Maimonides in His World. Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker

xx ABBREVIATIONS Sefer ha- mitzvot= Moshe ben Maimon, Sefer ha- mitzvot, ed. J. Qafih (Jerusalem, 1971). Treatise on Resurrectio ...

Maimonides in His World ...

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Chapter One Maimonides and Mediterranean Culture From the many honorifi c titles appended to Maimonides’ name, “The Great Ea gle ...

2 CHAPTER ONE work. The ensuing scholarly result does not do justice to Maimonides. The image it paints resembles Maimonides’ fa ...

MAIMONIDES AND MEDITERRANEAN CULTURE 3 Mediterranean Cultures The historical refl ection on the cultural role of the Mediterrane ...

4 CHAPTER ONE awareness of the concept’s popularity led to a conscious attempt to ex- amine its validity. Peregrine Horden and N ...

MAIMONIDES AND MEDITERRANEAN CULTURE 5 nerable to misuse.” As noted by Harris, “for many scholars Mediterra- nean unity has mean ...

6 CHAPTER ONE described in terms of convivencia, in which las tres culturas (Islam, Christianity, and Judaism) enjoyed a paralle ...

MAIMONIDES AND MEDITERRANEAN CULTURE 7 saw himself throughout his life as an Andalusian, and identifi ed himself as such by sign ...

8 CHAPTER ONE in a much larger area, stretching from the Iberian peninsula to the Indian subcontinent.^26 The Islamic polity tha ...

MAIMONIDES AND MEDITERRANEAN CULTURE 9 he was mainly supported by his brother David, until David’s drowning in the Indian Ocean. ...

10 CHAPTER ONE Their jurisprudence, based on Maliki law, reveals some affi nity with the Zahiri school (although it cannot be id ...

MAIMONIDES AND MEDITERRANEAN CULTURE 11 the Mediterranean, where they succeeded one another, the latecomers conversing with prev ...

12 CHAPTER ONE to say, Muslims). The need to justify the use of Greek philosophy was felt by other medieval phi losophers. For i ...

MAIMONIDES AND MEDITERRANEAN CULTURE 13 Horizons Like Goitein’s Mediterranean society, Maimonides’ cultural Mediterra- nean enco ...

14 CHAPTER ONE otherwise, as relevant, indeed essential, for understanding his legal thought. Maimonides’ theory of religion was ...

MAIMONIDES AND MEDITERRANEAN CULTURE 15 of philosophy, Ibn Bajja (d. 1138), and he met the son of the astronomer Ibn al- Afl ah ...

16 CHAPTER ONE The fi nal layer constituting Maimonides’ philosophical heritage is that of the Arab- Muslim world: the tenth- ce ...

MAIMONIDES AND MEDITERRANEAN CULTURE 17 harsh remarks as did Sabian science. He also squarely rejected their alle- gorical herme ...