Maimonides - Jewish Theology

Picture Córdoba again, the same city where Averroes walked, but in an earlier, more fragile moment. It is the middle of the twelfth century. Once, this city had been the shining capital of an Umayyad caliphate, famous for its libraries and its mixture of cultures. Now power has shifted. A stricter movement, the Almohads, has crossed from North Africa and taken control. Their theology is uncompromising, their vision of Islam purist. For non-Muslims — Christians and Jews — this means pressure: convert, leave, or live under increasingly harsh conditions. In one Jewish household, a boy is watching his father argue law and theology by candlelight. Books are piled on the floor, in Hebrew and Arabic, Bible and Talmud alongside works of logic and philosophy. The boy is absorbing everything. Soon he will have to leave this city behind and never return. His name is Moses ben Maimon, and he will become known to Jews as Rambam and to the wider world as Maimonides.