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THE PERIOD FROM AL-FARABI to Ibn Rush'd is arguably the time of the greatest philosophical debate, if not achievement, within Islamic thought. Whether Islamic reflection on revealed law can accept the Greek notion of essence is central to this debate and to the question of tolerance; indeed, the various positions taken with regard to essence determine the nature and limits of political tolerance. The most tolerant position is the complete political rejection of essence and religion in Al-Farabi's second-best option of democracy. Least tolerant is Al-Ghazali's religiously motivated rejection of essence. The philosophical affirmation of essence by Al-Farabi (his preferred position) and Ibn Rush'd allows for toleration of rehgion as an inferior but necessary way of life for most human beings. Since both AlFarabi's democracy and his political regime based on essence achieve varying degrees of tolerance by subordinating rehgion, the choice is between tolerance and the superiority of rehgion; that is, all agree that it is not possible to reconcile the supremacy of religion with a broad political tolerance.
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Al-Farabi. Al-Farabi (870-950 A.D.) consciously adopts the Greek notion of essence. It is "Greek" inasmuch as he sees Plato and Aristotle as having one philosophy, precisely because essence is that which unifies human intellects. According to Al-Farabi, the question of tolerance, like the questions of politics in general, centers on the natural differences among human beings in their ability to grasp essence. Very few - only philosophers - attain essence; most people are limited to images of intelligible reality:
Most men, either by nature or by habit, are unable to comprehend and cognize those things; and these are the men for whom one ought to represent the manner in which the principles of the beings, their ranks of order, the Active Intellect, and the supreme rulership, exist through things that are imitations of them.2
Since essence is one, philosophers must be in agreement with each other; since images can only be like but never be the essence, there is no one, true image, and the necessary plurality of images means that nonphilosophers can never reach the consensus of philosophers.3 The particularity, mutabihty, and contingency of images can only produce an approximation of the unity rooted in the universality, immutability, and necessity of essence.
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