Averroes
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| Middle Eastern Philosophers Medieval Philosophy |
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 Ibn Rushd
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| Name: | Ibn Rushd (also known in European litterature as Averroes) |
| Birth: | 1126 (Cordoba, Al-Andalus) |
| Death: | 10 December 1198 (Marrakech, Morocco) |
| School/tradition: | Maliki |
| Main interests: | Islamic theology, Islamic law, Mathematics, Medicine |
| Notable ideas: | Reconciliation of Aristotelianism with Islam |
| Influences: | Aristotle, Muhammad |
| Influenced: | Siger de Brabant, Boetius of Dacia, Thomas Aquinas |
Ibn Rushd , Arabic (ابن رشد), known as Averroes (1126 – December 10, 1198), was an Andalusian-Arab philosopher and physician, a master of philosophy and Islamic law, mathematics, and medicine. He was born in Cordoba, Spain, and died in Marrakech, Morocco. His school of philosophy is known as Averroism.
His name is also seen as Averroès, Averroës or Averrhoës, indicating that the o and the e form separate syllables. In Arabic (the language in which he wrote), his name is Abul Walid Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd أبو الوليد محمد بن احمد بن محمد بن احمد بن احمد بن رشد or just Ibn Rushd. In modern Tamazight (the language of the Almohad Khalifs) it would be Muḥemmed mmis n Ḥmed mmis n Muḥemmed mmis n Ḥmed mmis n Rucd.
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[edit] Biography
Ibn Rushd came from a family of Maliki legal scholars; his grandfather Abu Al-Walid Muhammad (d. 1126) was chief judge of Cordoba under the Almoravids. His father, Abu Al-Qasim Ahmad, held the same position until the coming of the Almohad dynasty in 1146. It was Ibn Tufail ("Abubacer" to the West), the philosophic vizier of Almohad Caliph Yusef al-Mansur, who introduced Averroes to the court and to Avenzoar (Ibn Zuhr), the great Muslim physician; both men became friends. In 1160 Ibn Rushd (Averroes) was made Qadi of Seville and he served in many court appointments in Seville and Cordoba, and in Morocco during his career.
He wrote commentaries on Aristotle, a medical encyclopedia, and he compiled works of Galen and his major medical treatise was Kulliat (General Medicine) which incorporated portions of Ibn Sina’s (980-1037) Qanun fi at-tibb (Canon of Medicine) as supplemented by his own contributions. His commentaries on Aristotle were not based on primary sources, but rather Arabic translations. And his writings were divided into two groups, one being the personal writings, entitled Tahafut at-Tahafut, Kitab al-Kashf, and Fasl al-Maqal, and the other group was the commentarities on the works of Aristotle. Ibn Rushd wrote The Jami, The Talkhis, and TheTafsir which are, respectively, a simplified overview, an intermediate commentary with more critical material, and an advanced study of Aristotelian thought in a Muslim context. Jacob Anatoli translated his works from Arabic to Hebrew in the 1200s. His most important original philosophical work was The Incoherence of the Incoherence (Tahafut al-tahafut), in which he defended Aristotelian philosophy against al-Ghazali's claims in The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-falasifa), himself arguing against the earlier Aristotelian, Avicenna, that it was self-contradictory and an affront to the teachings of Islam. At the end of the 12th century, following the Almohads conquest of Al-Andalus, his political career was ended. Averroes' strictly rationalist views which collided with those of Islamic orthodoxy had caused Yusef al-Mansur to banish him though he had previously appointed him his personal physician. Averroes was not rehabilitated until shortly before his death. He devoted the rest of his life to his philosophical writings. Many of his works in logic and metaphysics have been permanently lost. Some of his works have only survived in Latin or Hebrew translation, not in the original Arabic.
[edit] System of philosophy
Averroes tried to reconcile Aristotle's system of thought with Islam. According to him, there is no conflict between religion and philosophy, rather that they are different ways of reaching the same truth. He believed in the eternity of the universe. He also held that the soul is divided into two parts, one individual and one divine; while the individual soul is not eternal, all humans at the basic level share one and the same divine soul. Averroes has two kinds of Knowledge of Truth. The first being his knowledge of truth of religion being based in faith and thus could not be tested, nor did it require training to understand. The second knowledge of truth is philosophy, which was reserved for an elite few who had the intellectual capacity to undertake its study.
[edit] Significance
Averroes is most famous for his translations and commentaries of Aristotle's works, which had been mostly forgotten in the West. Before 1150 only a few translated works of Aristotle existed in Latin Europe, and they were not studied much or given much credence by monastic scholars. It was through the Latin translations of Averroes's work beginning in the 12th century that the legacy of Aristotle was recovered in the West.
Averroes's work on Aristotle spans almost three decades, and he wrote commentaries on almost all of Aristotle's work except for Aristotle's Politics, to which he did not have access. Hebrew translations of his work also had a lasting impact on Jewish philosophy. His ideas were assimilated by Siger of Brabant and Thomas Aquinas and others (especially in the University of Paris) within the Christian scholastic tradition which valued Aristotelian logic. Famous scholastics such as Aquinas believed him to be so important they did not refer to him by name, simply calling him "The Commentator" and calling Aristotle "The Philosopher." Averroes also greatly influenced philosophy in the Islamic world. His death coincides with a change in the culture of Al-Andalus. In his work Fasl al-Maqāl (translated a. o. as The Decisive Treatise), he stresses the importance of analytical thinking as a prerequisite to interpret the Qur'an; this is in contrast to orthodox Muslim theology, where the emphasis is less on analytical thinking but on extensive knowledge of sources other than the Qur'an, i.e. the hadith.
Averroes's treatise on Plato's Republic has played a major role in both the transmission and the adaptation of the Platonic tradition in the West. It has been a primary source in medieval political philosophy.
Averroes was one of those who predicted the existence of a new world beyond the Atlantic Ocean. [1]
[edit] Jurisprudence and law
Averroes is also a highly-regarded legal scholar of the Maliki school. Perhaps his best-known work in this field is "Bidāyat al-Mujtahid wa Nihāyat al-Muqtaṣid," a textbook of Maliki doctrine in a comparative framework. He is also the author of "al-Bayān wa’l-Taḥṣīl, wa’l-Sharḥ wa’l-Tawjīh wa’l-Ta`līl fi Masā’il al-Mustakhraja," a long and detailed commentary based on the "Mustakhraja" of Muḥammad al-`Utbī al-Qurtubī.
[edit] Cultural influences
Reflecting the respect which medieval European scholars paid to him, Averroes is named by Dante in The Divine Comedy with the great pagan philosophers whose spirits dwell in "the place that favor owes to fame" in Limbo.
Averroes appears in a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, entitled "Averroes's Search", in which he is portrayed trying to find the meanings of the words tragedy and comedy. He is briefly mentioned in the novel Ulysses by James Joyce alongside Maimonides. He appears to be waiting outside the walls of the ancient city of Cordoba in Alamgir Hashmi's poem In Cordoba. He is also the main character in Destiny, a Youssef Chahine film. The asteroid 8318 Averroes was named in his honor.
[edit] See also
[edit] Further reading
- Averroes, Translated by Ralph Lerner (2005). Averroes On Plato's Republic. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8975-X.
- Kogan, Barry S. (1985). Averroes and the Metaphysics of Causation. SUNY Press. ISBN 0-88706-063-3.
- Leaman, Olivier. Averroes and his philosophy. Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-0675-5.
- Baffioni, Carmela (2004). Averroes and the Aristotelian Heritage. Guida Editori. ISBN 88-7188-862-6.
[edit] External links
- Averroes, Encyclopedia Britannica, most recent edition, full-article click "next page".
- Averroes, Catholic Encyclopedia (1913).
- Averroes, Islamic Philosophy Online
- Averroes Database
- Averroes Foundation for Faith and Reason in Islam
- "Averroes", BBC Radio 4 discussion, 5th October 2006, "In Our Time" programme.
| This article is part of the Medieval Philosophers series |
| Augustine of Hippo | Boëthius | John Scotus Eriugena | Rhazes | Roscelin | Avicenna | Algazel | Anselm of Canterbury | Bernard of Chartres | Peter Abélard | Gilbert de la Porrée | Hugh of St. Victor | Richard of St. Victor | Maimonides | Alexander of Hales | Averroës | Alain de Lille | Robert Grosseteste | Albertus Magnus | Roger Bacon | Bonaventure | Thomas Aquinas | Ramon Llull | Godfrey of Fontaines | Henry of Ghent | Giles of Rome | John Duns Scotus | William of Ockham | Jean Buridan | Nicole Oresme | George Gemistos Plethon | Johannes Bessarion | Francisco de Vitoria |
