Al-Farabi’s Silence: Manzil (Household) in al-Madīna al-Fāżela (The Perfect City)

Al-Farabi is the earliest and the most important political philosopher in the Islamic world and the founder of the idea of Excellent City; meanwhile, he rarely mentions anything on household management in his political writings. In his few references about gender, women, and household, we face incoherence statements which are swing between misogyny and belief of equality between men and women. He also uses some gendered concepts in his metaphysical thoughts about material and form but still does not mention the inferiority of women in creation. Some scholars try to reconstruct his Idea about household management according to the structure of his "excellent city" and self, but others interpreted his silence as a sign of his fear of different kinds of authorities. In this article, I indicate that his fragments and contradicts statements about the household are the proofs that show the household management is a problematic issue to him‏.‏