Al-Farabi and his "Book of Religion". Arabic Translation, Preface and Commentary

Abstract

It is well known that the medieval philosophical thought of the Islamic world ("Muslim", "Islamic", "Arab-Muslim" philosophy) was characterized by a significant level of understanding of the phenomenon of religion. This was due not only to the religious coloration of the tradition itself or the purely religious outlook, but also to the importance of the role that religion played and continues to play in Muslim societies. One of the manifestations of this phenomenon is the long-term development of historical, doxographically-apologetic and philosophical views on the phenomenon of religion, its content, functions and role. Religion acted as the starting point of a whole system of social, cultural, economic and political ties, and therefore one of the pressing problems of medieval Islamic religious thought (as we refer to the tradition of understanding the phenomenon of religion) was the problem of categories and definitions related to variable ideas. about religion in general.