Why Did Jewish Scholars Risk Everything for Arabic Books?
A Secret Book in the Attic
Picture Toledo, Spain, around the year 1260. A young Jewish boy named Joseph explores the dark attic above his synagogue. Among old scrolls, he finds a heavy leatherbound book — written entirely in Arabic. He reads a few lines: it is a commentary (a detailed explanation of an older text) on the Greek philosopher Aristotle. But the author’s name is not Jewish. It is Ibn Rushd, a Muslim thinker the world calls Averroes (1126–1198). Joseph’s heart races. A rabbi had warned him never to read such dangerous books. Yet he can’t put it down.
Joseph’s story is imaginary, but his discovery was real for many Jewish scholars in the Middle Ages. Hebrew thinkers had been quietly reading, sometimes even smuggling in, the works of Islamic philosophers. Those pages held some of the deepest ideas of the ancient world, preserved and expanded by Arab and Persian masters. But many Jewish leaders feared that studying non‑Jewish philosophy might weaken faith. The result was a secret, centuries‑long adventure that reshaped Jewish thought forever.
Maimonides’ Dilemma: Can Reason and Faith Mix?
No one felt this tension more than Moses Maimonides (1138–1204), the most famous Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages. He lived in Cairo, wrote his masterwork The Guide of the Perplexed, and tried to show that Jewish belief could live comfortably with Aristotle’s logic. But when it came to the Islamic philosopher Averroes, Maimonides wobbled. In a famous letter to his translator Samuel Ibn Tibbon, Maimonides apparently said that Averroes’ commentaries were the key to understanding Aristotle. Yet scholars today suspect those words might have been added later by an enthusiastic student. In other letters, Maimonides admitted he hadn’t actually read Averroes’ books — and even called another Muslim thinker “only a physician, not a real philosopher.”
This push‑and‑pull captures a huge question: can faith and reason coexist, or will one always try to dominate the other? Maimonides desperately wanted to say yes. But he worried that once you open the door to Greek‑style logic, you might not be able to control where it leads.
The Translators: Building a Bridge with Ink and Late Nights
Despite the worries, a determined band of Jewish scholars ignored the warnings. Working in Spain, Provence, and Italy between 1200 and 1400, they systematically translated almost every philosophical work Averroes ever wrote — from Arabic into Hebrew. Some of Averroes’ original Arabic texts were later lost to history and survive only because of these Hebrew translations.
The most enthusiastic translator was Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera (ca. 1225–1295). He didn’t just translate; he mixed Averroes’ ideas into his encyclopedias and commentaries. Falaquera wrote, “All that I have written corresponds to Aristotle’s words, as they are commented on by the sage Averroes. He was the last of the commentators and collected the cream of the works of the previous commentators.” For Falaquera, Averroes was not a foreign threat but a wise guide who could help Jews understand the deepest truths about the world.
Translation was slow and painstaking. A scribe would sit for hours, dipping a quill in ink, checking an Arabic sentence, then writing the equivalent in elegant Hebrew. These copied books often traveled hundreds of miles, passed secretly from one Jewish community to another. Gradually, Averroes’ name became more familiar in Jewish schools than many homegrown thinkers.
The Rise of the Averroists — and the Backlash
By the 1300s, a full‑blown movement had appeared: Jewish Averroism. Its followers believed that Averroes’ interpretation of Aristotle was the deepest wisdom available to the human mind — and that it fit perfectly with biblical teaching. Moses Narboni (d. after 1362), a philosopher from southern France, wrote commentary after commentary on Averroes’ works. He argued that there was no need to doubt Aristotle’s teachings at all; they were “surely true,” and Averroes was the master who unlocked them.
But not everyone was cheering. Some rabbis and community leaders accused the Averroists of turning Judaism into a Greek philosophy club. The most heated debates revolved around a daring idea: double truth. Some philosophers suggested that a statement could be true in philosophy but false in religion — or the other way around. That way, a difficult Aristotelian claim (like the eternity of the universe) could be held alongside the biblical story of creation. To critics, this sounded like saying you could believe two opposite things at once. Others saw it as a clever survival strategy, keeping peace between reason and faith.
Tensions ran so high that a few Jewish Averroists, like Abner of Burgos (ca. 1270–1350), even converted to Christianity, claiming their new faith made better room for philosophy. The debate was no longer a quiet library matter. It had become a crisis over the soul of Judaism itself.
Why a Medieval Secret Still Matters
The story of Jewish Averroism is not just a dusty chapter from long ago. It is one of history’s great examples of what happens when cultures collide around ideas. The Jewish scholars who translated Averroes risked disapproval, but they also built a bridge between worlds. Without them, many of Averroes’ books would be lost, and Jewish philosophy would have been far narrower.
Even today, you face a version of their dilemma every time you encounter a book or a video from a tradition different from your own. Do you shut the cover and stay in your comfort zone? Or do you read it, ask hard questions, and maybe build your own bridge? The medieval translators made their choice — by candlelight, with trembling hands — and Jewish thought was never the same.
Think about it
- If you could read a philosophy book from another culture that might challenge your beliefs, would you want to? Why or why not?
- Can someone be both a faithful believer and a truth‑seeking philosopher, even when the two seem to pull in opposite directions? Give a real‑life example if you can.
- Is it ever fair to keep certain ideas secret from the general public and share them only with trained experts? Why might a community agree to that — and what could go wrong?
