Judaism in the Work of Ibn Kammūna, a Forgotten Jewish Philosopher

Resumen

Just as the work of Ibn Gabirol and Maimonides need little introduction, the corpus of Ibn Kammūna (c. 1215-1284), a Mizrahi Jewish philosopher and ophthalmologist born in Baghdad who wrote a compelling treatise about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is virtually unknown. His philosophical approach to Islam almost cost him his life. In this paper, the second chapter (dedicated to Judaism) of Ibn Kammūna’s Examination of the Three Faiths and his Treatise on the Differences between the Rabbanites and the Karaites are analyzed. Furthermore, I briefly describe the Jewish community in Babylonia and Iraq—discussing antisemitism then and now—and I outline the main reasons why Ibn Kammūna is almost unknown, asserting that a Jewish thinker of Ibn Kammūna’s magnitude deserves a place in the historiography of Jewish thought.