Maimonides in His World. Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker

Chapter Two

The Theological Context of

Maimonides’ Thought

Islamic Theology

Scrupulous footnoting, which we nowadays regard as essential to scientifi c
publications, was not part of the ethos of medieval authors.^1 Medieval
writers often quote without indicating their source, and they regularly
present their thought without mentioning previous authors who inspired
them (unless, of course, they want to present themselves as following a
school tradition). An investigation that aspires to draw the pa rameters of
Maimonides’ cultural world necessarily requires the identifi cation of his
sources. This, however, turns out to be in many ways a task for the detec-
tive, who must keep alert for unexpected discoveries.
In seeking to identify the philosophical sources for Maimonides’ Guide
of the Perplexed, Shlomo Pines relied fi rst and foremost upon Maimo-
nides’ explicit statements. Only few thinkers are mentioned by name in
theGuide. Some additional information can be culled from Maimonides’
letter to Samuel Ibn Tibbon. In writing this letter, however, Maimonides
probably did not intend to compose an exhaustive annotated list of his
readings. It is more likely that Ibn Tibbon, in a letter that is no longer
extant, inquired concerning certain authors whose books were in his
own library, and that Maimonides responded in his letter to this inquiry.^2
Like the Guide, then, the letter to Ibn Tibbon also does not exhaust the
names of authors whom Maimonides read, to whom he reacted, or to the
discussion of whose thought he attached par ticular importance. Maimo-
nides’ philosophical erudition was no doubt far broader than would
seem to be the case only on the basis of his explicit references.^3 We must

(^1) See F. Rosenthal, The Technique and Approach of Muslim Scholarship (Rome, 1947),
esp. 41; S. Stroumsa, “Citation Traditions: On Explicit and Hidden Citations in Judaeo-
Arabic Philosophical Literature,” in J. Blau and D. Doron, eds., Heritage and Innovation in
Medieval Judaeo- Arabic Culture (Ramat- Gan, 2000), 167– 78 [Hebrew].
(^2) See Marx, “Texts by and about Maimonides,” 378; Epistles, 552– 53; and see below,
apud note 12.
(^3) This working hypothesis is now widely accepted; see, for instance, the Bulletin de phi-
losophie medieval 46 (2004): 283– 87. Nevertheless, it still seems to be diametrically op-