Maimonides and the Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190)

Moses Maimonides (1138–1204), also known as Rambam, was a Jewish philosopher, legal scholar and physician born in Cordoba in Muslim Spain and active for most of his life in Fustat (Old Cairo), Egypt. His Guide for the Perplexed, completed around 1190, is the most influential work of medieval Jewish philosophy and a major text in the history of Western thought. Together with his law code, the Mishneh Torah, it made him one of the most important figures in Jewish history.

Early life in al-Andalus and North Africa

Moses ben Maimon was born in Cordoba, the leading city of al-Andalus, probably in 1138; an older tradition gives 1135. His father, Maimon, was a rabbinical judge and scholar. Cordoba was then a centre of Jewish, Muslim and Christian learning, home to the Great Mosque of Cordoba and a long tradition of scholarship.

In 1148 the city fell to the Almohads, a strict Berber Muslim movement from Morocco that pressed Jews and Christians to convert or leave. Maimonides’ family left Cordoba and spent about a decade moving within al-Andalus. Around 1160 they settled in Fez, in Morocco, also under Almohad rule. Historians still debate whether the family outwardly conformed to Islam during these years.

In 1165 the family sailed to Acre in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and visited Jerusalem and Hebron. Soon afterwards they settled in Egypt, first in Alexandria and then in Fustat, the old city next to Cairo. Egypt was then ruled by the Fatimid caliphs, and from 1171 by Saladin.

Life in Fustat

Maimonides at first studied and wrote while his younger brother David supported the family as a merchant in the India trade. When David drowned in the Indian Ocean, around 1177, Maimonides fell into a long depression and had to earn a living. He turned to medicine.

He became one of the best-known physicians in Egypt. He served al-Qadi al-Fadil, Saladin’s powerful chief minister, and later Saladin’s son al-Afdal. In a famous letter to his translator, Samuel ibn Tibbon, he described a long working day of attending the court in Cairo and then treating patients at home in Fustat until night.

Maimonides also served as a leader of the Jewish community in Egypt. He answered questions on law sent from across the Jewish world. His Epistle to Yemen, written around 1172, encouraged the Jews of Yemen during a time of persecution and warned them against a false messiah.

Major works

Maimonides wrote in two languages: Judeo-Arabic (Arabic in Hebrew letters) for most works, and Hebrew for his law code.

• Commentary on the Mishnah (completed 1168): a Judeo-Arabic commentary on the Mishnah, the early code of Jewish oral law. It includes his famous Thirteen Principles of Faith, which later became the basis of widely used creeds and hymns.
• Mishneh Torah (completed around 1178–1180): a code of Jewish law in clear Hebrew, arranged in 14 books. It aimed to let readers find the law without working through the whole Talmud.
• Guide for the Perplexed (completed around 1190): his great philosophical work, written in Judeo-Arabic as Dalalat al-Ha’irin.
• Medical writings: around ten treatises in Arabic, including works on diet and health, asthma, poisons and their antidotes, and a collection of medical aphorisms based on Galen.

The Guide for the Perplexed

Maimonides wrote the Guide as a long letter to his student Joseph ben Judah, who had studied philosophy and astronomy with him and then left Egypt. The “perplexed” reader was a religious Jew who had learned philosophy and was troubled that the Bible seemed to contradict reason.

The work is divided into three parts. The first explains that biblical words describing God in physical terms, such as hands or sitting, must be read as metaphors. Maimonides argued that God has no body and that human language cannot describe God’s essence; we can only say what God is not. This approach is known as negative theology.

The second part deals with the existence of God, the nature of the universe and the question of whether the world was created or has existed eternally, as Aristotle taught. Maimonides argued that neither view could be proved, and that creation, the view of the Torah, was the more reasonable belief. He also set out a theory of prophecy.

The third part discusses the vision of the chariot in the Book of Ezekiel, the problem of evil, divine providence and the reasons behind the commandments of the Torah. Maimonides deliberately wrote the Guide in a guarded style and warned that some of its ideas were meant only for trained readers.

Controversy and influence

The Guide was translated into Hebrew by Samuel ibn Tibbon around 1204, and again in a freer version by Judah al-Harizi. It quickly provoked fierce debate. In the “Maimonidean controversy” of the 1230s, some rabbis in Provence and Spain accused his philosophy of undermining faith, and copies of his works were burned in Montpellier in 1232 or 1233, apparently after denunciation to church authorities. Supporters and opponents argued over his ideas for generations.

A Latin translation made in the thirteenth century brought the Guide to Christian scholars. Thomas Aquinas cited “Rabbi Moses” with respect, and later thinkers from Spinoza to modern philosophers engaged with his arguments. In the Islamic world, his works sit alongside those of contemporaries such as Averroes (Ibn Rushd), the Cordoba-born philosopher who also sought to reconcile Aristotle with revealed religion.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Maimonides was Saladin’s personal physician. He served Saladin’s chief minister, al-Qadi al-Fadil, and later Saladin’s son al-Afdal. There is no reliable evidence that he treated Saladin himself.
• Myth: the “Prayer of Maimonides” for physicians is his work. This well-known prayer was most likely written in the late eighteenth century, probably by the German physician Marcus Herz.
• Myth: Richard the Lionheart invited him to be his doctor. The story appears in a thirteenth-century Arabic biographical work and is doubted by most historians.
• Fact: Maimonides wrote most of his works, including the Guide, in Arabic, the everyday language of educated Jews in the Islamic world, rather than in Hebrew.

Death and legacy

Maimonides died in Fustat in December 1204. Tradition holds that he was buried in Tiberias, where his tomb is a site of pilgrimage. His son Abraham succeeded him as leader of the Egyptian Jewish community.

Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah remains a basic text of Jewish law, and his Thirteen Principles appear in many prayer books. A well-known saying among Jews holds that “from Moses to Moses there was none like Moses”, comparing him to the biblical lawgiver. Hospitals, schools and universities around the world bear his name, and the Cairo synagogue associated with him was restored in 2010.

Timeline

• 1138: Maimonides is born in Cordoba (some sources give 1135).
• 1148: The Almohads take Cordoba; the family later leaves the city.
• c. 1160: The family settles in Fez, Morocco.
• 1165: The family sails to Acre and then moves to Egypt.
• 1168: Maimonides completes his Commentary on the Mishnah.
• c. 1178–1180: He completes the Mishneh Torah.
• c. 1190: He completes the Guide for the Perplexed.
• 1204, December: Maimonides dies in Fustat.

Why it matters

Maimonides showed how faith and philosophy could be brought into dialogue, and his work became a bridge between Jewish, Islamic and Christian thought. His law code and creed still shape Jewish practice, and the Guide for the Perplexed remains one of the classic texts of medieval philosophy.