and divine, and how they must be practiced by the philosopher (14.4–15.17). This section, too, is notable for its omission of both the city and the Umma, as well as any other particular human community. By making Plato speak anachronistically of the praiseworthy, divine madness that is cultivated in both “mosques and temples” (14.18), Alfarabi implies that his discussion of these themes pertains equally to civilizations as disparate as classical Greece and medieval Islam. Not only philosophy, but also a set of private human qualities that lead up to it, seem to transcend all particular communities. Particular Ummas may establish human language and literary tradition, while particular cities bind their inhabitants with laws. Yet the power of love (14.1 ff.; cf. 22.5), along with the various qualities associated with it, cannot be so easily tamed. With regard to friendship, this point is not difficult to understand: friendships based on love, piety, and philosophy have all been known to survive the most savage wars and political disputes. Most perplexing, however, is the inclusion of statesmanship and royal authority among these same, transnational qualities, since they too occur in passages that contain no reference to either Ummas or cities (13.4–11, 14.5, 15.16).33 It is only a very peculiar kind of statesman or king34 who does not deal with particular communities: he is far removed from the ordinary ruler examined at the beginning of Plato’s investigation, who governs a well-defined city or group (3.7). Since this figure is identified repeatedly with the philosopher (13.7, 14.5, 15.15–16), one may infer that his aversion to particular communities and their norms follows from his uncompromising devotion to wisdom and virtue. Alfarabi soon reintroduces Ummas and cities, but only in order to emphasize that the philosopher-king is too busy reveling in his acts and own peculiar craft to pay much attention to the generally accepted opinions of Ummas and cities, so that he cannot make use of his abilities in any of the Ummas and cities existing in Plato’s time (16.11–16).
Alfarabi’s Plato eventually concludes that the existing cities and Ummas are woefully inadequate: “another city and another Umma,” where the best humans can attain their perfection, will have to be considered (PP 19.12–13). This new, particular community might succeed in persuading the philosopher-kings to participate in it, by elevating them to the highest rank within the city (20.9–10, 22.9–14).35 In the subsequent summary of the Republic, Plato immediately sets out to describe the other city, but seems to forget about the other Umma (19.13 ff.).36 The ensuing investigation concerns only the city (19.14 ff.), and the next several sections mention the city repeatedly, but never the Umma. The Umma therefore appears to be absent from the Republic and the several other Platonic dialogues that deal with the other city (19.14–21.14).37 While Alfarabi’s Plato investigates the possibility of a legislator founding a new city in speech and then in deed (20.15, 21.12–13), he never speaks of any legislator or founder of a new Umma. His silence on this point is echoed by Alfarabi himself, who never refers to the founders of Ummas in the works that have come down to us.
The Umma’s status in the Republic, however, remains ambiguous. Alfarabi normally concludes each section by naming the dialogue to which it belongs. In the passage situated between the naming of the Phaedo (PP 18.2–3) and the naming of the Republic (20.14), no other dialogue is cited. It therefore seems that Alfarabi ascribes this entire passage to the Republic, even though his summary of what is conventionally known as the Republic begins only with the investigation of justice in 19.15. The implication is that the various subjects discussed between 18.3 and 19.15 were very much on Plato’s mind when he wrote the Republic, even if they do not find direct expression in Alfarabi’s summary of the dialogue proper. The need for another Umma occurs last among these subjects, and its connection with the investigation of the other city is indicated by the the use of the word “therefore” (19.13–14). The shadow of the “other Umma” hangs over the Republic, with lingering effects on the argument of the dialogue. This hint of Alfarabi’s is borne out, I believe, in my analysis of the Republic. Socrates neither founds a new nation nor succeeds in integrating his city into any of the nations of the earth. The problem as Alfarabi sees it is that even if a new Umma is as dearly needed as a new city for attaining human happiness, it cannot be implemented in deed or even expounded in speech. The language and ways of life on which the Umma is based grew up over many generations, and cannot be produced anew by a mere legislator. The absence of a new Umma may well hinder the establishment of a new city. What is this city’s relationship to the existing Ummas? Alfarabi passes over the matter in silence, which might well indicate a quiet agreement with Plato: the new city in speech would not be accepted by any of the Ummas of the earth. When Alfarabi finally turns to the legislator who establishes the city in deed, he investigates him but does not explain how or whether he accomplishes his aim (21.11–14). At this juncture, Alfarabi’s Plato drops the new city entirely, and returns again to “the education of the inhabitants of cities and Ummas,” that is to say, the existing communities whose unjust opinions and ways of life his philosophic reveling had once so roundly rejected (21.15–17; cf. 16.11–17.1, 19.6–14).
Alfarabi’s Philosophy of Plato follows the structure of the Republic in one crucial respect: the elaboration of the perfect city in speech precedes the conclusion of the work. The supplement in the Republic is the discussion of Greek poetry and the myth of Er, which appears to be omitted from Alfarabi’s summary of the Republic (PP 20.13–14). But Alfarabi does hint at some awareness of the contents of Book X. He mentions Plato’s concern with the power of poetry to shape human ways of life (7.14–16; cf. Republic 606e1–607a2), as well as his dissatisfaction with the conventional poetic method (7.19–20). In Alfarabi’s prelude to the Republic, he describes Plato’s interest in the metamorphosis of humans into animals (18.3–19.3), a prominent theme of the myth of Er (Republic 619e6–620d5). Furthermore, Alfarabi’s successor Averroes refuses to treat Book X in his much longer summary of the Republic, even while admitting that he had access to it (Averroes 1974, 105.13–26). For reasons that I will examine in Chapter 5, the Muslim successors to Plato did not invent poetic myths in the manner of their Greek teachers. These considerations lead me to suspect that Alfarabi did have access to the final book, but was loath to discuss its subject matter. If Alfarabi’s Plato avoided any direct confrontation with poetic notions of virtue and the afterlife, what alternative course did he pursue?
Alfarabi’s Plato concludes by turning away from the establishment of the other city and back toward proposals for instruction and gradual reform among existing peoples. Since philosopher-kingship as such is impossible, not the least because it ignores particular communities, the philosopher eventually realizes that he needs to act within the conventional framework of cities and Ummas. He tries to reform the laws and ways of life of his own people, the Athenians (PP 23.4). Although we might expect Alfarabi’s Plato to call Athens a city, he prefers to designate his native country a qawm, a more generic term for “group.” By suggesting that both its laws and ways of life need to be reformed (23.4–5), Alfarabi’s Plato implies that the Athenian qawm contains elements of both a city and an Umma (22.18–23.1), such as the laws of Athens and the language and ways of life of the Greeks. The term qawm is employed quite sparingly by Alfarabi, and on only one other occasion in the Philosophy of Plato: Socrates tried to establish scientific investigation within his qawm and impress upon them the ignorance in which they were plunged (22.1–2). But while Plato’s teacher, Socrates, had so vehemently and publicly protested against Athens, and as a result died by its hand (18.2, 19.5), Plato employs all the discretion entailed by private letters, presumably written to prominent individuals (22.18).38 The philosopher can thereby incrementally improve the customs of his people, without exposing himself to any public backlash (see Strauss 1945, 383–84).
This approach seems similar in spirit, if not in substance, to Book X of the Republic. Alfarabi’s Plato, no less than Socrates in the Republic, supplements the account of the other city with education, an alternative to direct political action. Gradual, discrete reform of the existing peoples by means of instruction of their elite emerges as a more practicable project than trying to found a city anew, just as the reform of existing Greek poetry among a few interlocutors emerges in the Republic as an easier
