Abstract

The cosmology of al-Kindi is multifaceted, predominantly Aristotelian in allegiance and method, but inclusive of certain Harranian, Hermetic, Stoic and Neoplatonic source materials. Al-Kindi is more consistent in his philosophical style than in his selected sources, which allows us to recognize the disputed De radiis as an authentic work. His On the Proximate Efficient Cause borrows literally from the Kindi-circle adaptation of Alexander of Aphrodisias' Peri pronoias, an astrologizing adaptation which reduces divine providence to "the government of the spheres". His On the Bowing of the Farthest Body is in line with Olympiodorus' interpretation of Aristotle's ensouled spheres, incorporating arguments that were originally Stoic in defense of the living cosmos. In every case, all is harmonized with Koranic revelation. Al-Kindi was not a Mu'tazilite theologian, neither in his primarily scientific subject matter nor in his methods; instead he endeavored to claim the proof of the unity and causality of God as more properly the domain of philosophy. His treatise On Determining the Time in which One May Expect an Answer to Prayer and Entreaty to God, by way of Astrology and his account of Sabian beliefs and practices preserved in the Fihrist clearly show his sympathy for the philosophical religion of Harran, and imply that some of his knowledge and sources came through Harranian channels, as is the most likely case for both of his treatises on the soul and for the De radiis. By his reliance on late Greek commentators and abridged adaptations of Greek works, al-Kindi represents the continuity of the Alexandrian tradition, in contrast to the break in that tradition seen in al-Farabi. In rivalry with the Mu'tazila, al-Kindi attempted in both his physics and metaphysics to build up a philosophical understanding of Islam. This rests on his conviction of the compatibility and complementarity of philosophically and prophetically derived knowledge. ;The appendix contains translations of two unedited Quaestiones of Alexander of Aphrodisias in Kindi-circle adaptations; one of them contains the first reference to what became the Liber de causis, cited here as The Book of Causes