Most Famous Andalusian Philosophers
Andalusian philosophy refers to the philosophical tradition that flourished in al-Andalus — Muslim Iberia — between the eighth and fifteenth centuries. Combining Islamic theology with the Aristotelian and Neoplatonic inheritance, Andalusian philosophers played a decisive role in transmitting Greek thought to Latin Christendom and produced major original work in metaphysics, mysticism, and political theory. The towering figures are Averroes, whose Aristotle commentaries shaped scholastic philosophy for centuries; Ibn Arabi, the most influential mystical metaphysician of the Sufi tradition; and Ibn Hazm, the literalist theologian and polymath. Ibn Bajja and Ibn Tufayl developed influential accounts of the philosopher's relation to society.
The thinkers below worked at the points of contact between Islamic, Jewish, and Christian intellectual life, and their influence on later European thought is hard to overstate.
Andalusian philosophers
-
Averroes
Averroes, known in Arabic as Ibn Rushd, was a 12th-century Andalusian Arab philosopher, jurist, and physician of the Islamic Golden Age, the most influential medieval commentato...
-
Ibn Hazm
Abu Muhammad Ali Ibn Hazm was an Andalusian polymath, jurist, theologian, philosopher, and poet, one of the foremost minds of medieval Islamic Spain. He served briefly as vizier...
-
Ibn Arabi
Muhyi al-Din Ibn Arabi was an Andalusian Sufi philosopher, mystic, and poet, often called the Greatest Master. Born in Murcia, he traveled extensively through North Africa and t...
-
Ibn Bajja
Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Yahya Ibn Bajja, known to the Latin West as Avempace, was an Andalusian polymath, the first major Islamic philosopher of the Iberian peninsula after Ibn Ha...
-
Ibn Tufayl
Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Tufayl was an Andalusian philosopher, physician, and statesman, court physician to the Almohad caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf and a patron of the young Averroes. H...