Science and Philosophy

A chain of languages. Many works traveled from Greek to Arabic, then to Hebrew or Latin, and later to European languages. After Christian Castile took Toledo in 1085, the city, where Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived side by side, became famous for translation: first under Archbishop Raymond in the twelfth century, and again under King Alfonso X, “the Learned,” in the thirteenth. Historian Norman Roth notes that there was no single formal “school” of translators.

Jews as translators. Jewish scholars who knew Arabic, Hebrew, and the local Romance language were valued partners. At Alfonso's court, Jewish translators worked almost entirely on science, and their work helped shape written Castilian. Under Alfonso, two Jewish astronomers, Judah ben Moses ha‑Cohen and Isaac ben Sid, compiled the famous Alfonsine Tables in Toledo between 1262 and 1272.

The Ibn Tibbon family

Judah ibn Tibbon (about 1120 to 1190) was born in Granada and settled in Lunel, in Provence. Called the “father of translators,” he put Bahya's Duties of the Heart, Saadia's Beliefs and Opinions, and HaLevi's Kuzari into Hebrew. His son Samuel translated Maimonides' Guide (1204, revised 1213). Later family members translated Euclid and Averroes, and Jacob ben Machir designed a new astronomical quadrant. Together they built a Hebrew library of philosophy and science.

Saadia Gaon (882 to 942)

Born in the Fayyum in Egypt, Saadia became head of the Sura academy in Babylonia. His Book of Beliefs and Opinions, written in Arabic, named four sources of knowledge: the senses, reason, inference, and reliable tradition. He held that reason can explain many commandments, while others are known through revelation alone.

Isaac Israeli (about 855 to 955)

A physician who moved from Egypt to Kairouan, in today's Tunisia, and is said to have served the founder of the Fatimid dynasty. His books on fevers, foods and drugs, and urine were translated into Latin at the medical school of Salerno and studied for centuries. One of the earliest Jewish Neoplatonists, he was quoted by Thomas Aquinas.

Bahya ibn Paquda (eleventh century)

A judge, probably in Saragossa, Bahya wrote The Book of Direction to the Duties of the Heart in Judeo Arabic. He argued that the inner duties of thought and feeling had been neglected in favor of outward “duties of the limbs.” Scholars note influences from Sufism and other Islamic thought. The book has been loved by Jewish readers for centuries.

Solomon ibn Gabirol (about 1021 to 1058)

Born in Málaga, a poet and philosopher. His Fountain of Life, an Arabic dialogue between teacher and student, survives mainly in a twelfth century Latin translation, Fons Vitae. Christian scholars knew its author as “Avicebron” and assumed he was Muslim or Christian. Only in the nineteenth century did scholar Solomon Munk show he was Ibn Gabirol.

Yehuda HaLevi (died 1141)

A physician and poet, probably from Tudela. His Kuzari, written in Judeo Arabic, imagines a king of the Khazars who questions a philosopher, a Christian, a Muslim, and finally a Jewish sage. HaLevi argued that reasoning works well in logic and mathematics, but that knowledge of God comes through experience and tradition more than philosophical proof.

Maimonides (1138 to 1204)

Born in Córdoba, he lived in Fez before settling in Egypt, where he was also a physician. His Guide of the Perplexed (1190), written for a student torn between philosophy and religion, sought to reconcile the two. Translated into Latin, it influenced Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, and Thomas Aquinas, who admired how he harmonized the Bible with Aristotle.

Abraham bar Hiyya (active before 1136)

A Barcelona scholar known in Latin as Savasorda. His Hebrew book on practical geometry, translated into Latin by Plato of Tivoli in 1145, is called the earliest presentation of Arab algebra written in Europe. The great Italian mathematician Fibonacci drew on it. He also wrote on astronomy and the Jewish calendar.

Abraham ibn Ezra (born about 1093)

Born probably in Tudela, he left Spain after the Almohad attacks of 1140 and wandered through Rome, Lucca, Rouen, London, and Béziers. Alongside Bible commentary and poetry, he wrote an arithmetic textbook and a manual on the astrolabe, and coined Hebrew terms for ideas such as the sine. Several of his works circulated in Latin.

The Alfonsine Tables (1262 to 1272)

Compiled in Castilian at Toledo by Judah ben Moses ha‑Cohen and Isaac ben Sid for Alfonso X, the tables predicted the positions of the planets and improved on the earlier Toledo Tables of the Muslim astronomer al Zarqali. Printed in Venice in 1483, they stayed in use until Kepler's tables replaced them in the seventeenth century.

Gersonides (1288 to 1344)

Levi ben Gershom lived in Provence, in southern France, mostly in Orange. A philosopher and astronomer, he invented an instrument for measuring angles between stars, later known as “Jacob's staff.” He trusted his own careful observations over Ptolemy's, and his astronomy was translated into Latin in his lifetime.

Abraham Zacuto (1452 to about 1515)

Born in Salamanca, he compiled astronomical tables there. Refusing to convert in 1492, he became court astronomer in Lisbon. A Latin version, the Almanach Perpetuum (1496), became essential for navigation, and Columbus knew his work. He advised on Vasco da Gama's voyage, then fled Portugal's forced conversions in 1497.

Baruch Spinoza (1632 to 1677)

Born in Amsterdam's Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community, to a family descended from Jews who had left Iberia, Spinoza became one of the most influential philosophers of the early modern era. The community excommunicated him in 1656; the exact reasons are debated. His Ethics appeared after his death.

In the public school classroom

• Build a timeline of the history of science that includes Jewish, Muslim, and Christian scholars side by side.
• Trace one book's journey, such as Ibn Gabirol's Fountain of Life, from Arabic to Latin, and discuss why its author was forgotten.
• Make a simple paper astrolabe or cross staff and measure angles, connecting geometry to navigation.
• Discuss Zacuto's complex legacy: his science aided voyages of exploration that also led to conquest.
• Study the philosophers' arguments as ideas; do not ask students to practice any religion.

In Jewish schools and communities

• Stage a debate between Maimonides and HaLevi on whether philosophy leads to God.
• Read a passage from Bahya's Duties of the Heart and discuss inner and outer duties.
• Use the Sephardi & Mizrahi Education Toolkit to bring Sephardic thinkers into science and Jewish studies classes.

At home and with family

• Look at the night sky together and find the stars these astronomers charted.
• Read a short story about Maimonides or Zacuto, and talk about learning in more than one language.
• Ask relatives about scientists, doctors, or scholars in your family's story, and share it with JIMENA's oral history project.

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