 234) only mentions the British Library manuscript;Sezgin (1967-, vol. 5, 195) and Roseneld and İhsanoğlu (2003, 76). Following a con- vention in Greco-Arabic studies, I use the term ‘Arabic’ to describe those scholars whowrote most or all o their philosophical and/or scientific works in Arabic, regardless otheir ethnic and religious background. Te term thereore reers to the Arabic lan-guage, which was the prevalent means o communication shared by Muslims, Jews, andChristians alike.

30 Kubesov et al. (1975). Soviet scholars working during the 1970s and 1980s, espe-cially A. Kubesov and B. A. Roseneld, published extensively on al-Fārābī’s mathemati-

cal treatises and on Arabic mathematics in general. Because o the language barrier,these studies have rarely been integrated into Western scholarship. With regard toal-Fārābī’s views on astronomy, however, Kubesov’s studies (1974, 1981) are problem-atic, in that they rely extensively on the British Library manuscript. Moreover, theauthenticity o many o the treatises he discusses has to be more firmly establishedbeore his conclusions can be ully accepted. In spite o this, Kubesov must be givencredit or being one o the only scholars to ocus on the astronomical theories o the

falāsifah.31 Goldstein (1980, 342).32 Judging rom their comments, it appears that Kubesov et al. were not cognizant o

the existence o the Majlis Libary manuscript, which was first mentioned by Sezgin.More unsettling is the act that their Russian rendition o the opening section o the

commentary does not exactly match the text o the British Library manuscript. Forexample, the name al-Fārābī is nowhere to be ound in their Russian translation,although it appears on numerous occasions in the British Library copy. Tis indicateseither that Kubesov et al. adumbrated the text at their disposal or that they did not aerall consult exactly the same document as the one owned by the British Library.

his extant works. wo manuscripts—one in the British Library inLondon and the other in the Majlis Library in ehran—bearing this

title and attributed to al-Fārābī were listed by Sezgin in GAS and byRoseneld and İhsanoğlu in their prosopographic study o Arabicastronomers.29 Te first attempt to study this work systematically wasmade by a team o Soviet scholars in the 1970s, which provided aRussian translation o the British Library manuscript, together witha substantial introduction and endnotes.30 But it was shown subse-quently by B. Goldstein that the British Library manuscript, whichKubesova et al. claim to be the only surviving copy o al-Fārābī’s Sharh ,̣should in act be attributed to Ibn Sīnā.31 Following Goldstein,

I mysel can attest that although al-Fārābī’s name is mentioned on twooccasions in the first olios o this manuscript, a comparison o itsstructure and contents with Ibn Sīnā’s ah ṛīr al-majist ị̄ as published inthe mathematical section o Shifāʾ indicates that we are essentially deal-ing with two versions o the same text.32

Furthermore, and to add yet more conusion to this state o affairs,my attempt to obtain a copy o the Majlis Library manuscript provedunsuccessul, as the staff could not find or even identiy the alleged


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33 A certain Abū l-Fath ̣Ah ṃad ibn Muh ạmmad ibn al-Sarī (d. 1153 CE) wrote atreatise entitled Qawl fī bayān mā wahama fīhi Abū Nas ṛ al-Fārābī ʿinda sharh ịhī l-fas ḷal-sābiʿ ʿashar min al-maqālah al-khāmisah min al-majist ị̄ wa-sharh ̣ hādhā l-fas ḷ , asreported by Sezgin in GAS (1967-, vol. 5, 195).

manuscript. While I despaired or some time thinking that no exem-plar o Fārābī’s commentary had survived, I was inormed recently and

incidentally that a microfilm copy o the Majlis Library manuscript wasmade and preserved in the Al-Asad Library in Damascus. Unortunately,I was not able to consult the Al-Asad Library microfilm in time toinclude its contents in my study, nor was I even able to ascertain itsauthenticity. Given the unpredictable history associated with al-Fārābī’scommentary, it should be confirmed first, that the Al-Asad copy isindeed a commentary on Ptolemy’s Almagest , and second, that it isby al-Fārābī himsel and does not consist in another misattribution.In any case, with one manuscript re-attributed and the other one van-

ishing, the Al-Asad copy represents or the time being the only hope toretrieve al-Fārābī’s putative commentary rom obscurity. I can onlywish that research on this text be carried out in the near uture, be itonly to settle a very conusing issue.

Te oregoing considerations raise the ollowing question: given thestill complete absence o positive manuscript evidence, can a commen-tary on Almagest still be securely attributed to al-Fārābī? Tis questionis even more pressing when one realizes that the reports o the Arabic

bio-bibliographers are oen dubious. Although no definitive answercan be put orward at this point in time, there does not seem to be anya priori reason to reject the authenticity o this attribution. As theexamples o Ibn Sīnā and Nas ị̄r al-Dīn al- ụ̄sī show, it was common ormedieval Arabic philosophers to practice astronomy and to summarizeor comment on Ptolemy’s Almagest . Moreover, part o al-Fārābī’s com-mentary was apparently criticized by a later scholar interested inastronomy.33 Hence, in the absence o any decisive evidence pointing tothe contrary, it should be assumed with some caution that al-Fārābī

was indeed the author o such a commentary.Several points concerning al-Fārābī’s astronomical activity may beinerred rom his composing a commentary on Almagest . First, althoughhe dedicated himsel primarily to other sectors o philosophy such asmetaphysics and logic, he was sufficiently interested in astronomy towrite an entire treatise on Ptolemy’s Almagest . In that sense, al-Fārābīwas continuing a late antique tradition that harkens back to scholarssuch as Teon o Alexandria (d. ca. 405 CE), as well as Proclus’


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34 Rosenthal (1956), Rescher (1964, 45), and Adamson (2007a, 8).35 See or example Ārāʾ (al-Fārābī 1985a, 129 and 1985b, 73).36 See urther section 2.2.1 below.37 Although there is no solid evidence or the existence o permanent and ull-

fledged observatories in ninth- and tenth-century Baghdad, we know that astronomi-cal observations were carried out in this city, some o which were sponsored by theʿAbbāsid caliphs, especially al-Maʾmūn; see Sayılı (1981, 51–80) and King (1997,130–131).

Hypotyposis and Simplicius’ commentary on On the Heavens (twoworks that contain numerous digressions on Ptolemaic astronomy)

and, in the early Islamic period, also includes al-Kindī.34 All o thesethinkers have in common the act that they took Ptolemaic astronomyinto account when redacting their cosmological works, either to criti-cize and ultimately reject it (as did Proclus) or to assimilate some o itstheories (as did al-Kindī and al-Fārābī). Second, it indicates thatal-Fārābī was cognizant o the various planetary theories devised byPtolemy to explain the celestial phenomena, as well as with the techni-cal terminology used in such queries. In act, astronomical terms suchas ‘epicycles’ (aflāk al-tadwīr ) occasionally appear in al-Fārābī’s philo-

sophical treatises, thus proving that he had read technical works on thesubject.35 In brie, then, it would seem that the Second eacher enter-tained a genuine interest in mathematical astronomy, even though littleevidence on this aspect o his work has survived.

Tis being said, it is difficult to define the exact nature o al-Fārābī’sastronomical activity. Did he limit himsel to writing a commentaryon Almagest , or did he, like Ibn Sīnā, carry out observations and col-lect astronomical data? Al-Fārābī’s remarks in Mūsīqā on the value

o observation and experience in astronomy and on the relationbetween scientific theory and practice indicate that his astronomicalinterest may have included a practical dimension.36 Tis is also sup-ported biographically by his protracted stay in Baghdad, a vibrantcenter or astronomical research during the ninth and tenth centuries.37 Te available evidence nevertheless does not allow us to confirm thishypothesis.

1.3. Early Islamic Cosmological rends

Al-Fārābī’s cosmological theories should also be contextualized interms o the religious, philosophical, and scientific activity that devel-oped during the first centuries o Islam. In this regard at least three


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38 See, or instance, verses 2:29, 17:44, 23:86, and 65:12: “It is God Who createdseven heavens, and o earths their like.”

39 For a clear and concise overview o this traditional model, see Neuwirth (2001).40 Al-Suyūt ị̄’s main work on traditional cosmology, Al-hay ʾah al-saniyyah fī l-hay ʾah

al-sunniyyah, was extensively studied by Heinen (1982). Al-Suyūt ị̄ relied on manyearlier such works to write his book. Tis indicates an uninterrupted Islamic cosmo-logical tradition running possibly rom the ormation o the Qurʾān and h ạdīth literature—or shortly thereaer—to the fieenth century. However, this traditionalmodel also underwent substantial transormation as a result o its contact with the

Ptolemaic worldview. In some kalām works, or instance, the throne and ootstool areidentified with the eighth and ninth celestial orbs o the Ptolemaic universe, althoughit is unclear when exactly this exegetical trend began; see Heinen (1982, 76 ff.) andHuart EI 2.

important elements come into play: traditional Islamic cosmology,the philosophical precedents o al-Kindī and Abū Bakr al-Rāzī, and the

development o an Arabic astronomical tradition.

1.3.1. raditional Islamic Cosmology and Early kalām

Te first Islamic centuries witnessed the emergence o a traditionalcosmology that has its roots in various passages o the Qur ʾān and insome h ạdīths. Tis ‘Qurʾānic’ or ‘traditionalist’ cosmological modelquickly became widespread in Islamic society, due to the exalted statuso these texts in Muslim worship and scholarship. It also gradually

infiltrated other Arabic literary genres such as poetry, creeds, tafsīr ,sīrah, and miʿrāj accounts. Briefly, it presents the universe as consistingo seven superimposed earths and heavens, with God’s throne ( aʿrsh)and ootstool (kursī ) occupying the space above it.38 Tere is someambiguity concerning the shape o these seven heavens, which couldbe either domed or complete orbs surrounding the earth, dependingon one’s interpretation o the relevant verses. Te celestial bodies, i.e.,the sun, moon, and stars, occupy the space o the lowest heaven andmove through the firmament by gliding in their orbits, while celestial

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Janos-Method Structure and Development in Al Farabi's Cosmology

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