The Philosopher-King Revisited: Al-Farabi's "The Virtuous City"

Al-Farabi, who lived in the tenth century, was known in the Islamic world as the Second Teacher, second only to Aristotle himself, and his treatise usually called The Virtuous City is one of the great works of Islamic political philosophy. What fascinated me is how Al-Farabi takes the political vision of Plato and the metaphysics of Aristotle and weaves them together with Islamic thought into something new. He asks the oldest political question, what makes a good society, and answers it by drawing a bold analogy between the well-ordered city, the well-ordered soul, and the well-ordered cosmos. The good city, for him, mirrors the structure of the universe itself.

Here is what The Virtuous City taught me about the city as a living body, about the philosopher-prophet who should lead it, and about happiness as the true purpose of politics.

Key takeaways

• The virtuous city aims at true happiness, not mere wealth, power, or pleasure.
• The city is like a body or a cosmos, each part serving the harmony of the whole.
• The ideal ruler unites philosopher and prophet, joining reason and revelation.
• Ignorant cities pursue lesser ends and fail to make their people flourish.
• Good politics is built on knowledge of the good, not on mere force or ambition.

The city as a living whole

Al-Farabi’s governing image is the city as an organism. Just as a healthy body has many organs, each performing its function in service of the life of the whole, with the heart ruling and coordinating the rest, so the virtuous city has many ranks and roles, each contributing to the common good, ordered under a wise ruler. The same harmony, he argues, governs the cosmos, a great ordered hierarchy flowing from the First Cause. The virtuous city, then, is one whose arrangement mirrors the order of the universe and the order of a healthy soul. I find this vision beautiful, if also demanding. It treats politics not as a grubby competition for power but as the art of bringing human community into harmony with the deepest order of things.

The philosopher-prophet

Al-Farabi inherits Plato’s idea that the ideal ruler should be a philosopher, someone who knows the truth and the good and can order the city accordingly. But he transforms it in a striking way for his own tradition. The supreme leader, in his view, should unite the philosopher and the prophet, joining the rational knowledge of the philosopher with the inspired insight and persuasive power of the prophet. Reason grasps the truth; prophecy translates it into images and laws that can guide an entire people, including those who cannot follow abstract philosophy. This synthesis of the Greek philosopher-king with the Islamic prophet is genuinely original, an attempt to unite reason and revelation at the very summit of political life.

The many ways a city can fail

Al-Farabi is just as interested in the cities that fall short, and his typology of failed societies is sharp. There are “ignorant” cities that aim at lower goals, wealth, honour, domination, pleasure, mistaking these for happiness. There are cities that know the good but turn away from it, and cities that have lost their way through error. What unites the failures is a wrong understanding of the human end: they organise themselves around something less than true happiness, and so, however prosperous or powerful, they cannot make their citizens flourish. Reading this, I thought about how many modern societies, by Al-Farabi’s measure, would count as “ignorant” cities, rich and strong but aimed at the wrong things.

What I’m taking with me

The Virtuous City is a reminder of how seriously the Islamic philosophers took the question of the good society, and how creatively they fused Greek and Islamic wisdom. What I am taking from Al-Farabi is his insistence that politics exists for human flourishing, not for wealth or power, that a community is healthiest when its parts work in harmony for the common good, and that leadership at its best joins knowledge with the wisdom to make that knowledge livable for everyone. His ideal may be unreachable, but it sets the right standard against which to measure the cities we actually build.

Frequently asked questions

What is Al-Farabi’s The Virtuous City about?

It is a work of Islamic political philosophy describing the ideal society, one organized like a healthy body or the ordered cosmos and aimed at the true happiness of its citizens, led by a ruler who unites philosophy and prophecy.

Who should rule the virtuous city, according to Al-Farabi?

An ideal leader who combines the qualities of the philosopher and the prophet, joining rational knowledge of the good with the inspired ability to guide and persuade an entire people.

How did Al-Farabi combine Greek and Islamic thought?

He merged Plato’s philosopher-king and Aristotle’s metaphysics with Islamic ideas, most strikingly by making the ideal ruler both a philosopher and a prophet, uniting reason and revelation.

References & further reading

1. Al-Farabi. On the Perfect State (Mabadi’ ara’ ahl al-madina al-fadila). (Translated by Richard Walzer, Oxford University Press, 1985.)
2. Mahdi, Muhsin. Alfarabi and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy. University of Chicago Press, 2001.
3. Fakhry, Majid. A History of Islamic Philosophy. Columbia University Press, 1970.