Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam, was a Sephardic rabbi and philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. In his time, he was also a preeminent astronomer and physician, serving as the personal physician of Saladin. He was born and lived in Córdoba within the Almoravid Empire, on Passover eve, 1138, until his family was expelled for refusing to convert to Islam. Later, he lived in Morocco and Egypt and worked as a rabbi, physician and philosopher.
Islamic philosophy is philosophy that emerges from the Islamic tradition. Two terms traditionally used in the Islamic world are sometimes translated as philosophy—falsafa, which refers to philosophy as well as logic, mathematics, and physics; and Kalam, which refers to a rationalist form of Scholastic Islamic theology which includes the schools of Maturidiyah, Ashaira and Mu'tazila.
Jewish philosophy includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or in relation to the religion of Judaism. Until modern Haskalah and Jewish emancipation, Jewish philosophy was preoccupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism, thus organizing emergent ideas that are not necessarily Jewish into a uniquely Jewish scholastic framework and world-view. With their acceptance into modern society, Jews with secular educations embraced or developed entirely new philosophies to meet the demands of the world in which they now found themselves.
Saʿadia ben Yosef Gaon was a prominent rabbi, gaon, Jewish philosopher, and exegete who was active in the Abbasid Caliphate.
The Book of Beliefs and Opinions is a book written by Saadia Gaon which is the first systematic presentation and philosophic foundation of the dogmas of Judaism.
The Kuzari, full title Book of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of the Despised Religion, also known as the Book of the Khazar, is one of the most famous works of the medieval Spanish Jewish philosopher, physician, and poet Judah Halevi, completed in the Hebrew year 4900 (1139-40CE).
The Guide for the Perplexed is a work of Jewish theology by Maimonides. It seeks to reconcile Aristotelianism with Rabbinical Jewish theology by finding rational explanations for many events in the text.
This article covers the conversations between Islamic philosophy and Jewish philosophy, and mutual influence on each other in response to questions and challenges brought into wide circulation through Aristotelianism, Neo-platonism, and the Kalam, focusing especially on the period from 800–1400 CE.
Aaron ben Elijah, the Latter, of Nicomedia is often considered to be the most prominent Karaite theologian. He is referred to as "the Younger" to distinguish him from Aaron the Elder. Even though Aaron lived for much of his life in Constantinople, he is sometimes distinguished from another Aaron Ben Elijah by the title "of Nicomedia," signifying another place he lived.
Jeshua ben Judah was a Karaite scholar, exegete and philosopher, who lived in eleventh-century Iraq or at Jerusalem.
Aaron ben Joseph of Constantinople, was an eminent teacher, philosopher, physician, and liturgical poet in Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire.
Joseph ben Abraham was a Karaite philosopher and theologian who flourished in Babylonia or Persia in the first half of the eleventh century. He was the teacher of, among others, Jeshua ben Judah. By way of euphemism he was surnamed "ha-Ro'eh", on account of his blindness. This infirmity, however, did not prevent him from undertaking long journeys, likely as a Karaite missionary. In the course of his travels he frequented the religio-philosophical schools of the Mu'tazili, whose teachings he defended in his works. Of these the most important is the Muhtawi, translated from the Arabic into Hebrew, perhaps by Tobiah ben Moses, under the title Sefer ha-Ne'imot, or Zikron ha-Datot. It is divided into forty chapters, in which all the main principles of the Mu'tazili kalam are applied to the Karaite dogmas: the five principles of the unity of God; the necessity of admitting atoms and accidents; the existence of a Creator; the necessity of admitting certain attributes and rejecting others; God's justice and its relation to free will; reward and punishment; etc. The author often argues against the Christians, the Dualists, the Magians, the Epicureans, and various other sects, with whose tenets he shows himself well acquainted. He cites the founders of the Mu'tazili sects of al-Jabaiyah and al-Bahshamiyyah, Abu Ali Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab al-Jabai, and his son Hashim Abd al-Salam, whose teachings he closely follows. The Muhtawi is still extant in manuscript, both in the Arabic original and in its Hebrew translation; the former in the David Kaufmann Library, the latter in the libraries of Leiden, Paris, and St. Petersburg.
Elijah ben Moses Bashyazi of Adrianople or Elijah Bašyazi was a Karaite Jewish hakham of the fifteenth century. After being instructed in the Karaite literature and theology of his father and grandfather, both learned hakhams of the Karaite community of Adrianople, Bashyazi went to Constantinople, where, under the direction of Mordecai Comtino, he studied rabbinical literature as well as mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy, in all of which he soon became most proficient.
Rabbi Joseph ben Jacob ibn Tzaddik was a Spanish rabbi, poet, and philosopher. A Talmudist of high repute, he was appointed in 1138 dayyan at Cordova, which office he held conjointly with Maimon, father of Maimonides, until his death. Joseph was also a highly gifted poet, as is attested by Alharizi. Several of Joseph's religious poems are found in the Sephardic and African machzorim; and a poem addressed to Judah ha-Levi, on his visit to Cordova en route to Palestine, is included in the latter's diwan.
Godhead refers to the aspect or substratum of God that lies behind God's actions or properties, and its nature has been the subject of long debate in every major religion.
David ibn Merwan al-Mukkamas al-Rakki was a philosopher and controversialist, the author of the earliest known Jewish philosophical work of the Middle Ages. He was a native of Raqqa, Mesopotamia, whence his surname. Harkavy derives his byname from the Arabic "ḳammaṣ", interpreting it as referring to his asserted change of faith. This is uncertain. The name is written "אלקומסי" in Masudi's Al-Tanbih, in a Karaitic commentary to Leviticus, and in a manuscript copy of Jefeth's commentary to the same book, and is perhaps a derivative from the city of Ḳumis in Taberistan. Another Karaite bears the name "Daniel al-Ḳumisi," and in Al-Hiti's chronicle this name is also spelled with a ẓade.
Judah Leon ben Moses Mosconi was a Bulgarian Romaniote Jewish scholar and Talmudist born at Ohrid. Owing to the wars which agitated Bulgaria in the 14th century, Mosconi left his native country about 1360. He traveled in all the three continents of the Old World. He was in Chios and Cyprus, in Négropont, in Laodicea, and later in Egypt. He was afterward in Morocco, in Italy, and in France. In Perpignan he made the acquaintance of several scholars, among them Moses Narboni and David Bongoron.
Joseph ben Judah of Ceuta was a Jewish physician and poet, and disciple of Maimonides. Maimonides wrote his work, The Guide for the Perplexed, for Joseph.
Moshe ben Chasdai Taku was a 13th-century Tosafist from Tachov, Bohemia. Despite his own seemingly mystical orientation, Rabbi Taku is controversially known to have been an opponent of both the esoteric theology of the Chassidei Ashkenaz and the philosophical orientation of rabbinic rationalists such as Saadia Gaon, Maimonides, Abraham ibn Ezra et al. He believed that both trends were a deviant departure from traditional Judaism, which he understood to espouse a literal perspective of both the biblical narrative, and the Aggadata of the Sages. His opposition to all theological speculation earned him, in the opinion of Gershon Scholem, the title of one of the two truly reactionary Jewish writers of the Middle Ages.
Daniel Judah Lasker is an American-born Israeli scholar of Jewish philosophy. As of 2017, he is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Jewish thought at Ben Gurion University of the Negev.