Remembering Ibn Rushd

Abstract

This year is the 800th anniversary of Ibn Rushd's (1128-1198) death.
Our editorial is dedicated to his memory as a great Muslim scholar. His
legacy is one of the greatest contributions to human understanding and
intellectual scholarship. The occasion deserves much more than an editorial.
This issue reports on a conference celebrating Ibn Rushd's
achievements and later this year MISS will have a report on the seminar
that the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) is organizing in
Amman, Jordan, honoring his work. In this editorial I will try to clarify
Ibn Rushd's place in Islamic Intellectual history and underscore his contributions
to the development of philosophical, theological, and scientific
thought in the Muslim and Western worlds.
Although Ibn Rushd has an important position in the Islamic intellectual
legacy, his contributions have not received due recognition in the
Muslim world. Even among those who are aware of his works, to a great
extent, he has been misunderstood and misrepresented, and his position
has undergone multiple distortions. We feel it is essential to understand
his work free of historical and contemporary ideological biases and distortions
in order to fully comprehend the problems and concerns that
motivated Muslim scholars and provided the framework for Islamic
thought. It is also important that we understand the reasons why he was
not given the place he deserves in the Islamic heritage and why he is
often misinterpreted.
Ibn Rushd was a great integrator of knowledge. He was a preeminent
physician and a prominent judge of his time. He was also a philosopher
and theologian. His mastery of knowledge demonstrated two dimensions-
he was both encyclopedic and specialist. In the areas of his specializations-
medicine, jurisprudence, and philosophy-he was a master
without peer. Ibn Rushd had two outstanding qualities. He was extremely
intelligent and he was also extraordinarily just and fair in his approach
to religion. It is important that we understand and appreciate his unprejudiced
approach to the study of religion. Indeed, it is one of his most distinctive
qualities.
Ibn Rushd was a committed Muslim and a very humble man. This
humility manifests itself in his writings as well as in his methodology.
His search for truth allowed him to explore all sources, including early
Greek philosophers. He believed that we must examine all sources, even ...