Averroes

Name

Ibn Rushd's full, transliterated Arabic name is "ʾAbū l-Walīd Muḥammad Ibn ʾAḥmad Ibn Rushd". "Averroes" is the Medieval Latin form of "Ibn Rushd", derived from the Spanish pronunciation of the original Arabic name, wherein "Ibn" becomes "Aben" or "Aven". The Latinized name is also spelled in some instances as "Averroës", "Averrhoës", or "Averroès", with the varying accents to mark that the "o" and "e" are separate vowels and not an "œ" diphthong. Other forms of the name include: "Ibin-Ros-din", "Filius Rosadis", "Ibn-Rusid", "Ben-Raxid", "Ibn-Ruschod", "Den-Resched", "Aben-Rassad", "Aben-Rasd", "Aben-Rust", "Avenrosdy", "Avenryz", "Adveroys", "Benroist", "Avenroyth", and "Averroysta".

Biography

Ibn Rushd was born in Córdoba to a family with a long and well-respected tradition of legal and public service. His grandfather Abu Al-Walid Muhammad (d. 1126) was chief judge of Córdoba under the Almoravids. His father, Abu Al-Qasim Ahmad, held the same position until the Almoravids were replaced by the Almohads in 1146.

Ibn Rushd's education followed a traditional path, beginning with studies in Hadith, linguistics, jurisprudence and scholastic theology. Throughout his life he wrote extensively on philosophy and religion, attributes of God, origin of the universe, metaphysics and psychology. It is generally believed that he was once tutored by Ibn Bajjah (Avempace). His medical education was directed under Abu Jafar ibn Harun of Trujillo in Seville. 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 king Abu Yaqub Yusuf who was an amateur of philosophy and science. 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's aptitude for medicine was noted by his contemporaries and can be seen in his major enduring work Kitab al-Kulyat fi al-Tibb (Generalities), influenced by the Kitab al-Taisir fi al-Mudawat wa al-Tadbir (Particularities) of Ibn Zuhr. Ibn Rushd later reported how it was also Ibn Tufail that inspired him to write his famous commentaries on Aristotle:

Abu Bakr ibn Tufayl summoned me one day and told me that he had heard the Commander of the Faithful complaining about the disjointedness of Aristotle's mode of expression—or that of the translators—and the resultant obscurity of his intentions. He said that if someone took on these books who could summarize them and clarify their aims after first thoroughly understanding them himself, people would have an easier time comprehending them. "If you have the energy, " Ibn Tufayl told me, "you do it. I'm confident you can, because I know what a good mind and devoted character you have, and how dedicated you are to the art. You understand that only my great age, the cares of my office—and my commitment to another task that I think even more vital—keep me from doing it myself. "

Ibn Rushd also studied the works and philosophy 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. Ibn Rushd devoted the next 30 years to his philosophical writings.

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. Sometime during the reign of Yaqub al-Mansur, Ibn Rushd's political career was abruptly ended and he faced severe criticism from the Fuqaha (Islamic jurists) of the time.

A contemporary of Ibn Rushd, Abdelwahid al-Marrakushi writing in 1224, reported that there were secret and public reasons for his falling out of favor with Yaqub al-Mansour:

And in his days [Yaqub al-Mansur], Abu al-Walid Ibn Rushd faced his severe ordeal and there were two causes for this; one is known and the other is secret. The secret cause, which was the major reason, is that Abu al-Walid—may God have mercy on his soul—when summarizing, commenting and expending upon Aristotle's book "History of Animals" wrote: "And I saw the Giraffe at the garden of the king of the Berbers".
And that is the same way he would mention another king of some other people or land, as it is frequently done by writers, but he omitted that those working for the service of the king should glorify him and observe the usual protocol. This was why they held a grudge against him but initially, they did not show it and in reality, Abu al-Walid wrote that inadvertently ... Then a number of his enemies in Cordoba, who were jealous of him and were competing with him both in knowledge and nobility, went to Yaqub al-Mansur with excerpts of Abu Walid's work on some old philosophers which were in his own handwriting. They took one phrase out of context that said: "and it was shown that Venus is one of the Gods" and presented it to the king who then summoned the chiefs and noblemen of Córdoba and said to Abu al-Walid in front of them "Is this your handwriting?". Abu al-Walid then denied and the king said "May God curse the one who wrote this" and ordered that Abu al-Walid be exiled and all the philosophy books to be gathered and burned ... And I saw, when I was in Fes, these books being carried on horses in great quantities and burned

Ibn Rushd's strictly rationalist views collided with the more orthodox views of Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur, who therefore eventually banished Ibn Rushd in 1195 and ordered his writings burned, though he had previously appointed him as his personal physician. Ibn Rushd was not allowed to return to Marrakesh until 1197, shortly before his death in the year 1198 AD. His body was returned to Córdoba for burial.

Works

Ibn Rushd's first writings date from his age of 31 (year 1157). His works were spread over 20,000 pages covering a variety of different subjects, including early Islamic philosophy, logic in Islamic philosophy, Islamic medicine, mathematics, 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 80 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.

Ibn Rushd commentaries on Aristotle were the foundation for the Aristotelian revival in the 12th and 13th centuries. Ibn Rushd wrote short commentaries on Aristotle's work in logic, physics, and psychology. Ibn Rushd long commentaries provided an in depth line by line analysis of Aristotle's "Posterior Analytics," "De Anima," "Physics," "De Caelo," and the "Metaphysics."

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).

In Fasl al-Maqal fi ma bayn al-Hikma wa al-Shariah min Ittisal (فصل المقال في ما بين الحكمة و الشريعة من إتصال translated as The Harmony of Religion and Philosophy, or The Decisive Treatise, Determining the Nature of the Connection between Religion and Philosophy), Ibn Rushd argues that philosophy and revelation do not contradict each other, and are essentially different means of reaching the same truth. However, he warns against teaching philosophical methods to the general populace.

Other works include Kitab al-Kashf an Manahij al-Adilla كتاب الكشف عن مناهج الادلة .

Ibn Rushd 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 ( بداية المجتهد و نهاية المقتصد), a textbook of Maliki doctrine in a comparative framework.

Jacob Anatoli translated several of the works of Ibn Rushd from Arabic into Hebrew in the 13th century. 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.

Commentaries on Aristotle and Plato

Ibn Rushd wrote commentaries on most of the surviving works of Aristotle working from Arabic translations. He wrote three types of commentaries. The short commentary (jami) is generally an epitome; the middle commentary (talkhis) is a paraphrase; the long commentary (tafsir) includes the whole text with a detailed analysis of each line.

Not having access to Aristotle's Politics, Ibn Rushd substituted Plato's Republic. Ibn Rushd, following Plato's paternalistic model, advances an authoritarian ideal. Absolute monarchy, led by a philosopher-king, creates a justly ordered society. This requires extensive use of coercion, although persuasion is preferred and is possible if the young are properly raised. Rhetoric, not logic, is the appropriate road to truth for the common man. Demonstrative knowledge via philosophy and logic requires special study. Rhetoric aids religion in reaching the masses.

Following Plato, Ibn Rushd accepts the principle of women's equality. They should be educated and allowed to serve in the military; the best among them might be tomorrow's philosophers or rulers. He also accepts Plato's illiberal measures such as the censorship of literature. He uses examples from Arab history to illustrate just and degenerate political orders.

Medicine

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

Physics

Ibn Rush also authored three books on physics namely: Short Commentary on the Physics, Middle Commentary on the Physics and Long Commentary on the Physics. Ibn Rushd defined and measured force as "the rate at which work is done in changing the kinetic condition of a material body" and correctly argued "that the effect and measure of force is change in the kinetic condition of a materially resistant mass". He took a particular and keen interest in the understanding of "motor force".

Ibn Rushd also developed the notion that bodies have a (non-gravitational) inherent resistance to motion into physics. This idea in particular was adopted by Thomas Aquinas and subsequently by Johannes Kepler, who referred to this fact as "Inertia".

In optics, Ibn Rushd followed Alhazen's incorrect explanation that a rainbow is due to reflection, not refraction.

Astronomy

Regarding his studies in astronomy, Ibn Rushd argued for a strictly concentric model of the universe, and explained sunspots and scientific reasoning regarding the occasional opaque colors of the moon. He also worked on the description of the spheres, and movement of the spheres.

Psychology

Ibn Rushd also made some studies regarding Active intellect and Passive intellect, both of the following were formerly regarded subjects of Psychology.

Jurisprudence and law

Ibn Rushd 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, which is rendered in English as The Distinguished Jurist's Primer. 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.

The tradition of Islamic philosophy

Ibn Rushd furthered the tradition of Greek philosophy in the Islamic world (falsafa). His commentaries removed the neo-Platonic bias of his predecessors. Criticizing al-Farabi's attempt to merge Plato and Aristotle's ideas, Ibn Rushd argued that Aristotle's philosophy diverged in significant ways from Plato's. Ibn Rushd rejected Avicenna's Neoplatonism which was partly based on the works of neo-Platonic philosophers, Plotinus and Proclus, which were mistakenly attributed to Aristotle.

In metaphysics, or more exactly ontology, Ibn Rushd rejects the view advanced by Avicenna that existence is merely accidental. Avicenna holds that "essence is ontologically prior to existence". The accidental are attributes which are not essential, but rather are additional contingent characteristics. Ibn Rushd, following Aristotle, holds that individual existing substances are primary. One may separate them mentally; however, ontologically speaking, existence and essence are one. According to Fakhry, this represents a change from Plato's theory of Ideas, where ideas precede particulars, to Aristotle's theory where particulars come first and the essence is "arrived at by a process of abstraction."

Reconciliation of religion and philosophy

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 (AD 1058–1111) claims in The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-falasifa). Al-Ghazali had argued that Aristotelianism, especially as presented in the writings of Avicenna, was self-contradictory and an affront to the teachings of Islam. In particular he argued that three philosophical points (viz. a pre-eternal world, God only knowing universal—that is to say, Platonic—characteristics of particulars, and a spiritual rather than physical resurrection) constituted not just heresy, but rather disbelief in Islam itself. Ibn Rushd's rebuttal was two-pronged: First, he contended that al-Ghazali's arguments were mistaken, arguing that the Qur'an actually commanded devout Muslims to study of philosophy. Second, Ibn Rushd contended that he actually agreed with al-Ghazali in regards to a number of the latter's criticisms of Avicenna; Ibn Rushd argued that the system of Avicenna was a distortion of genuine Aristotelianism, and as a result, al-Ghazali was effectively aiming at the wrong target. Ibn Rushd thus argues that his own system is, as Roger Arnaldez notes, "a reconstruction of the true philosophy, that of Aristotle himself, against the false, that of the neo-Platonic falāsifa, which distorted the thinking of Aristotle".

Whereas al-Ghazali believed that phenomenon such as cotton burning when coming into contact with fire happened each and every time only because God willed it to happen: "all earthly occurrences depend on heavenly occurrences." Ibn Rushd, by contrast insisted while God created the natural law, humans "could more usefully say that fire cause cotton to burn—because creation had a pattern that they could discern."

In Fasl al-Maqal (Decisive Treatise), Ibn Rushd argues for the legality of philosophical investigation under Islamic law, and that there is no inherent contradiction between philosophy and religion

In 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.

Nature of God

In the treatise Al-Kashf 'an Manahij al-Adilla fi ‘Aqaid al-Milla (The Exposition of the Methods of Proof Concerning the Beliefs of the Community), Ibn Rushd examined and critiqued the doctrines of four sects of Islam: the Asharites, Mutazilites, the Sufis and the those whom he deems "literalists." While his work focuses on many topics, part of it examines the various sects' proofs for the existence of God, many of which Ibn Rushd finds objectionable. After considering and critiquing the various argument, he argues that there are only two arguments that are worth upholding: the arguments from "providence" and "invention". The first argument considers the fact that the world and the universe seem fine-tuned to support human life. According to Ibn Rushd, given the fact that the universe seems to have been made just for humans, this suggests a creator who set the parameters of the universe in the first place. The second argument, also known as the teleological argument, contends that everything in the world appears as if it were invented. This leads to the conclusion that there is a designer behind creation.

In his philosophical treatises, Ibn Rushd affirms the doctrine of divine unity. Ibn Rushd also argues that God has seven divine attributes: knowledge, life, power, will, hearing, vision, and speech. In regards to the first, the philosopher argued that "God, being the cause of the universe, has knowledge based on being its cause; while humans have knowledge based on the effects of such causes." Thus human knowledge and divine knowledge, while related, are different attributes. Given that life necessarily results from the natural world, and God is the creator of said world, Ibn Rushd thus contends that life is by necessity the second attribute of the divine. The attributes of will and power are essential aspects of what it means to be "God", and given that God exists (per the arguments given in the above paragraph), Ibn Rushd logically concludes that he must also have these attributes by definition. As to speech, Ibn Rushd argues that knowledge and power inevitably give rise to speech, and given that God has the first two, he thus has the third. Finally, in regards to vision and speech, Ibn Rushd points out that because God created the world, he necessarily knows every part of it, just like an artist that understands their work intimately. Given that two elements of the world are the visual and the auditory, God must necessarily possess the vision and speech.

Eternity of the world

Ibn Rushd looked to Aristotle as to whether the world was eternal. In his Physics, the Greek philosopher argues that everything that comes into existence does so from a substratum. Therefore, if the underlying matter of the universe came into existence, it would come into existence from a substratum. But the nature of matter is precisely to be the substratum from which other things arise. Consequently, the underlying matter of the universe could have come into evidence only from an already existing matter exactly like itself; to assume that the underlying matter of the universe came into existence would require assuming that an underlying matter already existed. As this assumption is self-contradictory, Aristotle argued, matter must be eternal. Because in his eyes, "Aristotle demonstrated the eternity of matter", Ibn Rushd "abandon[ed] belief in the creation out of nothing."

This is not to say that Ibn Rushd denied the Creation; rather, he proposed an eternal creation. Oliver Leaman explains Ibn Rushd's argument as such:

We [as humans] can decide to do something, we can wait for a certain time before acting, we can wonder about our future actions; but such possibilities cannot arise for [an eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent] God. In his case there is no gap between desire and action, nothing stands in the way of his activity; and yet we are told by al-Ghazali that God suddenly created the world. What differentiates one time from another for God? What could motivate him to create the world at one particular time as opposed to another? For us, different times are different because they have different qualitative aspects, yet before the creation of the world, when there was nothing around to characterize one time as distinct from another, there is nothing to characterize one time over another as the time for creation to take place.

Significance

Ibn Rushd is most famous for his commentaries of Aristotle's works, which had been mostly forgotten in the West. Before 1150, only a few of Aristotle's works existed in translation in Latin Europe, although the tradition of great philosophers and poets of antiquity continued to be studied and copied in the Greek Byzantium. It was to some degree through the Latin translations of Ibn Rushd's work beginning in the thirteenth century, that the legacy of Aristotle was recovered in the Latin West.

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. Hebrew translations of his work also had a lasting impact on Jewish philosophy. Moses Maimonides, Samuel Ben Tibbon, Juda Ben Solomon Choen, and Shem Tob Ben Joseph Falaquera were Jewish philosophers influenced by Ibn Rushd. In regards to Muslim philosophy, in his work Fasl al-Maqāl (often translated into English as The Decisive Treatise), he stresses the importance of analytical thinking as a prerequisite to interpret the Qur'an. However, because his death coincided with a change in the culture of Al-Andalus, Ibn Rushd had no major influence on Islamic philosophic thought until modern times. Those Islamic philosophers who did comment on his work often condemned his writings as unorthodox.

In the Christian West, Ibn Rushd's ideas were assimilated by Siger of Brabant and Thomas Aquinas and others (especially those from the University of Paris) who situated themselves in the Christian scholastic tradition, which valued Aristotelian logic. With that said, famous scholastics such as Aquinas did not refer to Ibn Rushd by name, instead choosing to refer to him simply as "The Commentator" (with Aristotle in turn being given the sobriquet "The Philosopher"). Ultimately, Ibn Rushd received a mixed reception from Christian Europe: while he was regarded fairly highly for his detailed commentaries on the works of Aristotle, his person philosophy—which came to be known as Averroism—was criticized for not being compatible with Christian doctrine. The Catholic Encyclopedia, for instance, notes:

His doctrines had a varying fortune in Christian schools. At first they secured a certain amount of adherence, then, gradually, their incompatibility with Christian teaching became apparent, and finally, owing to the revolt of the Renaissance from everything Scholastic, they secured once more a temporary hearing. His commentaries, however, had immediate and lasting success. St. Thomas Aquinas used the "Grand Commentary" of Averroes as his model, being, apparently, the first Scholastic to adopt that style of exposition ... he always spoke of the Arabian commentator as one who had [in his view] perverted the Peripatetic tradition, but whose words, nevertheless, should be treated with respect and consideration.

Indeed, Aquinas considered Ibn Rushd to be the premiere commentator on Aristotle, but he disagreed with his religious and theological arguments. In regards to this point, Norman Kretzmann argues that, through the use of the title "The Commentator", Aquinas was able to convey Ibn Rushd's understanding of Aristotle without having to accept or condone Ibn Rushd's personal understanding of philosophy.

Legacy