Ibn Miskawayh
Islamic · Middle East · 932 to 1030
Persian scholar who wrote Tahdhib al-akhlaq, a major Islamic work on philosophical ethics, and a universal history.
What it is
Ibn Miskawayh was a Persian philosopher and historian who died in 1030 at Ray. The sources give his birth as about 930 or 932, so the exact year is not settled. His most notable contributions were in ethics and in history.
He wrote about how to live well and about the past. His moral book Tahdhib al-akhlaq and his universal history Tajarib al-umam are the two works both sources name, and the later philosopher Nasir al-Din Tusi is named in both as someone he influenced.
The main ideas
- A treatise on ethics. His book Tahdhib al-akhlaq is a major work of his in philosophy, and it deals above all with ethics.
- History with a lesson. His universal history, Tajarib al-umam, is one of his major works, and a long history of peoples.
- A thinker others built on. Nasir al-Din Tusi, a later philosopher, is named as someone he influenced.
What it looks like in practice
Imagine someone who notices that they lose their temper whenever they are tired. A book on the refinement of character would ask them to treat this as a matter of daily conduct and not of fate, and to look at what they do over time. Such a person might notice which hours of the day are hardest, which small habits make the anger worse, and which ones make it easier to meet the next difficult conversation calmly. Over weeks, the book's approach would be to change the habits first and expect the temper to follow. This is an illustration of the kind of question an ethics of character raises, not a passage from his writing.
Books and moments
- Tahdhib al-akhlaq is his moral treatise.
- Tajarib al-umam is his universal history.
- His death in 1030 came at Ray, and fixes the end of a life that began around 930.
Questions and criticism
- Which tradition? It is fair to ask which Greek schools shaped his ethics, and whether their parts can be told apart.
- Who converted? It is said that he came to Islam from the old religion of Persia, but accounts differ on whether this was he or one of his ancestors.
- How much do we know? It is fair to ask how far his books can stand in for a biography, since the pages that describe him differ on his birth year and on who converted.
Close neighbours
The pages on Aristotle and Plato show two accounts of virtue that can be set beside his. The page on Averroes shows another philosopher of the Islamic world, and the page on Tusi shows the later thinker who followed his model.
Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 29 October 2026. The sources are listed below.
Who they connect to
Influenced
- Nasir al-Din al-Tusi · Tusi built his book on ethics on the earlier work of Miskawayh.
Influenced by
- Aristotle · His ethics follows Aristotle's account of virtue as a mean between extremes.
Other Islamic thinkers
- Al-Kindi · 801 to 873
- Al-Razi · 865 to 925
- Al-Farabi · 872 to 950
- Ibn Sina (Avicenna) · 980 to 1037
- Al-Ghazali · 1058 to 1111
- Ibn Tufayl · 1105 to 1185
- Averroes (Ibn Rushd) · 1126 to 1198
- Suhrawardi · 1154 to 1191
- Ibn Arabi · 1165 to 1240
- Nasir al-Din al-Tusi · 1201 to 1274
Sources we used
- Miskawayh · Wikipedia, read on 29 October 2026
- Ibn Miskawayh · Encyclopaedia Britannica, read on 29 October 2026