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Ibn Roshd, commonly known as AVERRHOES, was born at Cordova, where his father held the office of mufti (chief magistrate) of Andalusia. His father taught him Mohammedan law: under other tutors he studied theology, philosophy, and medicine. He succeeded his father as mufti of Andalusia, and afterwards held a similar post in Mauritania; but his theological speculations, in which he had attempted to reconcile predestination with free will, involved him in a charge of heresy, and after a public recantation he was dismissed. Ultimately he retired to his native town, and was then reinstated in his former office, which he held till his death, variously dated at 1198 or 1206.
Averrhoes was a voluminous writer. To Dante he was known as he who wrote the Great Comment, Aristotle being the author commented: though he also wrote on the Republic of Plato. Of his medical works the chief is the work called The Total (Kulliyat), a treatise in seven books, dealing successively with Anatomy, Health, Diseases, Symptoms, Drugs and Foods, Regimen, Treatment of Disease.
| This biography is
reprinted from The New Calendar of Great Men. Ed. Frederic
Harrison. London: Macmillan and Co., 1920. |
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