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Cordoba mosque

Ibn Rushd prayed and studied in this Cordoba mosque

Can science and religion work together?

Since the time of Socrates  – or before – many people have tried to figure out how science and religion can both be true at the same time. Ibn Rushd, like the earlier ibn Sina and al-Ghazali, was part of this effort.

Who was Socrates?
Who was ibn Sina?
And al-Ghazali?
All our Islamic Empire articles

Can you combine Aristotle and Islam?

Like them, he tried to combine Aristotle‘s scientific description of the world with religious views to create a unified idea of the world. As a Muslim, Ibn Rushd tried to combine Aristotle with Islam. Ibn Rushd’s admirer Maimonides did the same thing for Judaism, and then Thomas Aquinas did the same thing for Christianity.

Who was Aristotle?
More about Islam
Maimonides and Judaism
Thomas Aquinas and Christianity

Where did ibn Rushd grow up?

Ibn Rushd (people sometimes call him Averroes) was born in Cordoba, in Islamic Spain, in 1126 AD. As he grew up, he studied and prayed in the great mosque at Cordoba. When he was twenty years old, the Almohads conquered Spain, and his father lost his job as the chief judge of Cordoba. But unlike with Maimonides, Ibn Rushd’s family stayed in Spain, and by the time he was 34, in 1160, he became the chief judge of Seville.

Islamic Spain
The Almohads

Ibn Rushd’s education

He couldn’t read Greek, but he had copies of Aristotle‘s and Plato‘s books translated into Arabic that he could read. After he had read Aristotle and Plato, and also read what Ibn Sina and al-Ghazali had to say about Aristotle, Ibn Rushd wrote his own book about Aristotle’s philosophy. Ibn Rushd thought that you could believe both Aristotle and the Quran at the same time, because they were just different ways of expressing the same truth.

Who was Plato?
What is the Quran?

University of Fez, Morocco

University of Fez, Morocco

What happens to your soul?

He also thought that your soul was divided into two parts. One part of your soul was personal, and the other part was divine, so that when you died, your personal soul died with you, but your divine soul joined with the others in one big divine soul. Ibn Rushd also wrote a book explaining Plato’s Republic.

Electricity and light

Like his hero Aristotle, Ibn Rushd was a scientist as well as a philosopher. He discussed electric fish, the angle of the sun’s rays, and many other topics. He probably learned to use the new Arabic numerals.

History of electricity
What causes the seasons?
Medieval Islamic math
Science in medieval Islam
Medieval African science

When did ibn Rushd die?

As he got older, he traveled throughout the Almohad kingdom on government business. He died in Morocco, in 1198 AD, when he was 72 years old.

Learn by doing: does your religion conflict with science? Why or why not?
More about Maimonides

Bibliography and further reading about Ibn Rushd:

Maimonides
Thomas Aquinas
More about the Islamic Empire
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