New Light on Al-Kandi’s Life

Abstract

This study aims at shedding light on the life of the philosopher Yacoub bn Ishaq Al-Kindi without concerning itself with his thought and philosophy. It is well known that al-kindi’s life has been the focus of many modern Arab and orientalist scholars such as De Bore, Brokelman, and Mustafa Abd Al-Razeq and others. Those scholars offered an account of his life based on biographies. The problem that faced everyone was the scarcity of information on al-kindi’s life, thus it has not been possible to present an accurate account of it. This prompted many scholars to degrade the philosophical importance of al-Kindi due to lack of information about many details of his life compared with other philosophers. We would not have attempted to examine al-kindi’s life and we didn‘t locat new texts that fill some of the gaps in al-kindi’s life. This has meant a fresh account of life that includes the date and place of his birth and death, his work in Baghdad and his intellectual and political circle.