Ibn Rushd, Abu'l Walid Muhammad (1126-98)
Ibn Rushd, Abu’l Walid Muhammad (1126-98) Ibn
Rushd (Averroes) is regarded by many
as the most important of the Islamic
philosophers. A product of
twelfth-century Islamic Spain, he
set out to integrate Aristotelian
philosophy with Islamic thought. A
common theme throughout his writings
is that there is no incompatibility
between religion and philosophy when
both are properly understood. His
contributions to philosophy took
many forms, ranging from his
detailed commentaries on Aristotle,
his defence of philosophy against
the attacks of those who condemned
it as contrary to Islam and his
construction of a form of
Aristotelianism which cleansed it,
as far as was possible at the time,
of Neoplatonic influences. His
thought is genuinely creative and
highly controversial, producing
powerful arguments that were to
puzzle his philosophical successors
in the Jewish and Christian worlds.
He seems to argue that there are two
forms of truth, a religious form and
a philosophical form, and that it
does not matter if they point in
different directions.
He also
appears to be doubtful about the
possibility of personal immortality
or of God’s being able to know
that particular events have taken
place. There is much in his work
also which suggests that religion is
inferior to philosophy as a means of
attaining knowledge, and that the
understanding of religion which
ordinary believers can have is very
different and impoverished when
compared with that available to the
philosopher. When discussing
political philosophy he advocates a
leading role in the state for
philosophers, and is generally
disparaging of the qualities of
theologians as political figures. Ibn Rushd’s philosophy is seen to
be based upon a complex and original
philosophy of languages which
expresses his critique of the
accepted methods of argument in
Islamic philosophy up to his time.
1
Commentaries Abu’l Walid Muhammad
ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd,
often known as Averroes (the
Latinized version of his name), was
born in AH 520/AD 1126 in Cordoba.
He came from a distinguished line of
jurists and theologians, who like
him served as public officials. As a
result of royal patronage he became
both royal physician and qadi
(judge) of Cordoba in succession to
his ffather. Due to the political
turmoil in Andalus (Islamic Spain)
at the time, he was not always in
favour, and was banished to North
Africa when he was seventy during a
period of persecution of philosophy.
He died in AH 595/AD 1198 after
having been rehabilitated, but his
religious orthodoxy still seems to
have been suspected by the public.
There is a famous story that when
Ibn Rushd was about forty-two there
was a meeting between the caliph and
Ibn Rushd, at which the latter was
asked to summarize the works of
Aristotle in order that the ideas of
that thinker might be better
understood by the caliph himself,
and no doubt also by the
intellectual community. Ibn
Rushd’s reported nervousness at
accepting this commission was
well-founded, since changing
political circumstances had in the
past - and would in the future - put
Aristotle and those influenced by
him under a theological cloud; the
interest of a ruler in philosophy
could quite easily turn into
hostility. Over the next twenty-six
years, however, Ibn Rushd wrote
commentaries on most of
Aristotle’s works. These
commentaries took a variety of
forms. Often he would write a
summary, medium commentary and long
commentary of the same text, thus
presenting the ideas of Aristotle to
a variety of audiences; those who
were seeking a detailed discussion
of the whole text would look to the
long commentary, while those who
wanted just to ge
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Philosophy, Version 1.0, London:
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List of works
Some of Ibn Rushd’s works
are now only extant in Hebrew or
Latin, and some not at all. The most
useful bibliography is Rosemann, P.
(1988) ‘Ibn Rushd: A Catalogue of
Editions and Scholarly Writings from
1821 onwards’, Bulletin de
philosophie médiévale 30: 153-215.
Ibn Rushd (1169-98) Commentaries on
Aristotle, Aristotelis opera… cum
Averrois Cordubensis variis in
eosdem commentariis, Venice: Juntas,
1562-74; repr. Frankfurt: Minerva,
1962.(Ibn Rushd’s commentaries as
they appeared in Latin and formed
part of the approach to Aristotle in
Christian Europe.) Ibn Rushd
(c.1174) Middle Commentaries on
Aristotle, ed. C. Butterworth,
Averroes’ Middle Commentaries on
Aristotle’s Categories and De
Interpretatione, Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press,
1983.(Translation and commentary on
two of Ibn Rushd’s major works on
philosophical logic and language.)
Ibn Rushd (before 1175) Short
Commentaries on Aristotle, ed. C.
Butterworth, Averroes’ Three Short
Commentaries on Aristotle’s
‘Topics’, ‘Rhetoric’ and
‘Poetics’, Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press,
1977.(A translation and commentary
on three of Ibn Rushd’s main
discussions of different forms of
language.) Ibn Rushd (1179-80) Fasl
al-maqal (Decisive Treatise), ed. G.
Hourani, Averroes on the Harmony of
Religion and Philosophy, London:
Luzac, 1961; repr. 1976.(Translation
and discussion of the Fasl al-maqal
and two other short pieces on the
same topic.) Ibn Rushd (1180)
Tahafut al-tahafut (The Incoherence
of the Incoherence), ed. S. Van den
Bergh, Averroes’ Tahafut al-Tahafut
(The Incoherence of the
Incoherence), London: Luzac, 1954;
repr. 1978.(The standard translation
of Ibn Rushd’s response to al-Ghazali,
incorporating the latter’s text.)
Ibn Rushd (c.1190) Long Commentary
on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, ed. C.
Genequand, Ibn Rushd’s
Metaphysics, Leiden: Brill, 1984.(A
translation and commentary of Ibn
Rushd’s commentary on
Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Book
Lambda.) Ibn Rushd (1194) Middle
Commentary on Plato’s Republic,
ed. R. Lerner, Averroes on Plato’s
‘Republic’, Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1974.(The
most modern translation with
extensive commentary of Ibn
Rushd’s commentary on Plato’s
Republic.) References and further
reading Allard, M. (1952-4) ‘Le
Rationalisme d’Averroès d’après
une ةtude
sur la création’ (Averroes’
Rationalism in his Study on the
Creation), Bulletin d’ةtudes
Orientales 14: 7-59. (An account of
some of the stresses between the
philosophical and theological
approaches to creation.) Fakhry, M.
(1958) Islamic Occasionalism and Its
Critique by Averroes and Aquinas,
London: Allen & Unwin.(The way
in which Ibn Rushd’s approach to
the topic of causality became part
of wider philosophical thought in
Christian Europe.) Hayoun, M.-R. and
Libera, A. de (1991) Averroès et
l’averroïsme, Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France.(A concise
but comprehensive description of Ibn
Rushd’s thought and its
philosophical impact through the
Averroist movement.) Kogan, B.
(1985) Averroes and the Metaphysics
of Creation, Albany, NY: State
University of New York
Press.(Comprehensive treatment of
Ibn Rushd on causal necessity,
miracles, God’s knowledge and
emanation.) Leaman, O. (1988)
Averroes and His Philosophy, Oxford:
Clarendon Press; 2nd edn, Richmond:
Curzon, 1997.(A general account of
his philosophy.) Leaman, O. (1994)
‘Was Averroes an Averroist?’, in
F. Niewِhner
and L. Sturlese (eds) Averroismus im
Mittelalter und in der Renaissance,
Zurich: Spur Verlag, 9-22.(A
discussion of the links between the
thought of Averroes and the
Averroist movement.) Leaman, O.
(1995) ‘Averroes’, in F. Niewِhner
(ed.) Klassiker der
Religionsphilosophie, Munich: Beck,
142-62.(Concise account of the
contribution of Averroes to
philosophy.) Leaman, O. (1996)
‘Averroes and the West’, in M.
Wahba and M. Abousenna (eds)
Averroes and the Enlightenment, New
York: Prometheus, 53-67.(The links
between Ibn Rushd and Averroism
should be acknowledged as close, as
should the role of Ibn Rushd in the
growth of modernity in the West.)
Urvoy, D. (1991) Ibn Rushd (Averroes),
London: Routledge.(An account of his
thought which lays particular
emphasis upon contemporary events in
Andalus.) Urvoy, D. (1996) ‘Ibn
Rushd’ in S.H. Nasr and O. Leaman
(eds) History of Islamic Philosophy,
London: Routledge, 330-45.(General
account of his thought, with
particular attention to the context
within which he was writing.)
Wolfson, H. (1961) ‘The
Twice-Revealed Averroes’, Speculum
36: 373-92.(A highly influential and
suggestive summary of Ibn Rushd’s
standing in the history of
philosophy.)
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Philosophy, Version 1.0, London:
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