High Middle Ages · Africa · Religion

1196

Ibn Rushd dismissed and exiled

1196

The Almohad caliph, responding to the pressure of orthodox Islamic scholars, dismissed the philosopher Averroes from his post, ordered his books burned, and banished him to Lucena. He was rehabilitated shortly before his death but the philosophical freedom of al-Andalus had reached its limit. The exile of Averroes marked the effective end of the great tradition of Islamic rationalist philosophy in the western Mediterranean.