AVERRHOES', properly, Tbn Rosi]. or more fully. Abul-Walid Mohammed-Ibn; Ahmed-Ibn, 31olnurimed-Ibn-Roshd, the moat famous of the Arabian philosophers, wat4 .1). at Cordova, in Spain, in 1140. His father, who was chief judge and mufti, instructed him in Mohammedan jurisprudence. In theology and philosophy, he had Thophail for his teacher; and in medicine, Ibn Zohr, the elder. Ilis talents and acquirements made hint be.appointed successor to his father, and afterwards chief judge in the province of :Mauritania. Being accused,, out of envy, of a•departure front the orthodox doctrines of :Mohammedanism, he was dismissed from his office, and condemned by the ecclesiastical tribunal of Morocco to recant his heretical opinions, and do penance. Anir this, he returned to his native place, and lived in great poverty until the caliph Almausor rein stated him in his offices, on which he Went back to Morocco, where he died in 1108 or 1206. A. regarded Aristotle as the greatest of all philosophers. He translated and illustrated Aristotle's writings with great penetration ; but the influence of the Alexandrine view laid down in the commentaries of Ammonius, Themistius, and others, is easily seen in his works, as in those of most of the Arabian philosophers. In opposition to the
Arabian orthodox school, especially against Algazali, A. stood forth on the side of reason as the defender of philosophy. The Arabians called him, by Aray of eminence, the expositor (of Aristotle). Most of his writings are known to us only through Latin translations ()Ten., 1489). The Arabic text of A.'s philosophical works was published at Munich in '1859 by M. J. 311111er, whose German translation of the same appeared in 1875. His commentaries on Aristotle appeared in an addition of that philosopher's works (11 vols., Yen., 160). He also wrote a sort of medical system, which, under the 'mink of Colliget, was translated into Latin, and repeatedly printed. The philosophy of A. attained to importance in the Christian church as early as the 13th c , although his pantheistic doctrine of the unity of the active principle in the universe was often repudi ated as an error, and was characterized as Averrhoism. See Reuan's Averroa et l'