ABU'L WALID MUHAMMAD IBN RUSHD AL-QURTUBI

It would take almost a thousand years for the relationship between women’s role in society, standard of living, poverty and development would be recognized by all but the most fundamentalist religious orders. Yet, at the flowering of Islamic intellectualism, the idea was discussed.

This was written when Islam was intellectually far more advanced than Christian Europe. This viewpoint was one of the reasons for their advanced civilization. It was held by many. It is still held by many Muslims, but for the fundamentalist of Islam today, ignorance of anything that is not in the Koran or other sayings of the Prophet is a virtue. Madrassas throughout the Islamic world teach only the Koran and religious law and nothing of mathematics, philosophy, science, history and never of other religions.

Ibn Rushd is generally considered the greatest of the Islamic philosophers. In this famous quotation he observes that the Koran is contradictory when it addresses issues of determinism and free will, a subject inquired about in most religions philosophies. While the same thing can be said of the Bible, what surprises some, is that a great Islamic scholar could say that there were contradictions in the Koran as many think of Islam as requiring literal adherence to and faith in the validity of the Koran. Contradictions are not admitted as possible. It illustrates that not all Islamic scholars are fundamentalists, but also that the leading Islamic scholars of the 12th century could hold such a view and freely publish it. Such ideas might get one killed in fundamentalist parts of Pakistan or Saudi Arabia today. Although valid for Muslims, the Hadith is less well known than the Koran which is recited by all good Muslims.

Although jihad was a duty of Muslims, it was not a duty to die in a fight against overwhelming odds which was determined to be 2 to 1. So 2 Muslims could run from 4 but not 3.

This 12th century observation which appears so obvious has been ignored by the vast majority of Islamic scholars and writers subsequent until modern times, and even then they represent the small reform minority of Islamic thinking.

This 12th century observation which appears so obvious has been ignored by the vast majority of Islamic scholars and writers subsequent until modern times, and even then they represent the small reform minority of Islamic thinking.

Ibn Rushd is generally considered the greatest of the Islamic philosophers. In this famous quotation he observes that the Koran is contradictory when it addresses issues of determinism and free will, a subject inquired about in most religions philosophies. While the same thing can be said of the Bible, what surprises some, is that a great Islamic scholar could say that there were contradictions in the Koran as many think of Islam as requiring literal adherence to and faith in the validity of the Koran. Contradictions are not admitted as possible. It illustrates that not all Islamic scholars are fundamentalists, but also that the leading Islamic scholars of the 12th century could hold such a view and freely publish it. Such ideas might get one killed in fundamentalist parts of Pakistan or Saudi Arabia today. Although valid for Muslims, the Hadith is less well known than the Koran which is recited by all good Muslims.

This was written when Islam was intellectually far more advanced than Christian Europe. This viewpoint was one of the reasons for their advanced civilization. It was held by many. It is still held by many Muslims, but for the fundamentalist of Islam today, ignorance of anything that is not in the Koran or other sayings of the Prophet is a virtue. Madrassas throughout the Islamic world teach only the Koran and religious law and nothing of mathematics, philosophy, science, history and never of other religions.

Although jihad was a duty of Muslims, it was not a duty to die in a fight against overwhelming odds which was determined to be 2 to 1. So 2 Muslims could run from 4 but not 3.

It would take almost a thousand years for the relationship between women’s role in society, standard of living, poverty and development would be recognized by all but the most fundamentalist religious orders. Yet, at the flowering of Islamic intellectualism, the idea was discussed.