SOURCE: Netton, Ian Richard. “Al-Fārābī: The Search for Order.” In Allah Transcendent: Studies in the Structure and Semiotics of Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Cosmology, pp. 99-148. London: Routledge, 1989.

[In the following essay, Netton examines al-Fārābī's description of God as the One in whom essence and existence merge absolutely, his understanding of the concept of emanation, and the structure of his theology.]

THE ROAD TO ASCALON: THE MAN AND HIS SEARCH

The reputation of Abū Naṣr Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Tarkhān b. Awzalagh¹ al-Fārābī (AD 870-950) has come down to us untarnished and undiminished from medieval times. It became a cliché in the study of Islamic philosophy to refer to him as the ‘Second Teacher’ or ‘Master’ after Aristotle. Ibn Khallikān lauded al-Fārābī as the greatest Muslim philosopher and one who was unrivalled in the study of the philosophical sciences. He states that al-Fārābī became an expert on Aristotle and underlines the debt that the great Ibn Sīnā later owed to him.² (It is worth noting here, however, that it is the Aristotelian Fārābī who is praised by Ibn Khallikān and that his biographical sketch ignores the Neoplatonism of that philosopher). The medieval admiration for al-Fārābī has been repeated in our own age: Nicholas Rescher ranks him among ‘the five or six greatest philosophers of Islam.’³ And Badawī believes that all later currents of thought in Islamic philosophy found their source in al-Fārābī.⁴ Furthermore, it was not only the East, in the form of Ibn Sīnā and many others, which was indebted to al-Fārābī. The West too, as we shall see, particularly in its development of scholastic theology, could not afford to ignore those works of his that were translated into Latin in the Middle Ages.⁵

The veneration of al-Fārābī in both past and present reflects the calibre of the man. And it is not surprising. Just as Aristotle, the ‘First Master,’ had endeavoured, so many centuries before, to impose some kind of orderly framework on man and beast with his categories and hierarchization, so the ‘Second Master’ made a quest for theological and political order the focus of his philosophy. And this analogy with Aristotle is more than merely happy or fortuitous. We are told that al-Fārābī read the De Anima two hundred times and the Physics forty times.⁶ It is not, therefore, strange that his work has been described as ‘saturated’ with Aristotelianism.⁷ Furthermore, al-Fārābī's achievement in writing his philosophy in Arabic is the more remarkable since this was not his native tongue: his first language was Turkish and he only learned Arabic when he went to study in Baghdad. It is claimed that he achieved a complete mastery of the language⁸ but this has been disputed by modern scholarship.⁹ (What his other languages were is also a matter of some debate:¹⁰ it seems unlikely that he knew much, or indeed any, Greek,¹¹ but he may well have known Persian.¹²)

Al-Fārābī's search for order proceeded on two main fronts: political and theological. His chosen method was the establishment of a hierarchy for each. The first sphere does not concern us directly here, though it must be noted that scholars have commented on the considerable unity between the theological and political writings of al-Fārābī.¹³ The philosopher himself provides the basic clues to, and impetus behind, this truism: the wise ruler in the virtuous city ranks its citizens in the same way in which God has arranged all the natural phenomena¹⁴ of His universe in ranks, beginning with Himself and descending to prime matter and the elements.¹⁵ The link between theology and politics is rarely casually done. Indeed, in what is often regarded as al-Fārābī's most Platonic reflection, The Book of the Opinions of the People of the Virtuous City (Kitāb Ārā' Ahl al-Madīna al-Fāḍila),¹⁶ supposedly modelled on Plato's Republic,¹⁷ the theology appears to take over from the political intent of the title and the work is utterly dominated by al-Fārābī's well-known description of the First Being and related Neoplatonic matters. Only the last twelve, out of a total of thirty-seven chapters (fuṣūl), may be described as purely political—or, at least, more overtly political than religious in the light of the politico-theological link in al-Fārābī's thought stressed above.¹⁸

The search for order is visible in al-Fārābī's attempts to reconcile the thought of Plato and Aristotle.¹⁹ He tried to show that ‘properly understood, Aristotle's opinions on all such issues [as the world's creation, the soul's survival and reward and punishment after death] are in agreement with those of Plato and hence with religious beliefs.’²⁰ Mahdi points out al-Fārābī's request to the reader at the end of The Attainment of Happiness (Taḥṣīl al-Sa‘āda) to be quite clear about the identical purpose of Plato's and Aristotle's philosophy: their intention (gharaḍ) was to offer the same philosophy.²¹ The attempt at reconciliation may not have been well done.²² Al-Fārābī's knowledge of Greek philosophy may not only have been received at second hand, due to a lack of proficiency in the Greek language, but it may also at times have been inexact and even fanciful.²³ He may have fallen into the usual trap of the early philosophers and attributed the Theologia to Aristotle;²⁴ but none of this invalidated the essential intention of al-Fārābī, which was to hew harmony from conflict.

This is evident again on the metaphysical level in his adoption or erection of a complex Neoplatonic hierachy of being which went far beyond the triad of Plotinus and the Neoplatonic stirrings of al-Kindī. The gulf between the latter, which by comparison were inchoate, unformed, and disorganized, and the elaborate scheme of al-Fārābī, is vast. This scheme, and indeed the entire quest for theological and political stability, hierarchy, and order, may be viewed, at least in part, as a direct product of al-Fārābī's own feelings of instability and impermanence.²⁵ Indeed, his worst fears were justified in a particularly personal and tragic way if we are to believe the report, retailed by al-Bayhaqī (but not referred to by Ibn Khallikān), that he was attacked and murdered by brigands on the road from Damascus to Ascalon.²⁶

When we turn, then, to a consideration of the nature and role of the Fārābian God, which is the principal object of this chapter, we find that it is not primarily Aristotle's Unmoved First Mover who confronts us, though it is possible to identify certain parallels between the Fārābian Deity and the Aristotelian model.²⁷ It is also true that there is an Aristotelian layer in al-Fārābī's writings that is quite free from Neoplatonism.²⁸ This is particularly apparent in The Philosophy of Aristotle (Falsafat Arisṭūṭālīs).²⁹ But it is utterly impossible to ignore the overwhelming and powerful portrait of the transcendent Neoplatonic God who appears in The Virtuous City and dominates that work.³⁰ It is this work more than any other that justifies the claim that al-Fārābī produced ‘the first systematic exposition of Neo-Platonism in Arabic.’³¹ If we accept Galston's succinct definition that ‘the hallmark of Neoplatonic metaphysics is a highly developed hierarchical understanding of the structure and/or creation of the universe, according to which all the parts of the universe (starting with intellect and soul) emanate directly or indirectly from a transcendent first principle variously referred to as God, the One, and similar names,’³² then The Virtuous City constitutes the primary Fārābian source book and illustration for that definition. Thus it is astonishing to read an otherwise perceptive commentator writing of the philosopher: ‘Al-Fārābī does not have al-Kindī's sense of the transcendence of God.’³³The Virtuous City demonstrates clearly that the opposite is true.

AL-FāRāBī AND THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

Al-Fārābī's description of the Deity, like that of al-Kindī and many philosophers after them, does not eschew the traditional treatment of the Islamic God. As we have seen, such a duality of approach is not uncommon.³⁴ And though, if we had to place the two in a balance, we would have to admit that the Neoplatonic ‘philosophers’ God' of al-Fārābī is considerably more prominent and developed in his metaphysics and cosmology than the Deity at the heart of the Qur'ānic Creator Paradigm, the latter is still sufficiently in evidence in some of his work to deserve brief note. It is therefore worthwhile to pause and analyse a few of the more traditional theistic elements in his writings—which often require disentanglement from others—before pursuing his Neoplatonic Deity single-mindedly through the pages of The Virtuous City.

Al-Fārābī has no hesitation in using the traditional basmala³⁵ nor in invoking praise for God as ‘Lord of the Worlds.’³⁶ But it is his short Magnificent Invocation (Du‘ā' ‘Azīm)³⁷ that provides both an extended illustration of the latter and shows just how entangled the Qur'ānic vocabulary of Islamic speech to and about God could become with extraneous material derived from Aristotle and Plotinus. In this Invocation al-Fārābī begins by addressing God as ‘Necessarily existent’ (Wājib al-wujūd), ‘the Cause of causes’ (‘Illat al-‘ilal), and ‘eternal, unceasing’ (qadīman lam yazal).³⁸ He prays God to protect him from error, endow him with virtue, and grant a happy outcome to his affairs. The Deity is then apostrophized Qur'ānically as ‘God of the Easts and the Wests,’ i.e. the whole world (Ilāh al-Mashāriq wa 'l-Maghārib).³⁹ He is asked to garb the petitioner in clothes of splendour, prophetic dignity, wealth, wisdom and God-fearing humility. An astonishing, and unexpected, supplication now follows: al-Fārābī prays to be delivered from the world of misfortune and evanescence and made one of the brethren of purity and companions of loyalty (ikhwān al-ṣafā' wa aṣḥāb al-wafā') and inhabitants of Paradise in the company of the prophet Joseph and the first Caliph Abū Bakr⁴⁰ and the martyrs. The words which I have just italicized are so reminiscent of the nomenclature adopted by the philosophical group called the Ikhwān al-Safā',⁴¹ and the sentiments of the whole phrase reflect their Rasā'il so strongly,⁴² that one at first suspects either a later interpolation into the text of material derived from the Ikhwān's Rasā'il or a false attribution to al-Fārābī of the entire Invocation. This last idea seems initially to be bolstered by the variety of other Ikhwānic themes and motifs in the Invocation to which reference will shortly be made.

Yet Muhsin Mahdi has accepted the authorship as al-Fārābī's, even though he notes its omission in the traditional listings of al-Fārābī's works.⁴³ If we concur with his verdict, then at the very least we must emphasize the extraordinary parallelism between the Du‘ā' ‘Azīm and the themes and vocabulary of the Ikhwān's Rasā'il. At best, the two texts either share a common pool of imagery or the Ikhwān here, depending very much on the date allocated to their period of writing, drew directly on al-Fārābī's work.⁴⁴

The Du‘ā' ‘Azīm goes on to stress the unique oneness of God in a paraphrase of the first part of the shahāda, and follows it by designating Him, Qur'ānically, as ‘the Light of the earth and the heaven[s]’ (Nūr al-arḍ wa 'l-samā');⁴⁵ it then prays, Neoplatonically, for a conferring of ‘an emanation from the Active Intellect’ (fayḍan min al-‘Aql al-Fa“āl).⁴⁶ The remainder of the text is imbued with a similar variety of laudatory and invocatory material. The whole may be regarded as a fascinating mixture of prayer of adoration and prayer of petition infused with Aristotelian, Neoplatonic, and Qur'ānic elements. Indeed, the latter become more overt with the citation of three Qur'ānic quotations,⁴⁷ while the former two are represented by further (verse) references to emanation,⁴⁸ and potentiality and actuality.⁴⁹ Among dicta that bear direct comparison in their heavy emphasis on purification with the classic locutions of the Ikhwān al-Safā' are the invocations to God to purify the soul ‘from the clay [or stuff] of matter’ (min ṭīnat ‘l-hayūlā),⁵⁰ remove from it ‘the turbidity of nature’ (kadar al-ṭabī‘a),⁵¹ and save the suppliant ‘from the captivity of the four natures’ (min asr al-ṭabā'i‘al-arba‘),⁵² and the prison of those natures in which he is confined.⁵³ God is finally urged to remove the soul from the darkness of ignorance to the light of [His?] wisdom and the brightness of the Intellect.⁵⁴ And if it is the Universal Intellect of Neoplatonism that is intended here, it is followed by a very Qur'ānic proof verse: ‘God is the Protector of the believers; He brings them forth from the shadows into the light.’⁵⁵

When we turn from the Du‘ā' ‘Azīm to The Virtuous City, we move from an eclectic and unharmonized view of deity to a Fārābian version of the almost monolithic fastnesses inhabited by the classic One of Neoplatonism. But it has been rightly pointed out that al-Fārābī's doctrine is not a simple copy of Aristotelianism or Neoplatonism. The philosopher certainly borrows and uses the ideas of others but he makes them his own.⁵⁶ Thus, to deploy Madkour's useful phrase, we can talk of an Alfarabism as well.⁵⁷ And if we use the latter word here to characterize or signify Fārābian development of basic Greek and Neoplatonic doctrines, then it is a suitable one to apply to The Virtuous City: this text, perhaps the best known of all al-Fārābī's works, is an example of Alfarabism par excellence.

The attributes of the Fārābian God in this book are treated in two different ways: negatively and positively.⁵⁸ In the first the author attempted to stress the utter transcendence of his God, referring to Him through a variety of negative propositions and statements. This kind of negative theology had strong antecedents in early Christian as well as Islamic theology.⁵⁹ In his second mode al-Fārābī emphasized among other things the different facets of perfection of the Deity, while underlining the fact that all His attributes were subsumed in, and not distinct from, His essence.⁶⁰ Taken together, the negative and positive descriptions of the attributes of God in al-Fārābī's work constitute a radical departure in Islamic thought;⁶¹ and while one is certainly aware of, and notes, the wise caveats of Mahdi and Galston against the indiscriminate use of the word ‘Neoplatonism’ for the generality of al-Fārābī's writings,⁶² here at least in The Virtuous City there is little danger that one will go wildly astray in a consistent application of that word.

In al-Fārābī's Commentary on Aristotle's “De Interpretatione” (Sharḥ al-Fārābī li Kitāb Arisṭūṭālīs fī 'l- ‘Ibāra) the philosopher expressed a preference for the description of God to be regarded in terms of indefinite nouns, rather than negatively:

One should, therefore, not say that God most High can be described negatively (bi'l-salb), but that he can be described by indefinite nouns (bi 'l-asmā' ghayr al-muḥaṣṣala). In many cases, their precise function is to signify a positive quality which is affirmed in such a way as to distinguish its subject totally from the things of which the corresponding definite noun is true, in which case they do not signify a privation. For it would be absurd to say that, in connexion with something which cannot be deprived at all, an indefinite noun signifies a privation.⁶³

Al-Fārābī goes on to observe that what has been said is ‘not without problems’;⁶⁴ but it is clear in my view that however one chooses, grammatically, to designate al-Fārābī's phraseology in The Virtuous City he does often employ a negative mode of describing God. There can, of course, be no question of any privation in relation to that God for al-Fārābī as the above quotation stresses.⁶⁵

Al-Fārābī's God is the First Being (al-Mawjūd al-Awwal) and the First Cause (al-Sabab al-Awwal) of all other beings.⁶⁶ He is necessarily existent,⁶⁷ and this point is stated in a characteristically negative way: ‘It is impossible in any way that He does not exist’ (lā imkān an lā yūjad wa lā bi-wajh mā min al-wujūh).⁶⁸ He is without beginning (azalī)⁶⁹ and eternal (dā'im al-wujūd) and had no need of anything else in order to be without beginning.⁷⁰ It is impossible that any being existed before Him which was His cause.⁷¹ His absolute unity has been called ‘a corollary of His essence,’⁷² but it is even more than that. God's unity is His essence (waḥdatuhu ‘ayn thātihi). As the philosopher puts it: ‘His being by which He is distinguished from other beings cannot be other than that by which He Himself in essence exists.’⁷³

It almost goes without saying, though the fact is stressed in The Virtuous City, that God has no partner (sharīk);⁷⁴ more unusually, al-Fārābī stresses that He has no direct opposite or contrary (ḍidd) either: for contraries such as he envisages could fight and destroy themselves. And that which is capable of being destroyed cannot be self-sufficient or eternal and is therefore caused.⁷⁵ Al-Fārābī may perhaps have in mind here something like the dualist theology of a religion like Zoroastrianism, which posited two great divine powers, Ahura Mazda (or Ohrmazd) and Ahriman, in perpetual conflict.⁷⁶

The whole doctrine of unity is underlined again by al-Fārābī's characterizing the First Being as ‘indivisible in His substance’ (ghayr munqasim fī jawharihi), and ‘indefinable’ or ‘ineffable’ (ghayr munqasim bi 'l-qawl).⁷⁷ Al-Fārābī argues that if it were possible to divide up God's substance (or essence) (jawhar) into constituent parts, then those parts would have to be regarded as the causes of God's Being: this is because what is identified as a part in any definition is for him the cause of the object defined. (For example, matter and form can be regarded as the causes of the object they constitute.) But, as we have seen, this kind of identification of causes for God's Being is impossible because He was from all eternity First and His Being is absolutely and utterly uncaused (lā sabab li wujū-dihi aṣlan).⁷⁸

This sort of total simplicity, so essential in al-Fārābī's concept of the Deity,⁷⁹ means, of course,⁸⁰ that that Deity is also immaterial (laysa bi-mādda)⁸¹ and without form (lā ayḍan lahu ṣūra).⁸² The absence of the latter is a direct consequence of the absence of the former. And there would be serious consequences for God's indivisibility, in al-Fārābī's view, if He did have form. For He would then consist of the two elements of matter and form and each of these would then become a cause of His Being. But it is reiterated by al-Fārābī that God Himself is a First Cause.⁸³ The result of all this, for the philosopher, is that God must be an ‘Intelligence who is intelligent in understanding His essence’ (yakūn ‘Aqlan wa ‘āqilan bi-an ya‘qila thātahu)⁸⁴ or, as the medieval saw derived from Aristotle puts it, ‘thought thinking itself’ (intellectus intelligens intellectum).⁸⁵ Small wonder then that man, because of the weakness of his own intellect, its contamination by things material, and the dazzling nature of God's perfection, finds God basically incomprehensible and unknowable, for he can neither imagine Him fully nor really understand Him.⁸⁶

We may conclude this survey of al-Fārābī's negative description by noting finally that he proclaims the Deity, right at the beginning of The Virtuous City, to be what might be termed ‘undirected’ (lā ayḍan li wujūdihi gharaḍ wa ghāya); that is to say, His existence cannot be said to depend on the realization of any goal or end. For, if that were the case, God's existence would then, for al-Fārābī, have some cause (sababan mā) and He could no longer be considered a First Cause.⁸⁷ In this passage the philosopher makes no distinction between a kind of ‘teleological causality’ and the more direct ‘action’ of, for example, matter and form to which we referred earlier and whose discussion, in fact, immediately precedes this passage in the Arabic.

If we turn now to some of al-Fārābī's more positive descriptions of divinity in The Virtuous City we find that these really only reflect the obverse of the same coin whose negative side has just been examined: they are all part of that sublime unity and essence which brooks no division. As the author himself puts it:

Our beauty, ornament and splendour are to be found in our accidents, not in our essence, and in things external to us, not in our substance. [But] the beauty and perfection in Him [i.e. God] are but a single essence (dhāt wāḥida) in Him, as are the rest of His attributes.⁸⁸

God's unique perfection constitutes a basic and recurring motif of The Virtuous City.⁸⁹ Indeed, as was previously noted, it is because He is supremely perfect (huwa fī 'l-ghāya min kamāl al-wujūd) that He is so difficult to understand.⁹⁰ Al-Fārābī provides an interesting light analogy to emphasize what he means: light is the first, most perfect and clearest of visible things; by it everything else can be seen and because of it colours can be perceived: the better the light, the better the vision. But this is not the case with God: the greater His light, the weaker our vision. The fault, of course, lies not in God but in us because of our incapacity to tolerate the light of His perfection.⁹¹ Furthermore, God is so perfect and complete that He must be considered as beyond potentiality and, therefore, immutable.⁹²

God is also self-subsistent or self-sufficient.⁹³ This must be crystal-clear by now from everything that has already been said in this Chapter, but it is worth noting that al-Fārābī himself chooses to spell it out positively, as well as in his other denials of any origins or partners for the Deity. This self-subsistence is, of course, linked to the concept of God's perfection and His other attributes: since His essence is eternal, and therefore self-subsistent, all His attributes, being a part of that essence, must be self-subsistent as well. Thus, at the beginning of The Virtuous City, the philosopher states: ‘He is sufficient in His substance for His own continuance and the endurance of His existence’ (Huwa bi-jawharihi kāf fī baqā'ihi wa dawām wujū-dihi).⁹⁴ The point is elaborated somewhat in another Fārābian work entitled Aphorisms of the Statesman (Fuṣūl al-Madanī):

[The One's] continued existence is not due to the existence of anything else, but it is sufficient in itself, not deriving existence from another; … it can by no means derive existence from another and can by no means be body or in body; … its existence is a different existence, outside the existence of the other existents, sharing not at all with any of them in meaning, but if it shares, this is in name only … it is the First Truth, affording truth to other things and self-sufficient in respect of its truth, not deriving it from another …⁹⁵

God's perfection manifests itself in a variety of other guises too, which show that al-Fārābī is not an absolute adherent of the via negativa in his description and characterization of the divine. The latter is essentially and intrinsically grand (dhū ‘azama),⁹⁶ majestic (dhū jalāla), glorious (dhū majd) and beautiful (dhū jamāl), and none of these qualities is in any way dependent on the speech, opinion, or act of another. They are of His essence (fī dhātihi).⁹⁷ Similarly, because God's self is the primary object of His own love and so Lover and Loved merge into one—The One!—God is called, in almost ṣūfī terminology, ‘The First Loved and the First Beloved’ (Al-Maḥbūb al-Awwal wa 'l-Ma‘shūq al-Awwal).⁹⁸ And this love exists (eternally) whether or not He is loved by any human.⁹⁹ Furthermore, there are more than just the overtones of the classic ṣūfī vocabulary here. The whole concept that the phrase embodies is profoundly Aristotelian: as we have already noted in the discussion of al-Kindī, the Stagirite's Unmoved First Mover spends His ‘time’ in perpetual contemplation of Himself, motivated by His love and ineluctable admiration for His own supreme perfection.¹⁰⁰

Finally, among the positive epithets, al-Fārābī calls God ‘knowing’ (‘ālim), wise (ḥakīm), true (ḥaqq), and living (ḥayy). But he stresses that God is much more than merely endowed with these qualities. The logic of al-Fārābī's identification of attribute and essence means that God is intellect in action (‘aql bi 'l-fi‘l) as well as wisdom, truth, and life themselves.¹⁰¹

ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE

Among all the positive and negative terms applied by al- Fārābī to God that have been examined, two stand out and are worthy of further discussion: they are the concepts of essence and existence. Not only are they of profound importance for al-Fārābī's own thought, and succeeding Islamic theology and metaphysics generally, but they are concepts that had a considerable significance for the development of medieval Christian theology as well. They were to become key themes, for example, in the discussions of the scholastics.¹⁰² This was particularly the case in St Thomas Aquinas' (AD 1225-1274) metaphysics.¹⁰³ The development of these terms by Aquinas and his fellow scholastics may be characterized as an aspect of that greater revolution that had overtaken medieval intellectual, and especially theological, thought in Europe by the thirteenth century. As Booth puts it:

The sheer volume of Aristotelian, together with Greek and Arab peripatetic thought which reached Western Europe at the turn of the thirteenth century, with their own conceptions of system-making in which the thoughts of many minds had gone over many centuries, almost overwhelmed the informal twelfth-century constructions of Christendom's philosophers and theologians.¹⁰⁴

Now it is often asserted that Aquinas was influenced in the distinction he made between essence and existence by Ibn Sīnā¹⁰⁵ and alleged, more than once, that the latter was ‘the first¹⁰⁶ to appreciate the significance of the real distinction between being (esse) and essence.’¹⁰⁷ The first statement may well be correct: in the light of the proliferation and popularity of relevant Latin translations from Ibn Sīnā's works by the thirteenth century,¹⁰⁸ it is quite likely that the direct source or influence for Aquinas' doctrine of essence and existence was indeed the Latinized Ibn Sīnā.¹⁰⁹ The second statement above, however, appears to ignore the same distinction made by Ibn Sīnā's predecessor, al-Fārābī, between essence and existence.¹¹⁰ To stress the priority of Ibn Sīnā over al-Fārābī in this matter is grossly to undervalue the thought of the latter. It is therefore worthwhile pausing briefly here and examining the indirect ‘links’ which ‘bind’ al-Fārābī and Aquinas on this topic. For the former, as has been stressed, ‘shares’ many Thomist ideas about God and it is easy to see why he has been viewed in several respects as a kind of proto-Aquinas.¹¹¹

Al-Fārābī's doctrine of essence and existence has been characterized as an ‘outstanding example’ of his creative thought and philosophical insight,¹¹² and his views are neatly summarized as follows:

Every ‘thing’ has an essence which it is possible to define but this essence is indifferent to, and different from, existence: hence, wherever a thing ‘exists’ it owes existence not to its own essence but to an outside cause.¹¹³

This concept of a separation between essence (dhāt) and existence (wujūd) is clear from a cursory examination of the vocabulary of The Virtuous City and it is a distinction that lies behind much of the theology of that work. The same doctrine, elaborated in a more complicated fashion, is also the basis for the discussion of being (al-mawjūd) in The Book of Letters (Kitāb al-Hurūf).¹¹⁴

Al-Fārābī further held that, uniquely, God was One in whom essence and existence merged absolutely with no separation between the two. This is because everything ‘requires an outside cause to bestow existence on it, if it is to exist.’¹¹⁵ But, as we have seen, God is uncaused. Thus He is the single Being ‘whose essence is His very existence.’¹¹⁶ One of the clearest statements of both the general distinction between essence and existence and their more specific merging in God, comes in the Bezels of Wisdom (Fuṣūṣ al-Hikam): according to this, everything that exists possesses essence (māhiyya) and existence (huwiyya). The two are distinct, and if the existence (huwiyya) of essence does not derive from itself, it must derive from something outside itself. The logical conclusion is that there must exist a Principle (Mabda') for whom there is no separation between essence and existence.¹¹⁷

In view of the clear-cut nature of this statement, it is rather a pity that its authenticity is somewhat suspect: it is by no means certain that this Bezels of Wisdom is a Fārābian work and it may well have been written by Ibn Sīnā.¹¹⁸ But there is no need here, in seeking primary evidence in al-Fārābī's writings for the doctrine of identification of essence and existence in God, to depend totally on the Bezels as others, perhaps unwisely, have done.¹¹⁹ There are indications elsewhere in those writings of his whose authenticity is beyond dispute that lead to the same conclusion and also show that al-Fārābī, like Ibn Sīnā, regarded existence as an accident of essence.¹²⁰ For example, al-Fārābī observed in The Political Regime (Kitāb al-Siyāsa al-Madaniyya):

The First exists in and by Himself, and it is part of His very substance to bestow existence on something outside Himself. Therefore that being in Him (wujūduhu) from which existence (al-wujūd) emanates on something else is in His very substance (fī jawharihi), and the being wherein He substantiates Himself in Himself (fī dhātihi) is the very being from which the existence of something else results. It cannot be divided into two things, one of them being the part wherein He substantiates Himself in Himself, the other that from which the existence of another thing results.¹²¹

There are implicit indications as well. The fact that The Virtuous City acknowledges God as ‘living’ (ḥayy) points to the same identification of essence and existence in God. For anything which is ‘living’ may logically be assumed to exist. Now al-Fārābī states that God's ‘being alive’ (ḥayāt) is so much a part of His essence that God is Life itself. We may thus conclude that existence and essence in God are one as well.¹²² The same concept, in a rather less clear delineation, lies behind the discussion of being in The Book of Letters, which Amina Rachid believes to be one of the first texts to identify God with being.¹²³

Kenny has described ‘the thesis that in all created things essence and existence are distinct, whereas in God essence and existence are to be identified’ as ‘Aquinas's most celebrated doctrine concerning esse.’¹²⁴ And if we turn now to the work of that scholastic master, we find that he has much in common with al-Fārābī. Indeed, one author has gone so far as to assert that Aquinas ‘must certainly have borrowed’ his essence-existence doctrine from al-Fārābī himself,¹²⁵ rather than from the Latinized Ibn Sīnā as is more generally assumed.¹²⁶ However, it is true that Ibn Sīnā himself acknowledged a debt of gratitude to al-Fārābī: of the two the latter was by far the more original¹²⁷ and this is confirmed in a particularly striking way in Ibn Sīnā's autobiography. He tells us that he struggled with the reading of Aristotle's Metaphysics forty times to the point of memorizing the work but without comprehension until he finally, by chance, bought from a man in the booksellers' quarter, for three dirhams, a book by al-Fārābī explaining the intentions of Aristotle's Metaphysics.

Ibn Sīnā took it home and all became clear to him at once.¹²⁸ There could be no more obvious indication of Ibn Sīnā's dependence on al-Fārābī and, indeed, one modern scholar has pithily and wittily encapsulated that dependence in the title of a book dealing with both al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā called The Two Fārābīs (Al-Fārābiyyān).¹²⁹ So, in a certain sense, it is possible to say that Aquinas was dependent on al-Fārābī as well.

The classic distinction in Aquinas between essence and existence appears as early as his juvenile treatise On Being and Essence (De Ente et Essentia).¹³⁰ Quoting Ibn Sīnā in support, Aquinas stresses at the beginning of paragraph one that ‘being and essence are what is first conceived by the intellect.’¹³¹ Next he proposes the reasons for writing the De Ente, which are to avoid the errors that ignorance of essence and existence can entail, and to induce a familiarity with the various difficulties associated with these terms.¹³² The whole work then progresses to the following key statement: ‘There is a thing, God, whose essence is his existence itself’¹³³ (Aliquid enim est sicut Deus, cujus essentia est suum esse¹³⁴).

The same theory appears later in fully fledged form in both the Summa Theologiae and the Summa contra Gentiles. In the following quotations we see the elaborated reflections of the mature theologian on his earlier statement in the De Ente that essence and existence merge in God:

First, properties that belong to a thing over and above its own nature must derive from somewhere, either from that nature itself, as do properties peculiar to a particular species (for example, the sense of humour peculiar to man derives from his specific nature), or from an external cause (as heat in water derives from some fire). If therefore the existence of a thing is to be other than its nature, that existence must either derive from the nature or have an external cause. Now it cannot derive merely from the nature, for nothing with derived existence suffices to bring itself into being. It follows then that, if a thing's existence differs from its nature, that existence must be externally caused. But we cannot say this about God, whom we have seen to be the first cause. Neither then can we say that God's existence is other than his nature.

Secondly, forms and natures are realized by existing: thus, we express actual realization of goodness or human nature by saying that goodness or human nature exists. When a nature is not itself existence, then, it must be potential of existence. Now, as we have seen, God does not contain potentialities, so in him nature must not differ from existence. It is therefore God's very nature to exist.

Thirdly, anything on fire either is itself fire or has caught fire. Similarly, anything that exists either is itself existence or partakes of it. Now, God, as we have seen, exists. If then he is not himself existence, and thus not by nature existent, he will only be a partaker of existence. And so he will not be the primary existent. God therefore is not only his own essence, but also his own existence.

Summa Theologiae¹³⁵

Being, furthermore, is the name of an act, for a thing is not said to be because it is in potency but because it is in act. Everything, however, that has an act diverse from it is related to that act as potency to act; for potency and act are said relatively to one another. If, then, the divine essence is something other than its being, the essence and the being are thereby related as potency and act. But we have shown that in God there is no potency, but that He is pure act. God's essence, therefore, is not something other than His being.

Summa contra Gentiles¹³⁶

The Thomist package of epithets about the Deity has been neatly summed up as a composite of ‘(1) pure actuality, (2) immutability, (3) impassibility, (4) timelessness, (5) simplicity, (6) necessity, (7) omniscience, and, (8) omnipotence.’¹³⁷ It will be readily apparent from this list how much the Angelic Doctor and the Second Teacher have in common as far as their view of God is concerned. But, of course, there were also many aspects of Islamic thought that Aquinas rejected. One is of particular interest here.

We noted earlier that in the thought of both al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā after him existence was considered to be an accident of essence. But this was by no means the case in Aquinas' metaphysics¹³⁸ and his views here constitute a major point of departure from al-Fārābī in the essence/existence doctrine. Existence for Aquinas was at the basis of all human attributes and the key that allowed the possibility of a human being having attributes in the first place. Or, as Copleston succinctly puts it: ‘Existence was for Aquinas the act by which substance has being; and unless it has being it cannot have accidental modifications.’¹³⁹

EMANATION

The doctrine of emanation in al-Fārābī's Neoplatonic theology poses a basic problem as far as the mind and will of God are concerned. In other words, who really acts? But before we examine how this point can be answered, it is necessary to survey his adoption and use of this pivotal feature of Neoplatonic ontology, the concept of emanation itself, which provides a useful entrée into the very heart of Fārābian Neoplatonism.¹⁴⁰

His Virtuous City has rightly been regarded as one of the chefs-d'oeuvre of emanation literature.¹⁴¹ Indeed, any later political and sociological theorizing à la Plato, which is apparent in the concluding parts of the volume, is entirely dominated—and nearly overwhelmed—by the strident Neoplatonism of much of the earlier part. Al-Fārābī begins the discussion proper of his doctrine of emanation in Chapter Seven, which is entitled A Discussion of the Manner in which All Created Beings Emanate From God [lit. from Him] (Al-Qawl fī Kayfiyyat Sudūr Jamī‘al-Mawjūdāt ‘anhu).¹⁴² And although, in this heading, it is the Arabic word ṣudūr that is used to translate the concept of emanation, we do not have to read far into the chapter before encountering the classic nominal and verbal forms by which medieval Islamic philosophy so often rendered the doctrine, fayḍ and fāḍa.

In this chapter al-Fārābī defines God, whom he terms here characteristically ‘the First,’ as the source of all being. All other beings proceed necessarily from Him and this is accomplished in the usual Neoplatonic mode of emanation (fayḍ). This emanation of being, however, adds absolutely nothing to God or His perfection for He is total perfection itself; He exists only for Himself and not for the sake of another's existence. Finally, it is an involuntary emanation, which is neither willed nor chosen by God: it is impossible for any obstacle either within or outside God to prevent the emanation of other beings from Him.¹⁴³

The succeeding chapters go on to delineate al-Fārābī's hierarchy of being that emanates from the First, and the principal constituents of that hierarchy. With his multiplication of hypostases, the philosopher may be considered here very much as the Iamblichus or Proclus of Islamic Neoplatonism. Each grade, rank, or constituent in his descending chain shares a little less in the perfection of being that is God's substance than its immediate predecessor.¹⁴⁴ Since God for al-Fārābī must always be the First, he calls the first emanation out of God ‘the Second’ (al-Thānī). This second being is al-Fārābī's First Intellect. It too is an absolutely incorporeal and immaterial substance (jawhar) that can comprehend both its own essence and God Himself. This first Intellect is the only one in al-Fārābī's complex hierarchy that is not directly associated with a planet or star. But eight of the succeeding nine immaterial intellects, in the course of their emanation, are responsible for a variety of named planets and stars as well. As a result of its comprehension of God, the First Intellect produces a third being that is the Second Intellect and, as a result of its comprehension of its own essence, the First Intellect also produces the body and soul of the First Heaven (al-Samā' al-Ulā) as well. The hierarchy of being then descends through a series of eight further emanated intellects together with which are generated the Fixed Stars, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. The Tenth Intellect is the last of those separate or transcendent entities (lit. separate things, al-ashyā' al-mufā-riqa) that are both intellects and intelligibles (‘uqūl wa ma‘qūlāt) in their essence, and that require for their existence neither matter nor substrate (mawḍū‘). In a similarly final way, al-Fārābī stresses that the sphere of the Moon is the last of the heavenly bodies whose nature it is to move in a circle.¹⁴⁵

But the chain of being and emanation does not—cannot—end here. A connection has to be made between the heavenly world and its beings, just described, and the terrestrial world. The prime instrument in this connection is the Tenth Intellect, which was called in Arabic al-‘Aql al-Fa“āl, a term variously translated into English, Greek, and Latin as the Active Intellect,¹⁴⁶ the Agent Intellect, the nous poiētikós,¹⁴⁷ and—often in an Avicennan context—the Dator Formarum by the scholastics.¹⁴⁸ It was also revered by al-Fārābī under the honorific titles of ‘The Trusty Spirit’ (Al-Rūḥ al-Amīn and ‘The Holy Spirit’ (Rūḥ al-Qudus).¹⁴⁹ Now it is not proposed in this chapter to cover in any detail al-Fārābī's complex theory of the intellect and intellection. This has already been adequately done several times in a variety of secondary sources.¹⁵⁰ It is relevant, however, in any study of the Fārābian Deity, and the emanations from that Deity, to give an account of this Tenth or Active Intellect because it acts as a bridge between the heavenly or celestial world and the sublunary world. It thus has a highly specialized and distinctive role in al-Fārābī's cosmology.¹⁵¹

The Active Intellect is perhaps most easily introduced from the Fārābian corpus via The Virtuous City, where it occupies an assured and obvious place. There is a progression in the work from the author's initial inclusion of this Intellect in his emanationist hierarchy, as merely the Tenth—albeit the final—Intellect in a series, to a discussion of that Intellect in a more developed form qua Active Intellect; this occurs in a later chapter dealing with the rational faculty (al-quwwa al-nāṭiqa) and the modality and cause of that faculty's intellection.¹⁵² However, as Davidson has shown in his magisterial article, if all al-Fārābī's views on the Active Intellect, as expressed in The Virtuous City as well as three other major texts whose authenticity is not disputed, are considered and compared, it will be found that they do not form an absolutely coherent or unified whole.¹⁵³ The reasons for his different approaches can only be guessed at,¹⁵⁴ but this factor should be borne in mind when surveying the data on this Intellect in The Virtuous City. Here a specific equation is made between the Active Intellect (al-‘Aql al-Fa“āl) and the tenth of those intellects in al-Fārābī's hierarchy, which are called again ‘separate entities’ (al-ashyā' al-mufāriqa). Its action on man's ‘inclination’ for thought (al-‘aql al-hayūlānī)¹⁵⁵ is akin to the action of the sun's light on the eyesight, which, inter alia, facilitates and actualizes potential vision.¹⁵⁶ Although the metaphor is extended and elaborated in a variety of ways, this does not disguise the fact that in The Virtuous City the Active Intellect has a limited degree of responsibility and function that is to actualize the human intellect's potentiality for thought and start it on the road to perfection. That is the Active Intellect's principal—albeit restricted—task.¹⁵⁷

Its function, however, is seen to be considerably enlarged if we examine al-Fārābī's Treatise on the Intellect (Risāla fī 'l-‘Aql). Here the Active Intellect assumes the responsibility for the emanation of form for the denizens of the sublunary world, and so becomes a true dator formarum.¹⁵⁸ As Davidson puts it:

The Risâla thus represents an adaptation of Plotinus' position, wherein the active intellect, rather than Plotinus' Universal Soul, continually emanates the forms of all natural objects in the sublunar world, and those forms actually appear whenever a portion of matter is ready to receive them.¹⁵⁹

But even in this Treatise the Active Intellect does not provide the matter for the sublunary world and its souls.¹⁶⁰ Such prime matter has existed eternally and necessarily as a product of the heavens.¹⁶¹ And though, if we combine the data gleaned from both The Virtuous City and the Treatise on the Intellect, we find that the Active Intellect has a particularly man-centred role in that it both actualizes his thought and provides him with form, it has no part in his actual generation: man is the product of a complex series of interactions between heavenly and natural entities.¹⁶²

At this point it might be useful to ask: where is Plotinus' Universal Soul or, indeed, any Universal Soul, in al-Fārābī's cosmology? There exists, unfortunately, no systematic account by al-Fārābī of the soul's function in his ontological hierarchy,¹⁶³ and it is therefore necessary to collate what he says on the subject of soul from a variety of places in order to arrive at some kind of conclusion. Perhaps it should be stressed right at the beginning, however, that al-Fārābī has no single Universal Soul in the Plotinian sense of a third major hypostasis in a triad of hypostases. As we have already noted, some of the function of that Plotinian prototype (repeated in the Theologia Aristotelis) is usurped by al-Fārābī's Active Intellect.¹⁶⁴ What we do have in al-Fārābī are souls in the plural. They exist in bodies, unlike the Active Intellect, but their essences are immaterial.¹⁶⁵ These souls are of three main kinds: those of the celestial bodies (anfus al-ajsām al-samāwiyya); those of rational beings (anfus al-ḥayawān al-nāṭiq); and those of irrational beings (anfus al-ḥayawān ghayr al-nāṭiq).¹⁶⁶ The souls of the first type are quite distinct from the latter two, for such celestial souls both inviduate (tatajawharu) and move the celestial bodies. They far exceed in glory, perfection, and excellence the souls of terrestrial beings.¹⁶⁷

In the light of all this the statement, right at the beginning of The Political Regime, that the Soul (al-Nafs) has fourth rank in a sixfold ontological hierarchy (in which it is preceded by the First Cause, the Second Causes—i.e. the first nine intellects—and the Active Intellect, and followed by Form and Matter)¹⁶⁸ requires some comment: the word al-Nafs here is surely not a reference to the Universal Soul of Plotinus but is rather being used generically, as ‘Soul’ rather than ‘the Soul,’ to cover all the different souls that we have just described. It is thus a collective word used in the same way for souls as the phrase ‘the Second Causes’ (al-Asbāb al-Thawānī) is used to group and designate nine of the intellects.

If, with al-Fārābī's Treatise on the Intellect, we accept the Active Intellect as an emanator of form,¹⁶⁹ and agree that the philosopher believed the soul to be ‘the entelechy or the substantial form of the body,’¹⁷⁰ then it becomes clear from this text that the souls of men really derive from the supralunary celestial world via the Active Intellect.¹⁷¹

It is useful here to stress the necessary nature of all the emanations that proceed down the chain of being from the First Cause: the Arabic verb used over and over again in al-Fārābī's famous delineation of his metaphysical and ontological hierarchy in The Virtuous City is yalzam, literally ‘it is necessary.’¹⁷² The phrase loudly echoes the great drumroll of necessity that resounds in Plotinus' Enneads where, for example, we read:

… what comes into being from the One does so without the One being moved: for if anything came into being as a result of the One's being moved, it would be the third starting from the One, not the second, since it would come after the movement. So if there is a second after the One it must have come to be without the One moving at all, without any inclination or act of will or any sort of activity on its part. How did it come to be then, and what are we to think of as surrounding the One in its repose? It must be a radiation from it while it remains unchanged, like the bright light of the sun which, so to speak, runs round it, springing from it continually while it remains unchanged. All things which exist, as long as they remain in being, necessarily¹⁷³ produce from their own substances, in dependence on their present power, a surrounding reality directed to what is outside them, a kind of image of the archetypes from which it was produced: fire produces the heat which comes from it; snow does not only keep its cold inside itself. Perfumed things show this particularly clearly. As long as they exist, something is diffused from themselves around them, and what is near them enjoys their existence. And all things when they come to perfection produce; the One is always perfect and therefore produces everlastingly; and its product is less than itself.¹⁷⁴

Wallis concludes: ‘It follows … that emanation is necessary in the sense that it could neither fail to happen nor happen otherwise than it does.’¹⁷⁵

However, while all this might be good basic Neoplatonism, it is not any part of the Qur'ānic Creator Paradigm. Creation of the material world in the thought of al-Fārābī appears to be taken out of the power and will of God and to become the province of subordinate hypostases. A doctrine of necessary emanation replaces the Qur'ānic doctrine of creation ex nihilo.¹⁷⁶ Furthermore, the First Cause appears to be so remote and so cut off at the pinnacle of the chain of being that it seems He can have little, if any, contact at all with the sublunary world. So (a) how can the world, then, be said to connect with—much less depend upon—God¹⁷⁷ and (b) is there some kind of an eternal tension between God's uniquely free will and emanation? Is there an adequate solution to such inter-related problems or must we perforce operate here within the realms of paradox and contradiction in the manner described by de Morgan?

The first problem is more easily and quickly dealt with; it has been neatly surveyed by Thérèse-Anne Druart:¹⁷⁸

Since, as we have seen, the heavenly bodies and in some indirect way the Active Intellect are causes of our world, it remains still to determine how our world like everything else depends on the First.¹⁷⁹

She stresses that:

… in the process of emanation, each second cause transmits a power to what follows and in some sense, though it is a temporal process, gives the impulse to another one to act by itself. Al-Fārābī indicates that in some way the same is true for the heavenly bodies, since they give powers (quwan) to the possible beings from the first and then give them a free hand for acting upon one another.¹⁸⁰

The Active Intellect plays a similar role with man and thus the conclusion is that causation by the celestial world and the Active Intellect in the terrestrial world is ‘a mediate process.’¹⁸¹ God, the First Cause, may thus be said to operate through His intermediary hypostases and spheres, albeit involuntarily: since He has been from all eternity the final source of all power, and remains so, and since some of that power is bequeathed by the chain of emanation to the human world, He may, in this sense, be held responsible for the world. Loose parallels, which should not be pressed too far, may be drawn between this concept of intermediate causation and the medieval Islamic theologians' docrine of acquisition (kasb or iktisāb). According to this, God created voluntary actions and then left man free to ‘acquire’ those actions, thereby, in theory, neither infringing man's free will nor God's omnipotence.¹⁸²

It is worth underlining, finally, that al-Fārābī's doctrine of intermediate causation involves a separation in his cosmology between God and the direct movement of the sublunary world. Even in the supralunary celestial sphere it is the soul of each sphere, rather than God, who moves that sphere.¹⁸³ Étienne Gilson observed:

Nous rencontrons ici pour la première fois une idée qui se répandra dans le moyen âge latin par l'intermédiaire d'Avicenne: la distinction radicale entre Dieu et le premier moteur.¹⁸⁴

However, for this remark to be accepted as entirely true, we must regard the initial emanation of the First Intellect from God not so much in terms of Aristotelian caused motion as in terms of a logical and inevitable production or overflow from the well of God's generosity and self-love.¹⁸⁵

The second problem of harmonizing the very un-Qur'ānic concept of the necessary emanation of an eternal world with that of a Deity endowed with total free will is less easy to resolve satisfactorily or clearly. Here if anywhere the shade of de Morgan's universes that might contain contraries or contradictions must surely hover. In any case, the question should clearly be approached by acknowledging, first of all, that here, for al-Fārābī, God's will must operate in a fashion quite different from that of the Qur'ānic Allāh. Al-Fārābī's Supreme One must embody an eternal acceptance of the eternal function and creative role of the lower hypostases. As with the emanation scheme of Plotinus, there can be no ultimate conflict between free will and determinism: will and emanated order have to be considered as mutually related and supportive rather than in conflict. Thus the divine will desires spontaneously that which is perfect or best, and that which is perfect or best, after the divinity, emanates eternally from that divinity.¹⁸⁶ Moreover, a true understanding of God's creation can lead to an identification of that Qur'ānic motif with emanation itself, in Fackenheim's view, if we cease to limit creation to something begun at a moment in time and regard it rather as ‘the flowing forth of the world from God's very nature, eternally, necessarily and unchangeably.’¹⁸⁷ But against this it has to be stated that this was not how the adherents of the Qur'ānic Creator Paradigm viewed creation.

In the light of all this, we may, in conclusion, attempt an answer to the question posed right at the beginning of this section on emanation. Who really acts? From the philosopher's point of view God cannot be said at all to be a direct actor in or on the sublunary world. That responsibility devolves especially, but not exclusively, upon the Active Intellect. In the celestial world, power to act is similarly delegated to the intellects and the spheres. God may, however, be said to have an indirect responsibility for everything in that all being and power emanate ultimately from Him. The real problem perhaps lies not so much in opposing al-Fārābī's necessarily emanated world to the creation ex nihilo of the Qur'ānic Creator Paradigm, as in viewing the paradox of a Fārābian universe for which God, were He so minded, could claim some actual responsibility despite the involuntary and indirect nature of the vehicle of emanation.

AL-FāRāBī'S PROOF FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

The impact that the thought associated with John Philoponus had on al-Kindī has already been noted in the proofs which that Arab philosopher offered for the existence of God. Al-Fārābī, too, came into contact with the ideas of Philoponus;¹⁸⁸ indeed, the impact which that Alexandrian had on succeeding generations of Arab and Islamic thinkers, though casually noted in various places, has not perhaps been stressed as a constant leitmotiv in Islamic philosophy as much as it might have been.

However, in al-Fārābī's thought, by contrast with that of al-Kindī who appreciated him, the reaction was rather more negative than positive. Al-Fārābī leads what has been described as the ‘anti-Philoponus camp’¹⁸⁹ and his attitude is encapsulated in his famous treatise known by a number of similar titles including The Refutation of John the Grammarian (Al-Radd ‘alā Yaḥyā al-Naḥwī).¹⁹⁰ In this polemic al-Fārābī attacked Philoponus' own assault (launched in the Contra Aristotelem) on the Aristotelian view that the world was eternal, and he performed quite a creditable hatchet job on Philoponus' criticism of Aristotle.¹⁹¹ Indeed, al-Fārābī tried to undermine Philoponus' credibility right at the beginning of his Treatise with the remark:

None of Aristotle's statements in On the Heaven and the World that John the Grammarian intended to destroy were intended by Aristotle to establish the eternity of the world.¹⁹²

Here, then, one may note another, major, distinction between the thought of al-Kindī and al-Fārābī. The former, believing in creation ex nihilo, used that doctrine as a major plank in his proof for the existence of God. Al-Fārābī, believing in an eternal universe eternally emanated, had to choose another methodology by which to prove the existence of God.

It is perhaps unfortunate that at least one author, in his extreme enthusiasm for pursuing affinities between al-Fārābī and Aquinas,¹⁹³ relied on sources of rather dubious Fārābian authenticity like the Bezels of Wisdom¹⁹⁴ and the Fontes Quaestionum (‘Uyūn al-Masā'il)¹⁹⁵ to establish his case. Although these texts contain some fascinating facets of the cosmological argument for the existence of God, it is proposed to ignore them here in favour of citing a proof deriving from another, lesser-known but perhaps more reliable, text. This appears in the curiously titled Commentary on the Epistle of the Greek, Zeno the Great (Sharḥ Risālat Zīnūn al-Kabīr al-Yūnānī).¹⁹⁶ The proof occurs in the first section of the treatise and is believed to be unique in constituting the only instance in al-Fārābī's works where he tries to prove the existence of God by relying on the distinction between necessary being and contingent being.¹⁹⁷

The main lines of the argument are as follows: everything that exists in this world of generation and corruption may be described as having possible being (mumkin al-wujūd). For, if its being had been impossible, it could not have existed now; and if, on the other hand, its being had been necessary, it would always have existed. Every possible or contingent being needs a cause to bring it from non-being to being, and the definition of a contingent being is that which does not receive being from itself but receives it from another. Something cannot be the cause of itself, since cause must precede effect. Something cannot simultaneously have two beings of which the one is prior and cause, and the other subsequent and effect. Similarly, there cannot be two things where each is the cause of the other. Such a proposition would lead to illogical and absurd conclusions.¹⁹⁸ It will be readily appreciated that there are echoes here of the ‘Real First Agent’ approach emphasized by al-Kindī¹⁹⁹ as well as of the argument that one cannot have an infinite series of contingent beings, propounded by Philoponus.²⁰⁰

Al-Fārābī actually befriended the minotaur of ‘Otherness’ within the intellectual labyrinth of medieval Islamic philosophy. In any study of Fārābian thought it is impossible to disguise the dark areas of tension and conflict that appear between the products of al-Fārābī's reason and some of the elements of the Qur'ānic Creator Paradigm. It is clear, however, that for the philosopher the former ultimately took precedence: ‘Considering the role of reason in his general conception of the scheme of things … the inference is inescapable that it devolved upon reason, rather than revelation, to arbitrate in the conflict.’²⁰¹ Or, as al-Fārābī himself put it: ‘The two parts of which religion (al-milla) is composed (the speculative and the practical) are both subject to philosophy (lit. under philosophy).’²⁰²

The un-Qur'ānic substrate of the universe of Alfarabism is undisguised: he admits the possibility of the transmigration of the soul,²⁰³ and maintains the utter annihilation of ignorant and wayward souls.²⁰⁴ He accepts that while some souls survive and achieve immortality, the human body perishes anyway;²⁰⁵ as we have seen, a belief in the eternity of the world is a constant in Fārābian doctrine. Most of all, however, al-Fārābī believed in a very particular kind of Deity, one who was transcendent and remote and the focus of a metaphysical and ontological hierarchy that found its inspiration in Plotinus and his successors rather than in the Qur'ān. Al-Fārābī's search for order led him to establish a hierarchy in the two Islamically related realms of theology and politics. The two were extensively treated in The Virtuous City. In the process he created a transcendental theology that stood, at the very least, as a dual register to the Qur'ānic Creator Paradigm and, at worst, as a sign of alienation from that paradigm.

THE UNIVERSE OF ALFARABISM: THE EMANATION OF STRUCTURE AND THE STRUCTURE OF EMANATION

In examining the Kindian universe of theological discourse we found that, despite occasional contradictions between some of the five parent terms of that universe, it was still possible to articulate Kindian theology in a reasonably coherent yet structuralist manner, both from an internal and an external point of view. But there was no immediately obvious and ready-made extra-Qur'ānic framework into which that theology fitted totally: indeed, a case could be made for viewing Kindian thought simply as a philosophical clone of the Qur'ānic Creator Paradigm, despite the Aristotelian, Neoplatonic, and other terms in the Kindian universe.

However, when we turn to the Fārābian universe of theological discourse, we find that the case is quite different; for within that universe, as we shall see, it is an extra-Qur'ānic term, the Neoplatonic, which predominates, fills, and, indeed, in a very real sense, becomes the universe of al-Fārābī. And Neoplatonism, because of its emphasis on order and hierarchy, constitutes per se a structuralist's dream.²⁰⁶ It also has a logical inbuilt reductive tendency as well:

In a universe that is nothing other than an emanative outpouring from the unknowable and unnameable One down to the furthest ramifications of matter, every being functions as a synecdoche or metonymy of the One.²⁰⁷

The Islamic philosopher who understood and interpreted this idea best was the great Ibn al-‘Arabī with his doctrine of waḥdat al-wujūd, which will be examined in this book in due course.

The way in which Fārābian theology may be said to possess wholeness differs radically from the Kindian mode. As we saw earlier, the structure of the latter's theology derived proper coherence and wholeness from the four mutually cohesive elements of the Qur'ānic Creator Paradigm, which embodied a two-way traffic between God and man.²⁰⁸ But with al-Fārābī we lack ab initio several of the elements of that basic paradigm. Depending, of course, on which of his works is consulted and the emphases within that work, this lack at best inhibits such a traffic and, at worst, makes it quite impossible: Allāh is no longer Creator and the frequent emphasis on His utter transcendence brings with it the realization of how little real knowledge may be truly gained about Him. The dominant via negativa, by which much (but by no means all) Fārābian theology is articulated, is always a path of submission and acceptance in the face/Face of the Unknown rather than an attempted association with that Unknown. The Fārābian universe, then, must clearly be structured according to an altogether different paradigm; and the concept of wholeness, which certainly imbues it, derives from an extra-Qur'ānic source, from, indeed, Neoplatonism, which provides a ready-made framework of hierarchy and order on which any thinker might build.

The basic triadic paradigm of Plotinus is adapted and transmuted by al-Fārābī into an enlarged Neoplatonic structure of transcendent Deity, ten intellects, and the rest of observable phenomena.²⁰⁹ A new paradigm of divine transcendence is thus established whose wholeness is guaranteed by the eternal interrelatedness of each hypostasis through eternal emanation, the one from the other; but its by-product is the massive gulf of alienation that now yawns between God and man. The ten intellects have a distinctly ‘distancing’ effect, standing as they do directly between the two.

Furthermore, the structure of Fārābian theology not only vividly incorporates within itself the concept of transformation, but provides a capacity and seed-bed for future transformation and adaptation: the first is seen in the move from Qur'ānic creation ex nihilo to Neoplatonic eternal emanation;²¹⁰ the second is clear, for example, in the use that a philosopher and mystic like al-Suhrawardī later made of the basic tenfold structure, multiplying by many times the number of hypostases and adorning each element of the whole in the vocabulary of light. It is evident, too, in the inexorable conclusion of Ibn al-‘Arabī that all such hypostases, and indeed everything, must ultimately be considered in terms of the unity of being.

Finally, the Fārābian universe of theological discourse regulates itself in two ways: first, the rhythm of the two-way traffic between God and man, which was identified in the Kindian paradigm, is replaced by the rhythm of eternal emanation. Man can and does, of course, try in Fārābian theology to ‘return’ to God, but the latter's transcendence frequently makes that appear a somewhat daunting and difficult task. Second, al-Fārābī's thought may be said more loosely to be self-regulatory according to his bilateral search for order on the two related levels stressed earlier: order in the field of theology and order in the field of politics. He sought to establish some harmony between the thought of Plato and Aristotle²¹¹ and desired an ordered subordination and classification of all things within or beneath the Neoplatonic hierarchy he erected,²¹² with all that implicitly meant in terms of self-maintenance and possible closure.²¹³

Much, if not most, of the internal structure of Fārābian theology will be apparent from the preceding remarks on wholeness, transformation and self-regulation. It is clear that there has been a profound shift from the Qur'ānic Creator Paradigm to one which is Neoplatonic in orientation, although it does not exclude a few elements relating to the former. These will be referred to later in the discussion of the cataphatic or positive theologemes in al-Fārābī's universe. What does need to be stressed at this point is the vital role of the Tenth Intellect in the whole theological structure, providing both a bridge between transcendence and the material world, and a major factor in the production of that world.

Secondly, we might usefully adopt and extend Madkour's term ‘Alfarabism’²¹⁴ to designate and signify now the philosopher's entire universe of discourse. (It was earlier used in this chapter in a more restricted way to designate Farabian development of Greek and Neoplatonic ideas.) In using such a term in such a new specific sense, the emphasis is thus seen to be placed much more on the uniqueness and the individuality of al-Fārābī as a thinker than on the ‘borrowings’ or ‘influences’ from Greek thought upon which scholars of medieval Islamic philosophy have classically and persistently concentrated. Of course, as the initial usage of the term ‘Alfarabism’ implies, such influences are by no means precluded and nor are al-Fārābī's very real synthesizing abilities. The new usage of the term here, according to which Alfarabism represents the entire universe of intellectual discourse of al-Fārābī, is simply a contribution towards the deconstruction and explosion of the hoary old paradigm according to which Islamic philosophy was ‘just’ Greek philosophy wearing the jallābiyya of another language. Alfarabism, like Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Neoplatonism can thus validly designate a universe of discourse in its own right, whatever its links with these other discourses.

Naturally, it is structurally linked with all of them. Such universes do not—cannot—stand in isolation from each other. It is a truism but, nonetheless, needs to be stated, that they interact and feed off each other. They are, as it were, individual but linked langues in the vast metalangue of intellectual discourse generally. A good example of interaction and reaction in ancient times is provided by Booth:

The overall tendency of Aristotle's reflections on ontology is clear: against the position of Plato that the objects of the material world are so many unreal things, separated from their transcendent paradigms, Aristotle asserted the complete independence of material things from any such world, and their independent existence from each other.²¹⁵

It would therefore be as grotesque to envisage a closed period of intellectual discourse and conceptual stratification (or ‘episteme’ to use Michel Foucault's term²¹⁶) labelled ‘Alfarabism,’ as it would be to try and identify similar closed periods of Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Neoplatonism in ancient times. ‘Alfarabism,’ then, is a sign and a token of identity, not a term of closure or a closed system in itself. It is a fluid concept unbounded by any rigid caesuralism.

All this is particularly highlighted if we consider Ibn Sīnā not so much as the indirect heir of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonic traditions—though, of course, he was—but more as the direct heir of Alfarabism itself. Ibn Sīnā's autobiography, as we have seen, provides a particular confirmation of this in a vivid passage where he acknowledges his debt to al-Fārābī.²¹⁷

This usefully sets the scene for an examination of the external structuring of Fārābian theology. The texts from which that theology is derived constitute a marvellous example of the ‘vast coral reef of textuality’ about which we spoke earlier.²¹⁸The Political Regime and The Virtuous City, for example, are indeed separate and distinct texts but they ‘cover almost the same ground … though they proceed in a different way and do not everywhere use the same arguments,’²¹⁹ and they also, of course, have many of the usual theologemes in common like the uncreatedness of God, to name but one.²²⁰ And texts are naturally related not simply within the one author but from one author to another across several or many generations. The Magnificent Invocation and the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity (Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Safā') constitute an almost sublime example of intertextuality. But one does not need to depend on texts like the Invocation to demonstrate examples of this in Fārābian theology. Works of whose Fārābian authorship there is absolutely no doubt provide abundant material for analysis within an intertextual structure; and it is the totality of the knowledge thus garnered across the ages that endows the individual Fārābian text with real meaning, and ‘guarantees’ its message for future generations.²²¹ Later Islamic tradition ‘structured’ the person of al-Fārābī himself within the framework of diachronic Islamic thought as the Second Teacher or Master after Aristotle. And, as we have seen, the latter's thought, together with that of Plato and Plotinus, made a considerable impact on al-Fārābī: several of that Islamic philosopher's works stand in a direct line of succession to, or, to put it another structuralist way, have a variety of intellectual parallelisms, links or associations with those of their Greek predecessors.²²² The most obvious example of this, of course, is al-Fārābī's Virtuous City, part of a broad fabric of texts which included Plotinus' Enneads, its notorious offspring the Theologia Aristotelis, and which would later embrace much of the work of Ibn Sīnā and the Ikhwān al-Safā'.²²³ These texts share a common universe of discourse in which apparently obvious antecedents to The Virtuous City, like Plato's Republic, become increasingly marginalized. With their overriding emphasis on the utterly transcendent God of Neoplatonism, the via negativa, and a predominantly apophatic vocabulary, such texts provide an added illustration of the Barthesian dictum that, in any case, the ideal text ‘is a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds.’²²⁴

A negative vocabulary automatically and explicitly acknowledges the concept of divine transcendence in Islamic or Christian theology and by so doing destroys, in a very real sense, the fragile bond between signifier and signified (sound-image and concept) bequeathed by ‘positive’ theology. To put it another way, it empties the entire word ‘God’ of all real content.²²⁵ The word ‘God,’ in the full light of His transcendence, becomes simply meaningless because the concept Itself is incomprehensible: man's intellect can never ‘grasp’ the Divine Transcendent. This is a further reason why ‘god’ is not—and should never be considered as—a ‘sign,’ whether in the Saussurean or any other sense of that word.²²⁶ The divine ‘indescribable’ is basically unreceptive to, and cannot be illuminated by, the terminology of classical Saussurean linguistics. Qur'ānic ‘certainty’ thus yields to bare agnosia, unknowing or ignorance.

If it is accepted, for the sake of our present examination, that one universe of knowledge may itself be considered as a subordinate term in another, then it is clear from the above that the universe of Alfarabism has a basic structure of four main but unequal constituent terms: in their own diachronic sequence they are the Platonic, the Aristotelian, the Neoplatonic, and the Qur'ānic. Walzer holds that:

… the complex structure of al-Fārābī's programme has to be understood … in two ways: against the background both of the long history of Greek Platonism as well as of the newly established revealed religion of Islam, especially the Muslim dialectical theology of his day …²²⁷

This is, of course, true and no one would deny some role to Platonism in Fārābian thought, notably in The Virtuous City,²²⁸ nor refute the Qur'ānic tinge that is a partial aspect of the Fārābian vocabulary and of which something was surveyed earlier.²²⁹ The Aristotelian term, which it has been claimed ‘saturates’ the Islamic philosopher's thought,²³⁰ may also be acknowledged here briefly because it has earlier been examined at length; its importance is beyond dispute. But far and away the term that dominates the universe of Alfarabism is the Neoplatonic:²³¹ it is this that finally removes the grounds for agreeing that Plato's Republic and The Virtuous City adhere to a common paradigm, or that the first really provides a proper or valid role model for the second.²³² The structure of The Virtuous City is uniquely al-Fārābī's own²³³ and the admittedly Platonic dimension of the work, particularly the latter part, should not cause us to lose sight of this fact. It is ‘a book in its own right’²³⁴ whose relationship, nonetheless, to other works can be examined without paradox, thanks to the structuralist method.

It is a truism of this method that there can be no meaning without difference.²³⁵ This is as valid for Fārābian semiosis as for any other aspect of his thought. Yet, it has already been seen that the search for ‘meaning-infused’ language or ‘meaning-infused’ signs creates immediate problems as soon as the discussion enters the sphere of divine transcendence: an apophatic vocabulary of God is indeed different from the cataphatic style of the Qur'ānic Creator Paradigm. It may certainly be insisted that everything is a sign, that ‘everything signifies,’²³⁶ and that logically, therefore, in theology including Islamic theology, everything must ultimately be a sign of God Himself though He Himself is not a sign. The thinking behind this last statement may be expressed here very briefly according to what is basically a paraphrase of the reasoning of Philoponus and others:²³⁷ semiosis may seem to be virtually infinite²³⁸ but it is impossible to have an infinite series of contingent signs; if, for the believer, signification like causation stops with God, then that is the principal reason why God (for such a believer at least) is not a sign but all else is a sign of God.²³⁹

However, the utterly transcendent nature of the Divine Signified, and the limits both of man's intellect and his experience of the divine, mean that there can be no real intellectual conjunction between sememe or meaning and the multifarious sign vehicles that are the signifiers.²⁴⁰ One of the major features implicit in al-Fārābī's work, which the reader may derive though al-Fārābī clearly did not articulate it in such terms himself, is the insistence that man can never know the true nature of the Divine Signified. It follows, therefore, that whatever signifiers are used of this Divine Signified must always be devoid of actual or true signification. One may, in consequence, have to speak of God through symbols, a mode which may produce little that is different from a non-symbolic mode but may be helpful to the intellect of the receiver;²⁴¹ or one may speak of God, as for example Aquinas suggested, by analogy.²⁴² Al-Fārābī, too, employed the latter mode:

The pleasure which the First enjoys is a pleasure whose character we do not understand and whose intensity we fail to apprehend, except by analogy (illā bi-'l-qiyās) and by relating it to the amount of pleasure which we feel …²⁴³

Perhaps one useful way in which some meaning might be infused into, or gleaned from, the discussion is to survey the differences between the various Fārābian theologemes,²⁴⁴ which all contribute towards that totality that has been termed Alfarabism. The differences are readily apparent not only within Alfarabism itself but between, for example, this universe of discourse and Kindian theology. It was concluded that the principal theologemes of the latter had much more in common with those of the Qur'ānic Creator Paradigm than with those of the Plotinian model. But al-Fārābī deployed a more diverse collection of theologemes with a contrasting set of emphases. They may usefully be divided into two parallel registers: what will be termed here the positive theologemes of simplicity and the negative theologemes of transcendence.

Examples of the former, which certainly harmonize with the basic Qur'ānic paradigm, include God's oneness,²⁴⁵ perfection,²⁴⁶ majesty,²⁴⁷ and eternity.²⁴⁸ Examples of the latter include His immutability,²⁴⁹ indivisibility,²⁵⁰ indefinability²⁵¹ and immateriality.²⁵² Both registers also contained key theologemes that would be vital later in the further development of Islamic philosophical theology; a few may be identified and underlined now. They included the ideas that Allāh was Wājib al-wujūd²⁵³ and that in Him two major theologemes, divine essence and divine existence, were uniquely merged,²⁵⁴ on the positive side; and the subsuming, merging and virtual ‘negating’ of the attributes within the divine essence²⁵⁵ on the negative.

The latter two aspects have profound semiotic implications: the merging of two theologemes—and it will be recalled that this portmanteau term was specifically designed to encapsulate theological signification—signals in the most direct fashion the utter uniqueness of God over the rest of the universe; while the subsumation of many theologemes, the attributes, within the one divine essence signals, equally directly, the absolute unity of God and His simplicity (in a theological sense) before, or by contrast with, the divisible nature of all other spiritual and physical phenomena. Furthermore, from the point of view of semiosis, the positive theologeme of divine self-love²⁵⁶ is of particular interest. Culler reminds us, admittedly in another context, that ‘the lover lives in a universe of signs’²⁵⁷ and that ‘nothing involving the beloved is without meaning.’²⁵⁸ Now it has been suggested that all things, in theology at least, may be viewed as a sign of the ultimate reality, God. This is particularly true of an emanationist theology in which everything other than God is, in some way, the diluted product of the spontaneous overflowing or outpouring of perfection generated by God's self-contemplation and self-love.²⁵⁹ The Divine Lover does indeed inhabit a universe of signs ‘produced’ by His own self-love. In this sense, all that emanates from The One in Neoplatonism is imbued with meaning. Emanation is the principal theologeme that functions not only as the primary device or tool for the production of the material universe, and as an alternative to creation ex nihilo, but also provides a kind of structuralist glue (modality unknown) ‘binding’ throughout eternity the utterly transcendent to the utterly material.²⁶⁰

It is clear that the respective sets of positive and negative theologemes constitute two very different modes by which al-Fārābī examines the Deity. But do they represent a contradiction and are they necessarily in conflict? Eco reminds us, inter alia, that ‘in a given culture there can exist contradictory semantic fields’ and that ‘within a given culture a semantic field can disintegrate with extreme rapidity and restructure itself into a new field.’²⁶¹ In the light of the former statement it may justifiably be asked whether this may or should be applied to Fārābian thought, substituting the phrase ‘the universe of Alfarabism’ for ‘a given culture’? Or should more reliance be placed upon Edmund Leach's dictum about structures according to which he observes that:

… they are capable of expression in multiple forms which are transformations of one another, and further—and this point is often overlooked by practitioners of the structuralist art—… there is no one particular form which is a more true or more correct expression of the underlying structure than any other.²⁶²

In other words, are the streams of positive and negative theologemes in Fārābian theology two antithetical streams, the validity of one of which necessarily cancels out that of the other, or should they be considered as parallel complementary streams of equal validity, truth and meaning?

The question has been asked before, many times, in the numerous studies of, and contrasts between, the immutable God of classical Christianity and the God of Process theology.²⁶³ To paraphrase Tugwell, and place an Islamic gloss on an article of his, how should the ordinary devout Muslim desiring some contact with the divine deal with an immutable God?²⁶⁴ The ṣūfīs, in a sense, may be said to have ignored the problem and striven unhesitantly for the heart of Deity, driven by their love of God and sometimes, but by no means always, deliberate disdain for philosophy. Al-Fārābī the philosopher, however, with his two registers of positive and negative theologemes, takes us to the core of the problem.

There is perhaps a way forward: we may extrapolate from Leach's statement above and hold that both registers are equally valid in Alfarabism if we concur with the following observation by Tugwell:

God is named by all names, but no name is his name. Properly understood, negative theology works as a corrective within all our language about God, but once it is accepted it simultaneously legitimises all our language about God. Precisely because there is no absolutely right way to talk about God, because all our words fall short of his reality, a huge range of more or less unsatisfactory ways of talking about God is positively desirable.²⁶⁵

Applied to al-Fārābī such a statement places both negative and positive theologemes in a proper context and reveals such discourse for what it is: an inadequate attempt to express the inexpressible whose inadequacy emerges in both positive and negative—but equally valid—modes.

Everything signifies.²⁶⁶ And one of the principal signals emitted by the universe of Alfarabism is the gulf that already yawns between it and the original Qur'ānic Creator Paradigm. To put it another way, there has been a major shift from the latter to a Neoplatonic paradigm. One is tempted here to invoke the shade of Foucault and speak in terms of a radical epistemic caesuralism between the episteme of the Qur'ān and the episteme of Neoplatonism.²⁶⁷ But to do so in the manner of Foucault, whose own arbitrary and monolithic caesuralism has already come in for severe criticism,²⁶⁸ would be to do a disservice to al-Fārābī and distort the structure of his theology. The latter may not be conveniently placed within a hypothetical and arbitrary Islamic-Neoplatonic episteme without further qualification. To do so would be to ignore both the positive Qur'ānic theologemes that have been surveyed and the Aristotelian dimension of his thought. Foucault's epistemes are far too monolithic with their emphasis on discontinuity; but Alfarabism, like classical culture,²⁶⁹ was not a monolith and, as we have shown, had profound structural links with the previous, contemporary and future development of Middle Eastern intellectual thought. In the quotation that was mentioned earlier, to the effect that ‘within a given culture a semantic field can disintegrate with extreme rapidity and restructure itself into a new field,’²⁷⁰ we can replace the words ‘a given culture’ with ‘the universe of Alfarabism,’ as well as with the much broader phrase ‘Arab or Islamic intellectual thought’ provided that, in our consideration of the restructing, we preclude neither diachronic nor synchronic links and associations.

Notes

1. A. R. Badawi reads ‘Ûzalagh’ (Histoire de la Philosophie en Islam, vol. 2, p. 478); D. P. Brewster queries whether the word should be read ‘Uzlugh’ (‘Al-Farabi's “Book of Religion”,’ Abr-Nahrain, vol. 14 (1973-4), p. 17) as does R. Walzer (art. ‘Al-Fārābī,’ EI², vol. 2, p. 778 and idem., Al-Farabi on the Perfect State: Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī's “Mabādi' Ārā' Ahl al-Madīna al-Fāḍila”, p. 2). It is a Turkish name, according to Ibn Khallikān, and vowelled as ‘Awzalagh’ in both the ‘Abbās edn of the Wafayāt and the de Slane translation: Wafayāt al-A‘yān, vol. 5, p. 157; Ibn Khallikan's Wafayāt al-A‘yān wa Anbā' Abnā' al-Zamān (M. de Slane's English Translation), vol. 5, p. 203.

2. Wafayāt, ed. ‘Abbās, vol. 5, pp. 153-4.

3. Al-Fārābī: An Annotated Bibliography, p. 11.

4. Histoire, vol. 2, p. 575.

5. Rescher, Al-Fārābī, p. 11.

6. Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt, ed. ‘Abbās, vol. 5, p. 154.

7. Robert Hammond, The Philosophy of Alfarabi and Its Influence on Medieval Thought, p. ii (Introduction).

8. Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt, ed. ‘Abbās, vol. 5, p. 153.

9. See, for example, the editorial comments at the beginning of al-Fārābī, Idées des Habitants de la Cité Vertueuse (Kitāb Ārā' Ahl al-Madīnat al-Fāḍilat) [Hereafter referred to as Madīna], Arabic-French edn., p. 1 (Liminaire).

10. Ibn Khallikān refers to a knowledge of ‘‘idda lughāt ghayr al-‘arabī’: Wafayāt, ed. ‘Abbās, vol. 5, p. 153.

11. See Badawi, Histoire, vol. 2, p. 483; D. M. Dunlop, ‘The Existence and Definition of Philosophy,’ Iraq, vol. 13 (1951), p. 78; Salvador Gomez Nogales, La Politica como Unica Ciencia Religiosa en Al-Fārābī, p. 10; Fawzeyah al-Roumi [Fawzeyah Bader al-Abdul-Wahab], ‘Al-Fārābi: A New Look at His Theories of Politics and Education,’ p. 50.

12. See Badawi, Histoire, vol. 2, p. 483; see also the prefatory note in al-Fārābī, Kitāb al-Milla wa Nuṣūṣ Ukhrā, p. V111; Nogales, Politica, p. 10; al-Roumi, ‘Al-Fārābi,’ p. 50.

13. See, for example, Nogales, Politica, especially pp. 30, 45 ff, 92-5, 102 ff; Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 117.

14. Mawjūdāt: here the First Cause, God, is firmly associated with a natural hierarchy of being.

15. Al-Fārābī, Kitāb al-Siyāsa al-Madaniyya, p. 84. See also idem., Madīna, p. 106 (Arabic text); idem., Kitāb al-Milla, pp. 61-3; Brewster, ‘Al-Farabi's “Book of Religion”,’ pp. 27-8.

16. Hereafter in the main text referred to as The Virtuous City.

17. Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 117.

18. Madīna, pp. 101 ff (Arabic text).

19. See, for example, his Kitāb al-Jam‘bayna Ra'yay al-Hakīmayn.

20. Mushin Mahdi, ‘Introduction,’ (1962 edn.) in Alfarabi's Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, p. 4.

21. Ibid., pp. 5, X1. See al-Fārābī, Kitāb Taḥṣīl al-Sa‘āda, p. 47; see also Muhsin Mahdi, ‘Remarks on Alfarabi's Attainment of Happiness’ in Hourani, Essays on Islamic Philosophy and Science, especially pp. 65-6.

22. Mahdi, Alfarabi's Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, pp. 4-5.

23. Madīna, p. 1 (Introduction).

24. Al-Jam‘bayna Ra'yay al-Hakīmayn, pp. 101-2, 105 cited by Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 115; Mahdi, Alfarabi's Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, p. 4; see also the wise comments on al-Fārābī's achievement by Emil L. Fackenheim, ‘Al-Farabi: His Life, Times and Thought,’ Middle Eastern Affairs, vol. 2 no. 1 (1951), p. 56. See finally the remarks of Miriam Galston (‘A Re-examination of al-Fārābī's Neoplatonism,’ Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 15 (1977), pp. 15-16) who believes that al-Fārābī may, in fact, have had ‘serious reservations about the authorship of [the Theologia].’

25. See Brewster, ‘Al-Farabi's “Book of Religion”,’ pp. 29-30; Fauzi M. Najjar, ‘Fārābī's Political Philosophy and Shī‘ism,’ Studia Islamica, vol. 14 (1961), pp. 62-3; al-Roumi, ‘Al-Fārābi,’ pp. 38-9, 217. The latter author sums up the situation succinctly: ‘Abū Naṣr al-Fārābi suffered from the turmoil and the disorder of his days and dreamt of better conditions in the truly virtuous city’ (p. 39).

26. Al-Bayhaqī, Ta'rīkh Hukamā' al-Islām, pp. 33-4. Badawi (Histoire, vol. 2, p. 483) and Fakhry (History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 108) both refer to this report briefly without comment, but Ibrahim Madkour (‘Al-Fārābī’ in Sharif, History of Muslim Philosophy, vol. 1, p. 452) rejects it as incredible. D. M. Dunlop, by contrast, believes that ‘there is no reason to doubt the account, but it seems less appropriate if the philosopher was then approaching eighty’ (Arab Civilization to A. D. 1500, p. 185). A. J. Arberry uncritically accepts the report of al-Fārābī's murder (See his article ‘Avicenna: His Life and Times,’ in G. M. Wickens (ed.), Avicenna: Scientist and Philosopher: A Millenary Symposium, p. 18). Details of al-Fārābī's life are summarized in most of the standard works and will not be repeated here. See Badawi, Histoire, vol. 2, pp. 478-83; Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, pp. 107-8; Madkour, ‘Al-Fārābī,’ pp. 450-2.

27. Brewster, ‘Al-Farabi's “Book of Religion”,’ p. 23.

28. See Galston, ‘Re-examination,’ especially p. 31.

29. See Falsafat Arisṭūṭālīs, See Mahdi's remarks in Alfarabi's Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, pp. 5-6 and Galston, ‘Re-examination,’ pp. 15-16.

30. Galston readily admits the Neoplatonic element as well in her excellent article: see ‘Re-examination,’ pp. 14-17.

31. Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 107; see also Fackenheim, ‘Al-Farabi,’ p. 56 and al-Fārābī, Madīna, p. 10 (Introduction).

32. ‘Re-examination,’ p. 16.

33. Booth, Aristotelian Aporetic Ontology, p. 99.

34. See, for example, my ‘Foreign Influences and Recurring Ismā‘īlī Motifs,’ especially pp. 61-3, which stresses the dichotomy in the description of God by the Ikhwān al-Safā'. See also above pp. 19, 77.

35. E. g. see his Kitāb al-Hurūf, p. 61; idem., Kitāb al-Alfāz al-Musta‘mala fī 'l-Manṭiq, p. 41; idem., Sharḥ al-Fārābī li Kitāb Arisṭūṭālīs fī 'l-‘Ibāra, p. 17.

36. E. g. Kitāb al-Hurūf, p. 61; Sharḥ al-Fārābī, p. 223. Compare Q. 1:1-2.

37. The text of Du‘ā' ‘Azīm is contained in Kitāb al-Milla wa Nuṣūṣ Ukhrā, pp. 89-92.

38. Du‘a' ‘Azīm, p. 89.

39. Ibid.; Compare Rabb al-Mashāriq (Q.XXXV11:5) and Rabb al-Mashāriq wa 'l-Maghārib (Q.LXX:40). Compare also Q.LV:16-17, Q.LXX111:9.

40. Du‘ā' ‘Azīm, p. 89. Lit. ma‘a al-Siddīqayn. Al-Siddīq was an epithet given to both Joseph and Abū Bakr. See Q.X11:46; Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Safā', vol. 3, pp. 46, 65, 305, 496, 497; vol. 4, pp. 32, 89. See my Muslim Neoplatonists, pp. 85-6.

41. See Muslim Neoplatonists, pp. 5-6.

42. Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Safā', vol. 4, p. 32; see also Du‘ā’ ‘Azīm, para. 10, p. 91.

43. See Kitāb al-Milla, pp. V11-V111, 32-3.

44. But see Hamdani's remarks about the chronology of al-Fārābī and the Ikhwān al-Safā', and also his identification of an instance where both al-Fārābī and the authors of the Rasā'il may well have used a common source: Abbas Hamdani, ‘The Arrangement of the Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Safā' and the Problems of Interpolations,’ Journal of Semitic Studies, vol. 29 no. 1 (1984), pp. 108-9.

45. Du‘ā’ ‘Azīm, p. 89; compare Q.XX1V:35.

46. Du‘ā’ ‘Azīm, p. 89, see also p. 91.

47. Ibid., pp. 90-1; i.e. Q.11:258, Q.XV11:46, Q.CX11:3-4 (preceded by a paraphrase of vv. 1-2).

48. Du‘ā’ ‘Azīm, p. 90.

49. Ibid., p. 91.

50. Ibid., p. 90. Compare Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Safā', vol. 4, p. 18.

51. Du‘ā’ ‘Azīm, p. 92. See also the last line of the verse on p. 90. See Muslim Neoplatonists, p. 6. Compare Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Safā', vol. 4, p. 18.

52. Du‘ā’ ‘Azīm, p. 90. Compare Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Safā', vol. 4, pp. 26, 35. Note the use of the number four, a favourite of the Ikhwān's. See Muslim Neoplatonists, pp. 10-11. By ‘the four natures’ are presumably meant the four primary elements of fire, air, water, and earth. Further on, the Du‘ā’ uses the word ‘anāṣir (see p. 91).

53. Du‘ā’ ‘Azīm, p. 91. This Platonic image was also a favourite of the Ikhwān al-Safā': see Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Safā', vol. 4, p. 25, and Muslim Neoplatonists, pp. 16-17.

54. Du‘ā’ ‘Azīm, pp. 91-2. Compare Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Safā', vol. 4, pp. 16, 18, 26, 40.

55. Q.11:258, translated by Arberry, The Koran Interpreted, vol. 1, p. 65.

56. Madkour, La Place d'al-Fârâbî, pp. 220-1.

57. Ibid., p. 221. Another author, M. A. Lahbabi (‘Al-Fârâbi et le Néoplatonisme,’ Diotima, vol. 4 (1976), pp. 98-9), has defined Farabism as being founded upon an axiom and two postulates: the first consists in the affirmation that man's vocation and destiny lie in the pursuit of happiness. The second are that (a) since faith and philosophy are both true, there is only one truth, and faith and philosophy are therefore in accord, and (b) if there is no contradiction between philosophy and religion, different philosophies cannot be in disagreement. Lahbabi goes on (p. 99) to speak of a ‘Farabised Platonism’ or a ‘Neo-Neoplatonism’, although he acknowledges that the last sounds barbarous!

58. Walzer stresses that ‘Al-Fārābī does not share the uncompromising negative theology of the main trend of neo-Platonic teaching, that is, he does not describe God exclusively by what He is not’ (Al-Farabi on the Perfect State, p. 12). We may contrast al-Fārābī's vocabulary with the more negative stress of Ibn Sīnā … whom Walzer describes as ‘much more Plotinian than al-Fārābī’(Al-Farabi on the Perfect State, p. 12).

59. See Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, pp. 84-6; Seale, Muslim Theology, pp. 58-66, especially the quotation from Clement on p. 61; and Zimmermann, Al-Farabi's Commentary, p. 120 n. 10. The via negativa is particularly in evidence in the writings of such authors as pseudo-Dionysius. See his Mystica Theologia/Dionise Hid Divinite, pp. 209-18, especially p. 217.

60. Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 117; Madkour, La Place d'al-Fârâbî, pp. 60, 68.

61. Badawi, Histoire, vol. 2, p. 538.

62. Galston, ‘Re-examination,’ p. 16; Muhsin Mahdi, ‘Al-Farabi and the Foundation of Islamic Philosophy,’ p. 12.

63. Zimmermann, Al-Farabi's Commentary, p. 120, see also p. 239; see Sharḥ al-Fārābī, p. 125.

64. Zimmermann, Al-Farabi's Commentary, p. 121; Sharḥ al-Fārābī, p. 125.

65. See n. 63 above; see also al-Fārābī, Madīna, p. 27 (Arabic text).

66. Madin̄a, p. 27 (Arabic text). Compare al-Fārābī, Fuṣūl Mabādi' Ārā' Ahl al-Madīna al-Fāḍila in Kitāb al-Milla, p. 79 and idem., Kitāb al-Siyāsa al-Madaniyya, pp. 31, 57, 84.

67. See Emil L. Fackenheim, ‘The Possibility of the Universe in Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and Maimonides,’ Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, vol. 16 (1946-7), p. 55 n. 47.

68. Madīna, p. 27 (Arabic text); see also Badawi, Histoire, vol. 2, pp. 532-3 and Fackenheim, ‘The Possibility of the Universe,’ pp. 39-41.

69. The negative nature of the description in the Arabic is often reflected more in such phrases as min ghayr, lā yumkin, and lā imkān than individual compound words with ghayr though, of course, these occur as well.

70. Madīna, pp. 27, 28 (Arabic text). Compare al-Fārābī, Fuṣūl Mabādi', p. 80 and idem., Fuṣūl al-Madanī: Aphorisms of the Statesman, pp. 126-7 (Arabic text); the latter also appears in idem., Fuṣūl Muntaza‘a, p. 53.

71. Madīna, p. 29 (Arabic text).

72. Madkour, La Place d'al-Fârâbî, p. 59.

73. Madīna, p. 35 (Arabic text).

74. Ibid., pp. 29-30 (Arabic text). Compare Fuṣūl Mabādi', p. 80 which uses the word nazīr.

75. Madīna, pp. 2 (Introduction), 31-2 (Arabic text).

76. See R. C. Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism.

77. Madīna, pp. 33-4 (Arabic text). Compare Fuṣūl Mabādi', p. 80.

78. Madīna, p. 33 (Arabic text). Compare Kitāb al-Siyāsa al-Madaniyya, p. 44.

79. Madkour, La Place d'al-Fârâbî, p. 63.

80. Madīna, p. 2 (Introduction).

81. Ibid., pp. 28, 35 (Arabic text).

82. Ibid., p. 28 (Arabic text).

83. Ibid.

84. Ibid., p. 36 (Arabic text).

85. Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 117.

86. Madīna, p. 38 (Arabic text).

87. Ibid., p. 28 (Arabic text).

88. Ibid., p. 41 (Arabic text).

89. E.g. see ibid., pp. 27, 30, 41, 47-8 (Arabic text). Compare Kitāb al-Milla, pp. 62-3 and Fuṣūl Mabādi', p. 79.

90. Madīna, p. 38 (Arabic text).

91. Ibid.

92. Ibid., p. 27 (Arabic text).

93. Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 117 uses the latter word.

94. Madīna, p. 27 (Arabic text).

95. Dunlop, Fuṣūl al-Madanī, pp. 43-4 (= pp. 126-7, Arabic text). The Arabic text also appears in al-Fārābī, Fuṣūl Muntaza‘a, p. 53.

96. The Arabic given here, and in the succeeding three epithets, is not necessarily an exact quotation from al-Fārābī's text which, in this particular passage, uses more nouns to speak of God than straight adjectives or compounds with dhū, though there are some of the latter.

97. Madīna, p. 41 (Arabic text).

98. See my Muslim Neoplatonists, pp. 43, 50, 120 n. 126.

99. Madīna, p. 42 (Arabic text). Compare Kitāb al-Siyāsa al-Madaniyya, pp. 47, 52.

100. See above p. 53.

101. Madīna, pp. 35-7 (Arabic Text). See Fuṣūl Mabādi', p. 80. Such positive epithets as ḥakīm, ḥaqq, and ḥayy enumerated in my paragraph are Qur'ānic and known as ṣifāt dhāt: see al-Azmeh, Arabic Thought and Islamic Societies, p. 68.

102. See John F. Wippel, ‘Essence and Existence,’ in Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny & Jan Pinborg (eds.), The Cambridge History of Later Medievel Philosophy, pp. 385-410.

103. E.g. see ibid., pp. 394-6.

104. Booth, Aristotelian Aporetic Ontology, p. 161.

105. E.g. see Fernand van Steenberghen, ‘Le Problème de l'Existence de Dieu dans le “De Ente et Essentia” de Saint Thomas d'Aquin’ in Mélanges Joseph de Ghellinck, S. J.: Tome ii Moyen Age, Époques Moderne et Contemporaine, pp. 840-1, 846; see also Booth, Aristotelian Aporetic Ontology, 210-12, 214, 254. For the general influence of Ibn Sīnā on Aquinas' thinking about essence and existence, and the latter's divergence from the former, see Aimé Forest, La Structure Métaphysique du Concret selon Saint Thomas d'Aquin, pp. 128-65.

106. My italics.

107. Battista Mondin, St. Thomas Aquinas' Philosophy in the Commentary to the Sentences, p. 52, see also p. 38 para. 2 and n. 9; see also J. C. Taylor, ‘Essence and Existence,’ in New Catholic Encyclopaedia, vol. 5, p. 549.

108. See Mondin, St. Thomas Aquinas' Philosophy, p. 41; new critical editions of the Avicenna Latinus are gradually being published: e. g. Liber De Anima seu Sextus De Naturalibus, 1, 11, 111, édition critique de la traduction Latine médiévale par S. van Riet.

109. The Latinized al-Fārābī (Alpharabius) was, of course, read and appreciated by the scholastics as well. For example, Albert the Great (circa AD 1193-1280) seems to have had at his disposal most of al-Fārābī's commentaries on Aristotle's logic—many of which have since vanished—and to have known John Philoponus through al-Fārābī (and Ibn Rushd): see M. Grignaschi, ‘Les Traductions Latines des Ouvrages de la Logique Arabe et l'Abrégé d'Alfarabi,’ Archives d'Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age, vol. 39 (1972), pp. 42, 64, 91. However, I am grateful to Professor Druart of The Catholic University of America for emphasizing to me that the principal works of al-Fārābī translated in Latin (De Intellectu et Intellecto, De Scientiis or De Divisione Scientiarum, De Ortu Scientiarum and Liber Exercitationis ad Viam Felicitatis) did not ‘include any treatment of the difference between essence and existence.’ See also D. Salmon, ‘The Mediaeval Latin Translations of Alfarabi's Works,’ The New Scholasticism, vol. 13 (1939), pp. 245-61.

110. F. C. Copleston (Aquinas, pp. 103, 106-7) does not make this mistake and acknowledges the work of al-Fārābī as well as Ibn Sīnā; Booth (Aristotelian Aporetic Ontology, pp. 106-7, 246) is similarly aware.

111. See Hammond, The Philosophy of Alfarabi, passim.

112. Fackenheim, ‘Al-Farabi,’ p. 58.

113. Ibid.; see also Booth, Aristotelian Aporetic Ontology, p. 106. A clear and valuable survey entitled ‘Farabi and the Concept of Being,’ which makes much reference to essence and existence, appears in Fadlou Shehadi, Metaphysics in Islamic Philosophy, pp. 45-69.

114. See Kitāb al-Hurūf, pp. 110-28; see also Amina Rachid, ‘Dieu et l'Être selon Al-Fārābī: le Chapitre de “l'Être” dans le Livre des Lettres,’ in Centre d'Études des Religions du Livre (ed.), Dieu et l'Être: Exégèses d'Exode 3, 14 et de Coran 20, 11-24, pp. 179-90; and Georges C. Anawati, ‘La Notion d'al-Wujud (Existence) dans Le Kitab al-Hudud d'al-Farabi,’ in Actas del V Congreso Internacional de Filosofía Medieval, vol. 1, pp. 505-19.

115. Fackenheim, ‘Al-Farabi,’ p. 58.

116. Hammond, The Philosophy of Alfarabi, p. 14.

117. See Fuṣūṣ al-Hikam in Alfārābī's Philosophische Abhandlungen aus Londoner, Leidener und Berliner Handschriften, pp. 66-7 (Arabic text) cited in Booth, Aristotelian Aporetic Ontology, p. 106. As will be evident, the Arabic here sometimes uses māhiyya and huwiyya instead of dhāt and wujūd, to render ‘essence’ and ‘existence’ respectively.

118. See Booth, Aristotelian Aporetic Ontology, p. 107; Madkour, ‘Al-Fārābī,’ p. 452; S. Pines, ‘Ibn Sina et l'Auteur de la Risalat al-Fusus fi'l-Hikma,’ Revue des Études Islamiques, vol. 19 (1951), pp. 121-4; Rescher, Al-Fārābī, p. 45; Walzer, art. ‘Al-Fārābī,’ p. 780. On the other hand, A.-M. Goichon (La Distinction de l'Essence et de l'Existence d'après Ibn Sīnā (avicenne), pp. 39-41), while acknowledging as questionable the attribution to al-Fārābī, nonetheless makes use of, and quotes, the Fuṣūṣ. (It is perhaps too strong to say with Booth that Goichon ‘assumes it was by al-Fārābī': Aristotelian Aporetic Ontology, p. 107 n. 54). However, Wolfson (The Philosophy of the Kalam, p. 696) accepts the Fuṣūṣ al-Hikam as Fārābian.

119. E. g. Hammond, The Philosophy of Alfarabi, pp. 14, 24.

120. See Fackenheim, ‘The Possibility of the Universe,’ p. 53; Shehadi, Metaphysics in Islamic Philosophy, pp. 55-6, 45 n. 1, 59 n.44; but note Fazlur Rahman's article ‘Essence and Existence in Ibn Sīnā: The Myth and the Reality,’ Hamdard Islamicus, vol. 4 no. 1 (1981), pp. 3-4, and the response in Oliver Leaman ‘Essence and Existence: the Avicenna v. Averroes Controversy,’ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, (forthcoming).

121. Fackenheim, ‘The Possibility of the Universe,’ p. 46 n. 19. The Arabic words in the quotation are inserted by me from the Arabic text in Kitāb al-Siyāsa al-Madaniyya, p. 48, see also pp. 43, 57. Fackenheim, in his article ‘The Possibility of the Universe,’ (pp. 39 ff), emphasizes al-Fārābī's distinction between possible being, which requires an outside cause for its existence, and necessary being, which is uncaused and has existence as part of its actual essence (i.e. God).

122. See n. 101 above.

123. See her ‘Dieu et l'Être selon Al-Fārābī,’ pp. 179, 185, 190 and n. 114 above.

124. Anthony Kenny, Aquinas, p. 53.

125. Hammond, The Philosophy of Alfarabi, p. 55.

126. See Mondin, St. Thomas Aquinas ' Philosophy, p. 51, and n. 105 above. See also M-D. Roland-Gosselin, Le “De Ente et Essentia” de S. Thomas d'Aquin, p. XX; and Michael J. Dodds, The Unchanging God of Love: A Study of the Teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas on Divine Immutability, pp. 181-3.

127. Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 128; see also Goichon, Distinction, pp. 131, 226.

128. William E. Gohlman, The Life of Ibn Sina: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation, pp. 32-5. The title of the book that Ibn Sīnā bought is not entirely clear. See ibid., p. 122 n. 30 and also Rescher, Al-Fārābī, p. 44.

129. ‘Umar Farrukh, Al-Fārābiyyān (al-Fārābī wa Ibn Sīnā), cited in Dunlop, Arab Civilization to A. D. 1500, p. 191.

130. Kenny, Aquinas, p. 53. The Latin text of De Ente et Essentia will be found in Thomas Aquinas, Opuscula Omnia necnon Opera Minora, vol. 1, pp. 24-50. It has been translated into English by Joseph Bobik, Aquinas on Being and Essence: A Translation and Interpretation. For a grammar of ‘esse,’ see David B. Burrell, Aquinas: God and Action, pp. 44-51. See also the useful chapter entitled ‘The Metaphysics of Being,’ in Mondin, St. Thomas Aquinas' Philosophy, pp. 35-57, and Knut Tranøy, ‘Aquinas,’ in D. J. O'Connor (ed.), A Critical History of Western Philosophy, pp. 106-11.

131. Bobik, Aquinas on Being and Essence, p. 1; see Aquinas, Opuscula Omnia, vol. 1, p. 25.

132. Bobik, Aquinas on Being and Essence, p. 1; Aquinas, Opuscula Omnia, vol. 1, p. 25.

133. Bobik, Aquinas on Being and Essence, p. 213.

134. Aquinas, Opuscula Omnia, vol. 1, p. 43.

135. 1a, 3, 4, (cited in Kenny, Aquinas, p. 54), vol. 2, pp. 32-3.

136. Liber 1, cap. 22, para. 208, translated by Anton C. Pegis, Saint Thomas Aquinas: Summa Contra Gentiles, Book One: God, p. 120. The original Latin text will be found in Aquinas, Liber de Veritate Catholicae Fidei contra Errores Infidelium seu “Summa Contra Gentiles”, vol. 2, p. 32.

137. Ronald H. Nash, The Concept of God, p. 20, citing David Ray Griffin, God, Power and Evil: A Process Theodicy. For a deep and wide-ranging study of Aquinas and immutability, see Dodds, The Unchanging God of Love.

138. Aquinas stressed: ‘… esse non est accidens’ (Scriptum Super Libros Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi Bk. 1, d.3, q.4, a.2, vol. 1, p. 117).

139. Copleston, Aquinas, p. 107; see also idem., A History of Philosophy, Volume 2: Mediaeval Philosophy Augustine to Scotus, pp. 334-5; Booth, Aristotelian Aporetic Ontology, pp. 254, 214-16; and Wippel, ‘Essence and Existence,’ p. 393.

140. Badawi, Histoire, vol. 2, p. 538; Thérèse-Anne Druart, ‘Al-Farabi and Emanationism,’ in John F. Wippel (ed.), Studies in Medieval Philosophy, pp. 23-43; idem., ‘Al-Farabi, Emanation and Metaphysics,’ in Parviz Morewedge (ed.), Neoplatonism and Islamic Thought, (forthcoming).

141. Madīna, p. 1 (Liminaire), p. 1 (Arabic text).

142. Ibid., pp. 43-4 (Arabic text).

143. Ibid.; see Badawi, Histoire, vol. 2, pp. 538-45; Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 118; Madkour, La Place d'al-Fârâbî, pp. 74-81.

144. Madīna, p. 45 (Arabic text).

145. Ibid., pp. 49-50 (Arabic text); Kitāb al-Siyāsa al-Madaniyya, pp. 33-4; see Herbert A. Davidson, ‘Alfarabi and Avicenna on the Active Intellect,’ [hereafter referred to as ‘Active Intellect’], Viator, vol. 3 (1972), pp. 135-6.

146. This term is exhaustively studied in Davidson, ‘Active Intellect,’ pp. 109-78.

147. Although frequently canonized as Aristotelian, this nous poiētikós was not directly mentioned by Aristotle: see Davidson, ‘Active Intellect,’ p. 109; Fackenheim, ‘Al-Farabi,’ p. 57; Galston, ‘Re-examination,’ p. 18 n. 19; Oliver Leaman, An Introduction to Medieval Islamic Philosophy, pp. 87-8, see also pp. 89-94; see also Badawi, Histoire, vol. 2, pp. 552-4.

148. Madīna, p. 38 n. 2 (French text); see Booth, Aristotelian Aporetic Ontology pp. 119, 188.

149. Kitāb al-Siyāsa al-Madaniyya, p. 32.

150. E. g. see Badawi, Histoire, vol. 2, pp. 545-55; Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, pp. 120-4; Madkour, ‘Al-Fārābī,’ pp. 460-3. See also Davidson, ‘Active Intellect,’ passim and Jean Jolivet, ‘L'Intellect selon al-Fārābī: Quelques Remarques,’ Bulletin d'Études Orientales, vol. 29 (1977), pp. 251-9. The Arabic text of al-Fārābī's brief but important Treatise on the Intellect (Risāla fī'l-‘Aql) has been edited by Maurice Bouyges.

151. Davidson, ‘Active Intellect,’ p. 135.

152. Madīna, pp. 50, 90 (Arabic text).

153. Davidson, ‘Active Intellect,’ pp. 134-54, see especially pp. 149-54.

154. Ibid., pp. 153-4.

155. Lit. ‘material intellect,’ also called ‘the passive intellect’ (al-‘aql al-munfa‘il). See Davidson, ‘Active Intellect,’ p. 141 and the following footnote for primary references.

156. Madīna, pp. 90-1 (Arabic text); see Davidson, ‘Active Intellect,’ p. 138.

157. See Davidson, ‘Active Intellect,’ pp. 136, 137, 139, 147-8.

158. Risāla fī 'l - ‘Aql, p. 29; see Davidson, ‘Active Intellect,’ pp. 136, 149-52.

159. Davidson, ‘Active Intellect,’ pp. 150-1.

160. Ibid., pp. 149-50.

161. Ibid., pp. 136-7.

162. Madīna, pp. 69-70 (Arabic text); see Davidson, ‘Active Intellect,’ p. 137 and Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 119.

163. R. Arnaldez, ‘L'Âme et le Monde dans le Système Philosophique de Fārābī,’ Studia Islamica, vol. 43 (1976), p. 53.

164. See n. 159 above; see also Davidson, ‘Active Intellect,’ p. 127.

165. Kitāb al-Siyāsa al-Madaniyya, p. 31.

166. Ibid., pp. 32-4.

167. Ibid., pp. 33-4.

168. Ibid., p. 31; Arnaldez, ‘L'Âme et le Monde,’ p. 54.

169. But see Thérèse-Anne Druart (‘Al-Fārābī's Causation of the Heavenly Bodies,’ in Morewedge (ed.), Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism, p. 35) who observes of the Risāla fī 'l-‘Aql: ‘I am not sure that this text expresses al-Fārābī's own opinion on the subject; it may only be his interpretation of Aristotle. I think we may discard it as not representing al-Fārābī's genuine opinion.’

170. Hammond, The Philosophy of Alfarabi, p. 34; see also Muṣṭafā Ghālib, Al-Fārābī, pp. 69-70.

171. Davidson, ‘Active Intellect,’ pp. 136, 150. It is possible, however, to detect some contradiction between the positions taken by the Risāla fī'l-‘Aql on the one hand, and al-Madīna al-Fāḍila and Kitāb al-Siyāsa al-Madaniyya on the other: concerning the latter two works, Davidson also observes (‘Active Intellect,’ p. 136): ‘According to al-Madîna al-Fāḍila and al-Siyâsât al-Madaniyya, the heavens, not the active intellect, produce the body of the sublunar world and bring about the appearance of souls in this world, including the human soul with its potential intellect’ (my italics). Because of the contradiction I have refrained from portraying the emanation of the human soul on Figure 2 to avoid confusion.

172. Madīna pp. 49-50 (Arabic text).

173. My italics.

174. Enneads V.1.6, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Enneads vol. 5, pp. 31-3.

175. Wallis, Neoplatonism, p. 63.

176. Madīna, p. 10 (French Introduction).

177. Druart, ‘Al-Fārābī's Causation of the Heavenly Bodies,’ p. 35.

178. Ibid., pp. 35-45.

179. Ibid., p. 36.

180. Ibid., p. 40.

181. Ibid., p. 41.

182. See Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, pp. 208-9.

183. See n. 167 above.

184. Quoted by Badawi, Histoire, vol. 2, p. 554.

185. See Wallis, Neoplatonism, pp. 64-5.

186. See ibid., pp. 63-4; Fackenheim, ‘The Possibility of the Universe,’ especially pp. 41, 51-2.

187. Fackenheim, ‘Al-Farabi,’ p. 57; idem., ‘The Possibility of the Universe,’ pp. 45, 48 ff.

188. See Davidson, ‘John Philoponus as a Source,’ pp. 359-61.

189. Mahdi, ‘Alfarabi against Philoponus,’ p. 236.

190. The Arabic text will be found in Muhsin Mahdi, ‘The Arabic Text of Alfarabi's Against John the Grammarian,’ in Sami A. Hanna (ed.), Medieval and Middle Eastern Studies: In Honor of Aziz Suryal Atiya, pp. 268-84, and also in Badawī, Rasā'il Falsafiyya, pp. 108-15; for an analysis see Mahdi, ‘Alfarabi against Philoponus,’ pp. 233-60.

191. Davidson, ‘John Philoponus as a Source,’ p. 245.

192. Mahdi, ‘Alfarabi against Philoponus,’ p. 353; see idem., ‘The Arabic Text of Alfarabi's Against John the Grammarian,’ pp. 271-2 (Arabic) and Badawī, Rasā'il Falsafiyya, p. 108.

193. Hammond, The Philosophy of Alfarabi, pp. 19-22.

194. See above nn. 117, 118.

195. See Druart, ‘Al-Farabi and Emanationism,’ pp. 24-5 n. 9; the Arabic text of ‘Uyūn al-Masā'il will be found in Dieterici, Alfārābī's Philosophische Abhandlungen, pp. 56-65.

196. See Badawi, Histoire, vol. 2, pp. 492, 533-5; Dunlop, Arab Civilization to A. D. 1500, pp. 189-91; Nogales, Politica, pp. 54-5. Badawi and Nogales both treat this Commentary as an authentic Fārābian work; a few doubts are surveyed by Dunlop and these are shared by Druart (‘Al-Farabi and Emanationism,’ p. 25 n. 9).

197. Badawi, Histoire, vol. 2, p. 535.

198. Sharḥ Risālat Zīnūn, pp. 3-5; Badawi, Histoire, vol. 2, pp. 534-5; Nogales, Politica, pp. 54-5.

199. See above p. 54.

200. See above p. 67. For a survey of al-Fārābī and the ontological argument, see Majid Fakhry, ‘The Ontological Argument in the Arabic Tradition: The Case of Al-Fārābī,’ Studia Islamica, vol. 64 (1986), pp. 5-17.

201. Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 116. See also Fauzi M. Najjar, ‘Fārābi's Political Philosophy and Shī‘ism,’ pp. 71-2.

202. Brewster, ‘Al-Farabi's “Book of Religion”,’ p. 22; see Kitāb al-Milla, p. 47. For an elaboration on the relationship between philosophy and religion in al-Fārābī's thought, see Muhsin Mahdi, ‘Alfarabi on Philosophy and Religion,’ Philosophical Forum, vol. 4 n. 1 (1972), pp. 5-25.

203. Madīna, p. 123 (Arabic text).

204. Ibid.; see also p. 124 (Arabic text).

205. Ibid., p. 119 (Arabic text); see Davidson, ‘Active Intellect,’ pp. 142-4 and Nogales, Politica, pp. 67-8.

206. See Galston's definition above, n. 32.

207. Umberto Eco, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, p. 103 (my italics).

208. See above p. 75.

209. See Figure 2.

210. See above p. 120.

211. See above p. 100-101.

212. See Walzer, Al-Farabi on the Perfect State, p. 434.

213. Compare Piaget, Structuralism, pp. 13-14.

214. See above p. 104.

215. Booth, Aristotelian Aporetic Ontology, p. 1.

216. See Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, and J. G. Merquior's severe critique of Foucault's epistemes in Foucault, pp. 57-70.

217. See above p. 112.

218. See above p. 78.

219. See Walzer, Al-Farabi on the Perfect State, p. 426.

220. See above n. 78.

221. See Julia Kristeva, Sēmeiōtikē: Recherches pour une Sémanalyse, p. 146.

222. See Walzer, Al-Farabi on the Perfect State, p. 6; Todorov, Symbolism and Interpretation, pp. 63-4; for the links between Alexandrian philosophy and al-Fārābī and his ‘connection with the last stages of Alexandrian Aristotelianism’ see Gutas, ‘Paul the Persian,’ p. 255; see also idem., ‘The Starting Point of Philosophical Studies in Alexandrian and Arabic Aristotelianism,’ in William W. Fortenbaugh (ed.), Theophrastus of Eresus: On his Life and Work, pp. 115-23.

223. See Walzer, Al-Farabi on the Perfect State, pp. 21, 30.

224. Barthes, S/Z, p. 5.

225. See Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, pp. 66-7.

226. See below p. 131.

227. Walzer, Al-Farabi on the Perfect State, p. 9.

228. See, e. g., ibid., pp. 424-8.

229. See above p. 102ff.

230. See above n. 7.

231. See above p. 104.

232. See above p. 100.

233. Walzer, Al-Farabi on the Perfect State, p. 6.

234. Ibid.

235. See John Sturrock (ed.), Structuralism and Since: From Lévi-Strauss to Derrida, p. 10.

236. Culler, Barthes, p.111.

237. See above pp. 65ff.

238. See Peirce, ‘Logic as Semiotic,’ p. 6 and Innis, ‘Introduction’ to ibid., p. 1; see also Eco, A Theory of Semiotics, pp. 69-72; Felperin, Beyond Deconstruction, pp. 95-7.

239. See Todorov, Theories of the Symbol, p. 41. While the bare word ‘God’ and the stark unimaginable ‘concept’ it attempts to encapsulate is not a sign, it will, however, be clear from my text that all metonymies and synecdoches used of God and, of course, all the theologemes, do function as signs of the Ultimate Reality. For example, in an Islamic context, al-Haqq is a sign; ‘Allāh’ is not.

240. See Eco, ‘Social Life as a Sign System,’ p. 66 for the varied terminology of sememes and sign vehicles.

241. Todorov, Symbolism and Interpretation, p. 124.

242. See Eco, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, pp. 104-5; Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1a, 13, 5, vol. 3, pp. 60-7; see also ibid., 1a, 4, 3, vol. 2, pp. 54-9.

243. Walzer, Al-Farabi on the Perfect State, p. 85 (English translation) (my italics), p. 84 (Arabic text).

244. See and compare Eco's remarks on ‘The Sign as Difference’ in his Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, p. 23.

245. See above p. 103.

246. See above p. 107.

247. See above p. 108.

248. See above p. 105.

249. See above p. 107.

250. See above p. 106.

251. See above p. 106.

252. See above p. 106.

253. See above p. 102.

254. See above p. 110.

255. See above n. 97.

256. See above p. 108.

257. Culler, Barthes, p. 110.

258. Ibid.

259. See Enneads V.4.1, V.1.6; see also Eco, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, p. 103; Walzer, Al-Farabi on the Perfect State, p. 352.

260. Al-Fārābī also reminds us of the ‘generosity’ of the First: ‘Inasmuch as the substance of the First is a substance from which all the existents emanate, while it does not neglect any existence beneath its existence, it is generous, and its generosity is in its substance; and inasmuch as all the existents receive their order of rank from it, and each existent receives from the First its allotted share of existence in accordance with its rank, the First is just, and its justice is in its substance.’ (Walzer, Al-Farabi on the Perfect State, pp. 95, 97 (English translation), pp. 94, 96 (Arabic text).

261. Eco, A Theory of Semiotics, p. 80. This may be compared with de Morgan's statement above, p. 77.

262. Edmund Leach, ‘Structuralism in Social Anthropology,’ in Robey, Structuralism, p. 41.

263. For an excellent collection of articles dealing with the debate, see New Blackfriars (Special Issue: God and Change), vol. 68 no. 805 (May 1987). For a review of some of the literature see Santiago Sia, ‘The Doctrine of God's Immutability: Introducing the Modern Debate,’ in ibid., pp. 229-32.

264. Simon Tugwell, ‘Spirituality and Negative Theology,’ in ibid., pp. 257-63.

265. Ibid., p. 258.

266. See Eco. A Theory of Semiotics, pp. 6-7.

267. Compare Foucault, The Order of Things, p. XX11; see Merquior, Foucault, pp. 39-55.

268. E.g. by Merquior (Foucault, p. 70) who asks: ‘Why, in heaven's name, should we restrict the concept of epistemic breaks to epistemic earthquakes?’ (his italics); he concludes: ‘Foucault shaped his epistemic landscapes with too dramatic contrasts.’ It has been well said that ‘Foucault's attraction is partly that of a terrible simplificateur.’ (Charles Taylor, ‘Foucault on Freedom and Truth,’ in David Couzens Hoy (ed.), Foucault: A Critical Reader. p. 82.)

269. See Merquior, Foucault, pp. 58-70, especially p. 69.

270. See above n. 261.

Abbreviations

EI²: Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edn

EI²: Supp. Encyclopaedia of Islam Supplement

EIS: Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam

JMIAS: Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi Society

JRAS: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

Q.: Qur'ān (Flügel edn)

THES: Times Higher Education Supplement

TLS: Times Literary Supplement