- Lived:
- 1138–1204 · Córdoba → a decade of flight → Fez → the Land of Israel → Fustat (Old Cairo)
- Tradition:
- Medieval Jewish philosophy, written in Arabic under Islam; Aristotle read by the light of the Torah
- The Big Idea:
- Reason and revelation cannot truly contradict each other — and a believer who knows both science and scripture doesn't need comforting, but therapy for the mind: careful rereading until the conflict dissolves.
- In their words:
- "Silence is praise to You." (Psalm 65, quoted in the Guide as the motto of everything we cannot say about God)
- If you remember one thing:
- By day he codified the entirety of Jewish law; by night he wrote philosophy's most famous book for the "perplexed" — and within thirty years of his death, Jews were denouncing it to the Inquisition's bonfires.