Kindi's time and scholarship

Though he acquired fame as “the philosopher of the Arabs” and lived through one of the most intellectually creative periods of Islamic history, details about the life of Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī (in this book: Kindi) are hard to come by. In their brief notices about him biographers like to give his full genealogy, for Kindi hailed from the elite of the renowned tribe of Kinda and counted among his ancestors al-Ashcath ibn Qays, one of the Companions of the Prophet Muḥammad and king of Kinda, and his father Qays ibn Maʿdikarib, also king of Kinda and celebrated in pre-Islamic poetry as a great warrior. The family had maintained their prestige and Kindi's own father had been governor of Kufa for the caliphs Mahdi (158-69/775-85) and Hārūn al-Rashīd (170-93/786-809). The birth date of Kindi is usually placed around the turn of the eighth century (ca. 184/800), but we do not hear anything of him until he turns up a couple of decades later at Baghdad in the court of the caliph Maʾmūn (198- 218/813-33), whose favour he is said to have enjoyed. This continued into the reign of Muʿtaṣim (218-27/833-42), who also made him tutor to his son Aḥmad. The latter two commissioned learned treatises from him, as is attested by a number of them that survive (Kindi's most well-known work, “On first philosophy”, is addressed to Muʿtaṣim). He initially prospered under Mutawakkil (232-47/847-61), but then he attracted the envy of the sons of Mūsā ibn Shākir, themselves able scientists, who “would plot against anyone who was reputed to surpass them in knowledge”. They reviled Kindi before Mutawakkil, who had him beaten, and they seized his library, though when the caliph heard of this he had them restore it to him. We hear no more of Kindi and it is generally assumed that he died in the late 250s/860s or early 260s/870s.