Evans Experientialism
 Evans Experientialism
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Al-Kindi was born and brought up in Kufah, which was a centre for Arab culture and learning in the 9th century. This was certainly the right place for al-Kindi to get the best education possible at this time. Although quite a few details (and legends) of al-Kindi's life are given in various sources, these are not all consistent. We shall try to give below details which are fairly well substantiated. | |||
Al-Kindi defined Philosophy as 'the establishment
of what is true and right' and believed
that
the pursuit of philosophy was compatible
with orthodox Islam. By Sonal Panse,
11/3/2004
The Iraq crisis and the general and hypocritical
Western perception of Islam as the
harbringer
of terrorism made me think of Al-Kindi
recently.
Renowned as the first great philosopher
of
Arabic and Islamic origin in the world,
his
full name was Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ishaq
al-Sabbah
Al-Kindi, quite a mouthful, and he
was the
scion of a very illustrious family
descended
from the Royal Kindah Tribe of Southern
Arabia.
He was born in 801 in Kufah, Iraq.
Kufah, in the ninth century was an important
and cospomolitan city, famous as the
second
capital of the Caliphate after Medina,
and
Al-Kindi's father just happened to
be its
governor - his grandfather too had
once been
the governor. His lineage as well as
Kufah's
cultural importance made it possible
for
Al-Kindi to receive the best possible
education
available in that period. Afterwards
he moved
to Baghdad for further studies and
here,
as he had in Kufah, he soon proved
his intellectual
prowess.
Baghdad was then under the rule of Caliph
al-Ma'mun, the son of the famous Haroun
al-Rashid.
Haroun al-Rashid had founded a research
and
educational institute called the 'bayt
al-hikma'
or the House of Wisdom. His son al-Ma'mun,
who succeeded him in 813 after defeating
his brother in an armed power struggle,
proved
to be an equally enlightened and capable
ruler. Shifting his capital from Merv
to
Baghdad in 818, he became a patron
of the
House of Wisdom and had observatories
set
up which Arabic astronomers used to
study
and further explore the works of earlier
researchers. Al-Ma'mun also collected
rare
and valuable Byzantine manuscripts
and created
a vast library that was second only
to the
famed ancient one in Alexandria. The
House
of Wisdom, under the Abbasid Dynasty,
gained
great renown as an intellectual centre
where
erudite scholars gathered to exchange
and
teach their ideas.
Hearing of Al-Kindi's brilliance, al-Ma'mun
summoned him to his court and, aside
from
appointing him as a tutor to his young
son,
also had him inducted into the House
of Wisdom.
Here, Al-Kindi had for colleagues intellectuals
like al-Khwarizm, Hunayn ibn Ishaq,
and the
three Banu Musa brothers, Jafar Muhammad
Ibn Musa ibn Shakir, Ahmed ibn Musa
ibn Shakir,
and al-Hasan ibn Musa ibn Shakir. The
main
task of these people was to research
and
translate Greek scientific and philosophical
manuscripts into Arabic. Al-Kindi,
however,
did not do the actual translation himself,
but reworked and corrected the translations
made by others and then, based on these,
wrote his commentaries on the Greek
works.
Al-Kindi was greatly influenced by the writings
of Aristotle, Plato, Porphyry, and
Proclus,
and incorporated their ideas into his
own
philosophical work. He soon began to
outshine
his colleagues in his work. Unlike
the Banu
Musa brothers, who were mainly mathematicians,
and Abu Ma'shan, whose sphere was astrology,
Al-Kindi was a versatile genius with
a wide
knowledge of Philosophy, Logic, Geometry,
Mathematics, Music, Art, Optics, Geography,
Astronomy, Chemistry, Pharmacy, Logogriphs,
Armaments, and Cooking. He wrote over
270
works on various subjects, out of which
22
were on Medical topics and 11 on Arithmethic.
Al-Kindi defined Philosophy as 'the establishment
of what is true and right' and believed
that
the pursuit of philosophy was compatible
with orthodox Islam. He said - "We
ought
not to be embarrassed of appreciating
the
truth and of obtaining it wherever
it comes
from, even if it comes from races distant
and nations different from us. Nothing
should
be dearer to the seeker of truth than
the
truth itself, and there is no deterioration
of the truth, nor belittling either
of one
who speaks it or conveys it."
Al-Kindi's philosophical works include a
treatise on Epistemology and the logic
treatise
'Risalah fi Huded al-Ashya'wa Rusumiha'
(On
the Definition of Things and Their
Descriptions).
Also 'Rasa'il al-Kindi al-falsafiya'
(Philosophical
Treatises of Al-Kindi), 'Fi al-falsafa
al-ula'
(On First Philosophy), 'Fi wahdaniyat
Allah
wa tunahiy jism al-alam' (On the oneness of God and the Limitation
of the Body of the World), 'Fi Kammiya
Kutub
Aristutalis wa ma yohtaju ilaihi fi
tahsil
al-falsafa' (The Quantity of Aristotle's
Books and what is required for the
acquisition
of Philosophy), and 'Fi al-hila li-daf'al-ahzan'
(On the Art of Averting Sorrow).
Al-Kindi's success unfortunately didn't make
him too popular with his colleagues
and they
began conniving against him. Under
al-Ma'mun
and his successor, al-Mu'tasim, Al-Kindi
remained in favor. But his star began
to
descend under the next two orthodox
Caliphs.
He died in 873 in Baghdad.
The Following Biographical Article
is by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson Al-Kindi was born and brought up in Kufah, which was a centre for Arab culture and learning in the 9th century. This was certainly the right place for al-Kindi to get the best education possible at this time. Although quite a few details (and legends) of al-Kindi's life are given in various sources, these are not all consistent. We shall try to give below details which are fairly well substantiated. According to [3], al-Kindi's father was the governor of Kufah, as his grandfather had been before him. Certainly all agree that al-Kindi was descended from the Royal Kindah tribe which had originated in southern Arabia. This tribe had united a number of tribes and reached a position of prominence in the 5th and 6th centuries but then lost power from the middle of the 6th century. However, descendants of the Royal Kindah continued to hold prominent court positions in Muslim times. After beginning his education in Kufah, al-Kindi moved to Baghdad to complete his studies and there he quickly achieved fame for his scholarship. He came to the attention of the Caliph al-Ma'mun who was at that time setting up the "House of Wisdom" in Baghdad. Al-Ma'mun had won an armed struggle against his brother in 813 and became Caliph in that year. He ruled his empire, first from Merv then, after 818, he ruled from Baghdad where he had to go to put down an attempted coup. Al-Ma'mun was a patron of learning and founded an academy called the House of Wisdom where Greek philosophical and scientific works were translated. Al-Kindi was appointed by al-Ma'mun to the House of Wisdom together with al-Khwarizmi and the Banu Musa brothers. The main task that al-Kindi and his colleagues undertook in the House of Wisdom involved the translation of Greek scientific manuscripts. Al-Ma'mun had built up a library of manuscripts, the first major library to be set up since that at Alexandria, collecting important works from Byzantium. In addition to the House of Wisdom, al-Ma'mun set up observatories in which Muslim astronomers could build on the knowledge acquired by earlier peoples. In 833 al-Ma'mun died and was succeeded by his brother al-Mu'tasim. Al-Kindi continued to be in favour and al-Mu'tasim employed al-Kindi to tutor his son Ahmad. Al-Mu'tasim died in 842 and was succeeded by al-Wathiq who, in turn, was succeeded as Caliph in 847 by al-Mutawakkil. Under both these Caliphs al-Kindi fared less well. It is not entirely clear whether this was because of his religious views or because of internal arguments and rivalry between the scholars in the House of Wisdom. Certainly al-Mutawakkil persecuted all non-orthodox and non-Muslim groups while he had synagogues and churches in Baghdad destroyed. However, al-Kindi's [6]:-
In fact most of al-Kindi's philosophical writings seem designed to show that he believed that the pursuit of philosophy is compatible with orthodox Islam. This would seem to indicate that it is more probably that al-Kindi became [1]:-
It is claimed that the Banu Musa brothers caused al-Kindi to lose favour with al-Mutawakkil to the extent that he had him beaten and gave al-Kindi's library to the Banu Musa brothers. Al-Kindi was best known as a philosopher but he was also a mathematician and scientist of importance [3]:-
Perhaps, rather surprisingly for a man of such learning whose was employed to translate Greek texts, al-Kindi does not appear to have been fluent enough in Greek to do the translation himself. Rather he polished the translations made by others and wrote commentaries on many Greek works. Clearly he was most influenced most strongly by the writings of Aristotle but the influence of Plato, Porphyry and Proclus can also be seen in al-Kindi's ideas. We should certainly not give the impression that al-Kindi merely borrowed from these earlier writer, for he built their ideas into an overall scheme which was certainly his own invention. Al-Kindi wrote many works on arithmetic which included manuscripts on Indian numbers, the harmony of numbers, lines and multiplication with numbers, relative quantities, measuring proportion and time, and numerical procedures and cancellation. He also wrote on space and time, both of which he believed were finite, 'proving' his assertion with a paradox of the infinite. Garro gives al-Kindi's 'proof' that the existence of an actual infinite body or magnitude leads to a contradiction in [7]. In his more recent paper [8], Garro formulates the informal axiomatics of al-Kindi's paradox of the infinite in modern terms and discusses the paradox both from a mathematical and philosophical point of view. In geometry al-Kindi wrote, among other works, on the theory of parallels. He gave a lemma investigating the possibility of exhibiting pairs of lines in the plane which are simultaneously non-parallel and non-intersecting. Also related to geometry was the two works he wrote on optics, although he followed the usual practice of the time and confused the theory of light and the theory of vision. Perhaps al-Kindi's own words give the best indication of what he attempted to do in all his work. In the introduction to one of his books he wrote (see for example [1]):-
Certainly al-Kindi tried hard to follow this path. For example in his work on optics he is critical of a Greek description by Anthemius of how a mirror was used to set a ship on fire during a battle. Al-Kindi adopts a more scientific approach (see for example [1]):-
Much of al-Kindi's work remains to be studied closely or has only recently been subjected to scholarly research. For example al-Kindi's commentary on Archimedes' The measurement of the circle has only received careful attention as recently as the 1993 publication [10] by Rashed. | |||
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