Who is Maimonides?

He was a bigot and a megalomaniac. Over time he has caused as much harm to the world as Hitler. Chosen ones? What a load of crap! No group was, is, or ever will be! And if you think this is an anti-semitic rant, the same can be said for the Catholic Church in bringing about the reformation, and all other religions as they move from spiritually driven faith to human controlled organizations.

Maimonides is so unique because he is probably the first Jewish philosopher who sought to find rationality in religion and religious works. He based his writings on the Torah, studied different literature at the time and came up with his own philosophy that combined them.

I personally think that more than a Rabbi, he was a philosopher. Because religion doesn't usually require rationality. For example, if we are required to believe that God can do anything at anytime, we cannot question why God does what he does. But Maimonides was a man who could question that. He wanted to see a philosophical explanation for everything, and he looked at religious works through those eyes.

There was a fantastic radio program about the life of Moses Maimonides the other day. The scholars said that Maimonides was born and lived in Spain but his family fled when a new group of Muslim conquerors came in who were not very tolerant towards Jews and Christians.

He was studying science at this time and his father was both a Rabbi and a Doctor. Maimonides spoke both Hebrew and Arabic but wrote in Judeo-Arabic, which is basically Arabic but written in Hebrew letters. All but one of his works were written in Judeo-Arabic apparently. His family had some traumatic experiences as they moved around in the Middle East.

I guess because of these traumatic experiences, Maimonides and his family felt that it was better to act as Muslims, and that’s what they appear to have done. Many Jews criticized him for acting as a Muslim and even today, some Jews dislike him because of this. Maimonides never felt that this harmed his belief though. He saw Judaism as an internal experience, not based on appearance.

I really admire him for this. I think that we cannot know what people’s beliefs are from how they look or even how they act publicly. Moses Maimonides expressed himself and his beliefs through his works and I prefer to know him through those rather than his public life and the circumstances which he lived under.

@anon26914-- I honestly don't know what the whole truth is. I have heard from many people that Maimonides was influenced by Islamic thinkers of the time and they show many examples in his work which point to this.

As for him being a Muslim or not, there are different claims out there. Some say that he converted to Islam when he was young and then converted back to Judaism. Others say that he did not convert but he appeared to be a Muslim for fear of execution. I think in that period, if you lived under an Islamic authority, there were heavy fees for practicing Jews. So many Jews claimed to have become Muslims to avoid these fees and penalties. Publicly, they may have been known as Muslims, but at home, they still practiced Judaism.

I think this last claim seems more logical to me. Maimonides was a really important Rabbi of his time and his influence on Jews and Jewish law is immense. I doubt that he ever stopped practicing Judaism. He might have studied Islam and hung out with Muslims, which is where he probably learned about the teachings of Muslim thinkers like Abu Nasar Al-Farabi.

This is my opinion anyway. I would love to hear more views on this.

I read somewhere that Maimonides lived as a practicing Muslim for some part of his life? Anyone know more about this surprising claim?