Talk:Averroes

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This is the discussion/talk page for article: Averroes. Template:WP1.0

Incorrect transliteration

Abū 'l-Walīd Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Rushd is incorrect. Ibn only occurs when it is not preceded by another name, otherwise it is pronounced as bin. Abū 'l-Walīd Muḥammad bin Aḥmad bin Rushd, or Ibn Rushd are both correct. Ryandward (talk) 18:50, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Topics from 2004

Was Averroes Berber? (old discussion)

averroes was a berber.

Averroes is not his realy name. he was not a spanish not arab. but hij was almohad (bereber dynatie). why do you think dat he a arab or spanish? -[213.177.151.35 at 11:35, 18 April 2004]

---

If "Averroes (1126 - 1198) was an Almohad philosopher" as we read here, then was Voltaire a Louis XV philosopher? Wetman 14:58, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I gladly want know what there is so commonly, and I leave that to you. Aziri 15:11, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

OK, the only person I can find claiming that Averroes is Berber is [1], and he makes the false claim that Ibn Khaldun was Berber, so I really see no reason to trust him. Conversely, real scholars who I know support the Berber cause - like Muhammad Chafik - merely say he was "Maghrebin"[www.mondeberbere.com/culture/ chafik/maghreb/substratberbere.PDF]. On the other hand, virtually everybody says he was Arab[2]. Can you present anyone more credible claiming that he was Berber? - Mustafaa 04:40, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

there is an onother link :

http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:GRQau2T_mVEJ:www.tawiza.net/Tawiza67/Aqeloi.htm+%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%86+%D8%AE%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%88%D9%86+TAWIZA&hl=ar&ie=UTF-8

the reason why there is not much peopel how saied that averroes wa a berber. is because such as you saied with the aid of the politic history of the north afrikan country's writed allong about the berber. and so saied you an anothers that ibn khaldun and averroes were arabs. but we can now say enough for the counterfeiting. enough !!

there is an exaple :

• the arab ibn battuta
• the arab filosofer ibn çinna (avicinna)
• alkwarizmi the arab

...Aziri 15:10, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

if you want to know more read this :

• http://amazighworld.net/history/ancienthistory/articles/arabe_ibn_khaldun.php Aziri 15:19, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You admit yourself that you don't know what ethnicity he was, and yet in the same breath you claim that he "must" have been Berber. There is no good reason for this article to even mention his ethnicity unless someone can find proof of it (as I have found for the Ibn Khaldun article.) - Mustafaa 23:32, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

"Muhemmed 'mmis n'hmed mmis 'n muhamed mmis 'n ahmed miis 'n rushd" - was it now? Or was it Muhemmed u Hmed u Muhemmed u Hmed n ayt Rucd? Or was is Muxammad ag Axmad ag Muxammad ag Axmad n Kel Rucd, as it would be in Tamasheq? How sure are you that the Berbers of al-Andalus in medieval times talked like your particular dialect this century, even supposing he had any Berber ancestry? - Mustafaa 23:49, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

buh, who told you that he doesn's spoked berber , was he not the dokter of the berber kalif ? was he not dead in murrakesh : the berber city.Aziri 10:04, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Very probably he learned to speak Berber at some point - but I doubt it just happened to be the exact same dialect you speak! And even in modern Berber, you've misspelled it: it should be Muḥemmed mmis n Ḥmed mmis n Muḥemmed mmis n Ḥmed mmis n Rucd. - Mustafaa 07:31, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

yes that is very probably, but it's sure that learend arabic .Aziri 11:11, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Prefer Honor not Honour

Vonaurum's reorganisation (old post)

Changed the section "Significance" and added the section "System of Philosophy." The following paragraph had some problems discussed below.

"Before 1150 only a few Latin translations of Aristotle existed in Europe, and they were not studied much or given much credence by monastic scholars. With the rise of scholasticism came a renewed interest in Aristotle the ancient master of basic logic, which was appealing to scholastic methods and its focus on logic. When Averroes's Latin translations were discovered, they were of high quality, clear, accurate and intellecturally sophisticated. He not only translated, but made commentaries that were so good, they could form a philosophical work of their own. "

Averroes did not write in Latin, his influence in the West was due to the fact that his books were translated in Latin. Also Averroes' work was not "discovered" in the West, they were transmitted to the West. Also some translations of Aristotle did exist but Averroes's work was more readily recieved in the West beacuse his commentories bypassed Neopatonic interpreations of Aristotle prevalent at the time. --Vonaurum 20:01, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Good points and edits. My understanding is that after the defeat of Moorish Spain, western scholars indeed did discover his work in the libraries there, and through initial translations from Arabic to Latin, introduced the west to the works of Aristotle. I have a book that discusses this with places, names and dates of these initial translations.Stbalbach 19:53, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Topics from 2005

Lead paragraph

The lead paragraph used to read:

Averroes' (born as Abu Al-Walid Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Rušd) (1126 - December 10, 1198) was an Andalusi-Arab philosopher and physician, a master of philosophy and Islamic law, mathematics and medicine. He was born in Cordoba, Spain, and died in Marrakesh, Morocco.

I see two problems with this:

• First, the controversy raised here over whether Averroes was of Arab, Berber or other descent has not been settled since noone using authoritative sources has established it. As User:Mustafaa said, there is no reason for this article to talk about ethnicity unless we have an adequate authority;
• The text "...Ibn Ahmad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Rušd..." is just a lineage, which an Arabic speaker might use in someone's name for a rhetorical flourish, but is inappropriate in an English-speaking context. Ibn Rushd is by far the most common way Averroes' name is rendered by Muslims in English.

The above content has been repeatedly inserted, so I'm explaining my revert in detail here for the information of others. --- Charles Stewart 20:26, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Topics from 2006

Move page

Personally I feel the page should be moved to Ibn Rushd, as that was his own actual name. While googling does bring up more hits for Averroes (the web is still largely West-oriented), it's worth noting that the first hit for "Ibn Rushd" is muslimphilosophy.com, while the first hit for Averroes is the Catholic Encyclopaedia. Thoughts? Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 08:41, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

There's room for argument over this one (cf. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)). I think the most important question is by which name is he most likely to be familiar to users of the english Wikipedia, and I'll guess that's Averroes: certainly that's the name I first encountered. There's also the issue of disambiguation: Averroes is that bit less likely to be ambiguous than Ibn Rushd. --- Charles Stewart 10:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I've usually seen him refered to as Averroes. --Stbalbach 22:45, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

However this is determined, the same kind of thing needs to be figured out for the Ibn Tufayl/Abubacer reference within this article. One or the other needs to be the link but not both, otherwise you stand to confuse the reader as to the identity of Ibn Tufayl by making two seperate (linked) references.Elijahmeeks 23:16, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

By convention, use the name of the Wikipedia article (in this case, Ibn Tufail, not "Tufayl"). If there is a dispute about that, it would be handled on the Ibn Tufail talk page to rename the article. --Stbalbach 05:32, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Great. I've changes it to match.Elijahmeeks 18:04, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

This article should use the name he had within his own culture, not the name assigned to him by a different culture. Kingturtle 17:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Kingturtle. So long as the more popular 'Averroes' is used as a redirect to the article and is mentioned at the start of the article then theres no reason why the article shouldnt be renamed to the correct Ibn Rushd rather remaining with the corruption Averroes. siarach 17:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, i changed his name to from Averroes to Ibn Rushd but i don't know how to move a page

I agree - I'd like to see it changed to Ibn Rushd. I see Averroes as basically derogatory, like saying well, your outlandish foreign name is too hard for us to say, so we'll make up a nonsense nickname for you. After all, Arabic's just nonsense anyway, right? Ibn Rushd would be more respectful. A redirect can take care of people who search for Averroes.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Histprof (talk • contribs).

Well, I think that last point is a little ridiculous. "Averroes" is not derogatory, and calling him that means only that this famous historical figure has a common name in English, not that English speakers are being disrespectful. Britannica[3] and Encarta[4] have their entries for him at Averroes. Personally, I see no call for a move; the common English name is, well, the common English name. We don't have Genghis Khan at Chinggis Khan for that same reason. At any rate, if the article is to be moved, we need to achieve consensus through WP:MOVE first.--Cúchullain ^t/c 07:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Naming conventions for Non-European and non-Western names and titles supports the "most general rule" which is he is most generally known as Averroes in English speaking countries. I concur that no one uses the name as a slander, there is no evidence for that, I have never heard it before. -- Stbalbach 20:48, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

*I'm not sure what you mean by "most people in English speaking countries." The people who talk about him at any length are, by and large, scholars. Most of whom are increasingly referring to the name by which he was born. Karen Armstrong, for instance, in her "A History of God" calls him "Ibn Rushd" and mentions only once that he is "Known in the West as Averroes." I don't think this distinction is quite so clear as the Genghis Khan example, because I do not think it is quite so lop-sided that people in Anglophone countries almost without exception call him Averroes. Since, in the modern world, Averroes and Ibn Rushd are used at best equally often, I would say that the fact that it was his given name tips it in favor of Ibn Rushd. Calaf 00:10, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Karen Armstrong was deliberately giving an unfamiliar form, as her approach was to say "forget everything you thought you knew, here is an unbiased world-wide perspective you never thought of". So giving unfamiliar forms of names is what Brecht calls an "alienation device", aka shock tactics. In the same way, since Heidegger German scholars have generally used forms like "Herakleitos" instead of "Heraclitus", to emphasize that they are getting back to his thought in its original context as opposed to the way it comes to us through the Western tradition.

Except when there is some special point to make, I am strongly against removing Anglicised names, as I believe it is a cultural impoverishment: are we always to speak of "Roma", "Firenze", "España" and "Misr" instead of Rome, Florence, Spain and Egypt? The existence of the usual forms isn't arrogance, or a way of saying we know better than the natives: it is saying that these places and people have all influenced our culture as well, and that we are all interdependent. "Averroes" suggests an important figure in the history of general philosophy. "Ibn Rushd" suggests "this obscure Muslim scholar whom no one has heard of". (We pronounce "Paris" in English because of its importance. Some obscure small town would be pronounced "Chateauneuf-du-Pape" as in French, with no attempt at Anglicization.)

Obviously in some cases, the purist tendency has won: for example, nowadays it would be pretty odd to publish a translation of the Odyssey with "Jupiter", "Minerva" and "Ulysses" instead of Zeus, Athene and Odysseus, though this would formerly have been standard. The trick, as always, is to acknowledge these changes when they have already happened, but not to jump the gun: "Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside."

Applying this to Muslim philosophers, I agree that by now it would be archaic affectation to use "Abubacer" and "Algazel" for Ibn Tufayl and Al-Ghazali, but for the moment, I think "Averroes" is still the more familiar form. On the principle I have explained, this is actually a tribute to the man's importance. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 12:16, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this article should be moved so that the title is Ibn Rushd. Precedent for this can be seen in the Metacomet article since it is listed under Metacomet and not his Anglicized name King Philip. Of course, Averroes should remain as a redirect to the article but the medieval, European name should not be used as our basis. For instance, Europeans referred to Muslims as Mohammedans until the 1960s but we don't use that term. DruidODurham (talk) 03:56, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Permission for translation into Spanish

I ask for permission to translate parts of the article for the Spanish version. The problem I see in this article is, that there doesn't seem to be main authors of the article, so I don't know exactly how I should indicate the credits of the authors of the original article. I have already translated some article about metaphysics from the German version, but there there are to main authors of that article. So after consulting them, I indicated : "translated from the German-Wikipedia version from M. Mueller and H. Erwin" (it appears then under "history") . How do you recommend me to comment an eventual translation from this article into Spanish?
Carmen Zavala www.zavala.de/carmen -[User:Philocarmen (contribs) 00:22, 16 May 2006]

You don't need permission, so feel free to just translate. It might be helpful to just leave a note in your Edit summary saying the text is a translation from the English Wikipedia, but you don't need to cite it or anything. FranksValli 04:18, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Republic

Why no mention of his treatise on Plato's Republic? User:Devtrash 23:55, 10 June 2006

Thanks for the note. I've just added it to the "significance" section. -- Szvest 22:35, 29 September 2006 (UTC) User:FayssalF/Sign

Topics from 2007

The Commentator

Is there a need for this redirect? It seems that Aquinas was the only one calling him that. Was this his nickname (or, at least, the name he had been known during his lifetime)? If not, I suggest the redirection to be erased. 89.110.205.39 17:39, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

It can't hurt. Later commentators called him The Commentator, so it's plausible that someone could type in the nickname looking for Averroes. It should stay unless someone else sufficiently notable is also known by that nickname, in which case it should become a disambiguation page.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Averros is also depicted in Rafael's painting the "School of Athens". He is far left center with a white head-dress.

Etymology of "Averroes"

I can't find in the article that it's explained how his (very different) Arabic name got converted to the name "Averroes." What is the etymology of this name? Badagnani 03:16, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

The Latin translations of his works were mostly made from Hebrew. "Ibn Rushd" transliterated into Hebrew could equally be read "Aven Reshed" or "Aven Roshed", as Hebrew print does not normally show vowels and b and v are interchangeable (in both Hebrew and Spanish). Spanish Christians blurring their consonants might then pronounce this as "Averrosh" or "Averros". It then needed to be made declinable in Latin, so "Averroës" emerges as the final product. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 09:59, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Averroes did not author Al-Bayān

In the article, it mentions that Ibn Rushd wrote his famous "Bidāyat al-Mujtahid" and also "al-Bayān wa’l-Taḥṣīl, wa’l-Sharḥ wa’l-Tawjīh wa’l-Ta`līl fi Masā’il al-Mustakhraja", but this is incorrect. The author of the latter text was Abī al-Walīd Ibn Rushd al-Jadd - the grandfather, and not Abī al-Walīd Ibn Rushd al-Ḥafīd - the grandson, Averroes. The respective articles on Ibn Rushd and Ibn Rushd al-Ḥafīd in the Brill published Encyclopedia of Islam clearly gives this citation of authorship, as do many other peer-reviewed journal articles, so it is well established unless anyone else has information to the contrary?

He did, however, write a text which was an abridgement and commentary on Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī's famous text on Islamic jurisprudence, "al-Mustaṣfā" which has been published recently. It is entitled "Al-Ḍarūrī fī Uṣūl al-Fiqh aw Mukhtaṣar al-Mustaṣfā" [The Necessary in Islamic Jurisprudence or Abridgement of al-Mustaṣfā], published recently by Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī in 1994, but only available in Arabic as far as I know.

This could be a very interesting addition because it shows that at least when younger (when this text was written), this supposed antagonism between Ibn Rushd and Al-Ghazālī did not exist. Indeed, he refers to Ghazālī as "Abū Ḥāmid", which can be taken as a sign of affection and respect, or else a more formal title would have been used.

Sorry if I have done anything incorrect, I am new to Wikipedia and not quite sure how best to share information. =)

Dawooddren (talk) 13:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Topics from 2008

Secularism?

The article says, twice, that "Averroes is considered by some the father of modern secularism".

That could be highly misleading. The article linked to argues that Averroes allows a certain separation of religion and science on a high intellectual level, allowing philosophers and scientists to pursue truth rationally and with a certain independence from religious authority. That could be argued; but at the same time Averroes is careful to specify that this activity must be carried on in private and not divulged to the masses, who would be misled into rejecting their naive version of Islam without having the intellectual equipment to put the philosophical version in its place.

That is entirely different from "secularism" in the modern sense, which is political not philosophical, and means the independence of government from religion and the freedom of everyone (not just philosophers) to make their own religious or anti-religious choices and pursue truth in their own way. That is about as far from Averroes' position as it is possible to get. He believed that, once the freedom of the fully-trained philosophers is carefully ensured on a "consenting adults in private" basis, it is the right and duty of each religious community to enforce conformity on the masses (of course, as the Almohad court philosopher he had to say that). So yes, it may be one step more enlightened than Ibn Taymiyya and the Ash'arites, but it is hardly "secularism". --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 10:39, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Calling him the father of modern western secularism is so broad as to be meaningless. —82.23.61.208 (talk) 09:07, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Retrofit topic year headers

25-Oct-2008: I have added subheaders above as "Topics from 2004" (etc.) to emphasize the dates of topics in the talk-page. Older topics might still apply, but using the year headers helps to focus on more current issues as well. Afterward, I dated/named some unsigned comments above. -Wikid77 (talk) 13:25, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Clarifying text

25-Oct-2008: I have revised the wording slightly, mostly adding several commas, to clarify the phrasing. In several sections, the wording of the article seems cumbersome; however, I don't think a major rewrite would improve the concepts, which are relatively complex, no matter what phrasing is used. Instead, I think just adding commas, or a few extra words, can help clarify. Also, using just small alterations/commas can help avoid changing the meaning, which might occur if more extensive rewrites were attempted for those concepts. -Wikid77 (talk) 13:25, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Ethnic origins

My sources (e.g., Encyclopaedia of Islam, Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, Henri Corbin's and Majid Fakhry's Histories, etc.) do not say Ibn Rushd has a Berber origin. Unless someone has solid proof otherwise (from original sources, not from some obscure web site), this should be deleted from the introduction.77.163.42.73 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:41, 22 August 2009 (UTC).

Averroes Banned?

I think it should specify banned to or from what (German Wikipedia says to Lucena but I don´t have any sources on that). ABMvandeBult (talk) 10:33, 7 December 2010 (UTC)