Maimonides in His World. Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker

70 CHAPTER THREE

Torah. In other words, it seems plausible that in this case Ghazali’s infl u-
ence reached Maimonides through the Almohad prism.
Like Ibn Tumart and Ghazali, Maimonides defi nes “belief” as knowl-
edge. According to him “there is no belief except after a repre sentation;
belief is the affi rmation that what has been represented is outside the mind
just as it has been represented in the mind.”^77 Belief is defi ned here as iden-
tical to correct knowledge, both conceptual (“repre sentation” or tasaw-
wur) and affi rmative (tasdiq). One should also note that Maimonides opens
hisBook of Knowledge with Laws of the Foundations of the Torah. The
Foundations are the scientifi c and theological basics, necessary for laying
the ground for correct belief. Maimonides’ Hebrew title, Yesodei ha- Torah
(which is a Hebrew neologism), most probably renders the Arabic usul al-
din. His decision to incorporate these foundations, as an opening chapter,
in his Code of Law obviously refl ects the Almohad conception of faith as
defi nable by jurisdiction and subject to juristic ruling.

Theology

The most obvious case of infl uence of Almohad indoctrination can be
seen in Maimonides’ evaluation of anthropomorphism as incompatible
with mono theism. Among Muslims, the Almohads were not unique in
their objection to anthropomorphism, but, as mentioned above, they made
this objection into their distinctive hallmark, by declaring it an article of
faith that separates the believer from the heretic. Similarly, Maimonides
was not the fi rst Jewish thinker to reject anthropomorphism, but none of
his pre decessors had defi ned this so clearly as an article of faith, incum-
bent on all levels of society. In The Guide of the Perplexed Maimonides
says:

The negation of the doctrine of the corporeality of God and the de-

nial of His having a likeness to created things and of His being sub-

ject to affections are matters that ought to be made clear and ex-

(^77) Guide, 1.50 (Dalala, 75; Pines, 110): La i
tiqad illa ba
da tasawwur, li- anna al- i
tiqad
huwa al- tasdiq bi- ma tasawwara annahu kharij al- dhihn
ala ma tasawwara fi’l-dhihn.; cf.
Al-kalam
ala al-
ibada, in Luciani, Le Livre de Mohammed Ibn Toumert, 221; AbuHamid
al-Ghazali,Ihya
ulum al- din (Beirut, 1994), Kitab qawa
d al-
aqaid, 150– 54, esp. 154:
“al-iman
ibara
an al- tasdiq.” Notwithstanding Maimonides’ defi nition of belief, however,
he also distinguishes between belief (i
tiqad)—the opposite of which is heresy (kufr)—and
knowledge (
ilm) supported by a demonstrated proof (burhan), the opposite of which is
ignorance (juhl). See Guide, 1.36 (Dalala, 56:15– 16; Pines, 83); and Guide, 1.35 (Dalala,
57:23; Pines, 85): “I do not consider as an infi del one who cannot demonstrate that the
corporeality of God should be negated. But I do consider as an infi del one who does not
believe in its negation.” See also chap. 6, below, apud note 103.