Rasoul Namazi's Leo Strauss and Islamic Political Thought is a wonderful tour through, well, Leo Strauss's reading of medieval Islamic political philosophy (as well as, or including, the Arabian Nights) and much of the secondary literature surrounding both the reception of Strauss's ideas and methods and the obstruction of such a reception on the part of mainstream historical and philological scholarship. One of the many great virtues and contributions of Namazi's book is that it resists the traditional insularity of Straussian and non-Straussian schools alike, seeking to read with an open mind non- and anti-Straussian scholars while modestly yet confidently making a case for why non-Straussians should read Strauss on Islamic political philosophy.

Of course, the hallmarks of the Straussian approach are well known. They include the claim that the clash between theology and philosophy cannot be reconciled adequately at the level of theory and, therefore, becomes a political problem—the theological-political problem. Thus, Strauss tends to hold that genuine philosophers in the Platonic and Aristotelian tradition(s) cannot be genuine theists in the way that the Bible and Qurʾan require. Therefore, they must be “atheists” in Strauss's somewhat idiosyncratic use of the term. However, to be an atheist, or even a very heterodox or heretic theist, in a theocratic society is exceptionally dangerous. Thus, we arrive at Strauss's famous claim that many medieval philosophers wrote esoterically—they hid their true beliefs and teachings “between the lines” through a variety of rhetorical and literary devices, both to avoid persecution and for the pedagogical purpose of provoking potential philosophers and free-thinkers into a genuinely critical and nondoctrinal reading of their works.

For Namazi's goal of demonstrating to the widest possible audience that Strauss has valuable insights and methods and should not be categorically ignored and erased from scholarly debate, it is thus of some importance that Strauss's basic positions be original and add something to our appreciation of medieval Islamic political philosophers. Foremost among these positions is the claim that they wrote esoterically to mask their actual teachings and that Strauss has given us a guide to reading them between the lines. This is where I pick up, by focusing on the most directly political and theological writings of al-Fārābī. I ask what an esoteric approach to his writings on expressly religious and political matters gives us that an exoteric approach does not.

Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī (d. 339/950) treated political problems more explicitly and extensively over a greater number of texts than any other Muslim thinker until Ibn Khaldūn. These texts include The Principles of the Opinions of the Citizens of the Virtuous City,Footnote ¹ Political Governance,Footnote ² The Attainment of Happiness,Footnote ³ Selected Aphorisms (of the Statesman),Footnote ⁴ Enumeration of the Sciences,Footnote ⁵ Book of Religion,Footnote ⁶ The Harmonization of the Two Opinions of the Two Sages: Plato the Divine and Aristotle,Footnote ⁷ and Summary of Plato's Laws.Footnote ⁸

The question for the Straussian approach defended by Namazi pertains to how explicit and exoteric Fārābī's subordination of revealed religion to philosophy is. We can begin with Fārābī's famous theory of prophecy. Fārābī gives a naturalistic account of prophecy, which was to be profoundly influential on subsequent philosophers, particularly Ibn Sina:

The problem with this from a theological perspective is that prophecy is not a miracle or gift of a free and willing God, but a law-governed phenomenon that could in principle occur at any time that its conditions were met. And yet, this heretical view is presented explicitly and exoterically.

Throughout his writings, Fārābī never really hides his view that the revealed law of Islam (the sharīʿa) and its practical science (fiqh) are marginalized and diminished in comparison to philosophy nor his quite provocative view that “religion” (usually: milla) is at best a public representation through symbolic and affective language of philosophical truth: “the determined opinions in the virtuous religion are either the truth or a likeness of the truth.”Footnote ¹⁰ But even if a virtuous religion asserts opinions that approximate the truth, there is “no link or true congruence between one who has received revelation and who is perfect in theoretical knowledge, and one who has received revelation without having become perfect in theoretical knowledge.”Footnote ¹¹ Religion is a local attempt to direct the multitude (jumhūr) to a close-enough simulacrum of what can be authentically known only by the few through philosophical demonstration (burhān).Footnote ¹²

The purpose of exposing the many to the kinds of images and metaphors that approximate philosophical truth is largely political. It is important for their good that they be ruled in accordance with truth, but it is equally important that they form opinions that induce them to accept their place within a harmoniously organized polis. “The descriptions of the things comprised by the opinions of religion ought to be such as to bring the citizens to imagine everything in the city . . . so that what is described will be likenesses the citizens will follow in their ranks and actions.”Footnote ¹³ There can be many religions that each approximate truth in different ways appropriate for different nations,Footnote ¹⁴ but only one unchanging philosophical truth. In both aspects of religion—its regulation of opinions and of actions—it is subordinate to philosophy.Footnote ¹⁵

The religious sciences are downgraded, without quite being degraded. While there is no path to true virtue and perfection except through theoretical philosophy, the revealed law can be regarded as an acceptable shortcut to the rules one ought to follow: “Another way [other than the true philosophical path] is for someone to be given the practical part by a revelation that directs him toward a determination of each thing that he ought to prefer or avoid.”Footnote ¹⁶ Fārābī regards looking to fiqh for practical guidance as a kind of heteronomous rule-following for those incapable of achieving genuine practical virtue. Elsewhere he suggests that religious law, at its highest, is a locally acceptable way of working out particulars that are undetermined by philosophical universals: “the practical things in religion are those universals made determinate by stipulations restricting them. . . . All virtuous laws are subordinate to the universals of practical philosophy.”Footnote ¹⁷

If medieval philosophers in the Islamic and Jewish traditions often sought to express heterodox and heretical ideas by writing esoterically, my question for Namazi is: With esotericists like al-Fārābī, who needs exotericists?