Ibn Rushd, Abu‘l-Walid Muhammad
Ibn Rushd, Abu‘l-Walid Muhammad (Abu‘l-Walid Muhammad ibn Rushd) (Abul-Waleed Muhammad ibn Rushd) (Averroes) (1126 - December 10, 1198). Muslim philosopher, physician, Maliki jurist, and Ash'ari theologian. .
Abū 'l-Walīd Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd, better known just as Ibn Rushd, and in European literature as Averroes, was an Andalusian-Arab Muslim polymath: a master of Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music theory, and the sciences of medicine, astronomy, geography, mathematics, physics and celestial mechanics. He was born in Córdoba, Al Andalus, modern day Spain, and died in Marrakech, modern day Morocco. His school of philosophy is known as Averroism. He has been described as the founding father of secular thought in Western Europe.
Ibn Rushd was born in Cordoba, Spain, and would spend all of his life in Muslim Spain. His father, a judge in Cordoba, instructed Ibn Rushd in Muslim jurisprudence. In his native city, he also studied theology, philosophy, and mathematics under the Arab philosopher Ibn Tufayl (d.1185) and medicine under the Arab physician Avenzoar (c.1090-1162).
Ibn Rushd was appointed judge in Seville in 1169 and in Cordoba in 1171. In 1182, he succeeded Ibn Tufayl and became chief physician to Abu Yaqub Yusuf, the Almohad caliph of Morocco and Muslim Spain (Andalusia). During the reign of Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur (1184-1199), Ibn Rushd was exiled (in 1195) because of his view that reason takes precedence over religion. He was restored to favor shortly before his death. He died in Marrakesh, from where his body was later brought to Cordoba.
Ibn Rushd’s fields of study were the Qur’anic sciences and the natural sciences, including physics, medicine, biology and astronomy, as well as theology and philosophy. Only a small number of his works in Arabic survive, the majority having been preserved in Latin and Hebrew translations.
Ibn Rushd held that metaphysical truths can be expressed in two ways: through philosophy, as represented by the views of Aristotle, and through religion, which is truth presented in a form that the ordinary person can understand. Although Ibn Rushd did not actually propound the existence of two kinds of truth, philosophical and religious, his view was interpreted in that way by Christian thinkers, who called it the theory of “double truth.”
Ibn Rushd rejected the concept of a creation of the world in the history of time. Instead, he maintained that the world has no beginning. God is the “prime mover,” the self-moved force that stimulates all motion, who transforms the potential into the actual. The individual human soul emanates from the one universal soul.
Ibn Rushd’s extensive commentaries on the works of Aristotle were translated into Latin and Hebrew and greatly influenced the Scholastic school of philosophy in medieval Europe and medieval Jewish philosophy. Ibn Rushd’s main independent work was Tahafut al-Tahafut (Incoherence of the Incoherence), a rebuttal of the attack on Neo-platonic and Aristotelian philosophy by the Islamic theologian al-Ghazzali.
In his philosophical works, Ibn Rushd attacked both Ibn Sina’s and al-Ghazzali’s solutions to major problems. Ibn Rushd’s most notable achievement, the Tahabfut al-Tahafut, was a commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Ibn Rushd was unmatched in his faithfulness to Aristotle’s original text. Many of his writings have been preserved in Latin and Hebrew as well as Arabic.
Ibn Rushd, a noted Spanish-Arab physician and astronomer as well as being a philosopher and jurist, also wrote books on medicine, astronomy, law, and grammar. He was one of the most influential thinkers of the period which has come to be known as the Middle Ages.
Ibn Rushd came from a family of Islamic legal scholars; his grandfather Abu Al-Walid Muhammad (d. 1126) was chief judge of Córdoba under the Almoravid dynasty. His father, Abu Al-Qasim Ahmad, held the same position until the coming of the Almohad dynasty in 1146.
Ibn Rushd began his career with the help of Ibn Tufail ("Aben Tofail" to the West), the author of Hayy ibn Yaqdhan and philosophic vizier of Almohad amir Abu Yaqub Yusuf. It was Ibn Tufail who introduced him to the court and to Ibn Zuhr ("Avenzoar" to the West), the great Muslim physician, who became Ibn Rushd's teacher and friend. Ibn Rushd later reported how it was also Ibn Tufail who inspired him to write his famous Aristotelian commentaries.
Ibn Rushd was also a student of Ibn Bajjah ("Avempace" to the West), another famous Islamic philosopher who greatly influenced his own Averroist thought. However, while the thought of his mentors Ibn Tufail and Ibn Bajjah were mystic to an extent, the thought of Ibn Rushd was purely rationalist. Together, the three men are considered the greatest Andalusian philosophers.
In 1160, Ibn Rushd was made Qadi (judge) of Seville and he served in many court appointments in Seville, Cordoba, and Morocco during his career. At the end of the 12th century, following the Almohads conquest of Al-Andalus, his political career was ended. Ibn Rushd's strictly rationalist views which collided with the more orthodox views of Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur led to him banishing Ibn Rushd though he had previously appointed him as his personal physician. Ibn Rushd was not reinstated until shortly before his death. He devoted the rest of his life to his philosophical writings.
Ibn Rushd's works were spread over 20,000 pages covering a variety of different subjects, including early Islamic philosophy, logic in Islamic philosophy, Arabic medicine, Arabic mathematics, Arabic astronomy, Arabic grammar, Islamic theology, Sharia (Islamic law), and Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). In particular, his most important works dealt with Islamic philosophy, medicine and Fiqh. He wrote at least 67 original works, which included 28 works on philosophy, 20 on medicine, 8 on law, 5 on theology, and 4 on grammar, in addition to his commentaries on most of Aristotle's works and his commentary on Plato's The Republic.
He wrote commentaries on most of the surviving works of Aristotle. These were not based on primary sources (it is not known whether Ibn Rushd knew Greek), but rather on Arabic translations. There were three levels of commentary: 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
Abū 'l-Walīd Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd, better known just as Ibn Rushd, and in European literature as Averroes, was an Andalusian-Arab Muslim polymath: a master of Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music theory, and the sciences of medicine, astronomy, geography, mathematics, physics and celestial mechanics. He was born in Córdoba, Al Andalus, modern day Spain, and died in Marrakech, modern day Morocco. His school of philosophy is known as Averroism. He has been described as the founding father of secular thought in Western Europe.
Ibn Rushd was born in Cordoba, Spain, and would spend all of his life in Muslim Spain. His father, a judge in Cordoba, instructed Ibn Rushd in Muslim jurisprudence. In his native city, he also studied theology, philosophy, and mathematics under the Arab philosopher Ibn Tufayl (d.1185) and medicine under the Arab physician Avenzoar (c.1090-1162).
Ibn Rushd was appointed judge in Seville in 1169 and in Cordoba in 1171. In 1182, he succeeded Ibn Tufayl and became chief physician to Abu Yaqub Yusuf, the Almohad caliph of Morocco and Muslim Spain (Andalusia). During the reign of Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur (1184-1199), Ibn Rushd was exiled (in 1195) because of his view that reason takes precedence over religion. He was restored to favor shortly before his death. He died in Marrakesh, from where his body was later brought to Cordoba.
Ibn Rushd’s fields of study were the Qur’anic sciences and the natural sciences, including physics, medicine, biology and astronomy, as well as theology and philosophy. Only a small number of his works in Arabic survive, the majority having been preserved in Latin and Hebrew translations.
Ibn Rushd held that metaphysical truths can be expressed in two ways: through philosophy, as represented by the views of Aristotle, and through religion, which is truth presented in a form that the ordinary person can understand. Although Ibn Rushd did not actually propound the existence of two kinds of truth, philosophical and religious, his view was interpreted in that way by Christian thinkers, who called it the theory of “double truth.”
Ibn Rushd rejected the concept of a creation of the world in the history of time. Instead, he maintained that the world has no beginning. God is the “prime mover,” the self-moved force that stimulates all motion, who transforms the potential into the actual. The individual human soul emanates from the one universal soul.
Ibn Rushd’s extensive commentaries on the works of Aristotle were translated into Latin and Hebrew and greatly influenced the Scholastic school of philosophy in medieval Europe and medieval Jewish philosophy. Ibn Rushd’s main independent work was Tahafut al-Tahafut (Incoherence of the Incoherence), a rebuttal of the attack on Neo-platonic and Aristotelian philosophy by the Islamic theologian al-Ghazzali.
In his philosophical works, Ibn Rushd attacked both Ibn Sina’s and al-Ghazzali’s solutions to major problems. Ibn Rushd’s most notable achievement, the Tahabfut al-Tahafut, was a commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Ibn Rushd was unmatched in his faithfulness to Aristotle’s original text. Many of his writings have been preserved in Latin and Hebrew as well as Arabic.
Ibn Rushd, a noted Spanish-Arab physician and astronomer as well as being a philosopher and jurist, also wrote books on medicine, astronomy, law, and grammar. He was one of the most influential thinkers of the period which has come to be known as the Middle Ages.
Ibn Rushd came from a family of Islamic legal scholars; his grandfather Abu Al-Walid Muhammad (d. 1126) was chief judge of Córdoba under the Almoravid dynasty. His father, Abu Al-Qasim Ahmad, held the same position until the coming of the Almohad dynasty in 1146.
Ibn Rushd began his career with the help of Ibn Tufail ("Aben Tofail" to the West), the author of Hayy ibn Yaqdhan and philosophic vizier of Almohad amir Abu Yaqub Yusuf. It was Ibn Tufail who introduced him to the court and to Ibn Zuhr ("Avenzoar" to the West), the great Muslim physician, who became Ibn Rushd's teacher and friend. Ibn Rushd later reported how it was also Ibn Tufail who inspired him to write his famous Aristotelian commentaries.
Ibn Rushd was also a student of Ibn Bajjah ("Avempace" to the West), another famous Islamic philosopher who greatly influenced his own Averroist thought. However, while the thought of his mentors Ibn Tufail and Ibn Bajjah were mystic to an extent, the thought of Ibn Rushd was purely rationalist. Together, the three men are considered the greatest Andalusian philosophers.
In 1160, Ibn Rushd was made Qadi (judge) of Seville and he served in many court appointments in Seville, Cordoba, and Morocco during his career. At the end of the 12th century, following the Almohads conquest of Al-Andalus, his political career was ended. Ibn Rushd's strictly rationalist views which collided with the more orthodox views of Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur led to him banishing Ibn Rushd though he had previously appointed him as his personal physician. Ibn Rushd was not reinstated until shortly before his death. He devoted the rest of his life to his philosophical writings.
Ibn Rushd's works were spread over 20,000 pages covering a variety of different subjects, including early Islamic philosophy, logic in Islamic philosophy, Arabic medicine, Arabic mathematics, Arabic astronomy, Arabic grammar, Islamic theology, Sharia (Islamic law), and Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). In particular, his most important works dealt with Islamic philosophy, medicine and Fiqh. He wrote at least 67 original works, which included 28 works on philosophy, 20 on medicine, 8 on law, 5 on theology, and 4 on grammar, in addition to his commentaries on most of Aristotle's works and his commentary on Plato's The Republic.
He wrote commentaries on most of the surviving works of Aristotle. These were not based on primary sources (it is not known whether Ibn Rushd knew Greek), but rather on Arabic translations. There were three levels of commentary: 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. It is not known whether he wrote commentaries of all three types on all the works. In most cases only one or two commentaries survive.
Ibn Rushd did not have access to any text of Aristotle's Politics. As a substitute for this, he commented on Plato's The Republic, arguing that the ideal state there described was the same as the original constitution of the Arab Caliphate, as well as the Almohad state of Ibn Tumart.
Ibn Rushd's 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 Ibn Sina (Avicenna), was self-contradictory and an affront to the teachings of Islam. Ibn Rushd's rebuttal was two-pronged. He contended both that al-Ghazali's arguments were mistaken and that, in any case, the system of Ibn Sina 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, which argued against the proofs of Islam advanced by the Ash'arite school and discussed what proofs, on the popular level, should be used instead.
Ibn Rushd was 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.
In medicine, Ibn Rushd 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 Law of Medicine (Qanun fi 't-tibb) of Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980-1037).
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.
According to Ibn Rushd, 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. Ibn Rushd 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 this study.
The concept of "existence precedes essence", a key foundational concept of existentialism, can also be found in the works of Ibn Rushd, as a reaction to Ibn Sina's concept of "essence precedes existence". Ibn Rushd's most famous original philosophical work was The Incoherence of the Incoherence, a rebuttal to Al-Ghazali's The Incoherence of the Philosophers. In medieval Europe, his school of philosophy known as Averroism exerted a strong influence on Christian philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas and Jewish philosophers such as Gersonides and Maimonides.
At the age of 25, Ibn Rushd conducted astronomical observations near Marrakech, Morocco, during which he discovered a previously unobserved star.
In astronomical theory, Ibn Rushd rejected the eccentric deferents introduced by Ptolemy. He rejected the Ptolemaic model and instead argued for a strictly concentric model of the universe. Ibn Rushd also argued that the Moon is opaque and obscure, 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. He also gave one of the first descriptions on sunspots.
As a Qadi (judge), Ibn Rushd wrote the Bidāyat al-Mujtahid wa Nihāyat al-Muqtasid, a Maliki legal treatise dealing with Sharia (law) and Fiqh (jurisprudence) which, according to Al-Dhahabi in the 13th century, was considered the best treatise ever written on the subject. Ibn Rushd's summary of the opinions (fatwa) of previous Islamic jurists on a variety of issues has continued to influence Islamic scholars to the present day, notably Javed Ahmad Ghamidi. Ibn Rushd also claimed that women in Islam were equal to men in all respects and possessed equal capacities to shine in peace and in war.
Ibn Rushd discussed Islamic economic jurisprudence, particularly the concept of Riba (usury). He reported that Ibn ‘Abbas, a sahaba (companion) of Muhammad, did not accept Riba al-Fadl (interest in excess) because, according to him, the Prophet Muhammad had clarified that there was no Riba except in credit. He also discussed the role of Islamic criminal jurisprudence in the Islamic dietary laws in regards to the consumption of alcohol. He stated that physical punishment for alcoholic consumption was not originally established as part of the Sharia in Muhammad's time but was later decided by the Shura (consultive council) of the Rashidun Caliphate.
In his Islamic philosophy of law, Ibn Rushd also discussed the concept of natural law. In his treatise on Justice and Jihad and his commentary on Plato's Republic, he writes that the human mind can know of the unlawfulness of killing and stealing and thus of the five maqasid or higher intents of the Islamic Sharia or to protect religion, life, property, offspring, and reason. The concept of natural law entered the mainstream of Western culture through his Aristotelian commentaries, influencing the subsequent Averroist movement and the writings of Thomas Aquinas.
Ibn Rushd was the last major Muslim logician from Al-Andalus. He is known for writing the most elaborate commentaries on Aristotelian logic.
As a physician, Ibn Rushd wrote twenty treatises on Arabic medicine, including a seven-volume medical encyclopedia entitled Kitābu’l Kulliyāt fī al-Tibb (General Rules of Medicine), better known as Colliget in Latin. This encyclopedic work was completed at some time before 1162 and elaborated on physiology, general pathology, diagnosis, medical material, hygiene and general therapeutics. He argued that no one can suffer from smallpox twice, and fully understood the function of the retina. However, his Colliget was largely overshadowed by the earlier medical encyclopedias, Continents by Muhammad ibn Zakariya ar-Razi (Rhazes) and The Canon of Medicine by Ibn Sina (Avicenna). As a result, Ibn Rushd's fame as a physician was eclipsed by his own fame as a philosopher. His Kulliyāt was translated into Latin by the Jewish translator Bonacosa in the late 13th century and again by Syphorien Champier in circa 1537, and it was also translated into Hebrew twice. It has been noted that the prototypes for the physician-philosophers that predominated in Spain were Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes).
Ibn Rushd discussed the topic of human dissection and autopsy. Although he never undertook human dissection, he was aware of it being carried out by some of his contemporaries, such as Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar), and appears to have supported the practice.
In urology, Ibn Rushd identified the issues of sexual dysfunction and erectile dysfunction, and was among the first to prescribe medication for the treatment of these problems. He used several methods of therapy for this issue, including the single drug method where a tested drug is prescribed, and a combination method of either a drug or food. Most of these drugs were oral medication, though a few patients were also treated through topical or transurethral means.
In neurology and neuroscience, Ibn Rushd suggested the existence of Parkinson's disease, and in ophthalmology and optics, he was the first to attribute photoreceptor properties to the retina. In his Colliget, he was also the first to suggest that the principal organ of sight might be the arachnoid membrane (aranea). His work led to much discussion in 16th century Europe over whether the principal organ of sight is the traditional Galenic crystalline humor or the Averroist aranea, which in turn led to the discovery that the retina is the principal organ of sight.
As an Arabic music theorist, Ibn Rushd contributed to music theory with his commentary on Aristotle's On the Soul, where Ibn Rushd dealt perspicuously with the theory of sound. This text was translated into Latin by Michael Scot (d. 1232).
In Ibn Rushd's commentary on Aristotle's Physics, he commented on the theory of motion proposed by Ibn Bajjah (Avempace), and also made his own contributions to physics, particularly mechanics. Ibn Rushd 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 and the first to correctly argue that the effect and measure of force is change in the kinetic condition of a materially resistant mass. It seems he was also the first to introduce the notion that bodies have a (non-gravitational) inherent resistance to motion into physics, subsequently first dubbed "inertia" by Kepler.
For Ibn Rushd, the human soul is a separate substance ontologically identical with the active intellect, and when this active intellect is embodied in an individual human it is the material intellect. The material intellect is analogous to prime matter, in that it is pure potentiality able to receive universal forms. As such, the human mind is a composite of the material intellect and the passive intellect, which is the third element of the intellect. The passive intellect is identified with the imagination, which is the sense-connected finite and passive faculty that receives particular sensual forms. When the material intellect is actualized by information received, it is described as the speculative (habitual) intellect. As the speculative intellect moves towards perfection, having the active intellect as an object of thought, it becomes the acquired intellect. In that, it is aided by the active intellect, perceived in the way Aristotle had taught, to acquire intelligible thoughts. The idea of the soul's perfection occurring through having the active intellect as a greater object of thought is introduced elsewhere, and its application to religious doctrine is seen. In the Tahafut, Ibn Rushd speaks of the soul as a faculty that comes to resemble the focus of its intention, and when its attention focuses more upon eternal and universal knowledge, it becomes more like the eternal and universal. As such, when the soul perfects itself, it becomes like our intellect.
Ibn Rushd succeeded in providing an explanation of the human soul and intellect that did not involve an immediate transcendent agent. This opposed the explanations found among the Neoplatonists, allowing a further argument for rejecting of Neoplatonic emanation theories.
Ibn Rushd 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 Ibn Rushd's work beginning in the 12th century that the legacy of Aristotle became more widely known in the medieval West.
In medieval Europe, Ibn Rushd's school of philosophy, known as Averroism, exerted a strong influence on Christian philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas and Jewish philosophers such as Gersonides and Maimonides (Ibn Maymun). Despite negative reactions from Jewish Talmudists and the Christian clergy, Ibn Rushd's writings were taught at the University of Paris and other medieval universities, and Averroism remained the dominant school of thought in Europe through to the 16th century.
Ibn Rushd's argument in The Decisive Treatise provided a justification for the emancipation of science and philosophy from official Ash'ari theology. Accordingly, Averroism has been regarded as a precursor to modern secularism, and Ibn Rushd (Averroes) has been described as one of the founding fathers of secular thought in Western Europe.
Ibn Rushd'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. Ibn Rushd 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 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 Ash'ari theology, where the emphasis is less on analytical thinking but on extensive knowledge of sources other than the Qur'an, i.e. the hadith.
Hebrew translations of his work also had a lasting impact on Jewish philosophy, in particular Gersonides, who wrote supercommentaries on many of the works. In the Christian world, 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 Ibn Rushd to be so important they did not refer to him by name, simply calling him "The Commentator" and calling Aristotle "The Philosopher." 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. On the other hand Ibn Rushd was feared by many Christian theologians who accused him of advocating a "double truth" and denying orthodox doctrines such as individual immortality, and an underground mythology grew up stigmatising Ibn Rushd as the ultimate unbeliever. However, these accusations were largely based on misunderstandings of his work.
The asteroid "8318 Averroes" was named in his honor.
Abu'l-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd see Ibn Rushd, Abu‘l-Walid Muhammad
Abu'l-Walid Muhammad ibn Rushd see Ibn Rushd, Abu‘l-Walid Muhammad
Abul-Waleed Muhammad ibn Rushd see Ibn Rushd, Abu‘l-Walid Muhammad
Averroes see Ibn Rushd, Abu‘l-Walid Muhammad
Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd see Ibn Rushd, Abu‘l-Walid Muhammad
Ibn Rushd did not have access to any text of Aristotle's Politics. As a substitute for this, he commented on Plato's The Republic, arguing that the ideal state there described was the same as the original constitution of the Arab Caliphate, as well as the Almohad state of Ibn Tumart.
Ibn Rushd's 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 Ibn Sina (Avicenna), was self-contradictory and an affront to the teachings of Islam. Ibn Rushd's rebuttal was two-pronged. He contended both that al-Ghazali's arguments were mistaken and that, in any case, the system of Ibn Sina 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, which argued against the proofs of Islam advanced by the Ash'arite school and discussed what proofs, on the popular level, should be used instead.
Ibn Rushd was 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.
In medicine, Ibn Rushd 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 Law of Medicine (Qanun fi 't-tibb) of Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980-1037).
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.
According to Ibn Rushd, 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. Ibn Rushd 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 this study.
The concept of "existence precedes essence", a key foundational concept of existentialism, can also be found in the works of Ibn Rushd, as a reaction to Ibn Sina's concept of "essence precedes existence". Ibn Rushd's most famous original philosophical work was The Incoherence of the Incoherence, a rebuttal to Al-Ghazali's The Incoherence of the Philosophers. In medieval Europe, his school of philosophy known as Averroism exerted a strong influence on Christian philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas and Jewish philosophers such as Gersonides and Maimonides.
At the age of 25, Ibn Rushd conducted astronomical observations near Marrakech, Morocco, during which he discovered a previously unobserved star.
In astronomical theory, Ibn Rushd rejected the eccentric deferents introduced by Ptolemy. He rejected the Ptolemaic model and instead argued for a strictly concentric model of the universe. Ibn Rushd also argued that the Moon is opaque and obscure, 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. He also gave one of the first descriptions on sunspots.
As a Qadi (judge), Ibn Rushd wrote the Bidāyat al-Mujtahid wa Nihāyat al-Muqtasid, a Maliki legal treatise dealing with Sharia (law) and Fiqh (jurisprudence) which, according to Al-Dhahabi in the 13th century, was considered the best treatise ever written on the subject. Ibn Rushd's summary of the opinions (fatwa) of previous Islamic jurists on a variety of issues has continued to influence Islamic scholars to the present day, notably Javed Ahmad Ghamidi. Ibn Rushd also claimed that women in Islam were equal to men in all respects and possessed equal capacities to shine in peace and in war.
Ibn Rushd discussed Islamic economic jurisprudence, particularly the concept of Riba (usury). He reported that Ibn ‘Abbas, a sahaba (companion) of Muhammad, did not accept Riba al-Fadl (interest in excess) because, according to him, the Prophet Muhammad had clarified that there was no Riba except in credit. He also discussed the role of Islamic criminal jurisprudence in the Islamic dietary laws in regards to the consumption of alcohol. He stated that physical punishment for alcoholic consumption was not originally established as part of the Sharia in Muhammad's time but was later decided by the Shura (consultive council) of the Rashidun Caliphate.
In his Islamic philosophy of law, Ibn Rushd also discussed the concept of natural law. In his treatise on Justice and Jihad and his commentary on Plato's Republic, he writes that the human mind can know of the unlawfulness of killing and stealing and thus of the five maqasid or higher intents of the Islamic Sharia or to protect religion, life, property, offspring, and reason. The concept of natural law entered the mainstream of Western culture through his Aristotelian commentaries, influencing the subsequent Averroist movement and the writings of Thomas Aquinas.
Ibn Rushd was the last major Muslim logician from Al-Andalus. He is known for writing the most elaborate commentaries on Aristotelian logic.
As a physician, Ibn Rushd wrote twenty treatises on Arabic medicine, including a seven-volume medical encyclopedia entitled Kitābu’l Kulliyāt fī al-Tibb (General Rules of Medicine), better known as Colliget in Latin. This encyclopedic work was completed at some time before 1162 and elaborated on physiology, general pathology, diagnosis, medical material, hygiene and general therapeutics. He argued that no one can suffer from smallpox twice, and fully understood the function of the retina. However, his Colliget was largely overshadowed by the earlier medical encyclopedias, Continents by Muhammad ibn Zakariya ar-Razi (Rhazes) and The Canon of Medicine by Ibn Sina (Avicenna). As a result, Ibn Rushd's fame as a physician was eclipsed by his own fame as a philosopher. His Kulliyāt was translated into Latin by the Jewish translator Bonacosa in the late 13th century and again by Syphorien Champier in circa 1537, and it was also translated into Hebrew twice. It has been noted that the prototypes for the physician-philosophers that predominated in Spain were Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes).
Ibn Rushd discussed the topic of human dissection and autopsy. Although he never undertook human dissection, he was aware of it being carried out by some of his contemporaries, such as Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar), and appears to have supported the practice.
In urology, Ibn Rushd identified the issues of sexual dysfunction and erectile dysfunction, and was among the first to prescribe medication for the treatment of these problems. He used several methods of therapy for this issue, including the single drug method where a tested drug is prescribed, and a combination method of either a drug or food. Most of these drugs were oral medication, though a few patients were also treated through topical or transurethral means.
In neurology and neuroscience, Ibn Rushd suggested the existence of Parkinson's disease, and in ophthalmology and optics, he was the first to attribute photoreceptor properties to the retina. In his Colliget, he was also the first to suggest that the principal organ of sight might be the arachnoid membrane (aranea). His work led to much discussion in 16th century Europe over whether the principal organ of sight is the traditional Galenic crystalline humor or the Averroist aranea, which in turn led to the discovery that the retina is the principal organ of sight.
As an Arabic music theorist, Ibn Rushd contributed to music theory with his commentary on Aristotle's On the Soul, where Ibn Rushd dealt perspicuously with the theory of sound. This text was translated into Latin by Michael Scot (d. 1232).
In Ibn Rushd's commentary on Aristotle's Physics, he commented on the theory of motion proposed by Ibn Bajjah (Avempace), and also made his own contributions to physics, particularly mechanics. Ibn Rushd 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 and the first to correctly argue that the effect and measure of force is change in the kinetic condition of a materially resistant mass. It seems he was also the first to introduce the notion that bodies have a (non-gravitational) inherent resistance to motion into physics, subsequently first dubbed "inertia" by Kepler.
For Ibn Rushd, the human soul is a separate substance ontologically identical with the active intellect, and when this active intellect is embodied in an individual human it is the material intellect. The material intellect is analogous to prime matter, in that it is pure potentiality able to receive universal forms. As such, the human mind is a composite of the material intellect and the passive intellect, which is the third element of the intellect. The passive intellect is identified with the imagination, which is the sense-connected finite and passive faculty that receives particular sensual forms. When the material intellect is actualized by information received, it is described as the speculative (habitual) intellect. As the speculative intellect moves towards perfection, having the active intellect as an object of thought, it becomes the acquired intellect. In that, it is aided by the active intellect, perceived in the way Aristotle had taught, to acquire intelligible thoughts. The idea of the soul's perfection occurring through having the active intellect as a greater object of thought is introduced elsewhere, and its application to religious doctrine is seen. In the Tahafut, Ibn Rushd speaks of the soul as a faculty that comes to resemble the focus of its intention, and when its attention focuses more upon eternal and universal knowledge, it becomes more like the eternal and universal. As such, when the soul perfects itself, it becomes like our intellect.
Ibn Rushd succeeded in providing an explanation of the human soul and intellect that did not involve an immediate transcendent agent. This opposed the explanations found among the Neoplatonists, allowing a further argument for rejecting of Neoplatonic emanation theories.
Ibn Rushd 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 Ibn Rushd's work beginning in the 12th century that the legacy of Aristotle became more widely known in the medieval West.
In medieval Europe, Ibn Rushd's school of philosophy, known as Averroism, exerted a strong influence on Christian philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas and Jewish philosophers such as Gersonides and Maimonides (Ibn Maymun). Despite negative reactions from Jewish Talmudists and the Christian clergy, Ibn Rushd's writings were taught at the University of Paris and other medieval universities, and Averroism remained the dominant school of thought in Europe through to the 16th century.
Ibn Rushd's argument in The Decisive Treatise provided a justification for the emancipation of science and philosophy from official Ash'ari theology. Accordingly, Averroism has been regarded as a precursor to modern secularism, and Ibn Rushd (Averroes) has been described as one of the founding fathers of secular thought in Western Europe.
Ibn Rushd'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. Ibn Rushd 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 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 Ash'ari theology, where the emphasis is less on analytical thinking but on extensive knowledge of sources other than the Qur'an, i.e. the hadith.
Hebrew translations of his work also had a lasting impact on Jewish philosophy, in particular Gersonides, who wrote supercommentaries on many of the works. In the Christian world, 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 Ibn Rushd to be so important they did not refer to him by name, simply calling him "The Commentator" and calling Aristotle "The Philosopher." 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. On the other hand Ibn Rushd was feared by many Christian theologians who accused him of advocating a "double truth" and denying orthodox doctrines such as individual immortality, and an underground mythology grew up stigmatising Ibn Rushd as the ultimate unbeliever. However, these accusations were largely based on misunderstandings of his work.
The asteroid "8318 Averroes" was named in his honor.
Abu'l-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd see Ibn Rushd, Abu‘l-Walid Muhammad
Abu'l-Walid Muhammad ibn Rushd see Ibn Rushd, Abu‘l-Walid Muhammad
Abul-Waleed Muhammad ibn Rushd see Ibn Rushd, Abu‘l-Walid Muhammad
Averroes see Ibn Rushd, Abu‘l-Walid Muhammad
Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd see Ibn Rushd, Abu‘l-Walid Muhammad
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