AN ALMOHAD “FUNDAMENTALIST”? 67
in the couple’s house. The amin’s role was to determine the source of es-
trangement, attempt to reconcile the spouses, and, in case of divorce,
determine whether or not the divorce should include monetary penalty to
the wife. This judicial practice, which was also known in Almoravid Cor-
doba, is probably the source for Maimonides’ ingenious ruling.
The Arabic terminology employed by Maimonides in the passages
quoted above, however, highlights the affi nity of his legal method with
another contemporary source, the legal thought of the Almohads. It
appears that in his decision to compose a relatively short compendium of
law, as well as in the principles that guided him in this composition
(namely, going back to the usul, presenting a fi nal ruling, and dispensing
with the scaffoldings that traditionally accompanied it), Maimonides was
closely following the Almohad example. It should not come as a surprise
that, when deciding to revolutionize Jewish legal compositions, Maimo-
nides borrowed the model used by his persecutors. In this, as in other
things, he was true to his dictum: to look for the truth, whoever may
have said it.^64
It is interesting to compare Maimonides’ legal work with that of his
contemporary, the Muslim phi losopher and jurist, Abul-Walid Ibn
Rushd, known in the Latin West as Averroes. Although Maimonides and
Averroes probably never met, the similarities in their biographies and
intellectual careers justify their consideration as kindred spirits, who, in
some ways, lived parallel lives.^65 Indeed, statements that associate Mai-
monides with Averroes are quite common in contemporary scholarship.^66
Such statements stem, fi rst of all, from the philosophical heritage of the
European Middle Ages. Jewish medieval thinkers regarded these two au-
thors as the two main philosophic authorities and grouped them together,
and Christian thinkers such as Meister Eckhart or Albert the Great
quoted and debated both Averroes’s Commentaries and Maimonides’
Guide.^67 Besides the medieval philosophical tradition, however, modern
(^64) See, chap. 1, above, apud note 42.
(^65) See also chap. 5, below, apud note 23.
(^66) See, for instance, Joseph. A. Bujis, ed., “Introduction,” in Maimonides: A Collection of
Critical Essays (Notre Dame, 1988), 2; and, in the same volume, A. Hymann, “Interpreting
Maimonides,” 20; Menocal, The Ornament of the World, 208. The temptation to connect
these two luminaries is refl ected in fi ction as well as in scholarship; see, for instance, the
imaginary (Hebrew) correspondence between them in I. Gorlizki, The Latent Secret—
Maimonides and his Friend Ibn Rushd (Tel- Aviv, 2002) [Hebrew]; French translation:
Maïmonide-Ibn Rushd, Une correspondance rêvée (Paris, 2004).
(^67) See, for instance, C. Rigo, “Zur Rezeption des Moses Maimonides im Werk des Albertus
Magnus,” in W. Senner et al., ed., Albertus Magnus zum Gedenken nach 800 Jahren: Neue
Zugänge, Aspekte und Perspektiven (Berlin, 2001), 29– 66; and, in the same volume, E.- H.
Wéber, “Un thème de la philosophie arabe interpreté par Albert le Grand,” 79– 90;
A. Bertolacci, “The Reception of Avicenna’s ‘Philosophia Prima’ in Albert the Great’s