In this chapter we turn to consider perhaps the leading representative of Hebrew learning in the middle ages, Moses Maimonides[619] or Musa ibn Maimum or Moses ben Maimon, as he is variously briefly styled, not to entangle ourselves in the intricacies of his full Arabic name. In the Latin versions of his works he is spoken of as Rabbi Moyses of Cordova[620] or is made to call himself an Israelite of Cordova,[621] but it seems to have been not much more than the scene of his birth and childhood, since the invasion of the fanatical Almohades in 1148 forced his father to flee with his family first from place to place in Spain, in 1160 to Fez, later to Syria and Egypt. From about 1165 on Maimonides seems to have lived most of the time at Cairo and there to have done most of his work. After the deaths of his father and brother forced him to earn a livelihood by practicing medicine, he became physician to the vizier of Saladin and head of the Jewish community in Cairo. [Sidenote: His works in the west.] Whether or not he returned to Spain before his death in 1204, he was certainly known to the western world of learning. In 1194 he wrote a letter on the subject of astrology in response to inquiries which he had received from Jews of Marseilles.[622] In it he tells them that his _Repetition of the Law_ (_Iteratio legis_) has already spread through the island of Sicily. But he apparently was still in Cairo, where in July, 1198, he wrote his treatise on Poisons for the Cadi Fadhil.[623] After his death, however, it was between the conservative and liberal parties among the Jews of France and Spain that a struggle ensued over the orthodoxy of his works, which was finally settled, we are told, by reference in 1234 to the Christian authorities, who ordered his books to be burned. His _Guide for the Perplexed_, first published in Egypt in Arabic in 1190, had been translated into Hebrew at Lunel in southern France before the close of the twelfth century, and then again by a Spanish poet.[624] But the rabbis of northern France opposed the introduction of Maimonides’ works there and, when they were anathematized for it by those of the south, are said to have reported the writings to the Inquisition. The Maimonist party then accused them of delation and several of them were punished by having their tongues cut out.[625] [Sidenote: His works in Latin.]