Abstract
Guards’ (Prtotectors) Status in Averroes’ Political Philosophy
It is certain that Alfarabi was the one who wrote the first piece related
to political philosophy. He was the first philosophers who tried to reconcile political
philosophy with Islamic thought. With his political theory presented for this purpose,
Alfarabi had an impact on Islamic political philosop as well as Averros, who followed
him. However, altuougth Averroes was affected by Alfarabi on this subjects, he managed
to present a political theory, which different and surpassed Alfarabi’s. Averroes’ political
philosophy is the subject that attracts attention mostly following Alfarabi political
philosophy. While Averroes annotating Plato’s Republic, one of the subjects that hediscusses is related with the education of guards in virtuous society. Virtuous guards
provide a basis for the stability of the state. According to him, when guards are educated
well, each one of them becomes violent and merciful persons. Otherwise every one of
the changes into a wolf and causes serious damage in their own society. In this study,
based on Plato's commentary; it was tried to evaluate the education of the guards whom
Averroes dealt with in the context of virtues.
Keywords
Virtue, Valiant, State, Society, Guard.
