was later transferred to Cordoba, his hometown,
for burial.
Ibn Rushd is estimated to have written more
than 100 books and treatises in his lifetime. He
is best known for his commentaries on Aristotle,
whose works had been translated into Arabic
in syria during the eighth century. Ibn Rushd’s
commentaries were written in Arabic, translated
into Hebrew and Latin, and then transmitted to
Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries. Indeed,
it was mainly through Ibn Rushd’s commentar-
ies that European intellectuals and theologians
(known as the Scholastics) discovered Aristotle.
Even though it met with strong opposition from
the Catholic Church, his work contributed signifi-
cantly to the advancement of the Western philo-
sophical tradition during the High Middle Ages.
Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), the foremost Catholic
theologian of the time, consulted and contended
with Ibn Rushd’s interpretation of Aristotle in
composing his major theological works, Summa
Theologica and Summa contra Gentiles.
Another one of Ibn Rushd’s major works was
a treatise that argued against the views of abU
hamid al-ghazali (d. 1111), the famous Bagh-
dadi scholar who adhered to the ashari school of
Sunni theology and was held in high esteem by the
Almohads. In a book titled The Incoherence of the
Philosophers (Tahafut al-falasifa), al-Ghazali had
opposed the Neoplatonist philosophical views of
al-Farabi (d. 950), ibn sina (d. 1037), and others
who argued that the world was eternal, that God
had no knowledge of the particulars of his cre-
ation, and who denied a bodily resurrection and
final judgment. Instead, al-Ghazali maintained
that philosophy and religion were incompatible
and that philosophers should be condemned as
infidels. Ibn Rushd, defending Aristotle and the
Islamic philosophical tradition, entitled his refu-
tation of al-Ghazali The Incoherence of the Incoher-
ence (Tahafut al-tahafut) and asserted that reason
and revelation were indeed compatible, it was
only that they differed in language and interpre-
tation. Some of those who read his work alleged
that he held to a belief in “two truths”—that there
was one truth that could be known by human
reason and another that could be known by rev-
elation from God. A fuller reading of Ibn Rushd,
however, does not support this claim. In addi-
tion to his philosophical and theological works,
he also wrote books on Islamic law, politics, and
astronomy. His medical encyclopedia, The Book of
Generalities (Kitab al-kulliyat), dealt with a variety
of topics, including anatomy, disease, diet, and
healing. It was translated into Latin and read by
medical students in medieval Europe.
The persecution and condemnation Ibn Rushd
suffered in his last years, combined with the politi-
cal and cultural decline of Islamicate Spain, damp-
ened the impact of his work in Islamicate lands.Statue commemorating Ibn Rushd in Cordoba,
Spain (Federico R. Campo)
Ibn Rushd, Muhammad 337 J