Plato's teaching in the Laws and al-Fārābī's Nawāmīs

For all the testimonies of the ancient sources, the dialogue called Laws contains the last words of Plato. For that reason alone, it is legitimate to delve into the Laws for the final judgment of this great philosopher on many subjects that are specifically political. However, both in the ancient world and in modern academic literature the Laws is usually overshadowed by Politeia. Perhaps the only exception to this tendency in the pre-modern world is al-Fārābī and his work entitled Nawāmīs. Commenting only on the Laws among the dialogues of Plato, al-Fārābī initiates the revival of the philosophical teaching of the Laws in the Arabic-speaking world. Yet, al-Fārābī's attempt to revive Platonic political philosophy seems cloudy for several reasons. This indistinctness has led some scholars of al-Fārābī to read Nawāmīs as an insignificant text and an unsuccessful repetition of the Laws. Criticizing this reading, other scholars rendered the Nawāmīs as a text reproducing the way of speech in the dialogues in a context introduced by monotheistic religions. However, none of the studies centered around Nawāmīs has yet presented clearly the teaching of the Laws, neither used as a standard for Nawāmīs nor determined strictly the place in the political philosophy of al-Fārābī. In this study, the teaching of the Laws is presented through the general outline the Athenian Stranger set forth for a second-best city. This general outline can be stated as follows: Laws should be divine and deities should serve the end of laws. In addition to the attempt to expound Plato's teaching in the Laws, the traces of the dialogue are tracked down in the ancient world through Aristotle, Cicero, Philo of Alexandria, and Olympiodorus. Then, the condition of the Laws in Arabic is determined and Nawāmīs is analyzed in all its aspects as being a text on the Laws. This analysis of the Nawāmīs ultimately aims to show how and to what extent al-Fārābī succeeds the teaching in the Laws as well as how he become distinct from his predecessors in the ancient world.