Maimonides in His World:
Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker
Sarah Stroumsa

Cloth | 2009 | $39.50 / £27.95
244 pp. | 6 x 9

e-Book | 2009 | $39.50 | ISBN: 978-1-4008-3132-6

Shopping Cart | Endorsements | Table of Contents
Chapter 1 [PDF]

While the great medieval philosopher, theologian, and physician Maimonides is acknowledged as a leading Jewish thinker, his intellectual contacts with his surrounding world are often described as related primarily to Islamic philosophy. Maimonides in His World challenges this view by revealing him to have wholeheartedly lived, breathed, and espoused the rich Mediterranean culture of his time.

Sarah Stroumsa argues that Maimonides is most accurately viewed as a Mediterranean thinker who consistently interpreted his own Jewish tradition in contemporary multicultural terms. Maimonides spent his entire life in the Mediterranean region, and the religious and philosophical traditions that fed his thought were those of the wider world in which he lived. Stroumsa demonstrates that he was deeply influenced not only by Islamic philosophy but by Islamic culture as a whole, evidence of which she finds in his philosophy as well as his correspondence and legal and scientific writings. She begins with a concise biography of Maimonides, then carefully examines key aspects of his thought, including his approach to religion and the complex world of theology and religious ideas he encountered among Jews, Christians, Muslims, and even heretics; his views about science; the immense and unacknowledged impact of the Almohads on his thought; and his vision of human perfection.

This insightful cultural biography restores Maimonides to his rightful place among medieval philosophers and affirms his central relevance to the study of medieval Islam.

Sarah Stroumsa is the Alice and Jack Ormut Professor of Arabic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she currently serves as rector. Her books include Freethinkers of Medieval Islam.

Endorsements:

"Stroumsa paints a richly documented, nuanced portrait of Maimonides as a bold, open thinker whose sometimes revolutionary conception of Judaism draws freely from the multiple philosophical, theological, scientific, and ideological currents of his contemporary Mediterranean world. This intellectual biography covers the full range of Maimonides' writings, from law and philosophy to polemics and medicine, exposing novel and unexpected sources, for example, in Islamic theology and Almohad thought. Stroumsa points scholars in new directions for future study of the greatest Jewish figure of the Middle Ages."--Josef Stern, University of Chicago

"A stimulating, absorbing read. Stroumsa is a valuable and unique voice in a lively complex of debates about this extraordinary thinker. Her fundamental point--that Maimonides must be understood as a well-read and active participant in a diverse multiconfessional culture--is emphatically confirmed by sheer accumulation of data and clever argument."--Everett K. Rowson, New York University

"This is a serious piece of scholarship filled with many very fine insights. Sarah Stroumsa is a leading scholar in Judeo-Arabic studies, and one of those whose writings I value most."--Steven Harvey, Bar-Ilan University

Table of Contents

Series:

• Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World
  Michael Cook, William Chester Jordan, and Peter Schäfer, Series Editors

Subject Areas:

• Jewish Studies
• Philosophy
• Religion

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For customers in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Australia
Cloth: $39.50 ISBN13: 978-0-691-13763-6

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File created: 11/4/2009

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