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Moses Maimonides
1135
- 1204
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Excerpt:
Moses Ben Maimon, whom we know today as Maimonides or
Rambam, was born in 1135 in Cordoba, Spain to a scholarly family. His
father, a physician, Rabbi, and judge, saw to it that his precocious son
was thoroughly educated and conversant in both Hebrew and Arabic. While
Maimonides was still young his family moved several times, fleeing first
to Morocco to escape religious persecution and then to Palestine. They
finally settled in Cairo, Egypt which welcomed religious refugees. This
was to be Maimonides' home for the remainder of his life. His varied
background significantly contributed to his expertise in three separate
fields for which he enjoyed prominence: medicine, religion, and
philosophy. Not only did Maimonides lend breadth and depth to the
existing knowledge of each of these disciplines, but it was his
particular genius to synthesize all three...
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Excerpt:
Moses Maimonides (1135-1204). The foremost intellectual
figure of medieval Judaism, Maimonides was a prolific writer whose ideas
about philosophy, religion, and medicine had vast influence. He is best
known for three works: his commentary on the Mishna, his code of Jewish
law, and his 'Guide of the Perplexed'.
Moses Maimonides was born Moses ben Maimon in Cordoba,
Spain, on March 30, 1135, to an educated, distinguished family. In 1159
the family left Spain for Fez, Morocco, because of the persecution of
the Jews of Cordoba at the hands of a fanatical Islamic sect. In Fez,
Maimonides began his study of medicine, but again his family fled
persecution and moved to Palestine. They finally settled in the 1160s in
Fostat, Egypt, near Cairo. Here they were free to practice Judaism. Soon
after their arrival Maimonides' father and brother died, and Maimonides
began to practice medicine to support his family. His fame as a
physician spread, and he soon became the court physician for Sultan
Saladin and his family. Maimonides also lectured at the local hospital,
maintained a private practice, and was a leader in the Jewish community...
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Essay by Daniel H. Shulman
Scholarly paper on morality and the law in the
philosophy and theology of Moses Maimonides.
Excerpt:
...Despite the rejection of a natural law theory, it
would be incorrect to say that reason were absent from Jewish
philosophy. Maimonides, like most theologians of his day, inherited the
Aristotelian tradition. Wedded as he was to the philosophical tradition,
Maimonides could not have taken up any philosophical issue without first
determining whether it were within man's power to grasp the issue, and
if so, applying reason to its fullest extent. The application of
reason, in turn, requires that a proposition be accepted if it can be
demonstrated, and that propositions can be demonstrated based upon
principles of Logic, Mathematics and Physics...
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Maimonides, in his commentary on the Mishnah, compiles
what he refers to as the Shloshah-Asar Ikkarim, the Thirteen Articles of
Faith, compiled from Judaism's 613 commandments found in the Torah.
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Excerpt:
(1135 Cordoba, Spain- 1204 Fustat, Egypt).
Jewish philosopher
and physician. Maimonides was also known as Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, or
Rambam. With worsened living conditions for Jews, after the Almohads
captured Cordoba in 1148, the family of Maimonides emigrated, and
eventually they settled in Egypt. Maimonides worked as chief rabbi in Cairo,
and as physician for Saladin.
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