Wikipedia
(, ) (c. 801–873 AD), known as "the Philosopher of the Arabs", was a Muslim Arab philosopher, polymath, mathematician, physician and musician. Al-Kindi was the first of the Muslim peripatetic philosophers, and is unanimously hailed as the "father of Islamic or Arabic philosophy" for his synthesis, adaptation and promotion of Greek and Hellenistic philosophy in the Muslim world.
Al-Kindi was a descendant of the Kinda tribe. He was born in Basra and educated in Baghdad. Al-Kindi became a prominent figure in the House of Wisdom, and a number of Abbasid Caliphs appointed him to oversee the translation of Greek scientific and philosophical texts into the Arabic language. This contact with "the philosophy of the ancients" (as Greek philosophy was often referred to by Muslim scholars) had a profound effect on his intellectual development, and led him to write hundreds of original treatises of his own on a range of subjects ranging from metaphysics, ethics, logic and psychology, to medicine, pharmacology, mathematics, astronomy, astrology and optics, and further afield to more practical topics like perfumes, swords, jewels, glass, dyes, zoology, tides, mirrors, meteorology and earthquakes.
In the field of mathematics, al-Kindi played an important role in introducing Indian numerals to the Islamic and Christian world. He was a pioneer in cryptanalysis and devised several new methods of breaking ciphers. Using his mathematical and medical expertise, he was able to develop a scale that would allow doctors to quantify the potency of their medication.
The central theme underpinning al-Kindi's philosophical writings is the compatibility between philosophy and other "orthodox" Islamic sciences, particularly theology. And many of his works deal with subjects that theology had an immediate interest in. These include the nature of God, the soul and prophetic knowledge. But despite the important role he played in making philosophy accessible to Muslim intellectuals, his own philosophical output was largely overshadowed by that of al-Farabi and very few of his texts are available for modern scholars to examine.
Al-Kindi indicates affiliation with the Arabian Kinda tribe.
People with the surname include:
- Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, known as "the Philosopher of the Arabs", was a Muslim scientist, philosopher, mathematician, physician, and musician.
- Miqdad ibn al-Aswad al-Kindi, a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
- Raja Ibn Haywah al-Kindi: Islamic jurist and Arabic calligraphist.
- Zaynab bint ʿUmar b. al-Kindī, woman hadith scholar, teacher of Al-Dhahabi.
- Abd al-Masih ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, Christian theologian.
- Alkindi (fencer), an Indonesian Olympic fencer.