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Al-Kindi

Islamic
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Al-Kindi was born in Kufa and educated in Baghdad during the early Abbasid caliphate. He worked at the House of Wisdom, supervising translations of Greek texts into Arabic. He wrote over 250 works on philosophy, mathematics, medicine, music, and optics. He argued that philosophy and revelation are compatible paths to truth, and that studying the ancients is not impiety but obligation. Later generations called him the first philosopher of the Islamic world.

c. 801 CE·Kufa

Born in Kufa

Born into an aristocratic Arab family in Kufa, a garrison city in southern Iraq. His father was governor of the city. He belonged to the Kinda tribe, one of the most prominent in pre-Islamic Arabia.

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