0:00:00.049,0:00:04.280
It’s an understood feature of human psychology[br]that people are influenced by the environment

0:00:04.280,0:00:08.430
in which they grew up, but it’s a little[br]more rare for someone to embody the entire

0:00:08.430,0:00:10.180
ethos of their hometown.

0:00:10.180,0:00:14.120
So lets wind our clocks back to the Medieval[br]Islamic Golden Age and zoom into the southern

0:00:14.120,0:00:18.300
Iberian Peninsula, and we’ll land in the[br]great city of Cordoba — quite possibly one

0:00:18.300,0:00:22.279
of the best tickets to draw in the Historical[br]Lottery of Where To Be Born.

0:00:22.279,0:00:26.061
Cordoba was the heart of a thriving medieval[br]civilization in what is now Spain but what

0:00:26.061,0:00:28.650
was then known by its Arabic name Al-Andalus.

0:00:28.650,0:00:32.689
Although it was ruled by Muslims for several[br]centuries, Al-Andalus was multiethnic and

0:00:32.689,0:00:37.149
multifaith, being the longtime home to Christians[br]and, critically for our story today, several

0:00:37.149,0:00:38.460
Jewish communities.

0:00:38.460,0:00:42.239
And this is where we meet our protagonist:[br]a Jewish scholar from Cordoba who became the

0:00:42.239,0:00:46.480
foremost legal authority on the Hebrew Bible,[br]an invaluable philosopher of the relationship

0:00:46.480,0:00:50.710
between reason and spirituality, and, while[br]he was at it, the personal physician to one

0:00:50.710,0:00:53.180
of the most powerful kings in medieval history.

0:00:53.180,0:00:57.269
His Muslim peers knew him as Mūsā Bin Maymūn,[br]while fellow Jews called him by his Hebrew

0:00:57.269,0:01:02.149
name Moshe Ben Maimon, and European Christians[br]used the Latin rendering of Moses Maimonides.

0:01:02.149,0:01:06.340
Now, it is critical to disclose our personal[br]biases when doing historical analysis, so

0:01:06.340,0:01:10.150
I must alert you to the fact that Maimonides[br]is kind of the coolest.

0:01:10.150,0:01:14.210
SO, to see how this man of many names grew[br]up in a land of many cultures and became a

0:01:14.210,0:01:16.950
man of many, many talents, Let’s Do Some[br]History.

0:01:16.950,0:01:22.840
By the time of Maimonides’ birth in Cordoba[br]in 1135, Al-Andalus had quite a history behind

0:01:22.840,0:01:23.840
it.

0:01:23.840,0:01:26.790
The Umayyad Caliphate first conquered Iberia[br]from the Visigoths in the 710s, and in the

0:01:26.790,0:01:30.710
decades after it became the independent Emirate[br]of Cordoba (756), and later the Caliphate

0:01:30.710,0:01:32.350
of Cordoba in 929.

0:01:32.350,0:01:35.810
At that point, Al-Andalus was a prosperous[br]trading hub with links to the Mediterranean

0:01:35.810,0:01:40.250
Muslim world as well as the Merchant Republics[br]of Italy and even the actual Vikings up along

0:01:40.250,0:01:41.500
the north Atlantic.

0:01:41.500,0:01:45.710
Seeing as it was great business to be a relatively[br]open society, Al-Andalus attracted talent

0:01:45.710,0:01:49.390
from its non-Muslim subjects and from travelers[br]all over the medieval world, so the state

0:01:49.390,0:01:52.700
went out of its way to let these people actually[br]function in society.

0:01:52.700,0:01:57.090
Cordoba was one of many Muslim states to implement[br]legal and religious protections for non-Muslims,

0:01:57.090,0:01:58.200
known as Dhimmi.

0:01:58.200,0:02:01.960
Religious toleration is of course nice for[br]its own sake, but enshrining those protections

0:02:01.960,0:02:06.840
in Law made for a much more stable society[br]than, say, the European states where Jews

0:02:06.840,0:02:11.039
or Muslims might sometimes be allowed to live,[br]but could easily be kicked out on a whim.

0:02:11.039,0:02:13.160
It makes a ruckus and it’s bad for business.

0:02:13.160,0:02:18.060
Though Cordoba was remarkable by the standards[br]of the day, it was hardly a utopia, as political

0:02:18.060,0:02:22.120
authority was pretty handily concentrated[br]among the Arab ruling class, and all Dhimmi

0:02:22.120,0:02:23.410
had to pay a special tax.

0:02:23.410,0:02:28.120
That would still prove, quite literally, a[br]small price to pay, as this mosaic of Islam

0:02:28.120,0:02:34.070
Christianity and Judaism produced a treasure-trove[br]of cross-cultural art and, critically, scholarship,

0:02:34.070,0:02:37.330
stretching from the classical period to the[br]most groundbreaking modern writings.

0:02:37.330,0:02:41.040
And this was the intellectual environment[br]in which Maimonides grew up, with one of the

0:02:41.040,0:02:44.510
medieval world’s best libraries and universities[br]just a quick walk across town.

0:02:44.510,0:02:48.600
But soon, the rest of the world would have[br]an opportunity to catch up, as the magnificent

0:02:48.600,0:02:52.100
multiculture of Al-Andalus got quite thoroughly[br]smushed in 1148.

0:02:52.100,0:02:57.319
See, when Maimonides was 10, the ruling Almoravid[br]dynasty disintegrated into several independent

0:02:57.319,0:03:01.940
states (this is actually the second time that[br]happened but it’s fine), and 3 years later

0:03:01.940,0:03:05.180
Cordoba was conquered by the Moroccan-based[br]Almohad dynasty.

0:03:05.180,0:03:09.069
They differed slightly from their predecessors[br]in that they hated everything that Al-Andalus

0:03:09.069,0:03:13.660
had previously stood for, abolishing Dhimmi[br]status and forcing non-Muslims to convert,

0:03:13.660,0:03:15.040
leave, or die.

0:03:15.040,0:03:20.380
So young Moshe Ben Maimon and his family were[br]a little stuck, and they seem to have chosen

0:03:20.380,0:03:25.050
to fake a conversion publicly while continuing[br]to study and practice Judaism in private,

0:03:25.050,0:03:27.970
where Maimonides continued learning from his[br]very well-educated father.

0:03:27.970,0:03:32.520
Their next decade spent in and around Cordoba[br]was a tad bit tense, what with the looming

0:03:32.520,0:03:36.209
threat of death and the acute possibility[br]that their neighbors knew them just well enough

0:03:36.209,0:03:40.610
to see through the ruse, SO, in 1159 they[br]hopped across the Straits of Gibraltar to

0:03:40.610,0:03:42.330
settle in the Moroccan city of Fès.

0:03:42.330,0:03:46.710
The downside is they were right in the Almohad[br]heartland, but now they were anonymous, so

0:03:46.710,0:03:52.730
their disguise of We Totally Converted For-Real[br]We Super Promise was far more believable.

0:03:52.730,0:03:54.400
This worked fooooor 6 years.

0:03:54.400,0:03:59.450
In 1165 a Rabbi who helped teach Maimonides[br]and his brother was found out to be Jewish.

0:03:59.450,0:04:05.090
He refused to convert, so he was executed,[br]and this was the sign to pack it up and go.

0:04:05.090,0:04:08.530
They travelled east across North Africa for[br]the next few years, intending to settle in

0:04:08.530,0:04:12.060
the Holy Land, but discovering upon their[br]arrival that the Christian Crusader Kingdom

0:04:12.060,0:04:14.959
of Jerusalem was quite unwelcoming of Jews.

0:04:14.959,0:04:20.269
Presumably their quota of Token Jewish Friend[br]was filled by Jesus, so the rest could scram.

0:04:20.269,0:04:24.309
As such, Maimonides and family doubled back[br]to the Egyptian Fatimid Caliphate, which had

0:04:24.309,0:04:27.999
many of the same policies on religious toleration[br]as good old Al-Andalus.

0:04:27.999,0:04:33.159
This marks the extraordinarily rare occasion[br]in which Openly-Jewish man named Moses finds

0:04:33.159,0:04:38.590
unexpectedly warm welcome in Egypt — not[br]where I expected that story to go!

0:04:38.590,0:04:43.229
After arriving in 1168, Maimonides spent the[br]remaining 36 years of his life in Cairo.

0:04:43.229,0:04:47.970
And for many of the reasons I hyped up Cordoba[br](for trade, cultural fusion, religious toleration,

0:04:47.970,0:04:52.319
baller architecture, the list goes on), Medieval[br]Cairo is absolutely insane.

0:04:52.319,0:04:57.090
When legendary travelers like Ibn Battuta[br]go out of their way to come back to Cairo

0:04:57.090,0:05:01.379
again and again, writing passages about how[br]it’s the most majestic city in the world,

0:05:01.379,0:05:04.050
we ought to recognize that it was a neat place.

0:05:04.050,0:05:09.020
SO, Maimonides, now living openly-Jewish in[br]one of the most splendid locations on earth,

0:05:09.020,0:05:13.629
had access to incalculable volumes of collected[br]scholarship from the eastern Islamic world,

0:05:13.629,0:05:18.729
which added to his already-bursting knowledge[br]of Jewish theology, biblical law, and classical

0:05:18.729,0:05:19.729
philosophy.

0:05:19.729,0:05:23.360
However, his career as an independent scholar[br]would be derailed by two massive shocks.

0:05:23.360,0:05:27.559
The first was personal, as Maimonides’ brother[br]David sailed out to the Indian Ocean in the

0:05:27.559,0:05:31.629
hopes of getting rich but drowned at sea,[br]losing the entire family fortune in the wreck

0:05:31.629,0:05:34.460
and leaving Maimonides to take care of his[br]widow and daughter.

0:05:34.460,0:05:38.599
The tragedy left Maimonides bedridden with[br]grief for an entire year, and for the rest

0:05:38.599,0:05:42.029
of his life he was inconsolable for the loss[br]of his beloved brother.

0:05:42.029,0:05:46.039
So now needing to financially support two[br]families, Maimonides set aside his private

0:05:46.039,0:05:48.759
scholarship and put his knowledge to use as[br]a physician.

0:05:48.759,0:05:53.050
The Second major shock was political, as a[br]Fatimid Vizier declared himself the Caliph

0:05:53.050,0:05:58.550
of a new dynasty in 1174, and so Saladin became[br]the man in charge of Egypt.

0:05:58.550,0:06:01.800
Maimonides may well have been frantically[br]recalling his childhood memories of when the

0:06:01.800,0:06:06.280
Almohads came into town, but unlike last time[br]Saladin was perfectly happy to keep everything

0:06:06.280,0:06:10.740
running smoothly, and that meant continuing[br]the policy of religious toleration, so Maimonides

0:06:10.740,0:06:11.830
was in the clear.

0:06:11.830,0:06:16.270
And in fact, these two plotlines converge,[br]as his career as a physician swiftly made

0:06:16.270,0:06:22.080
him famous in Cairo and resulted in him becoming[br]the personal physician to Sultan Saladin himself.

0:06:22.080,0:06:26.610
This is even more bonkers when we recall that[br]medicine was Maimonides’ fallback job, and

0:06:26.610,0:06:30.219
that he used his prestige from working in[br]the royal court to promote his philosophical

0:06:30.219,0:06:31.479
and legal scholarship.

0:06:31.479,0:06:36.159
SO, all that biographic context brings us[br]to the point of what Maimonides was actually

0:06:36.159,0:06:37.290
writing about.

0:06:37.290,0:06:41.550
Because his life’s story is inherently fascinating[br]for the places he lived and the huge historical

0:06:41.550,0:06:46.740
events he witnessed firsthand, but his books[br]are the reason he is, to this day, so highly

0:06:46.740,0:06:50.659
esteemed in Philosophy and Law in general[br]and Judaism in particular.

0:06:50.659,0:06:54.770
Over the course of his life he wrote dozens[br]of books and treatises on a variety of topics,

0:06:54.770,0:06:55.879
but three stick out.

0:06:55.879,0:07:00.259
His earliest Big Boy Smart Book was the Commentary[br]on the Mishna, published shortly before his

0:07:00.259,0:07:01.259
arrival in Cairo.

0:07:01.259,0:07:06.360
It’s a comprehensive analysis of the entire[br]Oral Torah, and while scholarly commentary

0:07:06.360,0:07:10.869
on Biblical law was a tradition dating back[br]millennia, no one did it all at once like

0:07:10.869,0:07:11.869
that.

0:07:11.869,0:07:14.930
The introduction section to the work also[br]included several relevant philosophical essays

0:07:14.930,0:07:17.940
and a set of 13 principles defining the Jewish[br]Faith.

0:07:17.940,0:07:22.729
Like all but one of Maimonides’ works, this[br]was written in a hybrid language called Judeo-Arabic,

0:07:22.729,0:07:25.979
which is Arabic speech transliterated into[br]the Hebrew script.

0:07:25.979,0:07:30.349
The only exception to that trend was his next[br]great book, The Mishne Torah, which was written

0:07:30.349,0:07:35.699
entirely in Hebrew, and casually sets out[br]to explain every aspect and detail of Jewish

0:07:35.699,0:07:36.699
law.

0:07:36.699,0:07:37.699
all of it.

0:07:37.699,0:07:38.699
whole thing.

0:07:38.699,0:07:39.699
just casj…

0:07:39.699,0:07:43.719
This absolute mammoth of a task was accomplished[br]by cutting through centuries upon centuries

0:07:43.719,0:07:48.249
of previous scholarship and distilling complex[br]issues into simple and straightforward principles

0:07:48.249,0:07:53.369
that any Jewish reader could understand, and,[br]critically, have access to all in one place.

0:07:53.369,0:07:58.179
With the Jewish Diaspora spread so far across[br]civilizations, scholarship from, say, Al-Andalus

0:07:58.179,0:08:01.680
developed along a different trajectory from[br]that of, say, Egypt.

0:08:01.680,0:08:05.399
So having been to many different places and[br]having conversed directly with Rabbis from

0:08:05.399,0:08:09.270
various local communities, Maimonides was[br]in an excellent position to bring together

0:08:09.270,0:08:11.599
disparate interpretations into one book.

0:08:11.599,0:08:15.300
He didn’t just say that “these are the[br]rules, you gotta do them, book says” but

0:08:15.300,0:08:18.770
he explained why the rules are there and what[br]they accomplish.

0:08:18.770,0:08:22.440
His greatest philosophical work is the Guide[br]for the Perplexed, written in the style of

0:08:22.440,0:08:27.029
a letter, a very long letter, from him to[br]a student of his that is unsure of whether

0:08:27.029,0:08:29.399
to purse religious studies or philosophy.

0:08:29.399,0:08:34.300
The answer of course is “Porque no los dos?”[br]as Maimonides harmonizes the rationalism of

0:08:34.300,0:08:38.889
Aristotelian philosophy with the prophetic[br]Revelation that’s central to Jewish theology.

0:08:38.889,0:08:43.960
So, taking a cue from the earlier Muslim scholars[br]Al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, Maimonides takes his

0:08:43.960,0:08:48.290
own crack at fortifying theology with reason[br]by using philosophy as a vehicle to explore

0:08:48.290,0:08:49.820
the majesty of divinity.

0:08:49.820,0:08:55.209
This does require wrangling some pesky contradictions,[br]since Genesis doesn’t really jive with classical

0:08:55.209,0:08:59.170
physics, but Maimonides argues that much of[br]the narrative in the Torah is allegorical

0:08:59.170,0:09:04.110
rather than literal: because while human reason[br]is powerful, it’s limited, and the actual

0:09:04.110,0:09:09.690
nature of God is far more complex than our[br]puny human minds can comprehend, so us smooth-brain

0:09:09.690,0:09:12.310
dum dums can only understand Him allegorically.

0:09:12.310,0:09:16.791
And this supports his conception of Negative[br]Theology: We can’t know what God is, so

0:09:16.791,0:09:19.390
we can only describe him by what He’s not.

0:09:19.390,0:09:22.110
It’s a swerve, but it works!

0:09:22.110,0:09:27.190
These were of course rather spicy positions[br]to take, so The Guide was periodically banned

0:09:27.190,0:09:30.060
and even burned, but Maimonides’ didn’t[br]care.

0:09:30.060,0:09:34.560
He retorted that he’d rather teach truth[br]to one intelligent man than entertain 10,000

0:09:34.560,0:09:38.010
fools, and damn if those aren’t words to[br]live by.

0:09:38.010,0:09:42.459
He may have been writing to a mainly Jewish[br]audience but man was he dropping some universal

0:09:42.459,0:09:43.459
truths.

0:09:43.459,0:09:46.930
Maimonides remains a monumental figure in[br]the history of Jewish thought, and his work

0:09:46.930,0:09:49.980
inspired centuries of later philosophers and[br]Abrahamic theologians.

0:09:49.980,0:09:53.899
Meanwhile, I haven’t even mentioned his[br]medical writings, but they were a crucial

0:09:53.899,0:09:55.519
step in medieval science.

0:09:55.519,0:09:59.290
Even though his specific prescriptions are[br]now out of-date, his systematic approach to

0:09:59.290,0:10:04.540
medicine, focus on the patient’s well-being,[br]and attention to public hygiene all remain

0:10:04.540,0:10:07.220
foundational to the way doctors and nurses[br]to their work.

0:10:07.220,0:10:08.800
And I think that’s neat.

0:10:08.800,0:10:13.180
Maimonides himself is not a historian and[br]he didn’t write about the history he experienced,

0:10:13.180,0:10:16.930
but his life and his ideas derive directly[br]from the world he lived in.

0:10:16.930,0:10:20.720
Maimonides is so fascinating because his life[br]serves as a viewpoint through which we can

0:10:20.720,0:10:25.600
clearly experience a massive and winding period[br]in History that’s usually pretty tough to

0:10:25.600,0:10:26.600
pin down.

0:10:26.600,0:10:30.290
He leads us through the glories and struggles[br]of two towering civilizations on each end

0:10:30.290,0:10:34.240
of the Mediterranean, but his experience as[br]a Jewish scholar in particular gives us an

0:10:34.240,0:10:39.120
extra angle into Medieval Islamic multiculture,[br]and the tangible result of all that are his

0:10:39.120,0:10:43.620
writings: carrying the torch from Muslim thinkers[br]before him by investigating Judaism with a

0:10:43.620,0:10:45.020
philosophical perspective.

0:10:45.020,0:10:49.600
To me, he embodies the history and the character[br]of the Islamic Golden Age in a way that few

0:10:49.600,0:10:50.960
others can…

0:10:50.960,0:10:52.480
And he was Saladin’s DOCTOR.

0:10:52.480,0:10:55.290
GOD he’s so cool!

0:10:55.290,0:10:56.339
Thank you so much for watching.

0:10:56.339,0:11:00.779
I had to stretch a little to make Maimonides[br]count as a History-Maker but seeing as I make

0:11:00.779,0:11:03.470
the rules around here I’m confident in my[br]choices.

0:11:03.470,0:11:07.339
It had been entirely too long since I last[br]talked about Al-Andalus, so I’m glad I was

0:11:07.339,0:11:08.870
able to rectify that here.

0:11:08.870,0:11:11.839
Special thanks to our community of supporters[br]on Patreon, if you’d like to see your name

0:11:11.839,0:11:14.720
up here like these cool cats, hop on over[br]to Patreon.com/OSP.