Averroes and Maimonedes.

 

The philosophers of Al -Andalus

"Thought has wings and there is nothing that can stop its flight."

 

"There is no other magisterium than that of reason, man was born to know, being the ultimate happiness to reach wisdom ". Averroes .

 

 

The twelfth century began with the permissive existentialism of the Almohad court and ended ashamed of its discoveries (those made by Maimonedes , Abentofail and Averroes as top representatives) that for the Almohad Muslim orthodoxy (still existentialist was very orthodox, read “The self learned  philosopher “where Abentofail at all times expresses itself "respecting" and worshiping the Islamic orthodox rules) and even more so for other Islamic branches, such as the Almoravid , the reason derived from Aristotle and its consequent enunciations were something external to Islam. Something that was, the cause of the persecution of their representatives and  the destruction of their works (with the exception of Abentofail , who was not persecuted), a fact that did nothing but weaken the Muslim settlement in Al - Andalus ( Islamic  Spain)  The difficulties that Averroes encountered and the conversion,(fake  or sincere) of Maimonides - in 1148 when the Almohads conquered Córdoba - illustrates a general environment and, beyond the Andalusian case, the old tension between the rational or intrusive sciences and the religious interpretations or traditions that existed in Islam.

 

 

At the end of 1168, Ibn Tufayl , who was vizier and doctor to the Almohad prince Abü Ya'qub Yüsuf introduced Averroes to the aforementioned sultan , who reassured the philosopher about his dedication to thought and even recommended that he shouldcomment on Aristotle’s philosophy. The monarch's assistance was quite important, as Averroes acknowledges in the dedication made to his beneficiary in Plato's Exposition of the Republic. In the year 1169 was appointed Saracen judge of Seville, there he exercised his degree with the approval of the Sevillians, who showed him their affection in the temporary moments in which he suffered harsh criticism. In 1182 he was appointed chief judge of Córdoba and chief physician of the court. After the battle of Alarcos (June 18, 1195), when  the Almohad troops crushed the Christian ones, the demanding alfaquíes and ulemas (facultative and wise men of the Mohammedan tradition ) of Córdoba denounced Averroes and he was banished to Lucena, for about twenty months. In the year 1198  the prince pardoned Averroes , restored his charges and took him with him to Marrakech, perhaps to protect him from his Hispano-Arab enemies. But on December 10th, 1198, at the age of seventy-two, Averroes died in the Moroccan city.

 

 

The significant fact  is that Renaissance modernity  begins with these three philosophers, and above all  with Averroes.,  reaching  the original Aristotle, in all his possible notions: concepts of wisdom, degrees of knowledge, role of logic, concrete sense of knowledge. , the role of understanding, the constitution of the concrete entity and the ethical life of the sages. Despite working on a translated text and not on the original Greek, Averroes reaches and shared Greek reality and the biological reason of Aristotelian thought.

 

Averroes ' exile in Lucena lasted twenty months. The city of Cordoba was previously popular for its large Jewish quarter and this led to the rise of fables about the friendship between Maimonides and Averroes . On the contrary, it was not this way. The family of Mosé ben Maymün , known as  Maimonides , had not lived in Córdoba for a long time. When Averroes arrived in Lucena, Maimonides had been living in Cairo for thirty years. If Maimonedes and his family boasted of something, it was of two things: their Judaism and their Hispanic- Muslim influence . Established in Córdoba  memorable  to the Jewish community of Córdoba, Rabbi Isaac ben Maymün , father of Maimonides , raised him in the capital of the Guadalquivir river. The philosopher was born on Saturday March 30, 1135. Later in Córdoba he received education in Arabic and Hebrew sciences and in the faith of Abraham and Moses. But in the year 1147, when the Almohad troops conquered Córdoba, Rabbi Isaac and his kin including his two sons David and Moses ( Maimónedes ), left the city and took refuge in Granada, where they lived for about two years (1149-1150), marching after this to Almería in which the teaching of Mosé ben Maymün was completed . But when the Almohads approached the aforementioned population, Moses and his family had to leave it in 1160, settling later in Fez, and having to appear superficially Muslim. But shortly after they continue their trip to Egypt, settling in Cairo. Maimonides wrote most of his work there and held important positions, among them that of physician to the court of Saladin . At this time (1185-1200) he wrote the most universal of his works, the Guide for the Perplexed, written in Arabic like all his manuals. It was just then that the writings of Averroes arrived in Egypt , his opinion being that the Arab philosopher from Cordoba "interprets Aristotle using approved and true reasoning". Of course, the Arab thinkers who influenced Maimonides and Averroes were the Mu\' tazila , Al - fârâbï and Avempace ( Ibn Bayya ) and surely still the Andalusian Ibn Tufail .

 

 

The three philosophers tried to apply Aristotelian thought to their society, and with it, the ethical principle of the essential unity of man who lives in society.. The man who thinks  , does it a natural way, just as he lives, feeds and reproduces, man thinks, by his nature and without limits. Reflective knowledge is the impeccable characteristic that recognizes the total application of the citizen. The truth is only reached by knowing . Ibn Rusd also believes in the Aristotelian truth that the success of man is better in the community, which multiplies experiences, increases the field of knowledge and amplifies the virtues and discoveries of our knowledge. The supreme virtue of man resides in knowledge. The wise man is the one who deals with ordering knowledge and is aware that he knows, and it is also the most useful for men who live in society. In this way the Andalusian philosophers give way to the Renaissance modernity of the West, mainly after the translations of their works into Latin, the meeting of these and the Christianization of them by St. Thomas Aquinas  and the subsequent exhibition and acceptance of them by the Western world. . Just as good old Spinoza (who, as we know, had works by Andalusian philosophers in his library ) continued with the Hispaic- Muslim legacy in his  ethics..