Al-Farabi's importance in the history of Islamic philosophy may be gathered from the epithet commonly applied to him by later philosophers. Known as the "Second Teacher"--second, that is, only to Aristotle--al-Farabi in many ways set the course for developments in later Islamic philosophy. While greatly admiring Aristotle and adopting an Aristotelian approach to logic and epistemology, al-Farabi consciously and creatively supplements the Stagirite's teachings with the emanative cosmology and metaphysics of Neoplatonism and with the political philosophy of Plato.

Despite his importance and the esteem in which he was held, knowledge of al-Farabi's life is rather scant, and few of his writings can be dated with any certainty or even ordered chronologically. The son of a military officer, he was born around 870 in the village of Wasij of the district of Farab in Turkestan. He was educated in Damascus and later in Baghdad, where he lived and...