Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (d. 757/8 CE) was one of the most important thinkers writing in Arabic. Translating and adapting late antique wisdom texts from Middle Persian, he was a foundational author of Arabic prose and Islamic political advice literature. His oeuvre is also of prime importance for the history of religious thought. He was amongst the first authors to integrate the Middle Persian political advice literature of the Sāsānian Empire into the budding Islamic civilisation. This Sasanian political advice literature was permeated by elements of Greek as well as Indian philosophy, and Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ was a pioneer in introducing these materials into Islam and applying them with outstanding originality to the new context. Kalīla wa-Dimna is the book of political advice literature par excellence, and one of the most transculturally celebrated books in history. The book itself narrates the story of its creation in India and of its translation into Middle Persian. The collection includes the fables of the Sanskrit Panchatantra and further chapters and introductions. Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s Arabic version is the source of a multitude of variants in Arabic and of translations into over forty literary languages of Europe and the Islamic world, ranging from Spain to Malaysia. However, as modern scholars of philosophy tend to disregard advice literature, its importance as a living carrier of philosophical ideas and practical philosophy has been neglected. Authors of advice literature were as much original thinkers as ‘proper’ philosophers, and they were often considerably more influential. In fact, the distinction between the two fields is more a product of modern academia than a reflection of the intention of the authors, or of the reception of their contemporaries. The aim of this talk is to demonstrate that Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s oeuvre is a prime example of the osmosis between philosophy and advice literature and that Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ presented Kalīla wa-Dimna as a book of philosophy enveloped into entertaining stories. His pioneering contribution to the introduction of philosophy into Islamic civilisation is even more significant considering that Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ was murdered approximately a century before the death of al-Kindī, labelled ‘the first Arab philosopher’.