Latest BBC “In Our Time” is an excellent discussion on Muslim philosopher generally known as Averroes. Worth listening to in it’s entirety. (Ibn Rushd on Wikipedia)
Points of interest for me …
Etymology – I have a thing about spotting B’s and V’s but it’s so clear here. The patronymic family naming prefix “son of” or simply “from” or “out of” in the Av, Ab, Ave, Aven, Von, Van, Bin, Ben, Ibn, (and all the European son / sen suffices of course) The whole B, V, M, Mp, Mb, N blur. The two versions of the name here are just alternate pronunciations of the same underlying concept of being someones child, and clearly just an evolution of the sound in the telling from Proto-Indo-European (Aryan) origins. But I’m no expert.
Ave … Roes / Rush
Ibn … Rushd / Rushdi / Rashid
(The other example that fascinates me is the R & T – rta / art / craft – combinations that Pirsig dwells on.)
Afterlife – as Aristotle’s continuity of intellect, in limbo in the Dante “Divine Comedy” sense, but also as a continuous (eternal) semantic web whose Platonic forms are merely intersected by temporary brains and individual minds.
Philosophy – as the definitive reading of religious texts. Supported by rationale that only the examined life can provide (“look around” says the Quran). Hierarchical interpretation from the head of a “church” down simply being different abstractions or metaphorical simplifications for different practical purposes. From scholars and theologians down to the “masses”. (Nice lead into St Thomas Aquinas later “scholastic” work.)
Fascinating. Nothing new under the sun.