The Refutation of the Refutation A Triumph of the Scientific Spirit and a Foundation for the Ethics of Dialogue

Description

By 1998, eight centuries had passed since the death of the Cordoban philosopher Abu al-Walid Ibn Rushd (520 AH/1126 CE – 595 AH/1198 CE). To commemorate this occasion, and to contribute to the revival and dissemination of the thought of this great Arab philosopher—who played a major role in the first European Renaissance during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and whose influence remained strong in European thought until the eighteenth century—we undertook the publication of a new, critically edited, and accessible edition of his original works—that is, those he wrote from scratch, not summaries or commentaries.

This project specifically concerns the following works: “The Decisive Treatise on the Connection Between Religion and Philosophy,” “The Unveiling of the Methods of Proof in the Doctrines of the Faith,” “The Incoherence of the Incoherence,” and “The General Principles of Medicine,” in addition to his book “The Compendium of Plato’s Politics,” the original Arabic of which has been lost, leaving only a Hebrew translation. This translation is being retranslated into Arabic for the first time as part of this project. There is also an intention to prepare a scholarly edition, with commentary and annotations, of his unparalleled work in comparative jurisprudence (according to the four schools of thought): “The Beginning of the Mujtahid and the End of the Muqtasid.”

This book also includes, in addition to all of this, an introduction, an analytical preface, and a project by the project supervisor, Dr. Muhammad Abed al-Jabri. The central issue that Ibn Rushd raises in “The Decisive Treatise on the Connection Between Religion and Philosophy,” “The Unveiling of the Methods of Proof in the Doctrines of the Faith,” and “The Incoherence of the Incoherence” is, in our contemporary terms, the issue of the relationship between religion and society as it was presented in Arab-Islamic history up to his time. This will become clear to the reader as we progress through this project.