Abraham ben Moses ben Maimon (Hebrew:
אברהם בן משה מיימון, also
Avraham son of Rambam, also
Avraham Maimuni) (1186 – December 7, 1237) the son of
MaimonidesMoses Maimonides, also known as Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon or the acronym the Rambam , was born in Cordoba, Spain on March 30, 1135, and died in Egypt on December 13, 1204....
(
Rambam) was the leader or
NagidNagid, , is a Hebrew term meaning a prince or leader. This title was often applied to the religious leader in Sephardic communities of the Middle Ages, generally in Egypt. Among the individuals bearing this title are the following:* Samuel ha-Nagid...
of the
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
ian Jewish community following his father.
Avraham was born in
FostatFustat , was the first capital of Egypt under Arab rule. It was built by the Arab general 'Amr ibn al-'As immediately after the Arab conquest of Egypt in AD 641, and featured the Mosque of Amr, the first mosque ever built in Egypt...
,
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
- his father, Maimonides, was fifty-one years old then. The boy was "modest, highly refined and unusually good natured"; he was also noted for his brilliant intellect and even while a youth became known as a great scholar.
Abraham ben Moses ben Maimon (Hebrew:
אברהם בן משה מיימון, also
Avraham son of Rambam, also
Avraham Maimuni) (1186 – December 7, 1237) the son of
MaimonidesMoses Maimonides, also known as Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon or the acronym the Rambam , was born in Cordoba, Spain on March 30, 1135, and died in Egypt on December 13, 1204....
(
Rambam) was the leader or
NagidNagid, , is a Hebrew term meaning a prince or leader. This title was often applied to the religious leader in Sephardic communities of the Middle Ages, generally in Egypt. Among the individuals bearing this title are the following:* Samuel ha-Nagid...
of the
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
ian Jewish community following his father.
Biography
Avraham was born in
FostatFustat , was the first capital of Egypt under Arab rule. It was built by the Arab general 'Amr ibn al-'As immediately after the Arab conquest of Egypt in AD 641, and featured the Mosque of Amr, the first mosque ever built in Egypt...
,
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
- his father, Maimonides, was fifty-one years old then. The boy was "modest, highly refined and unusually good natured"; he was also noted for his brilliant intellect and even while a youth became known as a great scholar. When his father died in 1204 at the age of sixty-nine, Avraham was recognised as the greatest scholar in his community. Thus, he succeeded
Rambam as
NagidNagid, , is a Hebrew term meaning a prince or leader. This title was often applied to the religious leader in Sephardic communities of the Middle Ages, generally in Egypt. Among the individuals bearing this title are the following:* Samuel ha-Nagid...
(head of the
Egyptian JewsEgyptian Jews constitute perhaps the oldest Jewish community outside Israel in the world. While no exact census exists, the Jewish population of Egypt was estimated at fewer than a hundred in 2004,...
), as well as in the office of court
physicianA physician — also known as medical practitioner, doctor of medicine, medical doctor, or simply doctor — practices the ancient profession of medicine, which is concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease or injury...
, at the age of only eighteen. (The office of
nagid was held by the Maimonides family for four successive generations until the end of the 14th century). Rabbi Avraham greatly honored the memory of his father, and defended his writings and works against all critics. Thanks to his influence, a large Egyptian Karaite community returned to the fold of Rabbinic Judaism.
Works
Avraham Maimuni's best known work is his
Sefer Milchamoth Hashem ("The Book of the Wars for God"), in which he answers the critics of his father's philosophical doctrines expressed in the
Guide for the PerplexedThe Guide for the Perplexed is one of the major works of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides or "the Rambam"...
. He had initially avoided entering the controversy over his father's writings, however, when he heard of the alleged burning of his father's books in
MontpellierMontpellier is a city in southern France. It is the capital of the Languedoc-Roussillon region, as well as the Hérault department.-Population:...
in 1235, he compiled
Milchamot HaShem which he addressed to the
Hachmei ProvenceProvence a province in southern France, was a great Torah center in the times of the Tosafists. The rabbis of Provence were separately classified as Hachmei Provence - the wise of Provence, or Provençal rabbis...
. His principal work is originally composed in Judeo-Arabic and entitled "כתאב כפיא אלעאבדין"
Kitāb Kifāyah al-`Ābidīn ("A Comprehensive Guide for the Servants of God"). From the extant surviving portion it is conjectured that Maimuni's treatise was three times as long as his father's
Guide for the Perplexed. In the book, Maimuni evidences a great appreciation and affinity to
SufismSufism or ' , also spelled as tasavvuf and tasavvof, is generally understood to be the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a ' , though some adherents of the tradition reserve this term only for those practitioners who have attained the goals...
(Islamic
mysticismMysticism is the pursuit of communion with, identity with, or conscious awareness of an ultimate reality, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, instinct or insight. Mysticism usually centers on a practice or practices intended to nurture those experiences or...
). Followers of his path continued to foster a Jewish-Sufi form of
pietismPietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to begin...
for at least a century, and he is righlty considered the founder of this pietistic school.
His other works include a commentary on the
TorahThe term "Torah" , refers either to the Five Books of Moses or to the entirety of Judaism's founding legal and ethical religious texts...
in of which only his commentaries on
Genesis and
Exodus are now extant, as well as commentaries on parts of his father's
Mishneh TorahThe Mishneh Torah , subtitled Sefer Yad ha-Chazaka , is a code of Jewish religious law by one of the important Jewish authority Maimonides...
and on various tractates of the
TalmudThe Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
. He also wrote a work on
HalakhaHalakha — also transliterated Halocho and Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish religious law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions....
(Jewish law), combined with
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
and
ethicsEthics is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what the fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics or morality is , how moral values should be determined , how a moral outcome can be achieved in specific situations , how moral...
(also in
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
, and arranged after his father's
Mishne Torah). His "Discourse on the Sayings of the Rabbis" - discussing
aggadahAggadah refers to the homiletic and non-legalistic exegetical texts in classical rabbinic literature - particularly as recorded in the Talmud and Midrash...
- is often quoted.
He also authored various medical works.
Resources
- Discourse on the Sayings of the Rabbis (Hebrew
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
) - translation