SOURCE: Laylah, Muhammad Abu. “Ibn Hazm's Milieu.” In In Pursuit of Virtue: The Moral Theology and Psychology of Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi, with a translation of his book Al Akhlaq wa'l-Siyar, pp. 13-54. London: TaHa Publishers, 1990.

In the following excerpt, Laylah evaluates the totality of Ibn Hazm’s work as a scholar, critic, psychologist, moralist, and historian.

We know from Ibn Hazm's own writings that he lived in al-Andalus in times of great political turmoil. He describes the confusion of the civil war, he names his outstanding contemporaries, and he himself clearly played a great part in the political and intellectual life of the period. In particular, he participated in public debates with Jews, Christians and Muslims, and he was an authority in every branch of knowledge. It is therefore surprising that his name is mentioned in return by only a very few of these contemporaries; though of course...