Averroes 1126 – 1198

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 commentator on Aristotle. Born in Cordoba and serving as judge in Seville and Cordoba and as physician to the Almohad caliphs, he produced extensive commentaries on Aristotle's works that became the principal medium through which Aristotle was transmitted to the Latin West. His Decisive Treatise argued for the harmony of philosophy and revealed religion. His major philosophical work, the Incoherence of the Incoherence, replied to al-Ghazali's earlier critique of Islamic philosophy. The school of Latin Averroism shaped 13th-century European philosophy and was a major influence on Aquinas and the medieval scholastics.