MWANAFALSAFA
Ibn Rushd (Averroes)
أبو الوليد محمد بن أحمد بن رشد
- Lifespan
- 1126 – 1198
- Region & background
- Córdoba, al-Andalus — died in Marrakesh (Morocco)
- Intellectual tradition
- Falsafa — Aristotelian philosophy, Maliki jurisprudence, medicine
Key ideas
- Philosophy and revelation, rightly understood, do not contradict each other
- Demonstrative reasoning as the highest form of knowledge
- Different modes of discourse for different audiences
- Careful commentary as a way of preserving and renewing knowledge
Abū al-Walīd Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Rushd was born in Córdoba in 1126 into a family of distinguished jurists. He served as a judge (qāḍī) and as chief physician to the Almohad caliph in Marrakesh. Late in life he fell out of favour, was exiled for a time to Lucena near Córdoba, and died in Marrakesh in 1198.
In The Decisive Treatise he argued that philosophical reasoning is not only permitted but required of those capable of it, and that demonstrated truth cannot contradict revelation. The Incoherence of the Incoherence replies to al-Ghazālī’s critique of the philosophers. His extensive commentaries on Aristotle, in three different formats, made him known in the Latin West as “the Commentator”, while his Primer for the Distinguished Jurist and his General Principles of Medicine show the breadth of his work.
Notable works
- Faṣl al-Maqāl (The Decisive Treatise)
- Tahāfut al-Tahāfut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence)
- Commentaries on Aristotle (short, middle and long)
- Bidāyat al-Mujtahid (The Distinguished Jurist’s Primer)
- Al-Kulliyyāt fī al-Ṭibb (General Principles of Medicine)