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Averroes Quotes

Ibn Rushd , often Latinized as Averroes , was a Muslim Andalusi philosopher and judge who wrote about many subjects, including philosophy, theology, medicine, astronomy, physics, Islamic jurisprudence and law, and linguistics. His philosophical works include numerous commentaries on Aristotle, for which he was known in the West as The Commentator. He also served as a judge and a court physician for the Almohad Caliphate.

He was born in Córdoba in 1126 to a family of prominent judges—his grandfather was the chief judge of the city. In 1169 he was introduced to the caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf, who was impressed with his knowledge, became his patron and commissioned many of Averroes' commentaries. Averroes later served multiple terms as a judge in Seville and Córdoba. In 1182, he was appointed as court physician and the chief judge of Córdoba. After Abu Yusuf's death in 1184, he remained in royal favor until he fell into disgrace in 1195. He was targeted on various charges—likely for political reasons—and was exiled to nearby Lucena. He returned to royal favor shortly before his death on 11 December 1198.

Averroes was a strong proponent of Aristotelianism; he attempted to restore what he considered the original teachings of Aristotle and opposed the Neoplatonist tendencies of earlier Muslim thinkers, such as Al-Farabi and Avicenna. He also defended the pursuit of philosophy against criticism by Ashari theologians such as Al-Ghazali. Averroes argued that philosophy was permissible in Islam and even compulsory among certain elites. He also argued scriptural text should be interpreted allegorically if it appeared to contradict conclusions reached by reason and philosophy. In Islamic jurisprudence, he wrote the Bidāyat al-Mujtahid on the differences between Islamic schools of law and the principles that caused their differences. In medicine, he proposed a new theory of stroke, described the signs and symptoms of Parkinson's disease for the first time, and might have been the first to identify the retina as the part of the eye responsible for sensing light. His medical book Al-Kulliyat fi al-Tibb, translated into Latin and known as the Colliget, became a textbook in Europe for centuries.

His legacy in the Islamic world was modest for geographical and intellectual reasons. In the West, Averroes was known for his extensive commentaries on Aristotle, many of which were translated into Latin and Hebrew. The translations of his work reawakened Western European interest in Aristotle and Greek thinkers, an area of study that had been widely abandoned after the fall of the Roman Empire. His thoughts generated controversies in Latin Christendom and triggered a philosophical movement called Averroism based on his writings. His unity of the intellect thesis, proposing that all humans share the same intellect, became one of the most well-known and controversial Averroist doctrines in the West. His works were condemned by the Catholic Church in 1270 and 1277. Although weakened by the condemnations and sustained critique by Thomas Aquinas, Latin Averroism continued to attract followers up to the sixteenth century. Wikipedia  

✵ 14. April 1126 – 10. December 1198
Averroes photo

Works

On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy
Averroes: 18 quotes9 likes

Famous Averroes Quotes

“The Law teaches that the universe was invented and created by God, and that it did not come into being by chance or by itself.”

Averroes book On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

Part 1: The Creation of the Universe; Opening sentence
On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

“This is one of the most intricate problems of religion.”

Averroes book On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

Part 3: Of Fate And Predestination; Opening sentence
On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy
Context: This is one of the most intricate problems of religion. For if you look into the traditional arguments () about this problem you will find them contradictory; such also being the case with arguments of reason. The contradiction in the arguments of the first kind is found in the Qur'an and the Hadith.

“Philosophers do not claim that God does not know particulars; they rather claim that He does not know them the way humans do. God knows particulars as their Creator whereas humans know them as a privileged creations of God might know them.”

Averroes

Attributed to Averroes in Voices of Islam: Voices of change (2007) by Vincent J. Cornell, p. 35

“There is no city that is truly one other than this city that we [anahnti] are involved in bringing forth.”

Averroes

Averroes, Ralph Lerner (1974) Averroes On Plato's Republic. p. xxiv

“Knowledge is the conformity of the object and the intellect.”

Averroes

Attributed to Averroes, in: John Bartlett (1968) Familiar Qutations. p. 155

“If teleological study of the world is philosophy, and if the Law commands such a study, then the Law commands philosophy.”

Averroes

FM 44 as cited in: Oliver Leaman (2002) An Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy, p. 179
The Decisive Treatise

Averroes Quotes about studying

“To master this instrument the religious thinker must make a preliminary study of logic, just as the lawyer must study legal reasoning. This is no more heretical in the one case than in the other. And logic must be learned from the ancient masters, regardless of the fact that they were not Muslims.”

Averroes

The Decisive Treatise
Source: Jon McGinnis, David C. Reisman (2007) Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources. p. 310

“Praise be to God with all due praise, and a prayer for Muhammad His chosen servant and apostle. The purpose of this treatise is to examine, from the standpoint of the study of the Law, whether the study of philosophy and logic is allowed by the Law, or prohibited, or commanded either by way of recommendation or as obligatory.”

Averroes

Introduction
The Decisive Treatise

“The double meaning has been given to suit people's diverse intelligence. The apparent contradictions are meant to stimulate the learned to deeper study.”

Averroes

Ch 2
The Decisive Treatise

“After logic we must proceed to philosophy proper. Here too we have to learn from our predecessors, just as in mathematics and law. Thus it is wrong to forbid the study of ancient philosophy. Harm from it is accidental, like harm from taking medicine, drinking water, or studying law.”

Averroes

Ch 1.9
The Decisive Treatise

Averroes Quotes

“On the whole, a man who denies the existence of the effects arranged according to the causes in the question of arts, or whose wisdom cannot understand it, then he has no knowledge of the art of its Maker.”

Averroes book On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

“If we admit the existence of the prophetic mission, by putting the idea of possibility, which is in fact ignorance, in place of certainty, and make miracles a proof of the truth of man who claims to be a prophet it becomes necessary that they should not be used by a person, who says that they can be performed by others than prophets, as the Mutakallimun do.”

Averroes book On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

Part 2: The Advent of the Prophets; Opening sentence
On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

“The necessary connexion of movement and time is real and time is something the soul (dhihn) constructs in movement.”

Averroes

As cited in "Being and Language in Averroes' “Tahafut At-Tahafut” (2003) by Massimo Campanini

“The texts about the future life fall into, since demonstrative scholars do not agree whether to take them in their apparent meaning or interpret them allegorically. Either is permissible. But it is inexcusable to deny the fact of a future life altogether.”

Averroes

Ch 2. 44
The Decisive Treatise

“[In the introduction to his Middle Commentary on Aristotle's Topics, Averroes said] This art has three parts. The first part sets forth the speeches from which dialectical conversation is composed — i. e., its parts, and the parts of its parts on to its simplest components. This part is found in the first treatise on Aristotle's book.
The second part sets forth the topics from which syllogisms are drawn — syllogisms for affirming something or denying it with respect to every kind of problem occurring in this art. This is the next six treatises of Aristotle's book
The third part set forth how The third part sets forth how the questioner ought to question and the answerer answer. It also sets forth how many kinds of questions and answers there are. This is in the eighth treatise of Aristotle's book.”

Averroes

Averroës, Charles Edwin Butterworth (1977) Averroës' Three Short Commentaries on Aristotle's "Topics,". p. 92

“It is quite clear to you that all the people see that lower kinds of creation could have been made in a different way from that in which they really are, and as they see this lower degree in many things they think that they must have been made by chance.”

Averroes book On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

“Come the Day of Judgment, some believe that the body will be different from our present body. This is only transient, that will be eternal. For this also there are religious arguments.”

Averroes book On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

Pat 5: The Day of Judgment; Opening sentence
On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

“The Asharites have expressed a very peculiar opinion, both with regard to reason and religion; about this problem they have explained it in a way in which religion has not, but have adopted quite an opposite method.”

Averroes book On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

Part 4: Divine Justice and Injustice; Opening sentence
On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

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