Al-Kindi began his education at either Kufah or Basra, and completed it at Baghdad the centers of culture of his day.
Both Kufah and Basra were places of intense and original intellectual activity by the tome of Al-Kindi’s birth; this activity centered on a number of disciplines indigenous to Islamic culture such as Arabic grammar, the explication of the Qur'an and the principles of law, all of which would have important consequences for philosophy.
He studied Fiqh and the new born discipline called, kalam, but it seems that he was more interested in science and philosophy, to which he unsecrated the rest of his life, especially after he went to Baghdad.
Al-Kindi learnt Greek, but certainly he mastered the syriac language from which he translated several works.
He became well known in the Abbasid capital as a scholar and physician, enjoyed the patronage of the caliphs al Ma’mun and al-Mu’tasim and was appointed tutor of the latter’s son Ahmad.
Al-Kindi wrote hundred of papers on Greek philosophy, science, ethics, cosmology, metaphysics and what is known today as psychology, from an Islamic perspective.
He is a major contributor to the introduction of Greek philosophy to the Muslim World, although he was not afraid to contradict the Greek thinkers if he believed it conflicted with Islamic teachings.
Al-Kindi died on 873 in Baghdad, Iraq.
Al-Kindi (801–873 CE)
