Averroës, also known simply as ‘The Commentator’ to the Latin West, or Ibn Rushd, came from a family of jurists and was born in Cordoba in Moorish Spain. He himself trained in law and medicine and later served as qadi or judge in Seville and Cordoba. In 1182 he was appointed physician to the court of caliph Abu Ya`qub Yusuf in Marrakesh and to his son, Abu Yusuf Ya`qub, in 1195 but was recalled shortly before his death.

In the field of medicine Averroës produced his Kulliyat fi al tib (General Medicine) between 1162 and 1169. He is however better known for his great commentaries on Aristotle but, above all, for his Tahafut al-Tahafut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence), a strong attack on the Muslim philosopher al-Ghazzali's Tahafut al-Falasifah (The Incoherence of the Philosophers). The work was more influential in the Latin Christian West than in the Muslim East, and its contents paved the way for the medieval separation of faith and reason.