ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book explores the ethical and political thought of Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi and his contemporaries, including their concepts of friendship and love. It offers a revision of al-Tawhidi's background and role in his society. He has been seen by some, like Kraemer, almost as a romantic figure, a man alienated from his society, rejecting the constraints of traditional Muslim beliefs, and even the basic tenets of Islam. Al-Tawhidi drew upon Greek sources, especially Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and his definition of a friend as a second self, but his concept of friendship was not the same as that developed by Aristotle. In a collection of essays titled Friendship and Politics: Essays in Political Thought, the contributors argue for the inescapable relationship between friendship and politics, and the interconnectedness of public a.
