In Chapter 4, Abū Yūsuf al-Kindī
Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb b. Isḥāq b. al-Ṣabbāḥ belonged to a family of the ancient Arab tribe of the Kinda. His ancestor al-Ašʿaṯ b. Qays (d. ca. 40/661), a companion of the Prophet Muḥammad, played an important role in early Islamic history. The family line could be traced back to the legendary south-Arabian forefather Qaḥṭān. This gave al-Kindī, the ‘Philosopher of the Arabs’ (faylasūf al-ʿArab), a distinctive nobility amidst the scholars involved in the transmission of the sciences, who were largely of Iranian and Christian-Aramaic descent.
A…