One biographer, Ibn Khallikan (d. 1282) tells us that Abu Nasr al-Farabi lived 80 years. There is no other information to confirm his date of birth. Based on his nisba, the most likely place of origin of his family is in the district of Farab in Transoxiana (Turkestan), in the small town of Vaslj, as Ibn Hawqal (d. after 967) claims, or in the town of Farab which gave its name to the district. Judging by his Political Regime 103, and Grand Book on Music 57-58, he was neither of Turkish nor of Arab descent, but most probably Persian.
The date and place of his death are better known. According to Mas'tidI (d. 956), he died in Damascus, in Rajab 339 (December 950-January 951). Sa‘id al-AndalusI (d. 1070) adds that he died there under the protection (kanaf) of Sayf al-Dawla (r. 945-967), although kanaf means a form of tutelary authority which Sayf al-Dawla, the Hamdanid Emir of northern Syria (Aleppo, Diyar Mudar, Diyar Bakr), never had upon Damascus. Nonetheless, some notes in the manuscripts of al-Farabl’s Perfect State inform us that he left Baghdad and went to Syria in 942, possibly to Aleppo, his presence there being recorded by an undated dedication of a commentary to one of his students. According to the same notes, he was already in Damascus in 943 and there completed the Perfect State, before going to Egypt (between July 948 and June 949) and returning to Damascus, hardly leaving any time for an acquaintance with the Emir.
From the semiautobiographical relation of his curriculum preserved by Ibn Abi Usaybi‘a (d. c. 1269), we can infer: first, that al-Farabi was taught logic in Baghdad by the Christian Abti Bishr Matta ibn Yunus (d. 940) from Porphyry’s Isagoge to the Prior Analytics, I, 7; second, that al-Farabi broke away from him, apparently accusing him and Christians in general of observing a clerical ban on teaching beyond Prior An., I, 7, that is, from I, 8 to the end of the Posterior Analytics, although Matta is known to have translated it. Al-Farabl’s account of his curriculum seems to echo a rivalry between the two men, later to be interpreted ideologically, like other related texts, as a religious quarrel between Christian and Muslim scholars. Indeed, al-Farabl says he was taught logic till the end of Posterior Analytics by another Christian, Yulsanna b. Haylan. This apparent inconsistency might be explained if al-Farabl applied to himself what he says about the rest of the curriculum, beyond Prior Analytics, I, 7, that is, that, despite the ban, it was still studied among Christians albeit covertly. In his view, Ibn Haylan may have been a representative of this tradition. In any case, this supposition is in accordance with Fauraubul’s main intention in this text, to present himself as the heir of an unbroken chain of teaching from Alexandria to Baghdad. In this regard, J. Watt has shown that there were two trends within the Syriac commentary tradition: one which indeed restricted the logical training to the first part of the Organon, terminating at Prior Analytics, I, 7, but which had deep roots in the ancient world; and the other represented by the ‘‘Syriac writers who were proficient in Greek’’ and who ‘‘adhered throughout to the other strand of this two-strand tradition, that of the full Organon’’ In al-Fauraubul’s view, Ibn Haylaun probably belonged to the latter.
We cannot know for certain where and when he studied with Ibn Haylaun, or where he taught his foremost pupil, the Christian Yalsya ibn ‘Adl (d. 974). Similarly, it is hard to determine if al-Fauraubul succeeded Mattau at the head of a school in Baghdad, before moving to Syria and whether he taught in a schole or in one or more private schools.
In his Grand Book on Music, 58, dedicated to Vizier Abii Ja‘far al-Karkhl (June-August 936), al-Farabl states that he was in relation with Greeks who were not Byzantine Christians, but ‘‘pure’’ or ‘‘faithful’’ Greeks whose musical practice he refers to as being akin to the one systematized by ‘‘the Ancient Greeks’’ in their books on musical theory. They lived in a ‘‘land’’ ‘‘in the vicinity’’ of the Empire of the Arabs to which many were emigrating. Whatever the bearing of this information on the history of Hellenism, al-Farabl claims he was acquainted with some ‘‘faithful Greeks’’ living somewhere along a border region where pagan culture was still alive. In northern Mesopotamia, Harraun, which enjoyed some autonomy in the first half of the tenth century, seems a likely candidate. Apart from al-Mas‘udl’s (d. 956) other accounts of the traces of pagan intellectual life in Harraun, this is further evidence of the relationship between falsafa and a persistent form of pagan culture.
His Grand Book on Music being a well-known work of maturity composed in Baghdad, the general absence of information concerning al-Farabl’s teaching activities during his time there is puzzling.
World History
