49 - Ibn Rushd: Defender of Rationalism

The battle between Philosophy and Religion; Reason and Revelation; it has been at the heart of debate within Muslim circles throughout the Golden Age.  This episode looks at one of the last, and most influential voices on this subject: the Andalusian intellectual Ibn Rushd.  He is one of the few Muslim thinkers to be as famous in the West as in the Muslim world.  Known as Averroes in Latin, he was a major influence on European philosophy, but managed to get himself declared a heretic by the Pope.