THE EUROPEAN ENLIGHTER ---- IBN E RUSHD (Averroes) BY Remsha Jhutt

Most of us don’t know about Averroes. His real name was Abu Al Walid Muhammad Ibn Ahmed Ibn Muhammad Ibn Rushd. He was the famous philosopher born in 1126 in Cordoba, Spain. Ibn e Rushd desegregated the religious traditions with the philosophy of ancient Greek. He was also known as a Commentator because of his work to produce commentaries and summaries on Aristotle and other Greek Philosophers. His work remained dominated both in Islamic and Europe societies. He wrote many books in favor of philosophical study of religion and GOD.

Ibn e Rushd belong to a family well reputed in legal and public service. His father Abdul Qasim Ahmed and grandfather Abdul Walid Muhammad both remained the Chief Justice of Cordoba in the regime of Almohad dynasty.

Ibn e Rushd got his earlier education in hadith, law, linguistics, scholastic theology, science and philosophy. He was the pupil of Ibn e Bajjah, also a famous philosopher of his era. He wrote many books on medicine like Kitab al Kulyat fi al Tibb (Generalities), Kitab al Tasir fi al Mudawatwa al Tadbir (Particularities). These books were considered as the main source of knowledge in Medical for Jewish, Christian and Muslims physicians.

Ibn e Rushd’s commentaries are the most vital work to be discussed here. He wrote on many subjects i-e law, medicine, ethics and logics. He wrote commentaries on Plato’s Republic, Alexander’s De Intellectua, the Isagoge of Porphyry, the Almajest of Ptolemy and Nicolaus of Damascus. He also discussed his own view within commentaries. He discussed diverse topics like cleanliness, marriage, jihad and the role of estate with non-religious citizens.

According to Ibn e Rushd if any harm comes from the serious study of Philosophy. Then there can be two reasons.

      1. The student had a bad teacher.
    2. The student had suffered some natural deficiency.

Ibn e Rushd illustrated it with a hadith of Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.W), when He (S.A.W.W) asked by a man about his brother’s diarrhea (Loose Motions). The Prophet suggested him that he should drink honey. The man returned after some days and told Prophet about the worsened condition of his brother’s diarrhea. The Prophet (S.A.W.W) replied, “Allah has said the truth but your brother’s stomach has told a lie.” (Bukhari 7.71.588)

Ibn e Rushd had been famous in the scholars of Jewish, Europe and Arabs. Though we can say that without the intellectual effort of Ibn e Rushd, world would remain deprived from that occurred in medieval philosophy. His exceptional work manifested that all the religions are spirited and extended traditions that are formed by each other’s philosophical theory of knowledge.