Plato’s <i>Republic</i> Comes to Baghdad and Cordoba : Three Unfamiliar Adaptations of a Most Familiar Dialogue

This book provides a detailed description of how the Islamic philosophers, Alfarabi, Ibn Bajja, and Averroes, adapted Plato's Republic to address the challenges of their own time.

This book provides a detailed description of how the Islamic philosophers, Alfarabi, Ibn Bajja, and Averroes, adapted Plato''s Republic to address the challenges of their own time.


Scholarship has researched the material transmission of Plato in the medieval Islamic world, but Islamic philosophers'' interpretations of the Greek master have yet to be fully examined. This book helps to fill that gap by showing how Alfarabi, Ibn Bajja, and Averroes reworked Plato''s Republic from beginning to end. It consists of three journeys through this influential work, each guided by one of the three philosophers.

Alfarabi seeks to soften and dilute the Republic to make its teaching more appealing to his contemporaries. The city is enlarged, its guardians transformed into warriors capable of offensive war, and its private property and private families preserved. The philosopher kings share rule with warriors, Islamic Law, and judges, ''the Cave'' is easier to escape, and the bad cities are transformed into contemporary regimes. Ibn Bajja abandons the city of the Republic altogether, reinterpreting its themes to consider the question of the relationship between philosophy and politics without ever seeking to establish a city. He develops Plato''s theory of intellect and associates it with the afterlife. Averroes revisits the Platonic city, describing and justifying its educational and social reforms in terms even stricter than Plato. Yet he ultimately embraces a city similar to Alfarabi''s and compatible with Muslim institutions. He concludes by showing how Plato''s account of the regimes addresses the crisis of his time.