Maimon, Moses ben
Maimon, Moses ben
(better known as Maimonides) (Abu Imram Musa Ibn Maimun Ibn Abdallah) (1135-1204) Talmud commentator and leading Jewish philosopher during the Middle Ages. Born in Cordova, left Spain and migrated to Palestine in 1165 and ultimately 1160, settled in Fez, N. Africa, whence he settled in Fostat, Egypt. His Guide for the Perplexed (More Nebukim in Heb.; Dalalat al-hairin, in Arab.) contains the summa of Jewish philosophic thought up to his time. It is written in the spirit of Aristotelianism and is divided into three parts. The first is devoted to the problems of Biblical anthropomorphisms, Divine attributes, and exposition and criticism of the teachings of the Kalam; the second to the proof of the existence of God, matter and form, creatio de novo, and an exposition of prophecy; the third to God and the world including problems of providence, evil, prescience and freedom of the will, teleology, and rationality of the precepts of the Torah. Maimonides exerted great influence not only on the course of subsequent Jewish speculation but also on the leaders of the thirteenth century scholastic philosophy, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. — M.W.