SOURCE: Tritton, A. S. “Ibn Hazm: The Man and the Thinker.” Islamic Studies 3, no. 4 (December 1964): 471-84.

In the following essay, Tritton surveys Ibn Hazm's thought, touching on his methods of argumentation as well as on his views concerning epistemology, theology, metaphysics, the natural world, and other subjects.

Ibn Hazm was a man of many interests; in addition to theology, on which he wrote two big books, and law on which he wrote a bigger volume, he had an eye on the common things of life. He records trivialities and, of course, shared many of the beliefs of his age. The common folk thought that the earth was flat and sunrise was at the same time all over the world. His own view is a mixture. Every moment the sun rises on one horizon, then ascends on a second, at noon on a third, begins to decline on a...