¹ Consider, for example, the account of the objectives of the legislator in Avicenna, , The Metaphysics of “The Healing,” trans. Marmura, Michael E. (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2005), 370–78Google Scholar, as well as the defense of philosophic reasoning as an activity obligated by divine law in Averroes, , Decisive Treatise and Epistle Dedicatory, trans. Butterworth, Charles E. (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2001), 1–3Google Scholar.

² For a discussion of the limits of reason, see al-Ghazali, , “Deliverance from Error,” in Freedom and Fulfillment: An Annotated Translation of Al-Ghazali's al-Munqidh min al-Dalal and Other Relevant Works of al-Ghazali, ed. and trans. McCarthy, Richard J. (Boston: Twayne, 1980)Google Scholar, secs. 61, 141.

³ For examples of explicit reference to Alfarabi in the works of later Muslim philosophers (some critical), see Avicenna, , The Life of Ibn Sina, ed. and trans. Gohlman, William E. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1974), 35Google Scholar; Bajja, Ibn. “Commentary on Aristotle's Physics,” in Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources, trans. McGinnis, Jon and Reisman, David C. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2007), 269Google Scholar; Tufayl, Ibn, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan: A Philosophical Tale, trans. Goodman, Lenn Evan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 100Google Scholar; Averroes, Decisive Treatise, 12; al-Ghazali, Deliverance, 4. Alfarabi was also held in the highest esteem by the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides; see “Epistle to Samuel ibn Tibbon,” in Miscellany of Hebrew Literature, vol. 1, trans. Adler, H. (London: Trubner, 1872), 226–27Google Scholar.

⁴ Daniel Burns compares passages from the Book of Religion with parallel passages from Alfarabi's Enumeration of the Sciences, with very insightful results; see “Alfarabi and the Creation of an Islamic Political Science,” Review of Politics 78 (2016): 365–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The present essay proceeds on the belief that the Book of Religion warrants a comprehensive interpretation of its own, without denying that the comparison undertaken by Burns is highly constructive. For the argument that Alfarabi's political works may be helpfully considered as self-contained wholes, see Parens, Joshua, An Islamic Philosophy of Virtuous Religions: Introducing Alfarabi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006), 25–27Google Scholar.

⁵ By this, I mean to indicate that, in Alfarabi's presentation, religion may be comprehensively understood through human reason alone, as distinguished from human reason supplemented or replaced by divine guidance (see Part I, below). Even revelation (sec. 1) and God's governance of the cosmos (sec. 27) are said to be explained by “theoretical science” and “theoretical philosophy,” respectively. The key exception to this general tendency—the assertion in sections 11 and 14 of an afterlife—is discussed in Parts II and III, below.

⁶ All parenthetical citations to the Book of Religion refer to page (and, in the case of direct quotations, line) numbers from Alfarabi, , “Kitab Al-Millah,” in Kitab Al-Millah Wa Nusus Ukhra, ed. Mahdi, Muhsin (Beirut: Dar Al-Machreq, 1968), 41–66Google Scholar. Direct quotations are from Alfarabi, , “Book of Religion,” in The Political Writings, ed. and trans. Butterworth, Charles E. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 85–113Google Scholar; an asterisk indicates that I have modified the translation.

⁷ According to Alfarabi, revelation consists either of divinely predetermined actions and opinions or of a faculty that allows the virtuous first ruler to determine actions and opinions himself; in either case, religion is in agreement with the discoveries of philosophy. Alfarabi's remarks on revelation are discussed more in Part II, below.

⁸ In speaking of an orthodox position, I do not mean to overstate the homogeneity of Muslim beliefs in the time of Alfarabi, but rather to refer to those most basic aspects of Islamic theology as contained in the Qur’ān and Sunni Hadith. Compare, in this context, Qur’ān 10:15 and 18:27 with section 8 of the Book of Religion, as well as Qur’ān 5:3 with section 7. That innovation was seen as a sin of the highest order by Alfarabi's time is borne out by Sahih Mulsim 3601. The extent to which Alfarabi diverges from anything that could reasonably be called orthodoxy is discussed in Part II, below.

⁹ Alfarabi raises this possibility explicitly in section 5 of the Enumeration of the Sciences, where it is said to be the opinion of a particular group of dialectical theologians; see “Enumeration of the Sciences,” in Political Writings, 81–82.

¹⁰ Such a view obviously depends for its plausibility on Alfarabi's willingness to write esoterically. That he in fact did so is a position adopted by Strauss, Leo, “Farabi's Plato,” in Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume (New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1945), 357–93Google Scholar; Persecution and the Art of Writing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988)Google Scholar, introduction, esp. 17–18; Madhi, Muhsin, “The Editio Princeps of Farabi's Compendium Legum Platonis,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 20, no. 1 (January 1961): 10Google Scholar; Butterworth, Charles and Pangle, Thomas, foreword to Alfarabi: Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), vii–xxGoogle Scholar; Colmo, Christopher A., Breaking with Athens: Alfarabi as Founder (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005), 9–16Google Scholar; Parens, Joshua, Metaphysics as Rhetoric: Alfarabi's Summary of Plato's “Laws” (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995)Google Scholar, xxvi, 24–27; Introducing Alfarabi, 5–7. For the claim that Alfarabi, even when speaking in perfectly general terms, has Islam in mind, see Orwin, Alexander, Redefining the Muslim Community: Ethnicity, Religion, and Politics in the Thought of Alfarabi (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 87CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A very helpful summary of various hermeneutical approaches to Alfarabi can be found in Galston, Miriam, Politics and Excellence: The Political Philosophy of Alfarabi (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990)Google Scholar, chap. 1. For examples of Alfarabi's own statements on esoteric writing, see “The Harmonization of the Two Opinions of the Two Sages: Plato the Divine and Aristotle,” in Political Writings, 131; “Summary of Plato's Laws,” in The Political Writings, vol. 2, ed. and trans. Butterworth, Charles E. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015), 130Google Scholar.

¹¹ Although preceded by al-Kindi and contemporaneous with ar-Razi, Alfarabi alone succeeded at founding a philosophic tradition in the Muslim world. Concerning al-Kindi, Butterworth states that he “does raise questions pointing to the need for political philosophy, even though he does not provide sufficient answers to them” (“Al-Kindi and the Beginnings of Islamic Political Philosophy,” in The Political Aspects of Islamic Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Muhsin S. Mahdi, ed. Butterworth, Charles E. [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992], 59Google Scholar). Paul E. Walker speaks of ar-Razi's “value as a negative voice against which an ‘Islamic’ political philosophy was to develop,” although he goes on to augment this “unnecessarily narrow view” (“The Political Implications of al-Razi's Philosophy,” in Political Aspects of Islamic Philosophy, 66). Maimonides, in contrast to his singularly high praise for Alfarabi, dismisses ar-Razi as a “mere physician” (Epistle, 226).

¹² Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.

¹³ This question receives a negative answer by Colmo (89, 102).

¹⁴ Interpretation 40, no. 2 (Sept. 2013): 175–98.

¹⁵ Sections 7–10, sections 2 and 4, and sections 6–7, 13, 14a–d, respectively.

¹⁶ “Revelation” is always used to translate waḥy, which is the Qur’ānic word for the divine revelation received by Muhammad; see, for example, Qur’ān 53:2–4.

¹⁷ Alfarabi's use of Allāh in this context should be contrasted with his use of ilāh (translated as “deity”) in sections 23 and 27; the latter is a more generic term, as captured in Qur’ān 37:35: “there is no deity except Allāh.”

¹⁸ “Faculty” always translates quwwa, while “ability” translates qudra. In his “Commentary on Aristotle's De Interpretatione,” Alfarabi states that “‘Possibility’ (imkān), ‘power,’ ‘ability,’ and ‘capability’ (istiṭāʿa) are nouns which we must now understand to be synonymous, although many of the arts employ these terms for different significations” (“Sharh al-Farabi li-Kitab Aritutalis Fi al-ʿIbarah,” ed. Wilhelm Kutsch and Stanley Marrow [Beirut: Université Saint-Joseph Institut de lettres orientales, 1960], 182:16; citation found in Alon, Ilai, Al-Farabi's Philosophical Lexicon [Warminster, UK: Aris & Phillips, 2002], 346Google Scholar, 382; translation my own).

¹⁹ Orwin, Redefining the Muslim Community, 98.

²⁰ See, for example, Sahih Bukhari 1.2. But consider the possible range of interpretations of baṣā’iru in Qur’ān 7:203.

²¹ Alfarabi here uses the plural of sharīʿah, which, in section 4, is said to be synonymous (in certain usages) with “religion” (46:13–14). The cognate shirʿah is used in the Qur’ān 5:48 to describe the particular system of law given by God to each people; thus, Alfarabi's reference to several virtuous laws is not inherently heterodox. The more generic term for law, namus (pl. nawamus), does not appear in the Book of Religion, but is used by Alfarabi in the Attainment of Happiness and Book of Letters (Orwin, Redefining the Muslim Community, 99).

²² Muhammad's lack of learning is attested to by Qur’ān 7:158, although some have challenged the orthodox interpretation of al-umiyi; see, for example, Yuksel, Edip, introduction to Qur'an: A Reformist Translation (Brainbow Press, 2007), 23–28Google Scholar. The traditional belief in Muhammad's illiteracy receives support from Qur’ān 29:48 and Sahih Bukhari 1.3.

²³ Qur’ān 6:115, 10:15, and 18:27 stress the unalterable character of God's words. Qur’ān 2:106 and 16:101 indicate that God retains the power of abrogation, but at no point is Muhammad said to have such a right.

²⁴ Al-ākhira is the term used in the Qur’ān for the hereafter.

²⁵ Alfarabi's discussion of the afterlife in other works is far from orthodox (see On the Perfect State, trans. Richard Walzer [Chicago: Kazi Publications, 1998], chap. 16; “Selected Aphorisms,” in Political Writings, 1:52–53). But in contrast to these other works, the Book of Religion remains utterly vague about the nature of the afterlife; Alfarabi thus leaves open, at least in this work, heterodox and orthodox interpretations alike.

²⁶ This phrase is used repeatedly in the Qur’ān to describe earthly life, in contrast to the hereafter.

²⁷ The verb in 54:2, translated above as “make … prosper,” is ʿamarat, which does call to mind at least physical health and wealth. Furthermore, it must be emphasized that the “goods” of which Alfarabi speaks in the same line cannot be the virtuous ways of life or moral habits themselves, but are rather their worldly product.

²⁸ The discussion of the rule of law that Alfarabi thus initiates should be compared with Plato, Statesman 294aff.

²⁹ Owing to limitations of space, the foregoing account has not highlighted this theme's prevalence throughout the Book of Religion. Sections 7 and 14a are the clearest indications that the life of active rule may not be the most choiceworthy, although Alfarabi never states this explicitly.

³⁰ The cognate verb yudabbiru is used in the Qur’ān to describe God's regulation of his creation; see, for example, 10:3.

³¹ This is illustrated in Qur’ān 18:65ff. by the story of Moses and the mysterious servant of God, named al-Khiḍr in subsequent Muslim tradition.

³² That this is a subject of philosophy and not merely political science is confirmed by Alfarabi's discussion of “political science that is a part of philosophy,” his subject in sections 15–24 in the Book of Religion. This philosophic political science is explicitly said to involve, in part, “the identification of happiness” (59:9*).

³³ Relevant in this context is Alfarabi's comment at the end of the “Philosophy of Aristotle” that “we do not possess metaphysical science” (In Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, ed. and trans. Muhsin Mahdi [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1962; repr. 2001], 130).

³⁴ Abraham's intended sacrifice of Isaac/Ishmael at God's behest is an obvious counterpoint to this claim. While the inclusion of this story in both the Bible and Qur’ān is certainly significant, it is nevertheless reasonable to expect that, if obedience to God consistently resulted in the premature and violent deaths of our loved ones (at the hands, moreover, of the those who love them), religious belief would wane dramatically. In other words, it is an essential detail of the story that God ultimately does not demand that Abraham kill his son. For the argument that the Binding of Isaac, when read within its biblical context, does not reveal Abraham's God to be amoral or transmoral, see Thomas Pangle, Political Philosophy and the God of Abraham (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), chap. 8.

³⁵ In taking seriously the evidence for just gods and grappling with the consequences of their existence, Alfarabi stands in contrast to Bertrand Russell, who dismisses all claims about divinity as being akin to positing the existence of a teapot orbiting the sun; see “Is There a God?,” in The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, vol. 11, Last Philosophical Testament, 1943–68, ed. Slater, John G. (New York: Routledge, 1997), 547–48Google Scholar. Russell and those who follow him make the fundamental error of failing to perceive the connection between human moral experiences and claims of religious experience, which, once appreciated, necessitates that claims about just gods be taken with the utmost seriousness by philosophers.

³⁶ Rational arguments for the eternity of the soul can, of course, be debated; however, the assertion that souls will miraculously and eternally be preserved by God is not capable of refutation as long as the possibility of miracles remains open.

³⁷ See note 33, above.

³⁸ See note 10, end, above.

³⁹ It is important to point out that none of the thinkers mentioned is blind to the fact that circumstances are far different today than they were in seventh-century Arabia. Nevertheless, they support returning to a legal code that is, in certain fundamental respects, identical to that of Muhammad.

⁴⁰ Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, trans. Algar, Hamid (Berkeley: Mizan, 1981), 28Google Scholar, 33, 34.

⁴¹ Maududi, Abul Aʿla, The Islamic Law and Constitution, trans. Ahmad, Khurshid (Lahore: Islamic Publications, 1960), 50Google Scholar.

⁴² Qutb, Sayyid, Milestones along the Way, ed. Al-Mehri, A. B. (Birmingham: Maktabah Booksellers and Publishers, 2006), 26Google Scholar, 102.