rasol jafarian; eiraj nikseresht; abdollah farrahi
Volume 6, Issue 2 , April 2017, , Pages 15-36
Abstract
Al-Kindī was the first major product of the transition from theology to philosophy, relying on the works of the Aristotelian school, attempted to provide a defensible worldview against the imported ideas to Islam. He considered the first philosophy as most prominent science and he believed that proof-based ...
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Al-Kindī was the first major product of the transition from theology to philosophy, relying on the works of the Aristotelian school, attempted to provide a defensible worldview against the imported ideas to Islam. He considered the first philosophy as most prominent science and he believed that proof-based sciences provide certainty. Using the concept of ‘invention’ in explaining the beginning of creation, he believed in the theory creation from nothingness, the finiteness of time and place, and, consequently, the contingency of the universe and of what is beyond God. He believed that there were two types of transitional movements: circular and straight; he saw the movement of spheres of the first type and the movement of the four elements of the second type. The theory of four elements in the al-Kindi’s intellectual system, especially in the natural sciences, was of particular importance. This theory was not only of a special focus in the natural sciences, but al-Kindi even tried to extend it to didactic knowledge and to make a relationship between the elements and music. He maintained the centrality of the elements and their characteristics in optics, and considered the existence of non-transparent element of soil as the cause of the different colors in the natural world. He believed that there is a tendency in the elements, from soil to water, of being spherical (the most complete form), and he considered the universe spherical in the middle of which earth is placed, the sphere of constants was the last one and there was nothing beyond it.
