AL-FARABI AND HIS SCHOOL i and His School examines one of the most exciting and dynamic periods in the development of medieval Islam, that period which ran from the late ninth century to the early eleventh century AD. The Age is examined through the thought of five of its principal thinkers and labelled after the first and greatest of thesc, the Age of Farabism. It is demonstrated in this book that the great Islamic philosopher al-Farabi, called ‘the Second Master’ after Aristotle, produced a recog- nizable school of thought in which others pursued and developed some of his own intellectual preoccupations. This school of thou which Ian Richard Netton calls the ‘School of al~Farabi’, was infla- enced by the thought of Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, but it was much more than a mere clone of Greek thought — though one cannot ignore in all its work the profound Greek intellectual influence. Its adherents, including Yabyi b. ‘Adi, Abi Sulaymén. al-Sijiscini, alAmiri and Abi Hayyan al-Tawhidi, are described and assessed in this volume. Their thought is treated in Al-Firabi and His School with particular reference to the most basic questions which can be asked in the theory of knowledge or epistemology. The book thus fills a lacuna in the literature by using this approach to highlight the intelleccual continuity which was maintained in an age of flux. Particular atten- tion is paid to the ethical dimensions of knowledge. fan Richard Netton, who is a leading authority in the ficld of Islamic philosophy and theology, has written a book which will appeal to all Arabists and Islamicists and students of philosophy, theology and ethics. He is Reader in Arab and Islamic Civilization and Thought at the University of Exeter. Among his many other public- ations is Allah Transcendent: Studies in the Structure and Semiotics of Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Cosmology, also published by Routledge,ARABIC THOUGHT AND CULTURE This series is designed to provide straightforward introductions for the western reader to some of the major figures and movements of Arabic thought. Philosophers, historians, and geographers are all seminal figures in the history of thought, and some names, such as ‘Avertoes and Avicenna, are already part of the western tradition, Mathematicians, linguistic theorists, and astronomers have as nificant a part to play as groups of thinkers such as the Illumi- nationists. With the growing importance of the Arab world on. the international scene, these succinct and authoritative works will be welcomed not only by teachers and students of Arab history and of philosophy, but by journalists, travellers, teachers of EFL, and businessmen — in fact any who have to come to an understanding of this non-western culture in the course of their daily work. Also available in this series: IBN KHALDUN Aziz Al-Azmeh IBN RUSHD (AVERROES} Dominique Urvoy MOSES MAIMONIDES Oliver Leaman ‘THE ARABIC LINGUISTIC TRADITION G. Bohas, J.-P. Guillaume, DE, Koulonghi Forthcoming: IBN ARABI Row Nettler NAGUIB MAHFOUZ Rasheed El-Enany AVICENNA Lenn E, Goodman ‘THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE IN ISLAM Franz RosenthalAL-FARABI AND HIS SCHOOL Jan Richard Netton R London and New York