Virtuous Rule in the Inhabited World and Chaos on its Edges

The term ma‘mūra appears six times in the Virtuous City Footnote ⁶ (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1985, 228.9, 12, 13, 230.2, 10, 246.7), accounting for two-thirds of its occurrences in Alfarabi's extant works. The Virtuous City is also the only work that contains anything resembling a definition of the term. The first mention of the inhabited world establishes it as the part of the earth where humans have come to reside (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1985, 228.9). The implication is that there are parts of the earthFootnote ⁷ where humans do not reside: while Alfarabi will broach the idea of a single government for the inhabited world (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1985, 230.10–11, 246.7), he never speaks of a single government for the earth (arḍ). The difference between the inhabited and uninhabited world remains stark even today: consider the lush Nile Valley in contrast to the trackless Sahara beyond, not to mention the boundless Atlantic Ocean. It plays a considerable role in informing Alfarabi's understanding of the obstacles that stand in the way of our aspirations for a single, global politics.

The inhabited world contains many groups and nations (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1985, 228.10–13, 230.2). Although Alfarabi does not hesitate to introduce the idea of a single political association covering the entire inhabited world (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1985, 230.10–11, 246.7), it is by no means clear whether this universal government would negate the multiplicity of nations and groups. In fact, Alfarabi strongly implies that the multiplicity of nations will endure, by stating that the inhabited world will become virtuous only through the cooperation of the various nations within it (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1985, 230.10–11).

Alfarabi's only sketch of a single, virtuous government in the inhabited world occurs in the Virtuous City, but it leaves many questions unanswered. Most importantly, what is the character of the many disparate nations that dwell in the inhabited world? Will their heterogeneity impede the cooperation deemed essential for the success of the ecumenical government? And how must the ruler of the inhabited world act in order to induce such cooperation? Alfarabi's lengthy discussion in the Virtuous City of the ruler's extraordinary, prophetic qualities (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1985, 238.11–252.4) makes no effort to answer such questions. But since Alfarabi treats these issues at considerable length in other works, I will postpone their full discussion to my treatment of those other works.

The definition of the inhabited world and possibility of a virtuous government that covers all of it occur only in the Virtuous City, but they figure in the background of many of Alfarabi's other works. The treatise that invites the most immediate comparison to the Virtuous City is the Political Regime. As has frequently been observed, this parallel work has roughly the same structure as the Virtuous City, beginning with metaphysics and concluding with politics, and treats nearly identical themes, but differs considerably with regard to its presentation of these themes. Our subject is a case in point: while the Virtuous City includes the ma‘mūra among the perfect political associations (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1985, 228.12), the Political Regime replaces it with an association of “many nations” (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi, Parens and MacFarland2011, 37.64). The difference between “many nations” and the inhabited world is highly significant: while the latter includes all humankind, the former most probably does not. Associations of “many nations” would include the Roman Empire, Persian Empire, and Abbasid Caliphate, to name only a few, but a single association in the inhabited world would have no historical precedent whatsoever. Alfarabi adds that the “unqualifiedly perfect human association is divided into nations” (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi, Parens and MacFarland2011, 37.64). The inhabited world of the Virtuous City is again replaced, this time by the “unqualifiedly perfect human association.” The relationship between the two concepts remains somewhat murky, but there is certainly no ground for identifying them with one another. Even the “unqualifiedly perfect human association” might consist only of many nations.

The absence of any association encompassing the entire inhabited world in the Political Regime is linked to another facet of the work, namely, its substantial discussion of the significance of differences between nations.Footnote ⁸ In the Political Regime, Alfarabi explains at some length how each nation occupies a particular portion of the earth's surface, and is distinguished from its neighbors by physical appearance, nutrition, and language: these qualities arise from the peculiar climate, flora, and fauna characteristic of each nation's abode (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi, Parens and MacFarland2011, 37.65–38.67). This passage does not represent Alfarabi's most thorough or interesting discussion of the nation—that distinction goes to the second chapter of the Book of Letters, which I will discuss later—but it suffices to bring the basic problem into focus. The variety of nations and tongues, which is the result of inexorable natural causes such as climate and nutrition, poses a formidable challenge to any government that endeavors to include many nations, let alone all of them. Yet in the Political Regime, Alfarabi never takes up that challenge. His subsequent presentation of the virtuous rulership in the Political Regime fails to mention any association larger than a single nation (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi, Parens and MacFarland2011, 42.81). In both passages, the third and largest community mentioned in the comparable passages of the Virtuous City (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1985, 230.2, 246.5–7) is omitted.

While the inhabited world does not figure in the discussions of perfect associations and virtuous rulership in the Political Regime, it is not completely absent from the work. Alfarabi employs the term ma‘mūra once, and in a rather unexpected context. Before turning to the ignorant governments, Alfarabi speaks of certain humans who live in the extreme north or south, on the far ends of the ma‘mūra (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1993, 87.13). They are bestial by nature, and do not have any political associations, virtuous or ignorant, at all. Since political societies cannot incorporate the people inhabiting the fringes of the inhabited world, they need to either exploit or repulse them (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi, Parens and MacFarland2011, 46.92). Alfarabi makes a related argument in the Great Book of Music: the natural musical development of humans occurs only in the more moderate climes. These hospitable regions, which include the territory conquered by Alexander the Great, the Byzantines, and afterwards the Arabs, hold the majority, but certainly not all, of the world's people: certain Slavic and Turkish groups in the far north, and African peoples in the far south, are excluded from them (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1967, 108–110). Alfarabi observes in the Virtuous City that the inhabited world constitutes only a portion of the earth: it now turns out that only a portion of the inhabited world is governable, since its edges are affected by their proximity to the uninhabitable regions.Footnote ⁹ These considerations suffice to explain why Alfarabi does not employ the term ma‘mūra in his discussion of the virtuous governments in the Political Regime. If the extremes of climate mean that portions of the inhabited world cannot even be governed politically, then the notion of a single government covering the whole of it appears preposterous.

The presumption of the possibility of a universal government that characterizes the Virtuous City is severely undermined in the Political Regime.Footnote ¹⁰ Yet neither work appears very practical. Most specifically, neither discusses the question of political deliberation, and therefore the actual implementation of its schemes. They stand in marked contrast with the Attainment of Happiness, in which deliberation emerges as a central theme.Footnote ¹¹ I therefore agree with Joshua Parens in regarding the Attainment of Happiness as the most fruitful text for contemplating the possibility of a virtuous government in the inhabited world (Parens Reference Parens2006, 85 ff.). It alone gives a substantial account of deliberation, and elaborates how the virtuous ruler should bring about his government nation by nation, and city by city.

Ruling Humankind, Nation by Nation

In the opening statement of the Attainment of Happiness, Alfarabi proclaims the ambitious scope of the work:

Alfarabi thus introduces a work that deals with politics on a vast, if not unprecedented, scale, extending to an indefinite number of nations and cities. On the first reading it may seem that Alfarabi is undeterred by this challenge. He describes how wise, fleet-footed rulers and their minions traverse the globe for the sake of spreading human happiness in sundry nations and cities. But a closer examination will reveal some troublesome lacunae in Alfarabi's dashing enterprise.

Alfarabi espouses his plan to an addressee (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 3.18), who reappears at various places in the text. Following Muhsin Mahdi's cue, one should closely observe the addressee's presence, and absence (Mahdi Reference Mahdi2001, 175 ff.). In the part of the work in which the project of spreading virtuous rule to the nations and cities under the aegis of a supreme ruler is described, the addressee is absent (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 29.7–36.14). Not yet being a ruler himself, the addressee is reduced, as it were, to a mere spectator of the supreme ruler's successes—and struggles. As Mahdi puts it, “The implication of this material with reference to the addressee seems to be clear. It is up to him to decide whether he wishes to become a prince” (Mahdi Reference Mahdi2001, 185). What, then, should an addressee who looks carefully at this passage conclude?

I have already pointed to the difficulties arising from the heterogeneity of nations, which remain barely stated in the Virtuous City and unresolved in the Political Regime. But they come to the fore in the section of the Attainment of Happiness in which Alfarabi's supreme ruler takes up the project of educating the nations to submit to virtuous rule. In the best case scenario, this education would permit the various nations to cooperate for the sake of virtuous rule, as suggested in the Virtuous City. This education entails the dissemination of effective poetic images and persuasive rhetorical argumentsFootnote ¹² among the nations. It would certainly be easier if a common human nature allowed for the same methods, images, and persuasive arguments to work for every nation. Alfarabi acknowledges that such a common human nature exists, and that there are such images and arguments (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 33.4–8, 34.11–5). Yet since he declines to give specific examples either of this universal human nature, or of these universal images and arguments, the character and implications of our common humanity remain somewhat elusive.Footnote ¹³ The description of the rhetorical arguments meant to fill the souls of the diverse citizenry with reverence toward the ruler and the virtuous, along with aversion toward his enemies and the vicious, is charming but vague (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 33.13–20). The existence of such arguments would seem to depend on there being certain things that all nations alike find attractive or repulsive, but Alfarabi never states what these things might be. Furthermore, the persistence of enemies against whom the supreme ruler ought to direct these rhetorical arguments would seem to cast the universality of his authority into doubt.

Our common human nature, whatever it may be, does not eliminate the significance of the differences produced by the division of humankind into nations. This division, which a large part of the argument in the Attainment of Happiness presupposes, is explained most thoroughly by Alfarabi in the Book of Letters. I can provide only the briefest summary of that discussion here. The different nations first emerge with the development of mutually incomprehensible forms of speech in the dwelling place of each nation (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi and Mahdi2004, 114 ff.). On the basis of this speech, each nation establishes its own rhetoric, poetry, and linguistic science (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi and Mahdi2004, 127 ff.). It is only after the perfection of these arts that philosophy, and the legislation informed by it, can emerge (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi and Mahdi2004, 140 ff.). The philosophic legislator will therefore be compelled to operate in a world characterized by an untold number of mutually incomprehensible languages and unfamiliar literary traditions. The need to tailor his legislation and education to each and every one of these nations poses a formidable challenge.

Alfarabi's supreme ruler does not simply shy away from this challenge. However, the section of the Attainment of Happiness in which Alfarabi explains how to navigate the divisions among nations is marked by several noticeable equivocations. The supreme ruler must inquire into the character of all the nations, but his investigation might be able to cover only “most” of them (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 34.13). Similarly, his list of the acts and character traits that direct the nations toward happiness is only “approximate” (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 34.16). Alfarabi states that the supreme ruler must employ not only theoretical science, persuasive arguments, and poetry in general, but also the “sciences extracted. . . for each nation. There will be as many of these extracted sciences as there are nations” (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 34.18–35.6). An example of these extracted sciences would be linguistic science: in the Enumeration of the Sciences, Alfarabi indicates that there is a different linguistic science for every nation (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi and Mahdi1968, 59, Mahdi Reference Mahdi2001, 70–1, 90). Yet in the Attainment of Happiness, linguistic science is not even included in the program of study for the addressee (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 2.6–16.18). This seems tantamount to an admission that given the sheer number of nations in the world, neither the supreme ruler nor the addressee could ever be expected to master these national sciences alone. Indeed, how could an aspiring supreme ruler living in Baghdad possibly draw up a list of national sciences appropriate for the Chinese or the Franks? Lacking the familiarity for such a task, the supreme ruler would have to delegate the instruction in the sciences to competent subordinates within each nation. The supreme ruler is therefore obliged to ask “whether or not there is a group fit for preserving” the sciences in each nation. Unfortunately, he receives no clear answer to his query, and is forced to proceed hypothetically: “Provided all of these groups exist [among them],Footnote ¹⁴ four sciences will emerge among them” (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 34.19–35.2). Alfarabi's use of the hypothetical “provided that” followed by a phrase as vague as “among them” makes us wonder to whom exactly he is referring. Could anyone ever assemble a group of any description amongst whom all of these necessary sciences, and especially the sciences particular to each and every nation, exist together? Such a group would presumably consist of the supreme ruler, who ought to be proficient in general theoretical science, and his various local subordinates, who ought to be proficient in the sciences of language, rhetoric, and poetry suitable for their particular nations. If meant to encompass all of the nations on earth, the supreme ruler's entourage might grow unfathomably vast.

Alfarabi's demurral about the feasibility of such a grand coalition follows from other arguments presented in the Book of Letters. If, as Alfarabi suggests in the Attainment of Happiness (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 36.12 ff., 38.13–39.1), the education of the nations is based ultimately on theoretical science and philosophy, then the existence of qualified teachers in and for each nation would depend on their eagerness and ability to serve science and philosophy. But what if the growth of philosophy within a given nation has not been consummated, or even begun? When Alfarabi recounts the development of philosophy within the nations in the Book of Letters, he does not argue that each and every nation necessarily attains the final stage of its development (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi and Mahdi2004, 140 ff.). He admits that his account of the syllogistic arts within the nation follows the “order that we have required” (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi and Mahdi2004, 147.14) rather than their “historical” order. The subsequent section of the Book of Letters speaks frequently of nations that do not possess philosophy at all (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi and Mahdi2004, 147.15–7, 148.15–16, 149.1–8, 152.13–21). Alfarabi indicates that these nations do possess rhetoric and poetry, and possibly imperfect philosophy (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi and Mahdi2004, 147.16); can even that be said of the ungovernable peoples mentioned in the Political Regime, who live at the extremes of the inhabited world (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi, Parens and MacFarland2011, 46.92)? Evidence from Alfarabi's other works implies that any supreme ruler whose aspirations are truly universal must attempt to practice his craft in a number of nations that cultivate only rhetoric, poetry, and defective philosophy, as well as other peoples that do not possess the arts of civilization at all. It is therefore hardly astonishing that in the Attainment of Happiness Alfarabi does not exude confidence about the presence of competent subordinates in each and every nation.

To make things worse, the challenge of instructing diverse groups of humans does not end with the multiplicity of nations. Alfarabi makes clear, without providing much by way of specifics, that every nation will have to be divided into many parts, each of which will require its own teachers (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 36.5–10, cf. 34.19). The task of carrying out this intricate and expansive education project while relying on strangers in far-flung nations for all particular knowledge appears daunting.Footnote ¹⁵ Alfarabi concludes the section with the statement that “These, then, are the modes and the methods through which the four human things by which supreme happiness is achieved are realized in nations and cities” (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 36.12–4). This sounds reassuring, but one could ask whether such modes and methods will prove feasible. The astute reader, including presumably the addressee, will hardly have been relieved of all doubt.

Deliberation within the Inhabited World

The political proposal of the Attainment of Happiness undoubtedly encompasses many nations, but does it reach all humankind? Joshua Parens seems to assume that it does, since he speaks frequently of a virtuous regime or religion in the whole of the inhabited world (Parens Reference Parens2006, 2, 5, 21, 43, 45, 89, 145). But I am struck by the fact that the term ma‘mūra does not appear in the section of the work that discusses the actual conquest and instruction of the nations. Parens observes that in the Attainment of Happiness “Alfarabi never states explicitly how big the regime that he envisions should be” (Parens Reference Parens2006, 145, note 35), but does not fully develop consequences of his own insight.Footnote ¹⁶ Let us take a closer look at the distribution of the term ma‘mūra and its implications.

The only two instances of the term ma‘mūra which I have yet to discuss occur within close proximity of one another in the Attainment of Happiness. The context is not yet a proposal for introducing the virtues into the various nations and cities, but a prelude to that proposal. Alfarabi explains how the scientific intelligibles treated in the first part of the work (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 2.6–16.18) should be brought into being in the world: he compares them to a building that has been conceived in the mind but not yet built (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 17.3–7). But just as an actual building will have to withstand the wind, rain, heat, and activities of the people using it, so the intelligibles brought into existence in the world will undergo an immeasurable number of ever-changing accidents and states, natural and voluntary (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 17.9 ff.). However clearly subjects such as “human” and “moderation” may be perceived by the intellect (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 19.1–5), such perception cannot incorporate the variety of the accidents and states attached to them in the external world, some of which defy all formal rules (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 18.9). They vary according to place and time, which Alfarabi considers in their unfathomable diversity (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 19.1–11).Footnote ¹⁷ Alfarabi eventually introduces the deliberative faculty as a means for grappling, as best we can, with the shifting landscape of variable states that characterizes the human world (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 20.3 ff.). It is striking that the word ma‘mūra occurs only prior to the introduction of the deliberative faculty. One instance of the term describes the entirety of the domain in which the ensemble of political accidents takes place (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 20.2). Here, Alfarabi speaks merely of events occurring within the inhabited world, without any reference to human agency. It is hard to imagine how one or even several human minds could master so vast a panorama of accidents and events. In the Book of Religion, Alfarabi goes so far as to say that these events and accidents are “infinite and without limitation,” and hence entirely beyond the grasp of both philosophy and political science (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001a, 106).

Faced with this infinity of accidents and events, many of which take place in regions completely unknown to us, our minds need to focus on the finite portion of them that is most fathomable and familiar. Although the accidents and events that affect humans in general occur within the entire inhabited world, Alfarabi never suggests that any concrete human deliberations and decisions are made with a view to this inscrutably vast domain. The second instance of the term ma‘mūra serves to strengthen this point. Alfarabi states that those wishing to bring the intelligibles into being in the world must do so in a “determined place in the ma‘mūra” (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 19.12–4). The phrase “determined place” is key: it implies that such statesmen never consider the whole of the inhabited world, but limit their thoughts and acts to the part of it that they determine to be most pertinent to them. Indeed, when Alfarabi turns to the deliberative faculty and virtue he drops the expressions “inhabited world” and “all nations” and speaks of no community larger than “nations” or “the nations” (21.12, 21.17, 22.1, 22.5).Footnote ¹⁸ The phrase “the nations” does not have the same universal connotation in Islam that it does in Christianity, since it was never employed to mean all the Pagans who ought to be converted to the true faith. Since Alfarabi never calls the ungovernable peoples living on the extremes of the inhabited world “nations” (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi, Parens and MacFarland2011, 46.92, Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1967, 108–10), one might infer that they are excluded from this category. This inference is supported by passages in Alfarabi's other works: while the “unqualified perfect human association” of the Political Regime is divided into nations (ummam, Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi, Parens and MacFarland2011, 37.64), the inhabited world of the Virtuous City is never divided in such a fashion. Although any given nation is part of the inhabited world (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1985, 228.12–3, 230.2), the inhabited world as a whole is composed not simply of nations, but of “all of its groups” (jimā‘āt kulluhā, Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1985, 228.12). It would appear that nations constitute merely some of these groups. The groups in the inhabited world who are not organized into nations may well be the people living in the inhospitable regions on its fringes. If this is indeed the case, then neither the cooperation of the nations within the inhabited world described in the Virtuous City (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1985, 230.11), nor the project of educating and governing the nations described in the Attainment of Happiness, could encompass the entire inhabited world. We conclude that the word “the nations” signifies an international community of indefinite, but almost certainly not universal, scope.

This incompatibility of deliberation with the inhabited world is also implied by a similar omission of the term ma‘mūra from the Selected Aphorisms. This work opens by promising to bring happiness only to the “cities” (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001a, 11) but concludes with a definition of deliberative virtue that includes “the nations, a nation, or a city” (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001a, 63–4). This definition repeats, almost verbatim, the definition in the Attainment of Happiness (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 20.10–2),Footnote ¹⁹ thus confirming the suspicion that even though deliberative virtue extends its scope beyond the city to the nations, it never attempts to cover the entire inhabited world.

Global Deliberation, Revelation, and Islam

The Attainment of Happiness may constitute Alfarabi's best discussion of deliberation and global government, but it is nonetheless incomplete. Most notably, Alfarabi does not mention revelation anywhere in this treatise. He therefore begs the following question: Couldn't the limits imposed on merely human deliberation be transcended by revelation? If the answer is yes, then the restriction of the sphere of deliberation in the Attainment of Happiness occurs only due to the absence of revelation from that work. By the same reasoning, one might infer that the unusual ability of the ruler in the Virtuous City to govern the entire inhabited world arises by virtue of his having received revelation (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1985, 244.7–14, 246.7). Yet the link between revelation and actual ability to rule remains vague.Footnote ²⁰ Moreover, the Virtuous City does not contain Alfarabi's only account of revelation and the size of the community that it should govern. The treatment most revealing of our subject occurs in the Book of Religion, to which I will now turn.

The Book of Religion opens with a discussion of the foundation of religion. The founder of the religion may establish his creed with a view to “a tribe, a city or district, a great nation, or many nations” (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001a, 93). The term ma‘mūra appears neither in this list, nor anywhere else in the Book of Religion (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi and Mahdi1968, 43–66). As Mahdi has already observed, the idea that any founder of a religion could truly have envisaged a faith intended for the entire inhabited world, as opposed to a faith intended merely for many nations, is implicitly rejected by Alfarabi (Mahdi Reference Mahdi2001, 99–100).

The statement that opens the Book of Religion does not mention any particular religion, and is certainly of general import to all religions. Yet applying it to the understanding of the life of Muhammad and the foundation of Islam, as many of Alfarabi's Muslim readers would undoubtedly have done, has intriguing implications. One could pose the question as follows: did Muhammad intend his religion for his tribe of Quraysh, his city of Medina, his region of the Ḥijāz, his nation of the Arabs, or both the Arabs and the various nations in his vicinity, such as the Persians, the Ethiopians, and the Syrians? The most widely believed account of Muhammad's life admits equally of each of these answers, in different stages of the prophet's career. Muhammad first preached to his own Quraysh tribe in Mecca but was mostly rejected, after which he fled to the city of Medina. He amassed a large following in Medina and rose to govern the city, through whose strength he conquered Mecca and became master of the entire Ḥijāz. In the last few years of his life he began to consolidate control over the rest of the Arab nation in the peninsula and to look toward the rich and populous provinces of the multinational Persian and Byzantine empires, most of which would fall to his successors within a few short years. By hinting equally at all of these possibilities, Alfarabi implies that the scope of Muhammad's ambition might have evolved with his successes.

One could object that Muhammad's prophetic visions had from the outset announced a new religion for all humankind, regardless of the vicissitudes of the moment: this is certainly how his prophetic mission came to be viewed by Muslims in later times. But the founder in the Book of Religion also receives revelation (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001a, 94), and there is no evidence that it broadens his geographic horizons. In the Selected Aphorisms, Alfarabi states rather bluntly that revelation pertains only to a highly circumscribed political domain, determining “the actions of inhabitants of cities or of a city” (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001a, 63). The omission of the inhabited world and even nations from this statement is telling. Insofar as any particular revelation, Islamic or otherwise, must be adjusted to the outlook of its immediate recipient and his intended audience, it is actually rather limited in scope.

This argument may be strengthened by a brief look at the revelation that Muhammad is supposed to have received. Although the Qu’rān proclaims, by its own estimation, a universal message for humankind (an-nās, Qu’rān 1998, 2.142, 3.110), it does not come close to discussing the entire inhabited world. For example, it says nothing about Khurasān, since the name of this soon-to-be Muslim region from which the Abbasid dynasty eventually emerged would not have been known to either Muhammad or his contemporary followers. This is a gap that had to be filled by later tradition, which coined many hadīths about Khurasān and attributed them to the prophet and his companions. For entirely similar reasons, the Qu’rān may also be forgiven for its silence about the hybrid character of Indonesian or Moroccan Islam, which would fuse so many local traditions with the Qu’rānic religion. Even if Muhammad did envisage, in an abstract sense, a faith for all humankind, his revelation as it has been preserved for us did not predict the form that his religion would assume among peoples who were unknown to him. Like all other statesmen, Muhammad could make decisions only with a view to the limited selection of peoples and events familiar to him. These may have broadened enormously over the course of his life, but they never came close to covering the entire inhabited world.

The community founded by Muhammad has since expanded even further, incorporating hundreds of nations in Asia, Africa, and Europe who were completely unknown to the generation of Muhammad. Yet the enormous geographic breadth, cultural diversity, and political disunity of the Muslim community has made it difficult if not impossible for any one statesman or religious figure to speak in the entire community's name. The Islamic community may have encompassed a somewhat smaller number of nations and regions in Alfarabi's time, but its fragmentation had already begun. While Alfarabi's adopted city of Baghdad remained the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate that had once ruled the vast majority of the Islamic world, both the city and its empire had already fallen into terminal decline. Most of the former provinces had by the tenth century become independent dynasties, while the Abbasid Caliph had been reduced to a figurehead, dominated by the Turkish and Daylami mercenaries whom he had once hired. The Daylami, Buyid dynasty took over Baghdad around the time of Alfarabi's death. In this era of political dissolution, Alfarabi must have been acutely aware of the chasm between universalist Islamic ambitions and historical reality. He perceived that the political unity of the Islamic world had been irrevocably shattered: indeed, in the millenium since his death, no empire has ever succeeded in ruling even half of its population. He responded by exploring the permanent causes of human disunity and diversity, which neither Islam nor any other doctrine could ever overcome.Footnote ²¹

If the prophetic founders of religions and their followers do not make their decisions with a view to the entire inhabited world, whose vastness defies even the grandest visionary, would a philosopher-statesman be able to keep it in view?Footnote ²² Alfarabi's consistent avoidance of the term ma‘mūra in all of his accounts of deliberation implies that even the most remarkable legislators and statesman focus only on the peoples whom they know. Every particular political decision involves a particular place in the inhabited world: this place may be as small as a neighborhood or as large as many nations, but it remains a particular place nonetheless. While I agree with most of Parens’ interpretation of the Attainment of Happiness, I believe that he has slightly overstated the case for a single government in the inhabited world, if only to ultimately refute it. For in fact Alfarabi proposes no such thing.Footnote ²³ A single government of the inhabited world may be discussed or imagined by intellectuals in their study halls, but it has little place in the assembly hall where actual deliberation occurs. Alfarabi rightly foresaw that political deliberation in his era and beyond would take place among the nations, a shifting and unstable domain somewhere between the city and the inhabited world.

Alfarabi and Contemporary Global Politics

Alfarabi's criticism of the possibility of a single government in the inhabited world is not in itself original, or even very controversial. Both Leo Strauss and John Rawls, arguably the two most influential figures in post-war American political theory, also denied such a possibility. Rawls, following Kant, taught that a federation of independent states, embodied today by international organizations such as the United Nations or European Union, would be preferable to a single, unified world state, since the latter is likely to result in either tyranny or anarchy (Rawls Reference Rawls1999, 36, 70).Footnote ²⁴ Strauss dismissed such a state as an impossibility, at least for the foreseeable future (Strauss Reference Strauss1964, 5): in his celebrated reply to Kojéve, he concludes that the “universal and homogenous state” would not be desirable (Strauss Reference Strauss, Gourevich and Roth2000, 207–11). Yet even if Alfarabi's general rejection of a single government in the inhabited world is not unique, his precise and profound analysis of the difficulties involved can still help to illuminate the contemporary political scene.

The most insurmountable hurdle to a single, global government or society, for us no less than for Alfarabi, is unfathomable human diversity. Many recent critiques of aspirations for global justice have centered around this fact. Chandran Kukathas argues that “the diversity of opinions and variety of communities” that continue to divide humankind means that any apparently “global” decision about justice would actually represent the view of a small, governing minority imposed on the docile many. The main beneficiaries would be “powerful states” and “elites in developing countries” who control the distribution of resources (Kukathas Reference Kukathas, Frank, Miller and Paul2006, 1–28, 4, 27). David Miller has also written intelligently on the question of global distributive justice, arguing that it is difficult to demand much global economic equality in the absence of any global political community (Miller Reference Miller, Hurrel and Woods1999, 187–211). As Miller puts it, global cooperation, though significant, fails to create the “common understandings and common purposes that give the community its ethos” (Miller Reference Miller, Hurrel and Woods1999, 190), thus diminishing the strength of justice on a global level. Both Kukathas and Miller conclude by suggesting that a global consensus of some sort would permit more serious reflection about possibilities of global justice, but such a prospect still appears remote (Kukathas Reference Kukathas, Frank, Miller and Paul2006, 28, Miller Reference Miller, Hurrel and Woods1999, 210). In the absence of any global unity or consensus, the nearly infinite variety of local notions of justice arising from local conditions, as described so eloquently by Michael Walzer, is likely to endure (Walzer Reference Walzer1983, 312–13).

It is precisely these sorts of questions that Alfarabi, in examining the underlying causes of human diversity, treats so brilliantly. In the Political Regime, Alfarabi presents climate as the most basic, natural cause of this diversity. The impact of climate endures, if in a somewhat attenuated form. The extreme climates that in Alfarabi's view interfere with human development have been rendered softer by technology: while an Iroquois hunter or Bedouin nomad of the past had to earn his keep outdoors in freezing cold or scorching heat, the indoor temperature in a heated home or office in Montreal may resemble that of an air-conditioned environment in Dubai. But nobody would argue that the diet, relationship to the outdoors, and way of life resulting from these factors is identical in Montreal and Dubai. Furthermore, Alfarabi's warning about the difficulty of governing the edges of the inhabited world has not lost its relevance. Certain inhospitable regions such as the Sahara desert or the Hindu Kush mountains remain almost as empty and forbidding today as they would have been in prehistoric times. They tend to be dominated by armed militias and smugglers, who pose an obstacle to government and at least a nuisance, if not an outright threat, to the civilized world. One wonders whether these vast expanses of marginally inhabitable terrain will ever be brought under full political control.Footnote ²⁵

Alfarabi also speaks in the Political Regime of the multiplicity of tongues, an even deeper cause of human division that shows little sign of fading. The prevalence of English as the lingua franca has rendered global communication easier, but not necessarily global governance: we may be able to conduct a business deal with some Iraqis or Afghans in English, but could we win over their hearts and minds in so foreign a tongue (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi2001, 33.10 ff.)? Nevertheless, we may seem somewhat better equipped than our ancestors to govern foreign peoples, thanks to a massive increase in global communications and interconnectedness that has made information about distant peoples readily available, in English or in any other major language. While the supreme ruler of the Attainment of Happiness who aspired to rule the nations would have possessed only the vaguest rumors about the Chinese and the Franks, and probably no way of studying their language, his 21st-century counterpart could look them up instantaneously online.

Unfortunately, the wide availability of information about Iraq and Afghanistan has not made it easier for American generals and officials to govern those countries. There is surely a great difference between the information that is now available to everybody online, and the profound familiarity with a culture that comes only from years of experience. Furthermore, even if a ruler or his lieutenants were to acquire such familiarity, which would include an ability to communicate in the local language, it is by no means clear how many nations, in Alfarabi's time or ours, would long consent to be governed and taught by foreigners. For these reasons, Alfarabi's suggestion that the instruction of each nation proposed by the supreme ruler could be executed only by faithful subordinates within that nation continues to apply (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi, Parens and MacFarland2011. 35.8–18). But so too do Alfarabi's hints about the doubtful availability of such subordinates: How many loyal allies have we found in Iraq and Afghanistan? And we have not even attempted an educational project as ambitious as the one proposed in the Attainment of Happiness, which would entail setting up a new and comprehensive school system staffed by trustworthy teachers at all levels. The meager results of relatively modest American efforts to remake the world in the face of many of the same obstacles indicated by Alfarabi shows just how implausible the project outlined in the Attainment of Happiness remains.

We are left, then, with a large number of particular societies. The result is a nearly infinite number of particular deliberations and political decisions, each weighted disproportionately, although not exclusively, toward one part of the inhabited world. For example, the decisions that the American government makes concerning Kenya should take into account not only Kenya, but also efforts by China or Islamist groups from neighboring Somalia to increase their influence there. Such decisions undoubtedly concern many nations, but it would be hard to argue, except very abstractly, that they should concern the entire inhabited world, since they ought to be taken with due and special regard to the conditions peculiar to Kenya, along with the relatively small number of nations that have strong strategic interests in Kenya.

One might object that while decisions made by independent states are limited in geographical scope, the decisions of international bodies such as the United Nations are made by, and affect, the entire inhabited world. It is safe to say that Alfarabi did not anticipate such organizations: he speaks of temporary alliances between rulers (Alfarabi Reference Alfarabi1985, 294.16–296.3) but never of permanent leagues. I would reply, however, that even the particular decisions taken by international bodies are subject to certain geographic limitations. Take, for example, a United Nations resolution pertaining to Korea. This resolution would concern above all the two Koreas, along with the nations with pronounced strategic and economic interests in the Koreas, such as Japan, China, Russia, and the United States, and be disproportionately influenced by those same countries. Brazil may have an opinion on the matter, and even a vote, but it will not stick its neck out over an issue that only tangentially concerns it. A lack of strong Chinese or Russian support, however, is likely to hinder the implementation of the resolution, even if it is formally passed.

Finally, some might argue that certain international issues, such as global warming or arms control, ought to concern all of the world's people, and thus demand global deliberation and cooperation. Without denying the importance of such issues, we may doubt whether any comprehensive international cooperation over them will ever materialize. Consider, for example, the general ineffectiveness of the Kyoto protocols. Despite warnings from scientists around the world about global warming, many countries remain more worried about how the imposition of strict emissions standards will affect the growth of their own industries than about how global warming will affect the world's environment. While the nuclear nonproliferation treaty has won many adherents, countries as important as Israel, India, and Pakistan have refused to sign it, and not incurred any serious penalties as a result. Iran may have signed the agreement, but its commitment to it remains dubious as best. To claim that the inhabited world speaks with one voice even on the most pressing global issues would be a major exaggeration.

I do not mean to oppose international cooperation, or claim that Alfarabi would have done so, but merely to suggest that such cooperation is necessarily limited to a group of several nations deliberating about a group of several other nations, and must always be pursued with due regard for local contingencies. This, I believe, is exactly the point so ably articulated by Alfarabi throughout his political treatises. Since the scope of the accidents and events occurring in the whole of the inhabited world continues to lie well beyond the comprehension of any human individual or group, a wise deliberator restricts his reflections to the smaller but still formidable number of events that affect his particular place and political situation. I agree with Steiris about Alfarabi's contemporary significance, but for entirely opposite reasons: while Steiris praises Alfarabi as a beacon guiding us toward an ecumenical society (Steiras Reference Steiris2012, 261), I rather view him as a warning signal against the possibility of ever implementing such a society, or even of conceiving of political deliberation on a truly global scale. The endless complexity and variability of both local and global politics will continue to defy even the most intelligent among us.