1138–1204

Judge
Physician
Commentator

From Spain to North Africa.

Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, more commonly referred to as Maimonides, was the most eminent Jewish philosopher of the medieval period. He was born in 1138 in Córdoba (the birthplace also of the famous Islamic philosopher Ibn Rushd or Averroës), the court city of the Almoravid caliphate. He came from a long line of Talmudic scholars, including his father, Maimon, who was a rabbinic judge as well as a mathematician and astronomer. It is little wonder then that his earliest education was imparted in the home. Later he was sent to Arab masters for instruction in the natural sciences, medicine, and philosophy. The flourishing Jewish intellectual community into which Maimonides was born and raised, however, came suddenly under threat when the less tolerant Almohads conquered their region. Faced with persecution, the Maimon family fled to North Africa, eventually...