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One. Introduction
- State University of New York Press
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1 Now more than at any time for centuries, Alfarabi, a tenth-century Muslim political philosopher, is especially timely. This book is intended as an introduction to Alfarabi’s thought not through a survey of his many writings but through an analysis especially of one of them, one with special relevance to our times. In his Attainment of Happiness, Alfarabi envisions the fulfillment of Islam’s ambition to spread Islam, as the virtuous religion, to the inhabited world. Along the way, however, he raises a few questions: Is one religion suited to the great variety of human communities throughout the world? Is it possible for more than one virtuous religion to exist? If more than one virtuous religion can exist, how and why can they exist? One thing is certain: Alfarabi is not a premodern version of John Locke. Alfarabi’s solution to intercommunal conflict, to the extent he intends to offer one, is not to pronounce all religions equal as long as they promote a characteristically modern morality and avoid interference in politics. (In this introduction, I will refer to this all-too-brief account of Locke’s teaching , not even entertained by Alfarabi, as “tolerance,” though I use the term loosely here.) On the contrary, Alfarabi describes a world filled with rank and hierarchy. (Furthermore, he does not separate religion from politics.) He has no qualms about pronouncing one religion superior to another— though he does so without pointing fingers. He describes in challenging ways what makes a religion truly virtuous. Rather than declaring in advance the superiority of Islam to all other religions, he analyzes what it takes to be virtuous and rightly guided and leaves it to his readers to compare existing religions with his account. Most importantly, he does not One Introduction 2 An Islamic Philosophy of Virtuous Religions exclude the possibility of a multiplicity of virtuous religions.1 For a variety of reasons, Alfarabi was considered too radical for his times. At least to some extent, his time may have just arrived. I do not intend to offer a panacea . Alfarabi does not offer mechanisms or institutions of governance such as the separation of powers, which have the potential, if rightly instituted , to establish a balanced modern government. Rather, he is more interested in educating his reader than in offering institutional solutions. He seeks to explore and illuminate his readers’ own hopes and aspirations —through a dialogue of sorts with them—one reader at a time. Such an education, though often difficult to come by in our loud and hurried times, is, I believe, especially important today, for both Muslim and nonMuslim alike. In his Attainment of Happiness, Alfarabi extrapolates from insights that Plato developed in the Republic. In the Republic, Socrates envisions a perfectly just city (polis) as one in which all citizens are devoted solely to the common good. The harm done to the private good of most citizens in that city is familiar to most undergraduates. Alfarabi uses that insight and applies it to his own setting. He wonders what it would take for Islam to achieve its ambition to rule the world justly. He argues that it would require that not only every nation but also every city within every nation should be virtuous. Furthermore, to be truly just, the rulers of each nation would need to be philosopher-kings, and each city would need to have its own peculiar adaptations or imitations of philosophy suited to its particular climate and locale. In other words, a virtuous world regime would require a multiplicity of virtuous religions to match the multiplicity of virtuous nations. Alfarabi does not intend this world regime to be a realistic or even an ideal plan. Rather, he seeks to persuade his reader that the effort to establish a just world regime is an impossibly high, even if a noble, goal. The Attainment of Happiness, like the Republic, is intended as a cautionary tale promoting political moderation. Above all, it seeks to educate the young and politically ambitious Muslim to temper his or her desire to spread the truths of Islam to the world as a whole. Once again, this form of political education is quite different from the modern focus on mechanisms and institutions of governance. It almost goes without saying that such institutions are indispensable. At the same time, mechanisms alone will not stand a chance in the face of citizens filled with religious zeal for the highest and noblest aspirations of...