Al-Kindī was the first thinker in the Islamic world to think of himself as a “philosopher” (in Arabic faylasūf), a proud heir to the wisdom of the Greeks. He played a crucial role in the transmission of Greek science and philosophy into Arabic, and was honored with the epithet “philosopher of the Arabs.” None of which prevented him from falling prey to a court intrigue during the reign of Mutawakkil in the middle of the ninth century CE. Thanks to the conniving of rival scholars, al-Kindī fell from favour and was beaten, and his library was confiscated. I like to think that in this testing moment, he was able to put into practice what he preached in a little treatise he composed called “How to Dispel Sorrow.”