Editing Maimonides (section)

{{Short description|Jewish philosopher from Spain (1135–1204)}}
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{{other uses}}
{{Redirect|Moses ben Maimon|the Moroccan kabbalist|Moses ben Maimon Albas}}
{{for|the Haifa hospital|Rambam Health Care Campus}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| region           = [[Middle Eastern philosophy]]
* [[Jewish philosophy]]
| era              = [[Medieval philosophy]]
* [[12th century in philosophy|12th-century philosophy]]
| image            = Portrait of Moses Maimonides in Thesaurus antiquitatum sacrarum.tif
| caption          = Engraving in ''Thesaurus Antiquitatum Sacrarum'' from which all modern portraits are derived, {{Circa|1744}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Schwartz |first=Yitzhack |date=2011-07-31 |title=The Maimonides Portrait: An Appraisal of One of the World's Most Famous Pictures |url=https://www.rmmj.org.il/issues/5/131/manuscript |journal=[[Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal]] |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=e0052 |doi=10.5041/RMMJ.10052|pmid=23908810 |pmc=3678793 | issn = 2076-9172}}</ref>
| honorific_prefix = [[Rabbi]]
| name             = {{ubl|Maimonides|<small>(Moshe ben Maimon)</small>}}
| birth_date       = 30 March<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.britannica.com/biography/Moses-Maimonides|title=Moses Maimonides &#124; Biography, Philosophy, & Teachings|website= Encyclopedia Britannica|access-date=8 December 2016|archive-date=20 December 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220233251/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Moses-Maimonides |url-status=live}}</ref> or 6 April<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.hebcal.com/converter/?hd=14&hm=Nisan&hy=4895&h2g=1|title=Hebrew Date Converter – 14th of Nisan, 4895 |website=Hebcal Jewish Calendar |access-date=31 March 2021|archive-date= 7 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307004534/https://www.hebcal.com/converter/?hd=14&hm=Nisan&hy=4895&h2g=1|url-status=live}}</ref> 1135<br/>
Possibly born 28 March or 4 April<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.hebcal.com/converter/?gd=4&gm=4&gy=1138&g2h=1|title=Hebrew Date Converter – 14th of Nisan, 4898 |website= Hebcal Jewish Calendar |access-date=31 March 2021|archive-date=7 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307004616/https://www.hebcal.com/converter/?gd=4&gm=4&gy=1138&g2h=1|url-status=live}}</ref> 1138
| birth_place      = [[Córdoba, Spain|Córdoba]], [[Almoravid dynasty|Almoravid Empire]]
| death_date       = 12 December 1204 (66–69 years old)
| death_place      = [[Fustat|Fostat]], [[Ayyubid dynasty|Ayyubid Sultanate]]
| school_tradition = [[Aristotelianism]]
| language         = [[Judeo-Arabic]], [[Medieval Hebrew]]
| main_interests   = [[Jewish theology]], [[halakha]], [[astronomy]], [[medicine]]
| notable_works    = {{ubl|{{transliteration|he|[[Mishneh Torah]]}}|''[[The Guide for the Perplexed]]''}}
| notable_ideas    = [[Maimonides' rule]], [[Golden mean (Judaism)|Golden mean]], [[13 principles of faith]]
|signature         = Firma de Maimonides.svg
|spouse            =(1) daughter of Nathaniel Baruch (2) daughter of Mishael Halevi
}}
{{Philosophy of religion sidebar}}
'''Moses ben Maimon'''{{efn|{{Langx|he|מֹשֶׁה בֶּן־מַיְמוֹן|Mōše ben-Maymōn}}; {{Langx|ar|موسى بن ميمون|Mūsā bin Maymūn}}, both meaning "Moses, son of [[Maimon ben Joseph|Maimon]]"}} (1138–1204), commonly known as '''Maimonides''' ({{IPAc-en|m|aɪ|ˈ|m|ɒ|n|ɪ|d|iː|z}}, {{respell|my|MON|ih|deez}}){{efn|{{langx|grc|Μωυσής Μαϊμωνίδης|Mōusḗs Maïmōnídēs}}; {{langx|la|Moses Maimonides}}}} and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym '''Rambam''' ({{langx|he|רמב״ם}}),{{efn|{{IPAc-en|ˌ|r|ɑː|m|ˈ|b|ɑː|m}}, for '''''R'''abbēnu '''M'''ōše '''b'''en '''M'''aymōn'', "Our [[Rabbi]] Moses, son of Maimon"}} was a [[Sephardic]] rabbi and [[Jewish philosophy|philosopher]] who became one of the most prolific and influential [[Torah]] scholars of the [[Middle Ages]]. In his time, he was also a preeminent [[astronomer]] and [[physician]], serving as the personal physician of [[Saladin]]. He was born on [[Passover]] eve 1138 or 1135,{{efn|The date of 1138 of the [[Common Era]] is the date of birth given by Maimonides himself, in the very last chapter and comment made by Maimonides in his ''Commentary of the Mishnah'',<ref>''Commentary of the Mishnah'', Maimonides (1967), s.v. ''Uktzin'' 3:12 (end)</ref> and where he writes: "I began to write this composition when I was twenty-three years old, and I completed it in [[Egypt]] while I was aged thirty, which year is the 1,479th year of the [[Seleucid era]] (1168 [[Common Era|CE]])."}} and lived in [[Córdoba, Spain|Córdoba]] in [[al-Andalus]] (now in Spain) within the [[Almoravid dynasty|Almoravid Empire]] until his family was expelled for refusing to convert to Islam.<ref>Joel E. Kramer, "Moses Maimonides: An Intellectual Portrait", p. 47 note 1. In {{cite book |title=The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides |editor=[[Kenneth Seeskin]] |date=September 2005 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-52578-7}}</ref><ref>1138 in Stroumsa, ''Maimonides in His World: Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker'', Princeton University Press, 2009, p. 8</ref><ref>Sherwin B. Nuland (2008), ''Maimonides'', Random House LLC, p. 38</ref> Later, he lived in Morocco and Egypt and worked as a rabbi, physician and philosopher.

During his lifetime, most Jews greeted Maimonides' writings on [[Halakha|Jewish law]] and [[Jewish ethics|ethics]] with acclaim and gratitude, even as far away as Iraq and Yemen. Yet, while Maimonides rose to become the revered head of the [[History of the Jews in Egypt|Jewish community in Egypt]], his writings also had vociferous critics, particularly in Spain. He died in [[Fustat]], Egypt, and, according to Jewish tradition, was buried in [[Tiberias]]. His [[Tomb of Maimonides|tomb in Tiberias]] is a popular pilgrimage and tourist site.

He was posthumously acknowledged as one of the foremost [[posek|rabbinic decisors]] and philosophers in [[Jewish history]], and his copious work comprises a cornerstone of Jewish scholarship. His fourteen-volume {{transliteration|he|[[Mishneh Torah]]}} still carries significant canonical authority as a codification of ''[[halakha]]''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Marder |first =Michael |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=BsPQBAAAQBAJ |title=The Philosopher's Plant: An Intellectual Herbarium |date=11 November 2014 |publisher= Columbia University Press |isbn= 978-0-231-53813-8 |location=New York |page=97 |access-date=20 September 2020 |archive-date=17 July 2021 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210717215651/https://books.google.com/books?id=BsPQBAAAQBAJ |url-status=live}}</ref>

Aside from being revered by Jewish historians, Maimonides also figures very prominently in the history of Islamic and Arab sciences. Influenced by [[Aristotle]], [[Al-Farabi]], [[Avicenna|Ibn Sina]], and his contemporary [[Averroes|Ibn Rushd]], he became a prominent philosopher and [[polymath]] in both the Jewish and [[Muslim world|Islamic worlds]].