NOVELLA ON IRANIAN PHILOSOPHER PUBLISHED IN ARMENIA

Tehran Times
Feb 17 2010

TEHRAN — A novella on Iranian philosopher Abu Nasr Farabi or Avennasar
has recently been published in Armenia, the Islamic Culture and
Relations Organization announced on Wednesday.

The book entitled "Farabi" was introduced in Yerevan last week during a
ceremony attended by its translator Emma Begijanian, Iranian ambassador
to Armenia and a number of cultural figures from the two countries.

The Persian version of book was authored in 2004 in Iran by Abbas
Jahangiri, who didn’t attend the ceremony.

"Farabi" is to be published in Kazakhstan in the near future.

Jahangirian’s Armenian version of "Hamun and the Sea" was published
in Armenia in 2007. The book was translated by Andranik Khechumian.

A Muslim philosopher and a prominent musician, Farabi (c. 878-950)
was regarded in the Arab world as the greatest philosophical authority
after Aristotle.

Farabi’s philosophical thinking was nourished in the heritage of the
Arabic Aristotelian teachings of 10th-century Baghdad, the Encyclopedia
Britannica says.

His great service to Islam was to take the Greek heritage, as it had
become known to the Arabs, and show how it could be used to answer
questions with which Muslims were struggling.

Photo: The Persian version of "Farabi"