Ibn Rushd's Philosophy

Biography, Philosophy, Works, and Life of Ibn Rushd

Ibn Rushd (Arabic: ابن رشد; Arabic full name: أبو الوليد محمد ابن احمد ابن رشد. Abu Al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rusyd; 1126 - 11 December 1198), often trained as Averroes, was a philosopher and thinkers from Al-Andalus who wrote in the fields of scientific disciplines, including philosophy, creed or Islamic theology, medicine, astronomy, physics, Islamic fiqh or law, and linguistics.

His philosophical works included many interpretations, paraphrases, and summaries of Aristotle's works, which made him dubbed the western world as "The Interpreter" (English: The Commentator). Ibn Rushd also served his life as a judge and palace physician for the Caliphate of Muwahhidun.

Ibn Rushd was born in Cordova to a family that gave birth to famous judges; his grandfather was qadhi al-qudhat (chief judge) and famous jurist in the city.

In 1169 he met Caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf, who was impressed with Ibn Rushd's knowledge. The caliph later supported Ibn Rushd and many of Ibn Rushd's works were the projects he commissioned. Ibn Rushd also served as a judge several times in Seville and Cordoba. In 1182, he was appointed palace physician and chief judge in Cordova.

After the death of Abu Yusuf in 1184, he was still in good relations with the palace, until 1195 when he was charged with various political motives. The court then ruled that his teachings were heretical and Ibn Rushd was exiled to Lucena. After several years in exile, the palace called him back on duty, but it did not last long because Ibn Rushd died.

Ibn Rushd was a supporter of the philosophical teachings of Aristotle (Aristotelianism). He tried to return the philosophy of the Islamic world to the original teachings of Aristotle. He criticized the Neoplatonism style found in the philosophies of previous Islamic thinkers such as Al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, which he considered to deviate from the philosophy of Aristotle. He defended the philosophical activities of the criticism launched by the Ash'ari scholars such as Al-Ghazali.

Ibn Rushd argues that in Islam the philosophy of law is permissible, it may even be mandatory for certain circles. He also believes that the text of the Quran and Hadith can be interpreted implicitly or figuratively if the text seems to contradict the conclusions found through reason and philosophy.

In the field of fiqh, he wrote Bidayatul Mujtahid, which discusses the differences of schools in Islamic law. In medicine, he produced new ideas about the function of the retina in vision, the causes of stroke, and the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, and wrote a book that would later be translated into a standard textbook in Europe.

Ibn Rushd's influence on the Western world was far greater than the Islamic world. Ibn Rushd wrote many interpretations of Aristotle's works, which were later translated into Hebrew and Latin and circulated in Europe.

The translation of Ibn Rushd's works triggered Western European thinkers to re-examine the works of Aristotle and other Greek thinkers, after being ignored for a long time since the fall of the Roman empire.

Ibn Rushd's opinions also caused controversy in the Latin Christian world, and inspired a philosophical movement called Averroism. One of his controversial doctrines in the Western world is a theory called "unity of intellect" (unitas intellectus in Latin), which states that all humans together have one intellect or "intellect". Even so, Averroism continued to have followers in the Western world until the 16th century.