Al-Farabi

An Iranian stamp with Al-Farabi's imagined face
Al-Farabi on the currency of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Drawing of a musical instrument, a shahrud, from al-Farabi's Kitāb al-mūsīqā al-kabīr
Gerard of Cremona's Latin translation of Kitab ihsa' al-'ulum ("Encyclopedia of the Sciences")
Pages from a 17th-century manuscript of Al-Farabi's commentary on Aristotle's metaphysics

Abu Nasr Al-Farabi known in the West as Alpharabius; (c.

- Al-Farabi

251 related topics

Relevance

Maimonides

Medieval Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages.

Imaginary 18th-century depiction of Maimonides
The dominion of the Almohad Caliphate at its greatest extent, c. 1200
Maimonides' house in Fez, Morocco
Monument in Córdoba
Bas relief of Maimonides in the United States House of Representatives.
The Tomb of Maimonides in Tiberias
Depiction of Maimonides teaching students about the 'measure of man' in an illuminated manuscript.
The title page of The Guide for the Perplexed
Plaque of Maimonides at Rambam Medical Center, Haifa
Manuscript page by Maimonides. Judeo-Arabic language in Hebrew letters.
The original manuscript of the Commentary on the Mishnah, handwritten by Musa bin Maymun in Judeo-Arabic in a Rashi script.

Influenced by Aristotle, Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and his contemporary Ibn Rushd, he became a prominent philosopher and polymath in both the Jewish and Islamic worlds.

Al-Masudi

Arab historian, geographer and traveler.

Roof figure of Al Masudi, Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna
Al-Mas'udi's atlas of the world (reversed on the North–South axis) also includes a continent west of the Old World
In the year 933 Al-Masudi mentions Muslim sailors, who call the Comoros islands: "The Perfume Islands" and sing of waves that break rhythmically along broad, pearl-sand beaches, the light breezes scented with vanilla and ylang-ylang, a component in many perfumes.

He was well-read in philosophy, the works of al-Kindi and al-Razi, the Aristotelian thought of al-Farabi and the Platonic writings.

Astronomy in the medieval Islamic world

Islamic astronomy comprises the astronomical developments made in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age (9th–13th centuries), and mostly written in the Arabic language.

An 18th-century Persian astrolabe, kept at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge, England.
Analemma for planet Earth during the middle of the day. In 2006 it was recorded at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.
The Tusi-couple is a mathematical device invented by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi in which a small circle rotates inside a larger circle twice the diameter of the smaller circle. Rotations of the circles cause a point on the circumference of the smaller circle to oscillate back and forth in linear motion along a diameter of the larger circle.
This model presenting how Nasir al-Din al-Tusi explain the motion of Earth, relative to the moon and the Sun using Tusi couple. It is used to support that Earth rotate around something, and equant is not the correct way to explain the motion of the moon around Earth.
An illustration from al-Biruni's astronomical works, explains the different phases of the moon, with respect to the position of the sun.
Ibn al-Shatir's model for the appearances of Mercury, showing the multiplication of epicycles using the Tusi-couple, thus eliminating the Ptolemaic eccentrics and equant.
Layout of the Beijing Ancient Observatory.
Korean celestial globe based on the Huihui Lifa.
Work in the observatorium of Taqi al-Din.
The Ulugh Beg Observatory in Samarqand.
A Large Persian Brass Celestial Globe with an ascription to Hadi Isfahani and a date of 1197 AH/ 1782-3 AD of typical spherical form, the globe engraved with markings, figures and astrological symbols, inscriptive details throughout
Mid-17th century astrolabe inscribed with Quranic verses and Persian poetry as well as technical information, with five interchangeable plates corresponding to the latitudes of major cities
The Timbuktu Manuscripts showing both mathematics and astronomy.
Qusayr' Amra Dome Fresco, 705–15, fresco on tepidarium, bathhouse dome ceiling, Jordan.
Zodiac Ewer, first half 13th century, potentially Iran. Engraved Brass, inlaid with copper and silver, 8 3/4 in. x 6 7/8 in..
Medieval manuscript by Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi depicting an epicyclic planetary model.

Al-Farabi (d.

Faryab Province

One of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, which is located in the north of the country bordering neighboring Turkmenistan.

A village in Faryab province
View near the Zarmast Pass (Sauzak Pass) in 1939, which connects Faryab's Maymana to the city of Herat
A market street in Maymana
Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) members of the Norwegian Army on a patrol in Faryab Province (December 2009)
An unpaved road in the province (June 2010)
Ethnolinguistic groups in Afghanistan
Districts of Faryab

It is the home town of the famed Islamic philosopher, al-Farabi (per the biographer Ibn al-Nadim).

Political philosophy

Philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them.

Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), from a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael. Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics secured the two Greek philosophers as two of the most influential political philosophers.
Portrait of Confucius, c. 1770
Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People (1830, Louvre), a painting created at a time when old and modern political philosophies came into violent conflict.
Political spectrum

However, in Western thought, it is generally supposed that it was a specific area peculiar merely to the great philosophers of Islam: al-Kindi (Alkindus), al-Farabi (Abunaser), İbn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Bajjah (Avempace) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes).

Poetics (Aristotle)

Primarily concerned with drama, and the analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion.

Arabic translation of the Poetics by Abū Bishr Mattā.

Arabic scholars who published significant commentaries on Aristotle's Poetics included Avicenna, Al-Farabi and Averroes.

Vacuum

Space devoid of matter.

300x300px
Torricelli's mercury barometer produced one of the first sustained vacuums in a laboratory.
The Crookes tube, used to discover and study cathode rays, was an evolution of the Geissler tube.
Structure of the magnetosphere - is not a perfect vacuum, but a tenuous plasma awash with charged particles, free elements such as hydrogen, helium and oxygen, electromagnetic fields.
A glass McLeod gauge, drained of mercury
Light bulbs contain a partial vacuum, usually backfilled with argon, which protects the tungsten filament
This shallow water well pump reduces atmospheric air pressure inside the pump chamber. Atmospheric pressure extends down into the well, and forces water up the pipe into the pump to balance the reduced pressure. Above-ground pump chambers are only effective to a depth of approximately 9 meters due to the water column weight balancing the atmospheric pressure.
Deep wells have the pump chamber down in the well close to the water surface, or in the water. A "sucker rod" extends from the handle down the center of the pipe deep into the well to operate the plunger. The pump handle acts as a heavy counterweight against both the sucker rod weight and the weight of the water column standing on the upper plunger up to ground level.
A cutaway view of a turbomolecular pump, a momentum transfer pump used to achieve high vacuum
This painting, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1768, depicts an experiment performed by Robert Boyle in 1660.

In the medieval Muslim world, the physicist and Islamic scholar Al-Farabi wrote a treatise rejecting the existence of the vacuum in the 10th century.

Music therapy

Allied health profession, " is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program."

Power of Music by Louis Gallait. A brother and sister resting before an old tomb. The brother is attempting to comfort his sibling by playing the violin, and she has fallen into a deep sleep, "oblivious of all grief, mental and physical".

The Turco-Persian psychologist and music theorist al-Farabi (872–950), known as Alpharabius in Europe, dealt with music for healing in his treatise Meanings of the Intellect, in which he discussed the therapeutic effects of music on the soul.

Otrar

Central Asian ghost town that was a city located along the Silk Road in Kazakhstan.

Otrar was the cultural center where Abu Nasr al-Farabi was born, and Aristan-Bab, an important representative of Islamic culture, preached here.

Averroes

An

Statue of Ibn Rushd in Córdoba, Spain
Averroes in a 14th-century painting by Andrea di Bonaiuto
Averroes served various official positions in the Almohad Caliphate, whose territories are depicted in this map.
Imaginary debate between Averroes and third-century philosopher Porphyry. Monfredo de Monte Imperiali Liber de herbis, 14th century
An Arabic illustration of Aristotle teaching a student, c. 1220. Aristotle's works are the subject of extensive commentaries by Averroes.
Title page from a Latin edition of Colliget, Averroes's main work in medicine
The Long Commentary on Aristotle's On the Soul, French Manuscript, third quarter of the 13th century
6th-century Byzantine depiction of Galen (top centre) among other noted physicians
The Triumph of Saint Thomas Aquinas over Averroes by Benozzo Gozzoli, depicting Aquinas (top center), a major Averroes critic, "triumphing" over Averroes (bottom), depicted at the feet of Aquinas
Averroes, detail of the fresco The School of Athens by Raphael

Averroes was a strong proponent of Aristotelianism; he attempted to restore what he considered the original teachings of Aristotle and opposed the Neoplatonist tendencies of earlier Muslim thinkers, such as Al-Farabi and Avicenna.