Misbahul Munir

Tommy Kusuma

AL-KINDI
Al-Kindi, the Latin Alkindus, who is entitled the Philosopher
of Arabs came from the Arabs tribe of Kindah. His ancestors had
settled in Khufa where his father was governor. Al-Kindi spent his
early life in Kufa, which had become a centre of the sciences. He
studied the religious sciences as well as philosophical science
after going to Baghdad. At this time the major movementof
translation into Arabic had already began. He knew Syriac and
perhaps some Greek and was well acquainted with Graeco
Helenistic scientific and philosophical works. For some time he
was held in high esteem in court but spent the last part of his life
in obscurity
Al-Kindi was the first of the Muslim philosopher-scientists.
His interest was encyclopaedic. He wrote about two hundred
seventy treatises, most of which are now lost, in logic,
philosophy, physics, all branches of mathematics as well as
music, medicine and natural history. He was the founder of the
Islamic Peripatetic school of philosophy and was highly respected
in the medieval and Renaissance West to the extent that he was
considered as one of the judies of astrology and Cordano called
him one of the twelve great intellectual figures of humanity. His
immediate
students
were
well-known
geographer
and
mathematicians, while his philosophic influence is to be seen
directly in the writings of al-Farabi and later Muslim Peripatetic.