The Most Famous
PHILOSOPHERS from Afghanistan
This page contains a list of the greatest Afghan Philosophers. The pantheon dataset contains 1,267 Philosophers, 2 of which were born in Afghanistan. This makes Afghanistan the birth place of the 46th most number of Philosophers behind Israel, and Saudi Arabia.
Top 3
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Afghan Philosophers of all time. This list of famous Afghan Philosophers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Al-Farabi (872 - 951)
With an HPI of 81.05, Al-Farabi is the most famous Afghan Philosopher. His biography has been translated into 79 different languages on wikipedia.
Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi (Arabic: أبو نصر محمد الفارابي, romanized: Abū Naṣr Muḥammad al-Fārābī; c. 870 – 14 December 950–12 January 951), known in the Latin West as Alpharabius, was an early Islamic philosopher and music theorist. He has been designated as "Father of Islamic Neoplatonism", and the "Founder of Islamic Political Philosophy". Al-Farabi's fields of philosophical interest included—but not limited to, philosophy of society and religion; philosophy of Language and Logic; psychology and epistemology; metaphysics, political philosophy, and ethics. He was an expert in both practical musicianship and music theory, and although he was not intrinsically a scientist, his works incorporate astronomy, mathematics, cosmology, and physics. Al-Farabi is credited as the first Muslim who presented philosophy as a coherent system in the Islamic world, and created a philosophical system of his own, which developed a philosophical system that went far beyond the scholastic interests of his Greco-Roman Neoplatonism and Syriac Aristotelian precursors. That he was more than a pioneer in Islamic philosophy, can be deduced from the habit of later writers calling him the "Second Master", with Aristotle as the first. Al-Farabi's impact on philosophy is undeniable, to name a few, Yahya ibn Adi, Abu Sulayman Sijistani, Abu al-Hassan al-Amiri, and Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi; Avicenna, Suhrawardi, and Mulla Sadra; Avempace, Ibn Tufail, and Averroes; Maimonides, Albertus Magnus, and Leo Strauss. He was known in the Latin West, as well as the Islamic world.
2. Ibn al-Rawandi (827 - 911)
With an HPI of 59.90, Ibn al-Rawandi is the 2nd most famous Afghan Philosopher. His biography has been translated into 25 different languages.
Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Ishaq al-Rawandi (Arabic: أبو الحسن أحمد بن يحيى بن إسحاق الراوندي), commonly known as Ibn al-Rawandi (Arabic: ابن الراوندي; 827–911 CE), was a scholar and theologian. In his early days, he was a Mu'tazilite scholar, but then rejected the Mu'tazilite doctrine. Afterwards, he became a Shia scholar; there is some debate about whether he stayed a Shia until his death or became a skeptic, though most sources confirm his eventual rejection of all religion and becoming an atheist. Although none of his works have survived, his opinions had been preserved through his critics and the surviving books that answered him. His book with the most preserved fragments (through an Ismaili book refuting al-Rawandi's ideology) is the Kitab al-Zumurrud (The Book of the Emerald).
3. Ibrahim al-Nazzam (760 - 835)
With an HPI of 52.21, Ibrahim al-Nazzam is the 3rd most famous Afghan Philosopher. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.
Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Sayyār ibn Hāni‘ an-Naẓẓām (Arabic: أبو إسحاق إبراهيم بن سيار بن هانئ النظام) (c. 775 – c. 845) was an Arab Mu'tazilite theologian and poet. He was a nephew of the Mu'tazilite theologian Abu al-Hudhayl al-'Allaf, and al-Jahiz was one of his students. Al-Naẓẓām served at the courts of the Abbasid Caliph al-Mamun. His theological doctrines and works are lost except for a few fragments.
People
Pantheon has 3 people classified as Afghan philosophers born between 760 and 872. Of these 3, none of them are still alive today. The most famous deceased Afghan philosophers include Al-Farabi, Ibn al-Rawandi, and Ibrahim al-Nazzam. As of April 2024, 1 new Afghan philosophers have been added to Pantheon including Ibrahim al-Nazzam.
