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'Ibn Rushd' (Arabic: 'ابن رشد'), known as 'Averroes' (1126 – December 10, 1198), was an Andalusian-Arab philosopher, physician, and polymath: a master of philosophy, Islamic law, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, physics, and science. 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 'Abu al-Walid Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd' 'أبو الوليد محمد 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''.

Contents

Biography

Works

Commentaries on Aristotle

Commentary on Plato

Independent philosophical works

Islamic law

Medicine

Translations

Opinions

Philosophy

Psychology

Astronomy

Geography

Physics

Significance

Cultural influences

See also

References

Further reading

External links

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 Abu Yaqub Yusuf, 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. 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 Abu Yusuf Ya'qub 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.

Works

Commentaries on Aristotle

He wrote commentaries on most of the surviving works of Aristotle. These were not based on primary sources (it is not known whether he knew Greek), but rather on Arabic translations. On each work, he wrote the ''Jami'', the ''Talkhis'' and the ''Tafsir'' which are, respectively, a simplified overview, an intermediate commentary with more critical material, and an advanced study of Aristotelian thought in a Muslim context. The terms are taken from the names of different types of commentary on the Qur'an.

Commentary on Plato

He did not have access to any text of Aristotle's ''Politics''. As a substitute for this, he commented on Plato's ''Republic'', arguing that the state there described was the same as the original constitution of the Arabs.

Independent philosophical works

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''). Al-Ghazali argued that Aristotelianism, especially as presented in the writings of Avicenna, was self-contradictory and an affront to the teachings of Islam. Averroes' rebuttal was two-pronged: he contended both that al-Ghazali's arguments were mistaken and that, in any case, the system of Avicenna was a distortion of genuine Aristotelianism so that al-Ghazali was aiming at the wrong target.
Other works were the ''Fasl al-Maqal'', which argued for the legality of philosophical investigation under Islamic law, and the ''Kitab al-Kashf''.

Islamic 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.

Medicine

In medicine, Averroes wrote a medical encyclopedia called ''Kulliyat'' ("Generalities", i.e. general medicine), known in its Latin translation as ''Colliget''. He also made a compilation of the works of Galen (129-200) and wrote a commentary on ''The Canon of Medicine'' (''Qanun fi 't-tibb'') of Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980-1037).

Translations

Jacob Anatoli translated several of the works of Averroes from Arabic into Hebrew in the 1200s. Many of them were later translated from Hebrew into Latin by Jacob Mantino and Abraham de Balmes. Other works were translated directly from Arabic into Latin by Michael Scot. Many of his works in logic and metaphysics have been permanently lost, while others, including some of the longer Aristotelian commentaries, have only survived in Latin or Hebrew translation, not in the original Arabic. The fullest version of his works is in Latin, and forms part of the multi-volume Juntine edition of Aristotle published in Venice 1562-1574.

Opinions

Philosophy

Main articles: Averroism

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.

Psychology

H. Chad Hillier writes the following on Averroes' contributions to psychology:^[2]

Astronomy

In astronomy, Averroes rejected the eccentric deferents introduced by Ptolemy. He rejected the Ptolemaic model and instead argued for a strictly concentric model of the universe. He wrote the following criticism on the Ptolemaic model of planetary motion:^[3]
Averroes also argued that the Moon is opaque and , and has some parts which are thicker than others, with the thicker parts receiving more light from the Sun than the thinner parts of the Moon.^[4] He also gave one of the first descriptions on sunspots.^[5]

Geography

In geography, Averroes was one of the first to predict the existence of a new world beyond the Atlantic Ocean.

Physics

In Averroes' commentary on Aristotle's ''Physics'', he commented on the theory of motion proposed by Ibn Bajjah (Avempace) in Text 71, and also made his own contributions to physics and mechanics.
Averroes was the first to define and measure force as "the rate at which work is done in changing the kinetic condition of a material body"^[6] and the first to correctly argue "that the effect and measure of force is change in the kinetic condition of a materially resistant mass."^[7]

Significance

Averroes is most famous for his translations and commentaries of Aristotle's works, which had been mostly forgotten in the West, and for his early secular thought. 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 became more widely known in the medieval West.
Averroes' separation of reason and religion in ''The Decisive Treatise'' provided a justification for the doctrine of separation of religion and state, thus Averroism is considered by some writers as a precursor to modern secularism,^[8][9] and the founding father of secular thought in Western Europe.
George Sarton, the father of the history of science, writes:
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.

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.

See also

★ List of Arab scientists and scholars

★ List of Islamic studies scholars

★ Aquinas

★ Maimonides

References

1. http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=227091077594594
2. H. Chad Hillier (2006). Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (1126 - 1198 CE), ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy''.
3. Owen Gingerich (April 1986). "Islamic astronomy", ''Scientific American'' '254' (10), p. 74.
4. Roger Ariew (1992). "Theory of Comets at Paris During the Seventeenth Century", ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' '53' (3), p. 355-372.
5. Prof. Hamed A. Ead, Averroes As A Physician, University of Cairo.
6. Ernest A. Moody (June 1951). "Galileo and Avempace: The Dynamics of the Leaning Tower Experiment (II)", ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' '12' (3), p. 375-422 [375].
7. Ernest A. Moody (June 1951). "Galileo and Avempace: The Dynamics of the Leaning Tower Experiment (II)", ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' '12' (3), p. 375-422 [380].
8. Abdel Wahab El Messeri. Episode 21: Ibn Rushd, ''Everything you wanted to know about Islam but was afraid to Ask'', ''Philosophia Islamica''.
9. Fauzi M. Najjar (Spring, 1996). The debate on Islam and secularism in Egypt, ''Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ)''.

Further reading

★ Averroes On Plato's Republic, , Translated by Ralph Lerner, Averroes, Cornell University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-8014-8975-X

★ Averroes and the Metaphysics of Causation, , Barry S., Kogan, SUNY Press, 1985, ISBN 0-88706-063-3

★ Averroes and his philosophy, , Olivier, Leaman, Routledge, , ISBN 0-7007-0675-5

★ Averroes and the Aristotelian Heritage, , Carmela, Baffioni, Guida Editori, 2004, ISBN 88-7188-862-6

External links

★ Averroes, ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', most recent edition, full-article click "next page".

★

★ Averroes, Islamic Philosophy Online

★ Averroes Database, including full bibliography of his works

★ Averroes Foundation for Faith and Reason in Islam

★ "Averroes", BBC Radio 4 discussion, 5th October 2006, "In Our Time" programme.

★ Averroes at ''The Online Library of Liberty''