Citizen of the World: Al-Farabi's Cosmopolitanism

The early Greek Cynic, Diogenes, when asked where he came from simply replied: kosmopolitēs - ‘I am a citizen of the world’. The ethical and political paradigm of cosmopolitanism is often exclusively attributed to the ancient schools of Cynicism and Stoicism. Cosmopolitanism is commonly assumed to have reached an impasse throughout the Middle Ages, only to resurface during the Enlightenment with the political philosophies of Hugo Grotius, Adam Smith, and Immanuel Kant. However, the politica...