Chapter Eight: Al-Kindi
Abu Yusuf Ya’qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi is generally held to have been the first Muslim philosopher. This does not mean, however, that the Muslims prior to al-Kindi had no cognizance at all of Greek philosophical ideas. On the contrary some philosophical knowledge, though fragmentary, can be attributed to the early Mu’tazili kalam.
Some of their main representatives - Abu’l-Hudhayl al-‘Allaf and al-Nazzam -developed a theology built on certain Greek philosophical elements. Thus the theologian Abu’l-Hasan al-Ash’ari named Aristotle as the source of some of Abu’l-Hudhayl’s doctrines, and al-Baghdadi blamed al-Nazzami for having borrowed from Greek philosophers the idea the idea of matter being infinitely divisible. The impact of Greek philosophy upon early Mu’tazili kalam is eveident and has been stated also by early Muslim theologians and heresiographers. But this impact remained after marginal; for none of the early Mu’tazili theologians ever elaborated an encyclopediac system of Greek philosophy as this was out the range of their interests.
It was al-Kindi who pursued this aim and who may therefore rightly be called the first Muslim philosopher, whereas the representatives of Mu’tazili kalam were theologians and no philosophers. This fact alone puts al-Kindi in some opposition to the Mu’tazili with whom he should not be identified.
Ibn al-Nadim listed some 260 titles of al-Kindi’s, and ernomous scientific bibliography, even if many of the works may have been of small extent. Al-Kindi’s treatises encompass the whole classical encyclopedia of sciences: philosophy, logic, arithmetic, spherical, music, astronomy, geometry, cosmology, medicine, astrology, etc., according to Ibn al-Nadim’s arrangement. Ibn al-Nadim’s bibliographical list reveals al-Kindi’s predilection for natural science. Only few manuscripts, approximately ten per cent of all his literary output, have come to light and been edited up to now. It seems that the vast majority of the manuscripts have been lost. It is hardly surprising that later Muslim philosophers rarely quote from any of al-Kindi’s philosophical treatises. Both facts -loss of the bulk of his manuscripts and the lack of reference to him by later authors -need an explanation. Some books may have been lost already during the reign of the caliph al-Mutawakkil who fought vehemently against the rationalizing tendencies of his time and confiscated for a while al-Kindi’s library. The famous eighth/fourteenth century historian Ibn Khaldun adds further proof to the lack of manuscripts when he says: “We have not found any information concerning (al-Kindi’s) book (called al-Jafr), and we have not seen anyone who has seen it. Perhaps it was lost with those books which Hulagu, the ruler of Baghdad threw into the Tigris when the Tatars took possession of Baghdad and killed the last caliph, al-Musta’sim.” The obscurity of al-Kinda’s language, due to lack of an Arabic philosophical terminology, rendered his writings hard of access and made them obsolete while al-Farabi’s philosophical oeuvre eventually overshadowed them.
Abu Sulayman al-Sijistani al-Mantiqi recorded the ruler of Sijistan, Ja’far ibn Babuyah, as having criticized al-Kindi because of his bad language.
It is, nevertheless, the merit of al-Kindi to have made access to Greek philosophy and science possible and to have established from rare and obscure sources the foundation of philosophy in Islam, partly continued and enlarged later on by al-Farabi.
Al-Kindi enjoyed the confidence and support of the seventh and eighth ‘Abasid caliphs, al-Ma’mun and his brother and successor. To al-Mu’tasim he dedicated his On First Philosophy, and some other treatises to the caliph’s son Ahmad with whose education he was entrusted. Unlike his contemporary Hunayn ibn Ishaq, al-Kindi knew neither Greek nor Syriac. He therefore commissioned or adopted translations, e.g. those made by Ibn Na’ima, Eustathius (Astat) and Ibn al-Bitriq. The old translations, commissioned or used by al-
Kindi, still lack the high philological standards set later on by Hunayn ibn Ishaq.
But it was al-Kindi who broke new ground in a fertile soil and introduced into the Arabspeaking world the first translations of Greek philosophy. He was above all interested in gathering and translating works of Plato and Aristotle, both of whom he mentioned by name. But under the cover of these two philosophers other pseud epigraphic works became known, e.g. Porphyry’s paraphrase of part of Plotinus’ Enneads known as Aristotle’s Theology. Al-Kindi, however, had a good grasp of the genuine works of Aristotle. He commissioned a translation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and commented upon some of Aristotle’s logical writings, such as Categorize, De interpretation, Analytica posterior and Analytica priora - and also on De caelo, as we are informed by Ibn al-Nadim. He had before him even the otherwise lost Aristotelian dialogue Eudemus, a fragment of which he transmitted.
Al-Kindi was eager to intgroduce Greek philosophy and science to his Arabicspeaking “co-linguists” (ahl lisanina), as he often stressed, and opposed the orthodox matakallimun who rejected foreign knowledge. As long as he enjoyed the caliphs’ protection he was free to do so and did not feel compelled to defend his philosophical stand as was the case with so many later scientists who came under pressure at the hand of the orthodox legalists. As long as al-Kindi clung to tenets held by Late Greek Neo-Platonists, mostly Christians, who believed in one God who had created the world out of nothing, he was in apparent harmony with the divine law of Islam. But as soon as he adopted pagan philosophical doctrines, especially those of Aristotle, he openly deviated from the revealed truth of Islam. His view adduced in the name of Aristotle - that one should gratefully accept any contribution to truth, wherever it comes from, even from Greek philosophy - is incompatible with the exclusive postulate of Islam as the sole mediator of truth.
Al-Kindi’s own philosophical stand reflects the doctrines he found in Greek Classical and, above all, Neo-Platonism sources. His treatises On Definitions and Descriptions of Things may be accepted on the whole as the base of his own views. He supposedly extracted the definitions from Greek literature with the intention of giving a summary of Greek philosophy in definitions.
As I have shown elsewhere, many of these definitions from Aristotelian works and his predilection for Aristotle cannot be ignored even where he extracted from spurious sources which were at the time attributed to Aristotle. The lemmata and their arrangement correspond to a Neo-Platonist source. God is referred to in the first definition as the “First Cause”, similar to Plotinus’ “First Agent”, an expression al-
Kindi has likewise made use of, 26or to his “the One is the cause of the cause”. 27The subsequent definitions in al-Kidi’s treatise are arranged in an order that distinguishes between the upper world and the lower world. The former is marked by the definitions of Intellect, Nature and Soul, followed by definitions of body (jirm), Greation (ibda), Matter (hayula). Form (surah), etc. Thus al-Kindi conceived an upper world of uncreated spiritual beings and a lower of created corporeal beings.
The soul is an un-created, spiritual being, whereas Matter, Time and Place are finite, created and corporeal. Creation (ibda) in this Muslim context is Creation from nothing in time. 28 Both worlds, the upper and the lower one, go finally back to one and the same source which is the common cause of everything. From this final source which is the Godhead everything proceeds subsequently by hypostases.
In his treatise On Definitions and Descriptions of Things al-Kindi explained the world through emanation, a system that later was adopted and enlarged also al-Farabi. 29 The Muslim orthodox, however, was on the whole irritated by the attempt to explain creation as an incessant outflow from the ultimate source, an argument that could not be upheld by scriptural evidence.
They were especially offended by extolling Intellect to immediate proximity to God as His first hypostasis. Emanating from the Uppermost Cause, everything passes through, and develops from, the reflexion of the first intellect. Thus the intellect was to replace the angels as the mediator of divine truth. Al-Farabi took the sharp edge off the doctrine of emanation by equating the Active Intellect with the Angel Gabriel and by explaining prophecy as the result of the soul’s faculty of imagination.
Nevertheless, emanation could not explain the divine act of creation in a way acceptable to the orthodox community of the faithful. “It should be known,” said Ibn Khaldun, “that the (opinion) the (philosophers) hold is wrong in all its aspects. They refer all existential to the first intellect and are satisfied with (the theory of the first intellect) in their progress toward the Necessary One (the Deity). This means that they disregard all the degrees of divine creation beyond the (first intellect).”
Al-Kindi did not intend to explain the “progress toward the Necessary One”, i.e. the way of attaining knowledge of God, as an intellectual progress. On the contrary, towards the end of his On First Philosophy he made it clear beyond all doubt that God cannot be comprehended by intellect. 31
Account to al-Kindi the philosopher is unable to make any positive statement concerning God. All he is able to state is in the negative: that “He is no element, no genus, and no contingent accident”. 32
Thus al-Kindi’s philosophy leads to a negative theology, i.e. where God is described only in negative terms. In this he followed Plotinus 33who taught: “We state, what is not; what is, we do not state. 34If the intellect is unable to lead people to knowledge of God in positive terms, philosophy is not superior to theology. On its “progress towards the Necessary One” philosophy reaches up to the intellect, but does not go “beyond the intellect”, to use again Ibn Khaldun’s words. 35
What is “beyond the intellect”? For the Muslim faithful it is the world of the angels.
They are God’s messengers and are the mediators between humans and God. It is the Angel Gabriel, as the Muslim faithful say and not the intellect, as the philosophers have it who conveyed the divine revelation to the Prophet. The angelic essence is of “pure perception and absolute intellection”. 36 Al-Kindi does not speak of angels. According to him the intellect is in immediate proximity with God. The longest text of al-Kindi’s treatises that have come down to our time is his on First Philosophy (only the first part of this treatise has been preserved). This is another name for metaphysics. Aristotle had called metaphysics the “first philosophy”. 37 Al-
Kindi, adopting this name, explained its meaning in the following way: Knowledge of the first cause has truthfully been called “First Philosophy”, since all the rest of philosophy is contained in its knowledge.
The first cause is, therefore, the first in nobility, the first in genus, the first in rank with respect to that knowledge which is most certain; and the first in time since it is the cause of time. 38
The first cause is, therefore, explorerand it is the intellect that transmits “most certain knowledge” of it. The aim of writing his treatise was to establish “the proof of His Divinity and the explanation of His Unity” as al-Kindi declared in the introduction. 39 In spite of the intellectual certainty which can be attained of the Deity, al-Kindi admits at the end of his treatise that the intellect is able to describe God only in negative terms.
God’s unity stood at the very centre of the Mu’tazili doctrine so that the Mu’tazilah were called accordingly “the people (who made) the confession of (God’s) unity (the basis of their creed)” (ahl al-tawhid).
Supported by the evidence of Mu’tazili themes like God’s unity in al-Kindi’s philosophical writings, al-Kindi was held to be “the philosopher of the Mu’tazilite theology”. 40Later researches, however, made it evident that this statement, linking al-Kindi peremptorily with the Mu’tazilah was brought to light by further research. 41
One point of dissent was the structure of matter. Most of the Mu’tazilah was of the opinion that matter consisted of small and indivisible particles, i.e. atoms. They were led to this opinion by supposing that everything created is finite in spatial and temporal extension. Hence they conclude that the divisibility of matter must also be finite. So they assumed the existence of atoms. Al-Kindi, however, denied the atomistic structure of matter, a topic he elaborated in his treatise On the Falsity of the Statement of Whoever Thinks that a Body Exists that is Indivisible. He adopted Aristotle’s view of the continuous structure of matter. This difference of opinion had a great impact on many parts of the physical sciences. The Mu’tazilah accepted the discontinuity of matter and believed in the existence of a vacuum, denied by Aristotle.
Contrary to the Mu’tazilah, however, al-Kindi conceived matter as being continuous and of un-intermittent structure, but not of infinite extension. The universe is a finite body, a statement that al-Kindi expounded in a separate treatise. By its finiteness the universe is separated from the immaterial, upper world of the spiritual beings.
Right after the introduction of his treatise On Allah’s Unity and the Finiteness of the Body of the Universe al-Kindi stated six primary propositions which can rationally be comprehended “without mediation” (ghayr mutawassit). Al-Kindi referred obviously to those propositions “that cannot be proved syllogistically by means of a middle term”. 45 Propositions of this kind convey knowledge that cannot be proved (anapodeiktos), i.e. that is achieved a priori (‘ilm awwal, ilm badihi). As an example of a proposition that conveys primary knowledge al-Kindi stated that, if one joins two finite bodies one with the other, the new body is again finite. It is, however, impossible to disjoin a certain, finite part from a body which is held to be infinite. This is to prove that the corporeal world is finite.
In the same way al-Kindi proved that time is finite. For you cannot pass a certain amount of time and suppose that rest of time is infinite and eternal.Likewise al-Kindi proved that the world cannot be eternal and that is created in time (muhdath).Al-Kindi’s arguments go ultimately back to the late school of Alexandria. John Philoponus (Arabic Yahya al-Nahwi) used them in his refutation On the Eternity of the World against Proclus. 48He wrote his book in the year 529 against the Neo-Platonist philosopher Proclus. 49 Philoponus’ refutation on the Eternity of the world against Proclus was translated into Arabic 50 and furnished al-Kindi with some philosophical arguments which were current among Christian Philosophers in late Hellenistic Alexandria. This has been attested by a recently found text of John Philoponus in an early Arabic translation. 51
Al-Kindi has been influenced to a great extent also by Proclus. Traces of his Institution theosophy,52 they attest to al-Kindi’s efforts at harmonizing the Aristotelian and the Neo-Platonist systems of philosophy within the religious climate of Islam.
Al-Kindi’s predilection for Aristotle’s philosophy, witnessed already in his treatise On Definitions and Descriptions of Things is most strikingly felt also in his on First Philosophy. In writing this treatise al-Kindi lavishly quoted from Aristotle’s Metaphysics. 53 But it seems that the subject matter used by al-kindi differed from the text now generally accepted. Book Alpha elatton allegedly written by Pasicles of Rhodes, a nephew of Eudemus, was apparently missing, but appears in ‘Abd al-Latif Ibn Yusuf al-Baghdadi’s 54 parahrase of Airstotle’s Metaphysics, although in a reversed order, i.e. preceding book Alpha.55 Although al-Kindi elaborated many of the ideas that go back to Aristotle’s Metaphysics, his on First Philosophy is not a mere paraphrase of this book. For him relied extensively also upon other books of Aristotle. Thus many of al-Kindi’s conceptions reflect ideas expressed by Aristotle in his physics, De anima and categorised, to name only those books most quoted. 56
As well as giving a summary of Aristotle’s Metaphysics he supplemented his on first Philosophy by drawing upon other writings of Aristotle.
The knowledge of the true nature of things, the foremost aim of philosophy, was not confined to the world of senses. For al-Kindi philosophy included also knowledge of the divinity. 57 This led to the merging of physics and metaphysics, science and theology. For later Muslim generations this amalgamation became offensive. The faithful accused the philosophers of valuing intellectual speculation higher than the revered tradition and establishing the articles of faith as correct through reasoning and not through tradition. 58
Thus al-Kindi’s philosophy, and especially his natural theology, contained already the seeds of the later conflicts between the orthodox and the intellectuals in Islam. Only as long as he was protected by the caliph al-Mu’tasim was he safe to engage in philosophy.
Al-Kindi did not conceal his indebtedness to earlier and alien philosophers by acquiring the truth “wherever it comes from”. 59 For him the truth of the philosopher cannot differ from the truth of the Muslim faithful. Philosophy and theology served one end: the knowledge of the True One, of God.
Acclimatizing philosophy in an Islamic society was made easier through the medium of texts of late Greek philosophy.
From among these texts it was the so-called Theology in which al-Kindi took an interest.
Falsely attributed to Aristotle, the Theology was in the nineteenth century identified as Porphyry’s paraphrase of Plotinus’ Enneads, 4-6. 60 With all these texts at his disposal al-Kindi elaborated a philosophy that was an able instrument to support by rational arguments the Muslim belief founded upon revelation and tradition, thus creating harmony between speculation and revelation.
In spite of this apparent harmony al-Kindi’s language is distinct from that of the Qur’an.
Instead of “Allah”, which is the common name of God in the Qur’an and even in kalam literature, al-Kindi used “al-bari” (Creator) or “al-‘illat al-ula’ (the First Cause).
The former name is recorded only once in the Qur’an ; 61 the latter is of course completely missing from the Qur’an and the Holy Scriptures, for the faithful reject as polytheism the idea that God Almighty is the first of a series of causes that emanate from Him. God is for the faithful the only cause, the Creator of all. Al-Kindi referred to creation out of nothing by the word ibada which replaced the Qur’qnic khalq, jirm was chosen instead of jism, etc.
The choice of language gives the impression that al-Kindi deliberately avoided the corresponding Qur’anic expressions, holding aloof the language of speculation from the inimitable languages of Qur’an.
“First Philosophy” means the knowledge of the True One. Whereas everything is the effect of what precedes and the cause of what follows, the True One is the only cause. The world, emanating ultimately from the first cause, is thus dependent on, and connected with, the True One, but is separated from Him by being finite in time and space. The oneness of the first cause is contrasted with the plurality of the created world: everything has five predicables: genus, species, difference, property and accident. The modes of existence are explained by the categories. Al-Kindi is in full harmony with Islam in Stating that the world has been created out of nothing and is created in time, having come into existence after not having existed. This is not only his religious credo but also his conviction as philosopher.
Al-Kindi was, apart from metaphysics, also interested in mathematics and natural sciences. His efforts to study the whole encyclopedic range of sciences proved him to be a true follower of Aristotle. With regard to his strong inclination towards mathematics he even surpassed Aristotle.
He wrote a treatise entitled that Philosophy cannot be acquired except with a Knowledge of Mathematics. 62 His predilection for mathematics is emphasized also in his treatise On Definitions and Descriptions of Things.
Many of the definitions are expressed in a double way: physically (minjihat) and mathematically (min jihat al-ta’lim). 63 It was also in the field of mathematical computation that he exerted his greatest authority as teacher. His two famous pupils, Ja’far ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Umar al-Balkhi (Allbumasar in Medieval Latin literature) 64 and Abu’l-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn al-Tayyib as- Sarkhs, 65 continued and enlarged the mathematical research of their teacher. 66
Al-Kindi’s strong inclination for mathematics probably influenced also the so-called Brethren of Purity in the late fourth/ tenth century. Favouring practical application of science, al-Kindi elaborated a system of calculating the efficacy of medical drugs.
This becomes necessary since the physicians moved over from simple to compound drugs. The first physician recorded as having used compound drugs was Abu’l-Hakam from Damascus. 67 In order to achieve the intended efficacy the pharmacist had to calculate the right proportion of the ingredients of the drug.
Al-Kindi undertook to divide the medical ingredient into grades according to the strength of their curative properties. 68 He was also the author of many treatises and handbooks of medical and pharmaceutical concern. 69
In one of these medical treatises, recently found, al-Kindi again connected medicine with mathematics by giving the rule for calculating in advance the critical days of a developing disease. 70 Being the quickest planet in the firmament, the moon was held to influence acute diseases.
On certain days of the lunar monthly revolution the diseases were held to change for the better or the worse. This theory, already expounded by Galen, was further elaborated by al-Kindi.
Al-Kindi’s mathematical curiosity did not halt even before the Holy Scripture. He wrote a treatise On the Duration of the Reign of the Arabs, 71 and based his calculation upon the letters at the head of twenty-nine chapters of the Qur’an. They from fourteen enigmatic words that contain fourteen different letters out of the twentyeight letters of the Arabic alphabet. By adding the numerical value of each of these letters, counting only once those letters which are repeated several times, one receives the approximate number of years of Arab rule until the Mongols in 656/1258 conquered Baghdad and “Arab hegemony was lost.
It is generally held that al-Kindi’s philosophy is in harmony with the Muslim creed. This is supported for example by the argument that al-Kindi speaks of creation out of nothing. It should be kept in mind, however, that in his treatise on Definitions and Descriptions of Things al-Kindi speaks of the existence of an upper world that is above the world of creation. This is incompatible with the Muslim faith. The same is true with regard to the theory of emanation, which opposed the article of faith that the world was created in one instant by God’s command.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to give a conclusive judgment of an author whose literary work has been preserved only to a very small extent. Nevertheless, the treatises that have come down to us and Ibn al-Nadim’s bibliographical list that contains the titles of al-Kindi’s writings allow us to express an approximate evaluation of al-Kindi as philosopher and scientist. Such an evaluation has to take into account that al-Kindi could not have recourse to any of his “co-linguists”. There were, it is true, also learned men besides al-Kindi who commissioned scientific translations or translated themselves, like the sons of Musa ibn Shakir, Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Thabit ibn Qurrah and ‘Umar ibn al-Farrukhan, as we are told by Abu Ma’shar.73 But al-Kindi was the first to transfer Greek philosophy systematically from foreign literary sources and to channel it into his Islamic environment where philosophy was received with coldness and even with hostility. At some time in his life he enjoyed the support of the caliph. But, like most of the later philosophers, he had no authority as an academic teacher because there was no official philosophy teaching. He kept himself aloof through his choice of language from colliding with the orthodox faithful or the mutakallimun.
Apart from metaphysics he engaged in research on almost all the natural and mathematical sciences.
Though Latin translations, al-Kindi influenced medieval European philosophers. They became acquainted with works from the whole spectrum of his literary output, especially with those that dealt with natural sciences and mathematics. 74Gerard of Gremona 75 and Avendauth 76 translated several of al-Kindi’s scientific works, among them on Optics (Deaspectibus) which Roger Bacon, 77 dealing with the speed of light, used. 78
Also translated by Gerard of Cremona were On Degrees (of compound Medicines), One Sleep and Vision, and on the Five Essences (De quinque essentiis) 79 cited also by Roger Bacon in his Nature and Multiplication of Light or species. 80 De quinque essentiis was one of the main sources for the knowledge of al-Kindi the philosopher until Abu Ridah edited in 1950 a collection of fourteen treatises mostly on philosophical subjects.
Besides these works only fragments of other works were known from medieval secondary sources. Thus for example the historian al-Mas’udi 81 cited from a treatise of al-Kindi in his Muruj al-dhahab, 82 where he denied the possibility of artificially producing gold and siver. Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya’ al-Razi 83 wrote a refutation of this treatise. 84
Notes
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Author: Aliyu Yunus Sakande
