My research concerns the history of political philosophy with a specialization in the reception and adaptation of classical political philosophy in the ancient Persian and medieval Islamic political thought. I am also interested in how such investigations in the history of political thought can help us to address questions concerning the West today: To what extent can liberal societies accommodate religious minorities? To what extent can minority cultures in liberal societies embrace liberal citizenship?
Book Manuscript:
The City, Man, and Religion: Alfarabi’s Political Philosophy in his Parallel Works
photo credit: Amir Pashaei
My book project investigates the tripartite relationship between philosophy, religion, and politics in Alfarabi’s parallel works, the Enumeration of the Sciences, Book of Religion, Political Regime, and the Virtuous City. These four texts occupy a unique place in Alfarabi’s oeuvre, since the Enumeration of the Sciences and Book of Religion, on the hand, and the Political Regime and Virtuous City, on the other, are parallel works, that is to say, not only do they share similar themes, but there are also similar and, in some instances, identical passages in these treatises. This study demonstrates that Alfarabi provides his account of political science and political philosophy in the Enumeration of the Sciences and Book of Religion upon which the Political Regime and Virtuous City can be understood. Alfarabi’s political science and philosophy cover four fundamental themes, religion, the cosmos, man, and the city. Religion and its derivative arts, jurisprudence, apologetic theology, dialectic, and rhetoric are all subordinate to political science and philosophy. Man’s faculties of the soul and his organs of the body, and their places in the cosmos, provide a harmony and hierarchy the adherence to which, Alfarabi asserts, is a pathway to the true happiness. Such harmony and hierarchy, moreover, lay out a blueprint based on which the first ruler, and his successors, create and preserve the virtuous city. Nonvirtuous cities, however, emerge when its inhabitants pursue presumed happiness or believe in religions that question the harmony and hierarchy among the city, man, and cosmos.
Papers in Progress:
Alfarabi’s Political Science and Political Philosophy in the Book of Religion
Alfarabi and Persian Political Thought