Ibn Rushd (Averroes) - The Guardian of the Philosophers

Abu al-Walid Muhammad bin Ahmad Ibn Rushd, better known as Ibn Rushd or Averroes in the West, was an Arab jurist and philosopher who rose to prominence in the 12th century during the Muslim rule of Spain (known as Al-Andalus). Born in the Spanish town of Cordoba, Ibn Rushd would be celebrated as a fierce defender of neo-Platonic philosophy, against the critiques of philosopher and theologian Al-Ghazali.
Writing the seminal "Incoherence of the Incoherence", Ibn Rushd's work would attract much attention as he defended the philosophical coherence of particular neo-Platonic doctrines. Although not as well known for his philosophical work in the Muslim world today, Ibn Rushd would be massively influential in Europe and the Catholic world, heavily influencing western artists and thinkers, such as Dante Alighieri, Raphael and Thomas Aquinas.
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TIMESTAMPS
Introduction - 00:00
Patreon - 01:40
Historical Context- 02:01
Career - 03:17
The Father of Rationalism - 04:25
Response to Al-Ghazali - 06:55
Legacy - 11:19
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TAGS
#philosophy #history #islam
CONTENT
Al-Ghazali portrait by Arman Haque of Moral Studios (moralstudios.com.au/)
By Oasis/Oases of Wisdom.

[@khuzaimahhaleem4994]

Thank you Al Muqadammah for sending me here. There is no going back now

[@frostyigloo]

Can you please also make a video on Ibn Taymiyyah and his powerful critiques, discussions on the relationship between reason and revelation, epistemology, his history etc? His critiques against greek presuppositions on logic, critiques on arguments and presuppositions of earlier philosophers and his fitra based epistemology against the two fold truth theory are my favorites. some of his works are al raad al mantiq, Al-Jawab al-Sahih li-man baddala din al-Masih, dar at ta'arud al aql wa naql, etc etc... One of the most misunderstood islamic thinkers in my opinion by both ultra rationalists and ultra scripturalists.

[@shahyawar3709]

He will be dumbing down the whole series

[@peterwalker7861]

Lol, you're right. He's own book contradicts his own statements that he wrote earlier in that same book.

[@thompson6737]

Could you make a video about Rumi, please? He is a fascinating poem writer and figure

[@aChristianPhilosophy]

Thomas Aquinas, a doctor of the Catholic church, gives Averroes the title of “the Commentator” for his great contribution in interpreting the works of Aristotle. I agree with Averroes advocating for the authority of experts: An expert is more likely to be correct about their topic of expertise than a non-expert. And better yet, a majority of experts (an expert consensus) is more likely to be correct than an individual expert. This is true not only for the sciences but also for theology. We can read and try to interpret the divine scriptures on our own, but ultimately, we should defer to the interpretation of the theologian consensus because they are the experts on the matter. I almost fully agree with Averroes that God is omniscient because reality conforms to His thoughts or will. This is true for most of reality, however, I believe there is an exception when it comes to human free will: Since we have free will, our behaviour conforms to our will and not God’s will. To preserve God’s omniscience, we would say that God knows our free-willed behaviour by observing it, and He foreknows it because God is not in time.

[@englishtales624]

This is amazing .. May Allah bless ur work guyz . One suggestion Remain consistent cuz the potential of growth of this channel is literally huge ...

[@Zeee530]

Brilliant stuff again, can't wait for the next

[@Masterbutler123]

Let’s gooo! I’m hyped

[@Islamicepistemology]

Loved your slow yet mesmerising voice and enriched content ❤❤❤

[@skullnetwork4482]

So excited 🎉😋

[@ummumar9207]

Bravo- thanks for simplifying this topic for the masses.

[@joemccormick9109]

This is a beautiful video and a fitting testament to the legacy of Ibn Rushd

[@erk1309]

Great work

[@ediz243]

Finally 🎉🎉

[@MohamedAhmed-or8dc]

this the greatest video i have ever watch !

[@OasesOfWisdom]

Thanks so much

[@OMAR-REZA-HAMiM-77]

Ibn Rushd is Literally Me 💚

[@mohammadrashid5077]

Thanks!

[@OasesOfWisdom]

Thanks so much :) we’re glad you enjoyed our video

[@032ithaseeb9]

You were alive ❤

[@OasesOfWisdom]

Always! Our videos take time to research and edit and our studies and work can get in the way sometimes. Rest assured that we are committed to continuing these series and continuing to deliver high quality content on topics we are passionate about

[@skullnetwork4482]

You forgot to mention that he was also called the commentator because of his short, medium and long commentary on Aristotle's work

[@OasesOfWisdom]

Thanks for the feedback. Our writer did consider going with the "commentator", however, we wanted to go with something a bit more striking. We hope to cover the commentaries of Aristotle of the many Islamic philosophers in a separate video one day as well.

[@Sam66519]

This is a brilliant channel. Any more like this?

[@OasesOfWisdom]

We have several videos on our channel and are working on a new video which should be released within the next few months. We will continue uploading new videos, although they take long to produce and we both are working on our post grad work at University :)

[@hellcatstrackhawks9502]

Love your vids! Can you create a series that explains how the governments of the first four khulafah and Salahuddin functioned, including their achievements?

[@OasesOfWisdom]

We plan on doing a series on Islamic political philosophy once our regular series ends :) hopefully the wait won’t be too long

[@hellcatstrackhawks9502]

@@OasesOfWisdomGreat! May Allah SWT bless u guys and ur families for the work u do :)

[@OasesOfWisdom]

Ameen

[@azeeznabulsi116]

Hectic video

[@The_journey_just_started]

thank you

[@AbdullahSama]

The video is visually stunning but does not provide any additional information that hasn't already been presented by other content creators before. Some things you could've added to improve the video: • There are many things that can be discussed like how Ibn Rushd thought that the masses should not think of God corporeally or incorporeally, but rather as light since that's the metaphor the Qur'an describes Him with. • You could've spoken about his reconciliation between Qadar and Jabr despite the conflicting verses in the Qur'an that appear to support both. • You could've spoken about the position he took regarding the relationship between the material intellect and the agent intellect in his long commentary on the De Anima since that's fundamental to his philosophical worldview. • You could've spoken about his affirmation of direction in the right of God. • You could've provided his design arguments. • You could've spoken about his feud with al-Juwayni, not just al-Ghazali since the latter is already known. • You could've spoken about his achievements in medicine more since that's an aspect which is mostly ignored. Some things you could've avoided to improve the video: • Shouldn't give the impression that you are measuring the success of a Muslim philosopher by looking at how he was received in the West and how much influence he excreted on pagans as if the worth of our heritage is dependent on what they make of it. This is how you started off the video. • Shouldn't give the impression that Ibn Rushd just thought of the Qur'an as symbols and metaphors that are strictly there to appease the masses. in his Fasl al-Maqal, he argues that even though there are verses in the Qur'an you can reinterpret in order to conform to philosophy, usually when you do a comprehensive reading of the Qur'an, you'll understand that the apparent meaning of the verses and the philosophical position are in agreement.

[@OasesOfWisdom]

Hey, thanks for the detailed feedback. With an average 10 minute run time of our videos it’s incredibly difficult to touch on everything in a single video, especially when trying to make it appealing to people who arent already familiar with the philosophical background. Among the topics we considered covering for our videos included Ibn Rushd’s commentaries of Aristotle (short, medium and long) , a more detailed version of the design argument and the conflict between qadr and jabr. Regarding Aristotle, pretty much every philosopher we have covered has had something to stay about Aristotle and it would become overly complex to provide a commentary on Aristotle himself as well as the more Islamic focussed philosophy that we are covering. For the design argument, you may have seen that we briefly touched on it, but we definitely could have spent more time explaining it. This is the same with Ibn Rushd’s hermeneutics on scripture. We did specify in the video that it was upon the ‘ambiguous’ verses that Ibn Rushd believed that philosophers could do work on ‘uncovering’ the meaning of - while the rest of the people were stuck with the symbolic meaning. So I believe we did mention your point about the distinction between interpreting certain deep and not-so-deep verses but of course, more detail can always be outlined. Finally, concerning pre-destination and free will, this is another topic that many of the thinkers in our series have written upon. Rest assured that we will cover this topic eventually, however, in the context of a theology series. For example, we didn’t cover Al-Ghazali’s atomism on our video for him, even though it’s fundamental to his metaphysics, because we wanted to discuss that on a seperate video on Ashari metaphysics. As a more general point, I can appreciate that not every viewer is going to resonate with the framing of our videos. We have designed our philosophy series so that there is some interplay between each successive video. That is why there was such a large emphasis on Al-Ghazali as he was the figure we covered last. In trying to tell the history of philosophy and keep it entertaining you need to leverage thematic and narrative story telling techniques that not everyone will find compelling. We generally try to find interesting facts and anecdotes about each of our personalities so that there’s a hook for as broad of an audience as possible. I apologise if you got the impression that we were basing Ibn Rushd’s legacy on the metric of Western reception but to us we just found his inclusion in the School of Athens painting fascinating. Part of the reason we try to downplay Aristotle is that we do believe that these thinkers are independent from the Western canon in many ways - and our intention is to draw attention to this. We are in no way trying to assert some sort of Western supremacy. Anyways, I appreciate the feedback. It’s quite rare to get detailed feedback like this. We will definitely keep it in mind going forward, but it’s also really difficult deciding which content to keep and which to leave from our research documents which can be up to 50 pages long 😅. Thanks once again,

[@maryamb9865]

keep ur opnion in a diary next time xoxo

[@AbdullahSama]

Thank you for sharing your perspective. Definitely one of the best channels out there giving what needs exposure more exposure.@@OasesOfWisdom

[@asvadkhan9692]

​@AbdullahSama You seem to know a lot about this stuff, would you mind pointing me in the right direction so I could pick up on some of these bits in detail?

[@kalactose348]

Woooooo!!!!!!!!

[@smma593]

Ibn Rushd's clap-back was the Meek Mills side of Meek Mills V. Drake. 😂

[@fecrsqraper1266]

could we have an episode for Fahreddin er-Razi any time soon?

[@OasesOfWisdom]

Yes inshallah soon enough

[@somerandomguy4579]

I saw a pretty good Egyptian movie about that guy. The only movie in Arabic I've ever seen lol great video by the way

[@zax4produce]

what is the name of the film?

[@moosahamad9732]

@@zax4produceit’s called Destiny

[@jacksoninc.4062]

Alhamdulillah, i found out that this channel is still alive. Are you guys gonna do Ibn Taymiyyah next? Or are you guys gonna go to Imam Malik instead?

[@OasesOfWisdom]

Next will be a special video and then Imam Malik :)

[@OasesOfWisdom]

We will do Ibn Taymiyyah in a later series on theologians

[@jacksoninc.4062]

@@OasesOfWisdom special? Masya Allah, brother. Can't wait for your next video Also, knowing Imam Malik is gonna be after this is nice. I just hope everything runs smooth so i can see Imam Syafi'i

[@jacksoninc.4062]

@@OasesOfWisdom Masya Allah, you even have plans for later. If this is all running smoothly, by 2027, this channel is gonna be integral for Islamic Academics bcs of how well put together the whole content is. Praying this channel will grow more and more 🙏🙏

[@muhammadwasif1]

Video on Imam Ja'far as well please

[@OasesOfWisdom]

We have a video on Imam Ja’afar planned in our Madhab series :)

[@fathallahelfatehy3279]

Can you do a video about Ibn Khaldoun, keep up the good work!

[@OasesOfWisdom]

Thanks so much! I’d love to know where you heard of our channel from. We’ve experienced a lot of growth over the last few days :)

[@fathallahelfatehy3279]

@@OasesOfWisdom The algorithm must be doing its work I suppose, I'm already subs to similar channels I think that's why your vids were recommended. Greetings from Morocco!✌

[@OasesOfWisdom]

Ah very interesting. I thought someone perhaps shared our video somewhere. Glad to know our content is finally getting out to people who’d enjoy it.

[@wee26th]

@@fathallahelfatehy3279 AYYY i'm also from Morocco!

[@fathallahelfatehy3279]

@@wee26th Nice ana men Casablanca and u?

[@ANTIHYTLERS]

Great philosopher from cordoba 🇪🇦🇪🇦

[@mrbeard798]

Spain? Nah, Al-andalus

[@ANTIHYTLERS]

@@mrbeard798 Al Andalus is Spain nos.

[@mrbeard798]

@@ANTIHYTLERS very different, both have a different and a well respected history and culture. Al-andalus are Muslims and Spain are Christians.

[@ANTIHYTLERS]

@@mrbeard798 And Román Hispania was pagan, and ancient iberia was iberic and Celtic. But all of them were part of Spain culture.

[@mrbeard798]

@@ANTIHYTLERS both of them are different, that’s like comparing the Norway right now with the Vikings. And like I said, both of them are great but they’re different

[@fbng]

Make a video on Imam Fakhr din al-Razi, Ibn Arabi, Imam Abu Mansur al-Maturidi?

[@OasesOfWisdom]

All of these videos are planned for the future don’t worry

[@abdullahassaffah]

while none of ibn rushd theological positions were outright disbelief, he did try to defend the validity of certain philosophical stances that were completely at odds with the Qur’an and Sunna. For which reason, scholars have cautioned from taking his views wholesale.

[@WHYISEVERYHANDLEALREADYTAKEN9]

Could you give examples of those stances?

[@MuhammadAamir-dj9lg]

Reference of last quote??

[@iamleoooo]

Typo on the thumbnail?

[@OasesOfWisdom]

Thanks for pointing it out! Will fix soon

[@Omar-uc7zd]

You should add your sources

[@pradyumn2692]

Are you sure that person in the painting is Ibn Rushd and not Avicenna ?

[@Erenali.98]

If we were to go off of the series of events that superseded their works, I think Ghazali had it right. Based on how much İbn Rushd means to the West's "Enlightenment" Then again, to refute myself. İf we look at his works as a powerful tool, things in the world could have gone way differently if the muslim world held his teachings in such regard. Maybe we'd be better off, maybe not. Allahu alem :)

[@JohnSmith-mo1zo]

Nobody in the west regrets having accepted the gift that you rejected. We will take reason over thoughtless adherence to dogma.

[@aashirali2172]

​@@JohnSmith-mo1zo Thoughtless adherence to dogma??? If you read Al Ghazali's actual works it's pretty clear he used reason to formulate his arguments. He at many points agrees with Aristotle on logic. He just did not think the ideas of philosophers at the time were logically consistent. The arguments he formulated for God's existence and infinite regression are still used by theologians in the west. It's quite weird why people think he is the reason philosophy/science declined in islamic history and they just completely disregard what politics had to do with the decline.

[@messithegoat6523]

where have u been my friend

[@OasesOfWisdom]

We’ve been hard at work on this video and busy with uni. Don’t worry. We will continue to make videos :)

[@messithegoat6523]

@@OasesOfWisdom u guys go uni and are educating me philosophically pls try do a video on the golden age a brief history I know it’s a long time but you guys will find a a way 😅

[@cherryblossoms-wp8pd]

he was the first philosopher who believed i women's right and equality

[@AbdullahKhan-qf8km]

good video saar, but where are the hanbalis, please saar.

[@OasesOfWisdom]

We are continuing with the Madhab series and will cover Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal once we have covered Imam Malik and Imam Shafi in chronological order inshallah. Stay tuned :)

[@cupman4270]

​@@OasesOfWisdom Can you make a video about Shiekh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah رحمه الله 🙂

[@Moh-xr1ch]

Ibn ruschd was from the luwata tribe in cordoba an was of Berber origin. He wasnt arab, he was only shooled in arabic an spoke arabic. It doesent matter where he is from but i just wanted to mention it.

[@ahmadqadri2389]

I am so excited for this one. Ibn Rushd was an elitist tho LOL XD

[@Seruna9]

Ibn Rushd was a great pioneer of rationalism. However, his philosophy is amatuer at best. Some internet philosophers really think he debunked Al-Ghazali, lol. most of the Mutakallimun absolutely mog him into oblivion too.

[@JohnSmith-mo1zo]

His philosophy had some flaws yes, but this was discovered in the west and corrected. The Muslim world chose dogma and ossification and killed a beautiful tradition out of ignorance.

[@Seruna9]

@@JohnSmith-mo1zo the western tradition is also far behind the Islamic Kalām tradition.

[@gormit0]

Ibn khatir....

[@avveroes]

Make an video on Ahmed rida khan

[@OasesOfWisdom]

Hi! We hope to one day make a video or series covering the intellectual history of the Deobandis and Barelvis as it is a theme many people are interested in! Stay tuned and please continue to support our work :)

[@MrJesseBell]

Sounds like he believed he could understand poetry better than myself. This explains why he defaults to the Quran when attempting to think for himself.

[@JordanPeterson-bb9zt]

Who is milo?

[@invisiblesouls313]

Diamond is rear

[@dragonninja872]

big M top G the magnificent? HAHAHA