IN: Ibn Rushd (Arabic: bn rshd; full name Arabic: 'bw lwlyd mHmd bn Hmd bn rshd, translit. 'Abu l-Walid Muhammad Ibn 'Ahmad Ibn Rushd; 14 April 1126 - 10 December 1198), often Latinized as Averroes (), was a medieval Andalusian Moorish Arab polymath. He wrote on logic, Aristotelian and Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence, psychology, political theory, the theory of Andalusian classical music, geography, mathematics, as well as the medieval sciences of medicine, astronomy, physics, and celestial mechanics. Ibn Rushd was born in Cordoba, Al Andalus (present-day Spain), and died at Marrakesh in present-day Morocco.

During Averroes' time, philosophy came under attack in the Sunni Islam tradition, especially from theological school like the traditionalist (Hanbalite) and the Ashari schools. In particular, the Ashari scholar al-Ghazali (1058-1111) wrote The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-falasifa), a scathing and influential critique against the Neoplatonic philosophical tradition in the Islamic world, and against the works of Avicenna in particular. Among others, Al-Ghazali charged philosophers with unbelief in Islam, and sought to disprove the teaching of the philosophers using logical arguments. Averroes most important original philosophical work was The Incoherence of the Incoherence (Tahafut al-tahafut), in which he defended Aristotelian philosophy against al-Ghazali claims in The Incoherence of the Philosophers. Al-Ghazali had argued that Aristotelianism, especially as presented in the writings of Avicenna, was self-contradictory and an affront to the teachings of Islam. In particular he argued that three philosophical points (viz. a pre-eternal world, God only knowing universal--that is to say, Platonic--characteristics of particulars, and a spiritual rather than physical resurrection) constituted not just heresy, but rather disbelief in Islam itself. Ibn Rushd's rebuttal was two-pronged: First, he contended that al-Ghazali's arguments were mistaken, arguing that the Qur'an actually commanded devout Muslims to study of philosophy. Second, Ibn Rushd contended that he actually agreed with al-Ghazali in regards to a number of the latter's criticisms of Avicenna; Ibn Rushd argued that the system of Avicenna was a distortion of genuine Aristotelianism, and as a result, al-Ghazali was effectively aiming at the wrong target. Ibn Rushd thus argues that his own system is, as Roger Arnaldez notes, "a reconstruction of the true philosophy, that of Aristotle himself, against the false, that of the neo-Platonic falasifa, which distorted the thinking of Aristotle". Whereas al-Ghazali believed that phenomenon such as cotton burning when coming into contact with fire happened each and every time only because God willed it to happen: "all earthly occurrences depend on heavenly occurrences." Ibn Rushd, by contrast insisted while God created the natural law, humans "could more usefully say that fire cause cotton to burn--because creation had a pattern that they could discern." In Fasl al-Maqal (Decisive Treatise), Ibn Rushd argues for the legality of philosophical investigation under Islamic law, and that there is no inherent contradiction between philosophy and religion In Kitab al-Kashf, which argued against the proofs of Islam advanced by the Ash'arite school and discussed what proofs, on the popular level, should be used instead.

Why was it under attack?

OUT: Among others, Al-Ghazali charged philosophers with unbelief in Islam, and sought to disprove the teaching of the philosophers using logical arguments.

IN: Isaac Asimov (; c. January 2, 1920 - April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. He was known for his works of science fiction and popular science. Asimov was a prolific writer who wrote or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. His books have been published in 9 of the 10 major categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification.

Asimov was born on an unknown day between October 4, 1919 and January 2, 1920, inclusive. Asimov himself celebrated it on January 2. Asimov's parents were Anna Rachel (nee Berman) and Judah Asimov, a family of Jewish millers. He was named Isaac after his mother's father, Isaac Berman. When he was born, his family lived in Petrovichi near Klimovichi, which was then Gomel Governorate in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (now Smolensk Oblast, Russia). Asimov wrote of his father, "My father, for all his education as an Orthodox Jew, was not Orthodox in his heart", noting that "he didn't recite the myriad prayers prescribed for every action, and he never made any attempt to teach them to me". In 1921, Asimov and 16 other children in Petrovichi caught double pneumonia. Only Asimov survived. He later had two younger siblings: a sister, Marcia (born Manya, June 17, 1922 - April 2, 2011), and a brother, Stanley (July 25, 1929 - August 16, 1995), who was vice-president of New York Newsday. His family emigrated to the United States when he was three years old. Since his parents always spoke Yiddish and English with him, he never learned Russian, but he remained fluent in Yiddish as well as English. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, Asimov taught himself to read at the age of five, and his mother got him into first grade a year early by claiming he was born on September 7, 1919. In third grade he learned about the "error" and insisted on an official correction of the date to January 2. After becoming established in the U.S., his parents owned a succession of candy stores, in which everyone in the family was expected to work. The candy stores sold newspapers and magazines, a fact that Asimov credited as a major influence in his lifelong love of the written word, as it presented him with an unending supply of new reading material as a child that he could not have otherwise afforded. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1928 at the age of eight.

When was he born?

OUT:
Asimov was born on an unknown day between October 4, 1919 and January 2, 1920, inclusive. Asimov himself celebrated it on January 2.