Qabasat

Qabasat

An Analytical Study of the Influence of al-Farabi’s Philosophical Principles on Ibn Sina’s Theory of the Identity of the Divine Essence and Attributes

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Marzieh Farsji 1
Mona Faridi 2
Fatemeh Sadeghzadeh 3
1 Research Institute of Humanities and Cultural Studies, Hikmat Mazazer Research Institute, PhD student, Tehran.
2 Associate Professor of the Faculty of Islamic Philosophy and Theology of Imam Sadiq (AS) University, ،Tehran, Iran.
3 faculty member of Imam Sadiq University (AS). Faculty of Islamic Philosophy and Theology. Tehran, Iran.
10.22034/qabasat.2026.2043391.2365
Abstract
The relationship between the Divine Essence and Attributes is a fundamental issue in philosophical theology, which has consistently occupied philosophers from ancient Greece to Islamic philosophy. While the dominant view among Muslim philosophers is the “identity of the Divine Essence and Attributes” in terms of referential unity, Avicenna introduces a novel approach by proposing the innovative theory of “conceptual synonymy and referential identity.” This study, employing an analytical-comparative method, investigates the influence of Farabi’s principles on Avicenna’s theory, clarifying the distinct boundaries between these two perspectives. The main problem of this research is to elucidate how the transition occurred from Farabi’s ontological simplicity to Avicenna’s semantic analysis. To achieve this, Farabi’s threefold principles in ontology, protology, and epistemology were extracted and compared with Avicenna’s views in his major works. The findings indicate that Farabi, by emphasizing the simplicity of the Necessary Existent and the unity of Divine knowledge and essence, laid the necessary foundation for “referential identity,” whereas Avicenna, by applying the logical distinction between concept and referent and relying on principles such as “the impossibility of abstracting multiple concepts from a simple essence,” elevated these principles to the level of “conceptual identity,” while remaining influenced by Farabi in his foundational principles. In conclusion, Avicenna’s theory constitutes a logical extension of Farabi’s principles, wherein the simplicity of the Necessary Existent culminates in the conceptual unity of the Divine attributes, representing one of the most coherent explanations in this field.
Keywords
Ibn Sina
Farabi
Identity of Divine Essence and Attributes
Simplicity of the Necessary Existent
Peripatetic Philosophy
Subjects
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