Ibn Rushd, known to the West as Averroes, was a Spanish Muslim of the 12th century. Preeminent among the falasifa, Averroes, more than anyone else, was the key transmitter and interpreter of Aristotle for medieval Europe - as Aristotle became known as "The Philosopher", Averroes became "The Commentator". His works are largely responses to Avicenna (Ibn Sina), whom he considered mistaken in his interpretation of Aristotle, and to al-Ghazali, with whom he disagreed on the relationship between faith and philosophy, but his own works were not widely read within the Islamic world.
Arnaldez denies that Averroes advanced the concept of "double truth" - that there are two truths, one of faith and another of philosophy, which are equally true but also irreconcilable - which was a central issue in controversies over his works in the West. Rather, Arnaldez attempts to demonstrate how Averroes' career as a jurist shaped his overall attitude towards reason and revelation. Similarly, Arnaldez demonstrates that Averroes did not hold to the other view most commonly associated with him, that of the unicity of the intellect, that all human beings share the same rational soul.
Averroes is an excellent synopsis of the work of one of the world's greatest philosophers. It could easily have been twice as long - at times it becomes quite dense and readers might have benefited from more background on medieval Islamic philosophy and culture. Averroes was many things - doctor, lawyer, philosopher, Muslim - and Arnaldez remarkably manages not to slight any aspect of his life and writings.
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