Arabic Thought and Its Place in HistoryO'Leary, De Lacy
ReligionIslamic
Arabic Thought and Its Place in History
O'Leary, De Lacy
Philosophy, Arab
It was in Spain that the Jews especially distinguished themselves as
physicians, reproducing and extending the investigations of the Arabic
authorities, who were pupils of the Nestorians and Jews in the first
place. The most distinguished of these Spanish Jews who became leaders
in medical science was _Ibn Zuhr_ (d. 595 A.H. = 1199 A.D.), commonly
known to the mediæval West as “Avenzoar.” He was a native of Seville
and member of a family of physicians. Jewish philosophy does not take
a leading place until the appearance of _Abu Imran Moses b. Maymun b.
`Abdullah_ (d. 601 A.H. = 1204 A.D.), a contemporary and follower of
Ibn Rushd and the one who did most to establish an Averroist school,
and so passed on his work and influence to Latin Christendom. He was
the son of a pupil of Hal-Levi, and, it is said, a pupil of one of Ibn
Bajja’s pupils. His family retired to Africa to avoid the persecution
of the Muwahhids and settled for a time in Fez, then removed to Egypt.
It was whilst he was at Cairo that Ibn Maymun, or Maimonides as he is
more commonly called by European writers, first heard of Ibn Rushd.
His chief work is known as _Dalalat al-Ha´irin_, “the Guide of the
Perplexed,” which, like all his other books, was produced in Arabic;
about the time of his death this work was translated into Hebrew by
Samuel b. Tibbon as _Moreh Nebukin_. The Arabic text, edited by Munk,
was published at Paris (3 vols.) in 1856-66, and in 1884 an English
translation by Friedländer was published in London. Next to this in
importance is the treatise _Maqalah fi-t-Tawhid_, a treatise on the
unity of God, of which a Hebrew translation was made in the 14th cent.
A.D. His other works were mainly medical, and include treatises “on
poisons and their antidotes,” “on hæmorrhoids,” “on asthma,” and a
commentary on Hippocrates.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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