Solomon ibn Gabirol

Solomon ibn Gabirol was a Jewish poet and Neoplatonic philosopher of eleventh-century Muslim Spain. His philosophical dialogue The Fountain of Life, written in Arabic, survived mainly in a Latin translation under the name 'Avicebron', and medieval Christian scholastics debated it without knowing its author was Jewish; Solomon Munk identified him in 1846. The book argues that everything except God, even soul and intellect, is made of matter and form, and that God creates through the divine will. Ibn Gabirol is also one of the great Hebrew poets, and his poem The Kingly Crown is still recited in synagogues.

Key ideas

• Everything created, including spiritual beings such as souls and intellects, is composed of matter and form.
• A single universal matter underlies all created things, both spiritual and bodily.
• God creates and sustains the world through the divine will, which mediates between God and creation.
• Knowing the structure of matter and form leads the soul back towards its source.

Major works

• The Fountain of Life (Fons Vitae) (11th century)
• The Improvement of the Moral Qualities (1045)
• The Kingly Crown (Keter Malkhut) (11th century)

In the Book corner

• The Fountain of Life (Fons Vitae) 11th century (exact date unknown) · Advanced
  A metaphysical dialogue between a master and a disciple by the Jewish poet and philosopher Solomon ibn Gabirol, written in Arabic in…

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