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Ibn Rushd

Ibn Rushd

1126 CE–1198 CE · Cordoba

Ibn Rushd, known in Latin Europe as Averroes, was a jurist, physician, and philosopher of the Islamic West (al-Andalus). He was born in Cordoba in 520 AH / 1126 CE into a distinguished family of judges: both his grandfather and his father served as qadi (Islamic judge) of Cordoba, and the family was renowned in the Maliki school of law. He trained in hadith (reports of the Prophet's words and deeds), jurisprudence, theology, and medicine.

Under the Almohad dynasty he rose to high office, serving as qadi of Seville (reportedly from 1169) and later chief qadi of Cordoba, the post his grandfather had held, and as court physician at Marrakesh. According to the standard biographical tradition, the philosopher Ibn Tufayl introduced him to the caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf, who asked him to clarify the works of Aristotle; the resulting commentaries became his enduring legacy, later shaping Latin Christian and Jewish thought.

In philosophy he is best known for the "Tahafut al-Tahafut" (The Incoherence of the Incoherence), a point-by-point reply to al-Ghazali's critique of the philosophers, and for the "Fasl al-Maqal," arguing that revelation and demonstrative reason cannot truly conflict. Whether his harmonization succeeded was, and remains, contested among Muslim scholars. Late in life he fell from favor under the caliph al-Mansur and was banished to Lucena; he was soon recalled and died at Marrakesh in 595 AH / 1198 CE. His body was later reburied in Cordoba.

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Did you know?

  • Three thinkers, one Spanish city

    The philosopher Ibn Rushd (known in Latin Europe as Averroes) and the philosopher-physician Maimonides were born about twelve years apart in the same city, Córdoba, in the 12th century. A generation later, Thomas Aquinas, born 27 years after Ibn Rushd's death, engaged so closely with his Aristotle commentaries that Latin scholars called Ibn Rushd simply "the Commentator."

    How we know

    Ibn Rushd b. 1126 Córdoba, d. 1198; Maimonides b. 1138 (some sources 1135) Córdoba, d. 1204 (born ~12 yrs apart, same city); Thomas Aquinas b. 1225, d. 1274 (1225−1198 = 27 yrs after Ibn Rushd's death); scholastics titled Averroes "the Commentator."

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Stop 1 of 61126Born / Studied / Family Of Judges

CordobaקורדובהAl-Andalus, Spain

What they did here

Born in Cordoba in 520 AH/1126 CE into a leading Maliki juristic family; his grandfather (d. 1126) was chief qadi of Cordoba and a famed jurist, and his father was also a prominent judge. He trained there in hadith, jurisprudence, theology, and medicine. (SEP; IEP)

About Cordoba

Córdoba, on the Guadalquivir in Andalusia, southern Spain, came under Roman rule in the 3rd century BCE and, as Colonia Patricia, became capital of the province of Baetica; Seneca was a native. Taken by Muslim forces in 711 or 712, it became the seat of the Umayyad emirate founded by Abd al-Rahman I in 756 and of the caliphate proclaimed in 929, which ended in 1031. Its Great Mosque was begun in the 780s. The city was the birthplace of the Islamic scholars Ibn Hazm, Ibn Rushd (Averroes), later its chief judge, and the Quran commentator al-Qurtubi, and of the Jewish philosopher Maimonides (usually dated 1138). Ferdinand III of Castile captured Córdoba in 1236, and the mosque became a cathedral.

Across the traditions, in Cordoba at the same time

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In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Ibn Rushd’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Ibn Rushd’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(20)