Alfarabi is a Neo-Platonist inasmuch as his mystic tendencies are numerous in his Metaphysics, Psychology and Political thought.

Being a great expositor of Aristotles logic, he was aptly called al-mualim al thani (the second teacher). He wrote numerous books which include Kitab tashil as-Saadah (attainment of Happiness), Kitab as-Siysah al-Madinyah (Public Administration) , alMadina al-fadila (The Virtuous City) , Risala-Fil-Aql and many others. The methods of governing a society and the ruler in question have long been a thought messing with the minds of our great philosophical thinkers and. Al-Farabi had a very straight mind when it came to what a ruler should be like and what a perfect society is like. He said that there are three types of societies: the highest, the intermediate and the lowest. He also divided the imperfect nation into three parts: the village, the suburb of a city and the home. Of course none of this is in accord with any of the theories in organizational psychology today. But one of the most important contributions he made to modern-day organizational psychology was talk about the conduct and personality make-up of leaders. He named the traits he thought a leader should possess such as great intelligence, excellent memory, firmness without weakness, love for truth, and aversion to falsehood etc. This philosophical theory of his is in accordance with the Traits theory of organizational psychology in which psychologists have tried to pinpoint a set of traits which help a man/woman become a leader. In my opinion Al-Farabi was right in thinking that a leader should have such attributes but research and real life events have proved that there is more to a leader than just traits that make him/her who he/she is in our world and society. So, to a certain extent he was overlooking the situational that play a role in making leaders. Moreover, particular sciences," says Alfarabi, "restrict themselves to one or several departments of being. General Metaphysics or Ontology, that is, the science of Being deals with the immaterial concept of general understandings which doesn't include matter. It could then be divided into three parts: Metaphysical Theology, which deals with God and His attributes; Metaphysical Cosmology, which treats of the ultimate principles of the universe; and finally Metaphysical Psychology, which treats of the human soul. He further believed that man knows anything merely by his own senses and intelligence, it follows that he has no other way of knowing the divine nature except by observation. And by observing the world he gets aware of perfections and imperfections. Alfarabi agrees with the definition of Aristotle that soul is separate entity from the body and is the strong part of it. He accepts that the human soul cannot exist before the body, as Plato has said. In spite of that it is very doubtful that he believed in immortality of soul as he wrote many passages for and against of it. To mention more of Al-Farabis prominent work, in metaphysics he discusses about God playing the role of absolute being, this is reflected in Al-Farabis cosmology which uses Aristotelian metaphysics of causation. In his model, the universe is viewed as a number of concentric circles; the outermost sphere or "first heaven", then the fixed planets and lastly the moon. At the center of these concentric circles is the sub-lunar realm which contains the material world. Each of these circles represent the domain of the secondary intelligences (symbolized by the celestial bodies themselves) serving as an intermediate between God and the material world, God being the first cause, by thinking of itself leads to creation of second cause and so on till the 10th cause is reached. In his discussion he says that everything has a cause, even the first cause- nothing exists without having a cause. In my opinion, Al-Farabis concept of everything having a cause has influenced Averroes in a way that all events have causes. Similarly there seems to be a monist vibe coming off from his work as everything to the 10th cause has been derived from one source, in this case being God.

Similarly to metaphysics, Al-Farabis works on epistemology is second to none .His books on epistemology includes Kitab ihsa' al-'ulum, Risala fi'l-'aql and Kitab al-huruf. Al-Farabi deems humans as unique as they act as a bridge between the "higher", immaterial world of the celestial intellects and the "lower", material world which inhabit a physical body, as humans have a rational capacity intellect. In Risala fi'l-'aql, he divides intellect or Aql into 6 parts. The 1st being prudence; the individual who acts for the good, 2nd -common sense; 'obviousness', the 3rd intellect is natural perception which is innate , 4th being conscience overlapping the 1st intellect, 5th and the most complex having 4 parts. The potential intellect represents the capacity to think,, the actual intellect is an intellect engaged in abstracting the sensory forms of objects which have been apprehended and retained in the individual's imagination. The 3rd being 'the agent of actualization' to the actualized object and the 4th from potential and actual intellect arises the agent intellect - to act upon the retained sensory forms or allowing us to think. Lastly the 6th being God. In my point of view, Al-Farabis work reflects a lot about modern psychology, as 1st intellect & 4th draws parallel to humanistic school of thought and 2nd intellect evolves from 3rd intellect seems to be derived from Aristotles idea and creates basis for empiricists tabula rasa. The 5th having several parts gives us the Gestalt example of whole being greater than sum of its parts, also being the basis for Ibn Sinas retentive power, estimative power and processing and acting as a predecessor of empiricist idea. In discussing the soul Al-Farbi took on more of an Aristotelian view point saying that there are four types of souls: the appetitive, sensitive, imaginative, and rational. He said the rational soul goes on to live in the afterlife. This philosophy of his was then adopted by freud who reduced the mind into three separate sections the id, ego, and super-ego. Each of which help a human-being tell right from wrong. Opinion wise he gave a rationale to how a person thinks and which part of the mind dominates and when. Furthermore, Al-Farabi contributed greatly into music as well having written the book Kitab al Musiqa (the book of music). He not only played musical instruments but invented them as well, for example the 5 string ud. He used Arabic Scales, each scales having different moods thereby using these scales as therapeutic tools for healing. On a personal note, Al-Farabis musical contributions expand far beyond than anyone has expected. The 5 string ud led to later invention of the Guitar in the west- the west having their own musical scales adopted Al-Farabis Arabic scale into their own , allowing ways in which music can be made therapeutic to people of other cultures as well as each culture has their own scale. Moreover the idea of scales relates to the old Gestalt saying mentioned in the previous paragraph, as the scale comprises of different notes, having more meaning than an individual musical note played, having said this Al- Farabi was the first philosopher to write a book on music. All in all he was a great philosopher who contributed tons of useful thoughts to organizational, therapeutic, gestalt, and psycho-dynamic schools of thoughts in psychology making it easier for future psychologists to put their beliefs in one thing or another. He even influenced the likes of Ibn-Sina, Al-Tawhidi, Al-Amri and more.

References; Hammond,R. (1947). Theoretical Philosophy Chapter II METAPHYSICS MEANING AND DIVISION Retrieved March 29, 2013, from http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/palf/palf07.htm Netton, I.R. (1998). al-Farabi, Abu Nasr (c.870-950). Retrieved March 29, 2013, from http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/ H021.htm#H021WKENT1 Al-Farabi. (n.d.) In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 29, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Farabi

Al-Farabi
Maam Nirmal Niazi
Submitted by: Aleena Saeed Moera Zaheer Shahroze Suzuki Aasma Shahrukh Tooba Khalid Nimrah Pervaiz