This article aims at presenting for the first time a central concept in al-Fārābī’s work that constitutes a keystone in understanding his thought, be it in its logical or political aspects. This concept is that of naqla, which, in terms of transmission and translation, its generic transcription can be rendered as ‘transfer’. The naqla is a notion that pertains to rupture in linguistic, logical or temporal continuities, and hints at confusing contiguities in the use of words, in demonstrations and in historical processes. This notion of naqla is at the centre of the preoccupations of al-Fārābī in his various domains of thinking. First of all, in terms of his linguistic reflection that consists of thinking about the transfer (naqla) of a given word in between its notions of first and second imposition. Then, in logic, the integration of the modes of reasoning of the theologians in Aristotelian syllogism, which passes by way of a mechanism of logical transference in the case of induction and the shift in paradigm. Finally, the Fārābian conception of intellectual history, as a transmission of knowledge, cannot be grasped in its fullest scope except through an understanding, not only of the common notion of naqla, but rather in terms of its particular Fārābian sense; namely as a concept that entirely renews the question of transmission and translation.