Researchers
Ibn Rushd
Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd, Cordoba''s philosopher and judge in the twelfth century: Aristotle''s greatest commentator for Europeans, who called him simply ''the Commentator''. He wrote the Decisive Treatise on the relation between religion and philosophy, and answered al-Ghazali in the Incoherence of the Incoherence defending reason. The Almohads made him Cordoba''s judge and the caliph''s physician, then exiled him in old age to Lucena; he returned and died in Marrakesh in 1198. His commentaries inspired the European Renaissance: ''Averroes'' was his name in their schools for four centuries. From Cordoba his ideas went out to both worlds: kept among Muslims by the Zahrawis and Andalusi Jews, and among Christians they lit two centuries of Paris debates until the Latin current itself was called Averroism. He died in Marrakesh in 1198 and his body returned to Cordoba — and from his books the west learned that religion and philosophy can meet in one mind without real contradiction.