Ibn Rushd

Abu'l-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd was born in Cordoba in 1126 CE into a family of jurists. His grandfather had been chief judge of Cordoba. He trained in Maliki fiqh, then in medicine, then in Aristotelian philosophy, mastering each in turn.

He was court physician to the Almohad Caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf, who commissioned him to write a summary of Aristotle. Ibn Rushd produced three sets of commentaries on almost every work of Aristotle: a short summary (jami), a middle commentary (talkhis), and a great commentary (tafsir). The great commentaries are line-by-line explanations of the Greek text as it had been translated into Arabic. Translated into Latin by Michael Scot in the thirteenth century, these commentaries became the standard European reading of Aristotle for four centuries.

In defense of philosophy against al-Ghazali's attack in Tahafut al-Falasifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), he wrote Tahafut al-Tahafut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence), one of the great works of Arabic rational theology.

His Fasl al-Maqal (The Decisive Treatise) argued that the Quran itself commands the study of philosophy, and that revelation and reason cannot contradict.

He served as chief judge of Cordoba. Fell into political disfavor during a religious backlash near the end of his life, was briefly exiled to Lucena, then rehabilitated. Died in Marrakesh in 1198, buried there, then his body was returned to Cordoba to be buried in his family plot.