Born in Cordoba
Born into the Jewish community of Cordoba, then driven by persecution across North Africa.
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Born in Cordoba and driven by persecution across North Africa to Cairo, Maimonides served as physician to the court of Saladin while becoming the foremost legal and philosophical authority of medieval Judaism. His Guide for the Perplexed is written for the believer who has also studied philosophy and feels the two pulling apart. Scripture's human images of God, he argues, must be read as accommodations to ordinary minds; the truth is a God beyond all description, approached more safely by saying what He is not. His careful negotiation of reason and revelation shaped Aquinas and Spinoza alike.
