This is a dissertation project on medieval Arabic rhetoric and philosophy that focuses on the innovative nature of the knowledge produced while translating and commenting on foreign works of science and philosophy in Abbasid Baghdad. Chapter One challenges colonial attitudes toward the Translation Movement as exclusively imitative and preservative. The chapter shows that the translations had practical and ideological purposes to fulfill, not simply archival ones. Translation genres are discussed to show how deletions, additions, and new material were introduced during the translation process to ensure that that translation work met the goals of the sponsors. The work of the most renowned translator, Hunayn Ibn Ishaq is discussed in some detail to illustrate the process of translation and to show that translation overlapped with knowledge making. The chapter also covers the translation done in fields such as medicine, astronomy, and philosophy. Chapter Two covers how the work of theorists such as Edward Said, Michel Foucault, and Mikhail Bakhtin enabled me to challenge an Orientalist attitude toward medieval Arabic philosophy as was as show its innovative nature. In Chapter Three, I provide a translation of al-Kindi's "A Statement on the Soul," followed by an analysis of the epistemological and persuasive significance of the treatise. The chapter illustrates how the Arabic engagement with Greek and Neo-Platonic knowledge was dialogic in nature. Chapter Four is a translation of al-Farabi's book of rhetoric. Chapter Five is an analysis of al-Farabi's theory of rhetoric that is based on the previous chapter. It focuses on his understanding of rhetoric as a logical art, how logical and rhetorical terms acquired new meanings when translated from Greek to Arabic in his work, and the rhetorical nature of his work as he adapted Platonic and Aristotelian models to suit his monotheistic context.

Though relatively unknown to non-specialists, Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī is a fundamental member of the community of Muslims who founded Islamic Philosophy. In his tenth-century work, On the Perfect State, al-Fārābī tackles questions of eminent importance to society of Muslims still deciding who they were. These questions and their inevitable solutions were, for a time, a source of much turmoil for the young Ummah; and we argue that the Perfect State should be read as an effort to take part in, even to lead, the conversation that would decide how these questions were answered. A school of thought championed by Richard Walzer argues that the most important thing to know about al-Fārābī is that he repeated in Arabic many things already said better in Greek by the ancients. According to this school of thought, al-Fārābī’s main intention was to transmit specifically Greek learning to posterity, not to participate in the world of Islam and Muslims. It is our contention that this view is mistaken and misleading. Through an examination of tenth-century Islamic history, a close reading of al-Fārābī’s work in Arabic, and a thorough discussion of the mistakes made by the Walzerian school of thought, we will show that al-Fārābī used philosophy as a tool for solving problems particular to the Muslim community of his age. / Religion

In his tenth-century work, al-Madīnah al-Fāḍilah, the Muslim philosopher Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī posits a solution to the internecine hostilities between Muslim intellectual communities which occurred as a result of conflicting positions on the relationship between revelation and reason, religion and philosophy. In this work al-Fārābī demonstrates that both religion and philosophy are derived from, and dependent upon, divine revelation from Allah to the Prophet. Modern scholars of al-Fārābī interpret his work differently, reading him as an enemy of religion who subordinates Islam to philosophy. In this thesis, after establishing al-Fārābī within the historical and ideological context of tenth-century Islamic thought I analyze al-Madīnah al-Fāḍilah in light of a commentary on the text by Richard Walzer, who is among those scholars who read al-Fārābī as an enemy of Islam who merely reproduces Greek philosophy in Arabic. Contrasting the original Arabic text with Walzer’s English translation and commentary I apply readings of several of al-Fārābī’s other works as an interpretive lens, through which the correct reading of al-Madīnah al-Fāḍilah is made clear. I further analyze the text in light of Islamic Scripture, by which I demonstrate that the foundation on which al-Fārābī’s cosmology is founded has precedence within the Qur’ān. Working in the tenth century al-Fārābī sought to reconcile the conflicting views of his fellow Muslims, in order to bring peace to the community, the Muslim Ummah. Al-Madīnah al-Fāḍilah should be regarded as his crowning achievement in these efforts. / Religion

This thesis offers an interpretation of Al-Farabi’s Book of Religion, in which the tenth- century philosopher addresses more directly than in any of his other works the relationship between human and divine wisdom. Believing Farabi to be a philosopher in the full sense of the term, I attempt to approach his writing in the spirit of his own approach to the writings of Plato and Aristotle. I argue that the discussions of religion, philosophy, and political science found in the text constitute a single teaching, through which Farabi addresses some of the most fundamental questions facing man as both a political and spiritual animal. / text

Medieval philosophy in the Arabic world has sought to harmonize the Greek philosophic tradition with the Islamic religion. Many rulers, scholars and theologians were against this intellectual approach and defend the Islam from the philosophers. The position of philosophy and its followers in the Arabic realm was therefore uneasy. Many scholars had to hide their opinions between the lines and avoid to doing philosophy publicly. Alongside the unfriendly environment, the position of philosophy in the Arabic society was also determined by common notion of scholars, that the revealing of the philosophical thoughts can be harmful for uneducated citizen, as well as influenced by mysticism. The aim of this thesis is to summarize the main philosophical approaches responding to the problematic position of philosophy in the Arabic world. Crucial will be the philosophy of solitary by Ibn Bajja, where the author seeks to bond tight the philosopher's life with the city and thus present a new role of philosopher in the Arabic society. Keywords Ibn Bajja, Rule of the Solitary, Al-Farabi, Political Regime, Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Plato, The Republic, political philosophy, mysticism, ethics, philosopher, virtue, city, weeds, knowledge, governance, happiness