Maimonides
Subtitle: the life and world of one of civilization's greatest minds
By: Joel L. Kraemer
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 2008
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 621
ISBN-13: 9781615231638
Subjects: Rabbis; Biography; Jewish philosophers; Jewish scholars
Description: "Maimonides lived in tumultuous times, at the peak of the Reconquista in Spain and the Crusades in Palestine. His monumental compendium of Jewish law, the Mishneh Tarah, became a basis of all subsequent Jewish legal codes and brought him recognition as one of the foremost lawgivers. In Egypt, his training as a physician earned him a place in the entourage of the great Sultan Saladin, and he wrote medical works in Arabic that were translated into Hebrew and Latin and studied for centuries in Europe. As a philosopher and scientist, he contributed to mathematics and astronomy, logic and ethics, politics and theology. His Guide of the Perplexed, a masterful interweaving of religious tradition and scientific and philosophic thought, influenced generations of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish thinkers." "Now, in a dazzling work of scholarship, Joel Kraemer tells the complete story of Maimonides' rich life, Maimonides is at once a portrait of a great historical figure and an excursion into the Mediterranean world of the twelfth century. Kraemer draws on a wealth of original sources to re-create a remarkable period In history when Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions clashed and mingled in a setting alive with intense intellectual exchange and religious conflict."--Jacket.
Notes: "1274438"--Back cover.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 484-596) and index.
Table of contents: title: Andalusia; title: Córdoba; title: Andalusian Jewish culture; title: Early studies; title: Early writings; title: Fez to Acre; title: Refuge in Fez; title: Martyrdom or survival; title: Did Maimonides convert to Islam?; title: The beautiful land; title: Egypt: the early years; title: Stranger in a foreign land; title: Commentary on the Mishnah; title: Saladin and the Ayyubids; title: The great Rav in Israel; title: Epistle to Yemen; title: Moses and David; title: Egypt: the middle years; title: Zuta the wicked; title: Communal affairs; title: Responsa; title: Mishneh Torah; title: Egypt: the late years; title: The guide of the perplexed; title: The treatise on resurrection; title: Epistle on astrology and lunel correspondence; title: The physician.