Egypt's Youm7 (Seventh Day) had an article on Wednesday about the great Jewish philosopher and rabbi Moses Maimonides (Rambam), who was born on March 30, 1135.
It quotes Egyptian philosopher Sheikh Mustafa 'Abd al-Raziq, Professor of Islamic Philosophy at Al Azhar University who died in 1947 and who was considered an expert on the Rambam:
I am one of those who place Maimonides and his brothers among the philosophers of Islam, and I said in a speech I gave at the Maimonides celebration at the Opera House on the first of April 1935 AD, “Abu Imran Musa bin Maimonides is a philosopher from among the philosophers of Islam. Muslims and non-Muslims have been called philosophers of Islam, and their philosophy is called Islamic philosophy, meaning that it grew in the countries of Islam and in the shadow of its state, and was characterized by some characteristics without regard to the religion of its owners, their gender, or their language."
Al-Raziq said that Jews like Maimonides translated Arabic philosophy to Hebrew, where the Christian West could read it and understand it, spreading their ideas throughout the world.
In general, this was a complimentary article. But this 2018 article in the same newspaper gives the Rambam credit for - Zionism!
The Rambam was famously the personal physician to Sultan Saladin, the article says:
What did Maimonides offer to the Jews, and how did that sultan's doctor open the way for Jewish immigration to Palestine, and did the Cordovan philosopher have a hand in paving the way for the establishment of a Hebrew state for the Jews in Palestine, which was officially announced in 1948?
According to the book “The Dictionary of the Philosophers” by the great thinker George Tarabishi, Moses Ibn Maimon, who was seeking to raise the spiritual and moral level of the Jews, used his influence in the country to provide more protection for his religion, and after Salah al-Din conquered Jerusalem, he obtained for his people the right to settle there [they had been expelled by the Crusaders - EoZ] and in Palestine in general, and to build synagogues and schools for them there, and he used that period to write to the poor Yemeni Jews to revive their hearts by believing in God and the Torah.Dr. Muhammad Ziyad Hamdan, analyzed the last incident in his book “The Necessity of Civil Islam and the Nation State: Man’s Failure in Developing Countries,” that the decree, which Musa Maimonides approved of Salah al-Din, opened the way since that day for the establishment of the State of Israel, and to what it has reached in our present time of tyranny and corruption in the land."
Something else to admire about the Rambam!
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