Averro�s or Averrho�s, also called Ibn Rushd, Arabic in full Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd 1126-98
Islamic philosopher and physician

Born in C�rdoba, Spain, the son of a distinguished family of jurists, he served as kadi (judge) and physician in C�rdoba and Seville, and in Morocco. He also wrote on jurisprudence and medicine at this time as well as beginning his extensive philosophical output. In 1182 he became court physician to Caliph Abu Yusuf, but in 1185 was banished in disgrace (for reasons now unknown) by the caliph's son and successor. Many of his works were burnt, but after a brief period in exile he was restored to grace and lived in retirement in Marrakesh until his death. The most numerous and the most important of his works were the Commentaries on Aristotle, many of them known only through their Latin (or Hebrew) translations. Both influential and controversial in the development of scholastic philosophy in the Middle Ages, they offered a partial synthesis of Greek and Arabic philosophical traditions. He was the most famous of the medieval Islamic philosophers.

Bibliography: Barry S Cogan, Averro�s and the Metaphysics of Causation (1985)