Moses Maimonides

Moses Maimonides (1138–1204), known in Hebrew as the Rambam, was the foremost Jewish philosopher and legal authority of the Middle Ages. Born in Córdoba, he fled Almohad persecution with his family to Fez and then to Egypt, where he settled at Fustat near Cairo, served as head of the Jewish community and practiced as physician to the court of Saladin's vizier. His Commentary on the Mishnah and the fourteen-volume Mishneh Torah codified Jewish law; the Guide for the Perplexed, written in Arabic around 1190, reconciled scripture with Aristotelian philosophy and influenced Aquinas and Spinoza. He also wrote medical treatises. He is buried at Tiberias.