Averroes in His Andalusian Context: Law, Medicine, Philosophy

Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd, known to the Latin West as Averroes (1126–1198), was born in Córdoba into a distinguished family of Maliki jurists; both his father and grandfather had served as chief qadi (judge) of Córdoba, and Ibn Rushd himself was trained from an early age in fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), producing his own major legal compendium, Bidayat al-Mujtahid wa Nihayat al-Muqtasid (The Distinguished Jurist's Primer), a systematic comparative survey of the differing rulings of the major Sunni legal schools that remains studied in Islamic law faculties today. This grounding in the disciplined, evidence-weighing methodology of Maliki jurisprudence shaped the rigor Averroes later brought to philosophical commentary, and he went on to hold the post of qadi in Seville in 1169 and then chief qadi of Córdoba in 1171, combining a full judicial and administrative career with sustained philosophical and medical scholarship.