Ibn Hazm 994 – 1064

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 to several caliphs of the declining Umayyad caliphate of Cordoba before withdrawing to a life of scholarship under political disfavor. His vast surviving corpus includes the Ring of the Dove, a celebrated treatise on love and friendship; the Book of Religions and Sects, an early systematic comparative study of religion; and a major work in Zahirite literalist jurisprudence. He is said to have written more than four hundred works.