Scholars studied al-Kindi...

Scholars studied al-Kindi, until his Arabic treatises were discovered and edited, merely on the basis of the extant Latin translations. His De Medici­narum Compositarum Gradibus was published in 938/1531. Albino Nagy[^5] in 1315/1897 edited the medieval translations of these treatises: De intellectu ; De Somno et visione ; De quinque essentiis ; Liber introductorius in artem logicae demonstrationis .

Since the discovery of some of his Arabic manuscripts, a new light has been thrown on al-Kindi's philosophy. A compendium containing about 25 treatises was found by Ritter in Istanbul. Now they have all been edited by different scholars, Walzer, Rosenthal, Abu Ridah, and Ahmed Fouad El-Ehwany.[^6] There are other short treatises discovered in Aleppo, but they have not yet been edited. It has become possible, to a certain extent, to analyse al-Kindi's philo­sophy on more or less sure grounds.

Philosophy It was due to al-Kindi that philosophy came to be acknowledged as a part of Islamic culture. The early Arab historians called him “the Philosopher of the Arabs” for this reason. It is true that he borrowed his ideas from Neo­-Platonic Aristotelianism, but it is also true that he put those ideas in a new context. By conciliating Hellenistic heritage with Islam he laid the foundations of a new philosophy.

Indeed, this conciliation remained for a long time the chief feature of this philosophy. Furthermore, al-Kindi, specializing in all the sciences known at his time - of which his writings give sufficient evidence - ­made philosophy a comprehensive study embracing all sciences. Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and Ibn Rushd were first scientists and then philosophers. For this reason Ibn al-Nadim placed al-Kindi in the class of natural philosophers.

This is his full account: “Al-Kindi is the best man of his time, unique in his knowledge of all the ancient sciences. He is called the Philosopher of the Arabs. His books deal with different sciences, such as logic, philosophy, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, etc. We have connected him with the natural philosophers because of his prominence in science.”[^7] Philosophy is the knowledge of truth.

Muslim philosophers, like the Greek, believed that truth is something over and above experience; that it lies immutable and eternal in a supernatural world.