Did you hear about Ibn Daud?

Did you hear about Ibn Daud?

Jewish philosopher, but best known as a historian, born about 1110 in al-Andalus; his academic background suggests that he received his education in Cordoba, which then housed the most renowned centers of Jewish studies at the time. Following the invasion of the intolerant Almohad (1148), Ibn Daud, like many Jews —including the family of the young Moses Maimonides—, fled the city and took refuge in Toledo, which was under Christian domination. There he wrote his most famous work, Sefer ha-Kabbalah (Book of Tradition, c. 1161) that is a detailed list of generations of the Jewish spiritual leaders whose purpose was to show the continuity that, according to him, existed between Moses and the rabbis of his time. In other words, this book was a blatant attack against the Karaite Judaism and the teachings of Anan ben David. He sought to justify the legitimacy of rabbinic Judaism.

All this is well known, no need to repeat it. We could end the story here, but there is something more, something generally overlooked by writers:

Abraham ibn Daud was the first Jewish thinker that followed Aristotle's rationalism. Before him, only Muslim philosophers, such as Avicenna and Farabi, had done that. Until then the Jews had tended to Neoplatonism, such as Ibn Gabirol in his Fons Vitae. Also around 1160 he wrote in Arabic his philosophical works Al-akidah al-Rafiyah that was translated to Hebrew twice, although we only know the version titled "ha-Emunah ha-Ramah" (The Exalted Faith).

Although he is the real father of rationalism in Jewish thought, he was overshadowed by Maimonides. Apparently, since the appearance of the Guide for the Perplexed (1190) became unnecessary the reading of "ha-Emunah ha-Ramah," which was much less complex and comprehensive. But if we look closely, the two Hebrew translations of al-Akidah al-Rafiyah dating from the late fourteenth century, which gives the impression that the work was not entirely ruled out.

Our purpose is to uncover a character who has been unjustly forgotten. T. A. M. Fontaine (PhD, University of Amsterdam), in the introduction to her thesis on the content of ha-Emunah ha-Ramah, writes:

"I was led to write this book by the following considerations. In the first place, little attention has yet been paid to Ibn Daud's philosphy. In textbooks of Jewish mediaeval religious philosophy he is the almost unanimously dismissed as a thinker who was neither original enough nor profound enough to have had much influence, which explains why he was soon overshadowed by Maimonides. This may be entirely or partly true, but the question is whether Ibn Daud's place in the shadow of Maimonides is sufficient justification for ignoring his work. Even the work of a less than great thinker can contain enough interesting ideas to make it worth studiying, even if they have been of no major immediate influence or only began to bear fruit in some later period. Ibn Daud's work is another link in the chain that is the history of Jewish religious philosophy, and that in itself is reason enough to look into his thinking more closely".

Ibn Daud died in Toledo in 1180. According to some sources, he died a martyr for his faith, but no more details.

Bibilography:

· Fontaine, T. A. M. (1990). In defence of Judaism: Abraham ibn Daud [Sources and structure of ha-Emunah ha-Ramah]. Assen/Maastrich: Van Gorcum.

· Saban, Mario Javier (2008). Rambam, el genio de Maimónides [Una interpretación moderna del Guía de perplejos y un estudio sobre las controversias dentro del judaísmo]. Buenos Aires: Saban.

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