LITMIR.BIZ

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between “moral” and “physical causes” of the differences among nations, attributing far greater significance to the former than to the latter (Hume, 198 ff.). Physical causes include “those qualities of air and climate, which are supposed to work insensibly on the temper, by altering the tone and habit of the body and giving a particular complexion.” Moral causes include “the nature of the government, the revolutions of public affairs, the plenty or penury in which the people live” (198). Hume’s understanding of physical causes, and rejection of their importance, resemble Alfarabi’s. Both philosophers agree that air and climate have minimal influence on manners and culture. Hume gives a number of persuasive historical and empirical arguments against reducing any differences in manners and culture to physical causes (204 ff.). But he speaks of moral causes rather than language as the defining feature of the nation. He traces the moral causes of the nation above all to legislation and politics (198, 204). Hume’s political understanding of the nation is ultimately closer to Rousseau’s than Alfarabi’s. We will have occasion to consider this question at greater length in Chapter 7.

      For the present discussion, it is most crucial to note that Hume minimizes the connection between linguistic eloquence and cultural sophistication, since language depends less on manners than on the power of the original stock of sounds. Moreover, the perfection of manners tends to fix the language and dull its power. Thus the modern English are more civilized than the Homeric Greeks, even though the Homeric Greeks had a more expressive language (Hume, 209). Alfarabi, in contrast, understands manners as secondary or corollary to language in determining the development of the Umma. It is the eventual perfection of the language and stories told in it that establish the manners (adāb) of a given nation (BL 144.11, #130). Ādāb is the plural of adab, a wide-ranging term that means “literature” and “culture” as well. It also occurs in 98.19–20 of the Book of Letters, in the context of education within families. Both families and Ummas cultivate adab, but Ummas do so on a broader scale. Translated as “upbringing” by Charles Butterworth and “formation of character” by Muhsin Mahdi, adab plays an important role in the political education of both rulers and citizens (see AH 39.12–18, Ar. 78.43–44, SL 146.7–147.8, Ar. 134.7–8). The presence of this term in Alfarabi’s account of the Umma serves as a hint of the Umma’s broader political and religious significance, which will be explored in the ensuing chapters. For now, we restrict ourselves to the claim that the emphasis on language, its advance toward rhetoric, poetry, and linguistic science, and its enduring effects on the cultural sphere are characteristic of Alfarabi and his understanding of the Umma.

      If this definition of the Umma is correct, then strict equality among all Ummas can hardly be expected: some Ummas will be linguistically, and therefore culturally, more sophisticated than others. Alfarabi begins to employ the term Umma immediately after the first sounds of a language have been formulated (BL 137.1, #118), indicating that any group possessing a language of its own qualifies in some sense as an Umma. Although Alfarabi describes a gradual progression toward the more sophisticated linguistic arts, such as poetry, rhetoric, and linguistic science, he never presents this progression as natural or inevitable. It appears particularly unpredictable when compared to other phases of intellectual development discussed in the Book of Letters: while the onset of dialectic inevitably leads toward philosophy, and the founding of religion eventually produces jurisprudence and kalām (132.5–8, #110),¹⁹ no comparable necessity determines the development of language. This is indicated by a subtle shift in vocabulary. While the movements from dialectic toward philosophy and from religion toward kalām are described by the verbs taqaddam and ta’ākhar, which signify an ordered progression in time (129.12–13, 130.1–3, 132.5–11, #110),²⁰ the sequence that characterizes the development of the Umma and its language is described only with the words sabaq and ba‘d, which signify anteriority and posteriority in time without any clear reference to causality (134.18, #114; 141.6, #127; 145.1, #132; 150.2, #140). The choice of terms implies a large measure of unpredictability in the evolution of the Umma, and therefore a considerable degree of variation among Ummas with regard to their level of linguistic development. The movement of the Umma toward the full perfection of its linguistic arts is hardly a foregone conclusion.

      Nevertheless, it would be fair to say that Alfarabi himself is most interested in the more sophisticated Ummas, as is revealed by a quick glance at the Ummas mentioned in the Book of Letters. Alfarabi cites the Ethiopians, Indians, Persians, Assyrians,²¹ Syrians, and Egyptians as neighbors of the Arabs (BL 147.9–10, #135). He gives linguistic examples from the Persian, Soghdian, Greek, and Syriac languages (111.1–3). With the exception of the speakers of Soghdian, a common language in Alfarabi’s native region, all these peoples constituted major civilizations at some point in history, and some retain that status today. To return to the examples from another region of the world given by Ernest Gellner, Alfarabi would recognize the Czechs and Estonians as Ummas, but restrict his most serious discussion to the Germans and Italians (cf. Gellner 1997, 90–101).

      Alfarabi’s definition of the Umma includes what we might call tribes as well as high civilizations. Indeed, the modern term “civilization” expresses the meaning of Alfarabi’s Umma rather well. To avoid confusion, it should be emphasized that Alfarabi does not develop any concept of “civilization” per se, which might be opposed to nomadic life or barbarism. However, most of the particular Ummas of which he speaks would be classified as individual “civilizations” today. We would never, in contemporary English, call ancient Egypt or India “nations,” so that the common translation of Umma as “nation” appears misleading in a crucial respect.

      The Book of Letters recounts the coming into being of the world’s most splendid civilizations in considerable detail. The establishment of a separate language is only the first stage in this process. Alfarabi explains how an Umma eventually perfects its language and excels in rhetoric, poetry, oral storytelling, linguistic science, and writing (BL 148.15–20, #138). A major impetus for the development of these arts comes from the occurrence of memorable events that need to be recorded in speech (142.8–9, #129). “The wise men of the Umma,” who emerge even before the advent of writing, seek to preserve recollection of these events, engaging in “the recitation of speeches and the recitation of poems, and the memorization of the reports²² narrated by them” (143.3–5, #130). When the volume of oral material becomes too large, writing is invented, and these bards are to some extent superseded by scribes (144.12–19, #130). Finally, the formal codification of the grammar of the language by means of linguistic science completes the development of the Umma (145–48, #133–37).

      For reasons that will become clearer when we turn to the study of the origins of Islam, Alfarabi does not reveal explicitly what kinds of events are recorded in the Umma’s stories. But since he mentions a number of particular Ummas, such as Greece and India, by name, he invites his readers to fill in these blanks. On the basis of his account, we could say that the crowning accomplishment of these Ummas are epic poems such as the Iliad and the Ramayana, which would shape their respective civilizations as long as they endured, and the treatises of their grammarians, which would confer a fixed form upon their language. Yet at first glance the scope of Alfarabi’s account appears unnecessarily limited, since the arts of civilization consist of more than just the spoken and written word. Does not this narrow focus on language and literature, to the detriment of the visual and auditory arts, risk oversimplifying the multifaceted character of the Umma and its civilization? It can certainly be shown that Alfarabi did not overlook so obvious a criticism. To respond to it fully would require a far more careful consideration of Alfarabi’s writings on poetry, rhetoric, art, and music than is possible here, but I can offer some preliminary thoughts.

      We cannot ignore the broader context of the Book of Letters, which is primarily a work about language, and not only in the second chapter. The first chapter consists mainly of a definition of philosophic terms (BL 61–130), while the third chapter consists mainly of an explanation of various logical methods and questions (162–226). It is hardly surprising that in a work thus constituted Alfarabi should emphasize the language and literature of the Umma above all else. The absence of music and poetry, as well as the extremely brief mention of the mechanical arts (138.15–17,

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