Quotes About Ibn Rushd

You will see, as time goes by," said Ibn Rushd, "that in the end it will be religion that will make men turn away from God. The godly are God's worst advocates. It may take a thousand and one years but in the end religion will shrivel away and only then will we begin to live in God's truth.

The life of Islamic philosophy did not terminate with Ibn Rushd nearly eight hundred years ago, as thought by Western scholarship for several centuries. Rather, its activities continued strongly during the later centuries, particularly in Persia and other eastern lands of Islam, and it was revived in Egypt during the last century.

There is little use in asking for an explanation of the eighty years' gap: the man for the occasion did not appear sooner, and might never have appeared. When he did, however, the challenge of Ghaz?l? was still felt to be a live issue; intellectual evolution was slower in those days. In Ibn Rushd's criticisms of Ghaz?l? we perceive a bantering animosity which treats "Ab? H?mid" almost as a living contemporary.

until the interview with the Prince Ibn Rushd was unaware of his favourable interest in philosophy, and feared some harsh penalty if he himself were known to be occupied in such a study.