Al-Fauraubul, who did not have any Greek, worked as a commentator and teacher. As such, he was indebted to Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, and the members of the Neoplatonic School of Alexandria (sixth century) and probably to Simplicius, that is, to the commentators of Aristotle known in Arabic. He claimed to be heir to the Alexandrian scientific curriculum, the Aristotelian part of which he, along with his Christian colleagues from the ‘‘School of Baghdad’’ (tenth to eleventh century), contributed to reestablish, before the tradition of commentaries on Aristotle was revived in Andalusia by Avempace (Ibn Bajja, d. 1139) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd, 1126-1198), followed by Jewish and Latin philosophers. In fact, the religiously indifferent Saracen philosopher staged by Peter Abelard in his Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian may have been Avempace whose sole declared master was al-Farabl.
Though he wrote commentaries on Plato’s Laws, Euclid’s Elements, and Ptolemy’s Almagest, al-FarabI mainly devoted himself to the interpretation of the Aristotelian treatises on logic and physics. According to the known lists of his works, he composed long or lemmatic, as well as brief or paraphrastic, commentaries on all the treatises of the Organon, most of the longer ones being lost. As for the physical treatises, he commented upon the Physics, On the Heavens and the Universe, On Generation and Corruption, Meteorology, and perhaps upon the De anima. All of them are apparently lost. He also wrote on specific themes from the Physics: On the Void, On the Divisible and the Indivisible, On Finite and Infinite Power, That the Movement of the Spheres Is Eternal and On Changing Beings - of which only the first has been preserved. The titles of these works and what we learn from those that were preserved show that he never departed from the Greek view that the world is eternal. He was opposed to the philosophical and theological trend of thought originating in John Philoponus’ Against Aristotle and Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World. His refutation of the former has been preserved. His commentary on Physics VIII also seems to have been preserved, albeit in a Latin translation, that remains to be edited and studied. Apart from the previously known Latin translations of a few treatises, that is, De intellectu, De scientiis, Liber exercitationis ad viam felicitatis - the first two having significantly influenced Latin Scholasticism - other works may have been translated and therefore made available to Albert the Great, such as the paraphrase of, and possibly also the long commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics. In the same way, excerpts from al-Farabl’s masterpieces, the Political Regime and the Perfect State, may have been known in Latin. A long sentence common to these works is often quoted by Latin authors.
Al-Farabl’s allegedly deeper influence on Arabicspeaking philosophers is paradoxically difficult to assess. Although Avicenna (Ibn Sina: 980-1037), Avempace, Averroes, Maimonides (1135-1204), and a few others knew his works and held him in high esteem, the fact remains that most of his writings rapidly failed to be copied, and therefore read. That some texts were ultimately preserved can most probably be attributed to
Avicenna’s deference to him and the respect paid to Avicenna’s philosophical achievements by numerous philosophers, especially in the East of the Islamic world. Apart from the philosophers mentioned above, al-Farabl’s writings were attacked and emendated early on. Avempace’s urge to defend him against allegations of being a heretic is what informs us of the widespread accusations started by the Persian theologian al-(GazalI (1058-1111).
Furthermore, there is proof of the emendation of al-Farabi’s thought. A few decades only after his death, Miskawayh (936-1030), a Muslim polymath directly acquainted with some of his genuine works, ascribed to him a sort of social climber’s guide to life at Court. The text, a pastiche of al-Farabl’s style, predicates the prevailing community opinion as a criterion of truth, when compliance with popular opinion is what al-Farabl’s philosophy emphatically denies. This bowdlerization of his thought did not stop at Miskawayh.
World History
