Ma`rifat Farhangi Ejtemaei

This study aims to reexamine the relationship between "lifestyle" and "progress" in the intellectual system of Abu Nasr al-Farabi. Despite the widespread use of the two aforementioned concepts in contemporary humanities literature, most of their interpretations are based on secular anthropological and teleological foundations, and less attention has been paid to the framework of Islamic philosophy and the Muslim jurisprudential tradition. This descriptive-analytical study, based on Farabi's main works, especially Arada Ahl al-Madinah al-Fadilah and Al-Siasa al-Madinah, shows that in Farabi's thought, "happiness" is the ultimate goal of human life and the criterion for measuring the correctness or incorrectness of any individual and collective life model. From his perspective, a virtuous lifestyle is a set of voluntary actions and qualities that lead a person towards happiness, and when these styles lead to cooperation and harmony at the social level, the progress of society is realized. Farabi's typology of non-virtuous cities shows that lifestyles based on pleasure-seeking, wealth-seeking, power-seeking, or merely meeting essential needs hinder society from moving towards perfection and true progress. The findings of the research show that in Farabi's thought, progress is the result of the convergence of moral values, cultural preferences, and everyday actions towards the ultimate goal of happiness. This approach can provide a theoretical basis for rethinking the Islamic-Iranian pattern of progress and explaining the role of lifestyle in it based on the declaration of the second step of the revolution.