AN EVALUATION OF AL-FARABI’S PERFECT CITY AND THE CONCEPT OF CIVIL SOCIETY

This research sets out on a Critical Evaluation of Al-Farabi's Concept of Perfect City and Civil Society. Perfect City (is often referred to as Virtuous City), which According to Al-Farabi, is an "Ideal State". Al-Farabi's work on the concept of the "Perfect City" and "Civil Society" is primarily contained in his book titled Al-Madina al-Fadila which has a direct translation to mean "The Virtuous City". Al-Farabi describes the structure of the Virtuous City, governed by philosopher-kings who ensure justice and well-being of citizens. He presents the city as the reflection of the moral and intellectual development of its citizens. The Ideal Society, according to Al-Farabi, is one where the citizens live in harmony and pursue of virtue. The ruler or philosopher-king, leads the city with wisdom, and the city's structure is meant to promote the common good. His ideal society is a Virtuous City, that is, a reasonable social order or institution, where human morality reigns over its ideals. Perfect city is a city of virtues, it is the existence of man as a moral being. For Al-Farabi, Morality is the person’s good actions, his place in the moral and in human relationships. According to Al-Farabi’s arguments, the morality and moral life is the ultimate goal of an individual and state, while the politics is only a means to achieve this goals. In order to obtain the set goals; this research adopts and employs qualitative method. This work found out that, the ideal state cannot really be actualize in this contemporary time, which in Al-Madina al-Fadila, Al-Farabi proposes his vision of an ideal society, where the ruler and citizens work harmoniously to achieve virtue, justice, and collective well-being. Regarding the nature of method of data analysis and presentation; the historical, analytic and evaluative method shall be employed. The historical method shall be used to reveal the historical background around Al-Farabi and his thoughts; the analytic method shall be used to critically analyzed the concepts and thoughts of Al-Farabi on Perfect City and Civil Society; and the evaluative method shall be used to evaluate the diverse postulations and the Perspectives of Al-Farabi concerning Perfect City and the Concept of Civil Society.