FĀRĀBĪ, AL-. Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Tarkhān ibn Awzalagh al-Fārābī (258–339? AH/870–950? CE) was a Hellenized Muslim-Arabic philosopher (faylasūf), known in the Islamic tradition as the "Second Teacher" (second to Aristotle); in Latin, al-Fārābī was called Avennasar or Alfarabius. His Arabic biographers called him the first great logician; modern scholars have declared him the chief political philosopher of Islam and the founder of Islamic Neoplatonism. More than one hundred works are attributed to him, not all of which have survived.

While the details of his life are unclear, with the historical accuracy of many later biographical accounts suspect, the following reconstruction has a reasonable degree of certainty. Al-Fārābī was of Turkish origin, born in Fārāb in Transoxiana; he...