deed, virtually all the important philosophical names here were also scientists
to some degree. It was the activity of the scientific network which stimulated
broader creativity as Muslim philosophy suddenly took off in Spain. Judah
Halevi, Ibn Bajja, Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Rushd, Maimonides: all were medical doc-
tors. Important scientific work in mathematics and astronomy was carried out
by the Jewish philosophers Abraham bar Hiyya (41 in the key to Figure 8.5)
at Barcelona in the early 1100s,^26 and again in the next generation by Abraham
Ibn Ezra of Toledo, whose Neoplatonism is permeated with astronomy and
astrology. It is worth noting that Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Daud, and
Maimonides were all active astronomers as well as philosophers (DSB, 1981:
4:504; 7:37–38; 12:1–2; 14:637; 15:33; Husik, 1969: 198). Ibn Rushd is
directly connected to Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar), a famous physician at Seville (46);
and Ibn Tufayl was the master not only of Ibn Rushd but also of the outstand-
ing astronomer al-Bitruji, the Latins’ Alpetragius (51), who developed an
alternative to Ptolemaic astronomy, dispensing with eccentrics and epicycles.
The scientific stars emerged in Spain at the same time as the most notable
philosophers; another was the developer of spherical trigonometry, Jabir ibn
Aflah (47), Geber for the Latins, who was in Seville apparently with Ibn Tufayl,
and whose astronomy was explicated by Maimonides.^27 The cosmopolitan
community was organized above all on the universalistic medium of natural
science.
The intermeshing of intellectual networks, within and across religions,
became densest at just this time. Gundissalinus, a converted Jew, was appar-
ently helped in his Avicenna translations by Ibn Daud, another Jew in Toledo,
a refugee from the networks at Córdoba and Lucena.^28 Both Gundissalinus
and Ibn Daud had some reputation among Christian philosophers in north-
ern France. Halevi lived in Toledo around this time, and was in Córdoba in
his old age.^29 Halevi, as court physician in Córdoba, must have been in the
same circles as Ibn Tufayl and Ibn Rushd, both court physicians in their own
right. Ibn Bajja, in the earlier generation, moved from the Muslim court at
Saragossa^30 to court circles at Seville, Granada, and Fez. There are Jewish
philosophers in these same places: Moses ibn Ezra (35) from Granada; Abra-
ham ibn Ezra from Toledo, a world traveler in both Christian Europe and the
Muslim Mediterranean, who connects not only with all the other Jewish
philosophers in Spain but also (directly or indirectly via his son) with Abu-l-
Barakat in Baghdad (see Figure 8.3). Ibn Zaddik was the chief Jewish judge in
Córdoba between 1138 and 1149; it is unlikely that he would not have
encountered court officials such as Ibn Tufayl and possibly the young Ibn
Rushd.
The most striking coincidence is that Ibn Rushd (1126–1198) and Moses
Maimonides (1135–1204) grew up in Córdoba at virtually the same time, and
440 •^ Intellectual Communities: Western Paths