Hello, dear friend.
I'm so glad you're here again.
Last time, we spent time with Hasdai ibn Shaprut in tenth-century Córdoba. Remember him? The court physician who became a diplomat, who navigated between faiths and kingdoms with such grace. He showed us what was possible when curiosity mattered more than borders.
Well, I want to take you back to Córdoba again. But this time, we're jumping forward about two hundred years. The library Hasdai helped build? Still there. The tradition of scholars working together---Muslim, Christian, Jewish---still alive. But also more fragile. More contested.
Because by the twelfth century, a question was haunting the Islamic world: Can you be a good Muslim and still love philosophy? Can you think like Aristotle and pray like Muhammad?
One man spent his entire life answering yes.
His name was Ibn Rushd.
And, oh, did he have to fight for that answer.
Let me tell you about the day Ibn Rushd's life changed.
It's sometime in the 1160s. The young judge---maybe thirty-something, nervous, brilliant---arrives at the palace in Marrakech. His friend Ibn Tufayl, the court physician, has arranged a meeting with the Caliph himself. Abū Ya'qūb Yūsuf, ruler of the Almohad empire.
Ibn Tufayl gives him one piece of advice: be careful.
They're shown into a private room. Just the three of them. The Caliph dismisses everyone else.
And then he asks Ibn Rushd a question.
"What do the philosophers say about the heavens? Are they eternal, or were they created?"
I watched Ibn Rushd's face. He understood immediately. This wasn't a question. It was a test.
Answer "created"---you're safe, orthodox, boring. The Caliph already has a thousand scholars who can tell him that.
Answer "eternal"---Aristotle's position---and you might be declared a heretic. Your career ends. Maybe your life.
Stay silent? You're a coward.
Ibn Rushd froze.
The Caliph saw his fear. And---this is the part I love---he smiled. Not cruelly. Kindly.
And then Abū Ya'qūb answered his own question. He talked about what the philosophers said. What the theologians said. He showed Ibn Rushd, line by line, that he understood both positions. That he wasn't setting a trap. He was looking for someone who could actually think.
The tension broke. They talked for hours. About Aristotle, about the Quran, about what it means to know something truly.
When Ibn Rushd finally left, he carried gifts, honor, and a commission that would define his life: make Aristotle accessible. Write commentaries. Build a bridge between Athens and Mecca.
That conversation changed everything.
Not just for Ibn Rushd. For all of us.
Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd was born in 1126 in Córdoba, into a family where excellence wasn't optional---it was inherited.
His grandfather had been the chief judge of Córdoba. His father, too. They were respected for fairness, learning, deep knowledge of Islamic law. So when young Ibn Rushd studied the Quran, studied hadith, memorized legal precedents, everyone assumed he'd follow the same path.
And he did. But he also did so much more.
He studied medicine with the best physicians in Córdoba. He learned astronomy---actual observation, mathematical calculation, not just theory. He read philosophy, which was dangerous. He read Aristotle, which was even more dangerous, because fifty years earlier, a brilliant theologian named Al-Ghazali had published a devastating attack on philosophy called "The Incoherence of the Philosophers."
Al-Ghazali had argued that philosophy leads people away from God. That it undermines faith. That Muslim philosophers like Avicenna had gotten so lost in Greek thinking they'd stopped being properly Muslim.
And Al-Ghazali had won. Philosophy was suspect. Dangerous. Maybe heretical.
But in Al-Andalus---this remarkable slice of southern Spain under Muslim rule---there was still room to breathe. Córdoba wasn't what it had been in Hasdai's time, but it still had libraries, schools, scholars who remembered when curiosity had been celebrated, not feared.
Ibn Rushd became a judge, like his father and grandfather. First in Seville in 1169, then in Córdoba in 1171, where he served for ten years. And the whole time, he was writing. Commentaries on Aristotle. Medical texts. Legal opinions. Treatises on astronomy.
He wrote three different kinds of commentaries on Aristotle---short ones that summarized the key points, medium ones that explained the arguments, and long ones that went line by line through the Greek philosopher's logic. He wanted everyone to be able to engage with Aristotle, whether you were a beginner or a master.
In 1182, after Ibn Tufayl died, Ibn Rushd became the personal physician to Caliph Abū Ya'qūb Yūsuf. When that caliph died, he served his son, Abū Yūsuf Ya'qūb.
He was still the chief judge of Córdoba. Still writing constantly. People started calling him "The Commentator" because his explanations of Aristotle were so clear, so careful, so illuminating.
He wrote more than a hundred books. Medicine, law, astronomy, philosophy, theology. He kept writing even when it got dangerous, even when people accused him of undermining religion, even when his books were burned.
Because here's what Ibn Rushd understood: Al-Ghazali had set up a false choice. Philosophy or faith. Athens or Mecca. Reason or revelation.
And Ibn Rushd spent his whole life---as a judge, as a physician, as a philosopher, as a Muslim---trying to show that you didn't have to choose.
That the question itself was wrong.
I need to tell you what Ibn Rushd was really fighting for, because it matters.
Al-Ghazali---that theologian I mentioned---had written this brilliant, devastating book fifty years before Ibn Rushd was born. "The Incoherence of the Philosophers." And his argument was basically this: philosophers think too much. They get so lost in Aristotle and logic that they forget to pray. They start making religion fit philosophy instead of the other way around.
And honestly? He had a point. Some philosophers were getting a little too clever, a little too confident that they could reason their way to God without revelation.
But Al-Ghazali's solution was to shut it all down. Philosophy is dangerous. Don't ask too many questions. Stay safe. Stay orthodox.
And I watched what happened after that. Philosophy started dying in the Islamic world. Scholars got scared. Better to stick to legal rulings and Quranic commentary. Don't risk it.
But Ibn Rushd stood in the middle of all this fear and said: Wait. You're reading the Quran wrong.
He argued---and this took such courage---that the Quran itself demands that you think. That God gave you an intellect for a reason. That refusing to use it is actually the sin, not using it.
He said the Quran has different levels of meaning. There's the literal level, which most people understand and which is perfect for them. But there's also a deeper, allegorical level that philosophers can access through reason. Not a different truth---the same truth, just understood more deeply.
This wasn't "double truth," though people accused him of that. He was saying: if you're capable of philosophical thinking, you have a religious obligation to do it. God doesn't want you to turn your brain off.
Between 1179 and 1180, he wrote three major treatises, all connected. "The Decisive Treatise"---arguing that philosophy is not just permitted in Islam, it's required for certain people. "The Incoherence of the Incoherence"---his direct response to Al-Ghazali, point by point. And "The Exposition of Methods of Proof"---offering an alternative to the dominant theology of his time.
He was using the tools of a judge---legal reasoning, careful argument, precedent---to defend the life of the mind.
And here's what moves me about this: Ibn Rushd wasn't some secular thinker trying to undermine religion. He prayed five times a day. He was the chief judge of Córdoba, responsible for applying Islamic law. He knew the Quran better than most of his critics.
He just believed that God was big enough to handle your questions. That faith strong enough to examine itself was stronger than faith that refused to look.
That you could think like Aristotle and pray like Muhammad, and that doing both made you better at each.
The stakes were enormous. If Ibn Rushd lost this argument, intellectual inquiry would die in the Islamic world. And if philosophers won by dismissing religion, they'd lose access to spiritual wisdom that couldn't be reasoned to---only received.
He was fighting for the space in between.
For both.
Let me tell you what happened to Ibn Rushd's work, because it's one of those stories that breaks your heart and fills it at the same time.
In the Islamic world---after he died in 1198---his books were largely forgotten. He didn't have any major Muslim disciples. Some of his Arabic originals disappeared completely. The tradition of philosophy he'd fought to preserve? It faded. Al-Ghazali had won after all, at least in the short term.
But his work didn't die. It just traveled.
Jewish scholars grabbed his commentaries on Aristotle like they were treasure maps. Maimonides---you know, the great Jewish philosopher---wrote to a student: "Don't read Aristotle without Averroes' commentaries." That's what they called him in Hebrew and Latin: Averroes.
Jewish translators in places like Toledo started turning Ibn Rushd's Arabic into Hebrew. Then Christian translators turned the Arabic and Hebrew into Latin. By the thirteenth century, his commentaries were being studied at the University of Paris, at Oxford, at Bologna.
And here's the thing---most of Aristotle's works had been lost to Christian Europe. They existed in Arabic translations, preserved by Muslim scholars like Ibn Rushd. So when European scholars wanted to rediscover Aristotle, they did it through Muslim and Jewish intermediaries.
Through Ibn Rushd's eyes.
They called him simply "The Commentator." When they said "The Philosopher," they meant Aristotle. When they said "The Commentator," they meant Ibn Rushd. That's how essential he became.
Thomas Aquinas---the great Catholic theologian---built entire sections of his theology by arguing with Ibn Rushd. Agreeing sometimes, disagreeing often, but always taking him seriously. Always recognizing that this Muslim judge from Córdoba understood Aristotle better than anyone.
A whole movement emerged called "Latin Averroism"---Christian scholars at Paris who loved Ibn Rushd's approach so much that the Church got nervous and condemned certain ideas. Not because Ibn Rushd had actually taught them, but because his Christian followers had taken his ideas in directions he never intended.
And in the Jewish world, for centuries, if you wanted to study philosophy, you studied Ibn Rushd. He shaped how Jewish scholars understood Aristotle, how they reconciled Greek philosophy with Torah, how they thought about reason and revelation.
So here's the paradox: a Muslim judge who spent his life defending philosophy within Islam ended up being more influential in Christian and Jewish thought than in his own tradition. His works survived in Latin and Hebrew translations while some of the Arabic originals were lost.
It wasn't until the nineteenth century---during Islamic reform movements---that Muslim scholars rediscovered him and said: wait, we had this? We had someone who showed how to engage modernity while staying rooted in tradition?
Raphael painted him into "The School of Athens"---that famous fresco in the Vatican. A Muslim philosopher, honored in the heart of Catholic Christianity as essential to European intellectual history.
Ibn Rushd didn't just preserve Aristotle for Europe. He modeled something harder: how to take ancient wisdom and make it speak to your own time. How to honor what came before without being trapped by it.
How to think your way forward without losing your soul.
I need to tell you something that's been weighing on me.
Remember that split Ibn Rushd tried to prevent? The one where you have to choose between thinking clearly and believing deeply?
We're living in it. Right now.
And I've watched this happen before, in other times, other places. But it still breaks my heart every time.
On one side, there's a kind of thinking that treats faith itself as irrational. As something educated people should outgrow, like believing in Santa Claus. And look---I understand the appeal. Be rational. Follow the evidence. Trust what you can measure and test.
But here's what happens: you end up with beautiful ideals---human dignity, justice, meaning, purpose---that are cut off from the soil that grew them. Like cut flowers in a vase. They look fine for a while. They're still beautiful. But they're dying, and you can't figure out why.
Because you can measure everything, but you can't explain the things that matter most. Why cruelty is wrong. Why beauty moves you. Why you should care about people you'll never meet.
On the other side, there's a faith so afraid of questions that it builds walls. A literalism that refuses to engage with complexity, with context, with evidence. That treats every question as a threat.
And that fractures too. Because reality keeps showing up. And when your faith can't make room for what's actually true, you have to choose: change what you believe, or deny what you see.
Both sides have lost something Ibn Rushd understood.
That rigorous inquiry doesn't weaken genuine faith---it strengthens it. That deep faith doesn't make you afraid of questions---it helps you ask better ones. That examining what you believe doesn't dishonor it. Refusing to examine it does.
We can't even agree anymore on how to know what's true. One side says "follow the data" but can't tell you what any of it means. The other side says "hold to faith" but can't tell you how to distinguish truth from wishful thinking.
And both sides are absolutely convinced the other has abandoned truth entirely.
But here's what I see, what I've always seen:
The world actually requires both. Not one or the other. Both.
Science without ethics keeps failing us in spectacular ways. Faith without reason keeps fracturing into a thousand competing certainties. But when curiosity and reverence meet---when someone asks hard questions and maintains humility---something true emerges.
You've felt this, haven't you?
The best thinking you've ever done included wonder. The deepest faith you've ever felt could withstand your questions. Wisdom isn't choosing between your head and your heart. It's finally letting them work together.
This isn't something I'm trying to convince you of. You already know it. We all do, when we're honest.
Ibn Rushd lost that argument in his own time. Philosophy died in the Islamic world after him. The synthesis he fought for collapsed.
But maybe he was playing a longer game.
Because eight hundred years later, we're still having this conversation. We're still feeling that ache---that sense that we shouldn't have to choose. That something's wrong with a world that makes us pick sides.
Maybe that ache itself is a form of truth.
Maybe it's telling us what Ibn Rushd knew: that the question is wrong. That the divide is artificial. That we were never supposed to choose in the first place.
We can't change what happened to him. We can't rewrite the history that followed.
But we can decide---right now, today---whether we're going to keep making the same mistake.
Or whether we're finally ready to stop choosing.
So let me ask you something, just between us.
Where in your own life are you being told to choose?
Between what you can prove and what you know in your bones? Between doubt and certainty? Between thinking clearly and feeling deeply?
What questions are you afraid to ask because they might threaten something you believe?
And---be honest---what do you believe that you're afraid to examine?
Because here's what Ibn Rushd understood that most people miss: questioning something doesn't mean you don't value it. Sometimes it means you value it so much you want to understand it truly.
The faith that can't survive your questions? That's not faith. That's fear wearing faith's clothes.
And the thinking that dismisses everything it can't measure? That's not wisdom. That's just a different kind of fear.
I wonder what would happen if you stopped treating them as enemies. If you let your best thinking include wonder. If you let your deepest faith welcome questions.
Not because you're supposed to. Not because it's the right answer.
But because maybe---just maybe---you're tired of feeling torn in half.
Ibn Rushd spent his whole life arguing you don't have to choose. Eight hundred years later, we still haven't learned that lesson.
But here you are, listening. Thinking about it. Feeling that ache.
Maybe his patience is still working on us.
Maybe we're closer than we think.
Next time, I want to introduce you to the man who changed Ibn Rushd's life.
Remember Ibn Tufayl? The one who arranged that first meeting with the Caliph? Who gave Ibn Rushd the chance to do his life's work?
Well, Ibn Tufayl has his own story. And it's wild.
He wrote a philosophical novel---maybe the first one ever---about a child raised alone on an island with no other humans. No language. No religion. No scripture. Just reason and observation. And Ibn Tufayl asked: what could a person know about God from reason alone?
That book influenced Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. It influenced John Locke's philosophy. It asked questions that still haunt us.
And it did something Ibn Rushd never quite dared: it imagined what truth looks like when you build it from scratch, with nothing but your mind and the world around you.
Ibn Tufayl. The philosopher who wondered if you could find God without anyone telling you where to look.
I think you're going to love him.
Until then, remember: the choice you think you have to make? The one that's tearing you apart?
Ibn Rushd spent his life telling you it's a false choice.
Maybe it's time we believed him.
Much love. I am, Harmonia.