80 CHAPTER THREE
Philosophy and AstronomyAn anecdote recounted by the historian Abd al- Wahid al- Marrakushi
depicts the second Almohad ruler Abu Yaqub Yusuf as genuinely inter-
ested in scientifi c and philosophical speculation and as well versed in its
intricacies. The anecdote presents the ruler as capable of engaging a
timid Averroes in conversation about Aristotelian physics, a conversa-
tion at the end of which Averroes was commissioned to write commen-
taries on the whole Aristotelian corpus.^114 This anecdote is probably as
fi ctitious as it is appealing to the imagination, as I have argued elsewhere.
Although this par ticular Almohad ruler seems to have been relatively
more inclined to science and speculation than other Almohads, the at-
tempt to depict him as a philosopher- king is much exaggerated.^115 This
being said, it is nonetheless true that philosophy and science fl ourished
under the Almohads. The twelfth century (in the middle of which al-
Andalus came under Almohad rule) is the most important period (some
say, the only signifi cant period) of Andalusian philosophy.^116 One should
therefore not exclude the possibility that the Almohad way of thinking
may have left its marks on both scientifi c and philosophical thought in
al-Andalus.
Such Almohad infl uence was suggested by Sabra regarding what he
dubbed “the Andalusian revolt against Ptolemaic astronomy.”^117 As is
well known, the astronomical models suggested by Ptolemy offer expla-
nations for otherwise unresolved observations, but these models contra-
dict Aristotelian physics. Arab astronomers in general accepted a self-
contradictory position, following Ptolemaic astronomy while continuing
to uphold Aristotelian physics. Several Andalusian thinkers, however,
like Bitruji, saw this contradictory position as untenable, and rejected the
Ptolemaic models and solutions. As noted by Sabra, this “revolt” coin-
cides with the rise of the Almohads in North Africa, and is concentrated
in the Almohad realm of infl uence. Sabra therefore suggested seeing this
astronomical trend as another expression of “Almohad literalism.” As
mentioned above, however, notwithstanding the sympathies of Abu
Yaqub Yusuf, the second Almohad ruler, with the Zahiri school, the
(^114) See Marrakushi,Mujib, 174– 75; and see, for instance, F. Griffel, Apostasie und Toler-
anz im Islam, 421.
(^115) See Stroumsa “Philosophes almohades?,” 1139– 44.
(^116) See S. Pines, art. “Philosophy,” in P. M. Holt et al., eds., The Cambridge History of Is-
lam (Cambridge, 1970), 2B: 814– 15.
(^117) A. I. Sabra, “The Andalusian Revolt against Ptolemaic Astronomy: Averroes and al-
Bitruji,” in E. Mendelsohn, ed., Transformation and Tradition in the Sciences: Essays in
Honor of Bernard Cohen (Cambridge, 1984), 133– 53; J. Kraemer, “Maimonides and the
Spanish Aristotelian Tradition,” 50– 54.