Talk:Maimonides

Visit to "Palestine"

References say he visited Acre, Israel and Jerusalem. There was no nation called "Palestine" in those years. This would have been Jund_al-Urdunn, which was part of Syria in 1165 or possible the Kingdom of Jerusalem. This usage here is just parroting that one reference. See https://www.sup.org/books/extra/?id=23515&i=Chapter%202.html, https://timeline.cityofdavid.org.il/event/maimonides-arrives-in-jerusalem/ 75.57.12.240 (talk) 21:13, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

@75.57.12.240 There was no nation called Palestine in Maimonides' day. There was (and still is), however, a region called Palestine, the name of which was well-known in his native Arabic. One might similarly speak of Provence even in a period sans the existence of the French duchy of Provence. Kyoto Grand (talk) 00:35, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 9 October 2024

Please remove this phrase:

He died in Fustat, Egypt and, according to Jewish tradition, was buried in Tiberias. The Tomb of Maimonides in Tiberias is...

and add this one to replace it:

He died at Fustat in Egypt and, according to Jewish tradition, was buried in Tiberias. His tomb in Tiberias is...

"Fustat, Egypt" sounds like a place in America (like "Detroit, Michigan"), and I think the tomb link could be piped to sound better. 123.51.107.94 (talk) 23:44, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Partly done City then country is a common format (like "Paris, France"), and it's acceptable as is. I changed the link as requested. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:25, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 9 October 2024 (2)

Please change this:

codification of Halacha

to:

codification of halakha

The article uses this spelling, typically italicises it, and typically doesn't capitalise the word in the middle of sentences. 123.51.107.94 (talk) 23:47, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

 Done Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:25, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 30 October 2024

until his family was expelled for refusing to convert to Christianity.[9][10][11] Later, he lived in Morocco and Egypt and worked as a rabbi, physician and philosopher. Lexsense (talk) 11:54, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm confused about what change you want made? - Adolphus79 (talk) 14:08, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Reference 17

Reference 17 is incompletely cited, currently only referenced as an author and page. Eframgoldberg (talk) 17:51, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Maimon ben Joseph into Maimonides

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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There's barely anything to this article and I doubt there's much room for expansion. This would take up no excess space in the early life section of his far more famous son's page. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 13:17, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

Currently this is just a stub but we do have a fair amount of Maimon's own writing, so I think as a topic he's worthy of his own page. GordonGlottal (talk) 17:35, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose. Maimon is notable is his own right, with a standalone article in the Jewish Encyclopedia and coverage in academic sources: , among others. Longhornsg (talk) 01:20, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
• Oppose per Longhornsg إيان (talk) 06:56, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

Oppose This article might never get very long, but it still serves a function describing someone who is notable in their own right. MartinPoulter (talk) 11:17, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Where is the controversy section?

His definition of 'person' or 'human' was highly controversial. He considered some humans that walked the earth as only appearing human but without souls and not 'persons', 'people' or 'humans'. His views on Cushites were expressed quite clearly. He practiced a clear form of racism that excluded a genitically human from being classifed as 'person' or 'human' by his definition of their culture, and by skin color and facial difference of Africans. (see Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed II:40)

He was by any definition; a racist who promoted racist ideals.

Every instance where the discourse used the term 'person' (English translation) has to be acknowledged that he didn't give universal 'personhood' to all humans as we know humans today. He setup an early philisophical foundation for the racism seen in the Tanya and other Hasidic cultural ideas. 03:42, 7 September 2026 (UTC) ~2026-48391-40 (talk) 03:42, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Something about this might be merited for inclusion, though ideally not in a "controversy" section (see WP:CONTROVERSYSECTION). As to the racist views of black personhood, that's not entirely a neutral way to frame it. It's true that Maimonides has some disparaging things about the Kushites, or Ethiopians, they lack faith and are irrational. Now it's true he does say this makes them more than apes but less than human, and that sounds quite racist by today's standards, but he wasn't saying they don't have souls, rather that they hadn't actualized their rational selves. Maimonides was born in 1138, he seems to have taken this from Miskawayh, and we should make sure to understand its meaning in context that Maimonides inherited from Greco-Arabic civilization (Galen, Avicenna) where most educated people were taught a certain hierarchy of geography and what that meant for the people. The idea that it is racist per se as in not being people, is anachronistic, and in other works Maimonides says it would be OK for a Kushite to convert to Judaism and fully join in the Jewish convenant. Now, that's not a contradiction because Maimonides doesn't actually consider Kushites subhuman according to their biology, rather that their "climate" or their state of nature makes them so. This source, which is careful to put those scare quotes around 'racism,' might be elucidative: Maimonides was expressing some "common knowledge" that he was a recipient of and not necessarily a view as one might attribute to a hate group. He wasn't a Darwinian, he thought that living in Africa changed people. He was a philosopher writing according to his contemporary understanding of foreign peoples and places, not denying the existence of black souls.

As for the Tanya, while it draws on Maimonides that is more of a Lurianic Kabbalah-oriented worldview not an Aristotelian one. You'd need to cite a source that threads that through the modern viewpoint, I am not familiar with one. My understanding is that modern day Chasidism is essentially mystical, not big on rationalism, and kabbalah and rationalism are basically at odds. Andre🚐 06:30, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Now, what does one do with such a passage in a most important and necessary work of Judaism? Face the truth and its consequences? God forbid! Admit (as so many Christian scholars, for example, have done in similar circumstances) that a very important Jewish authority held also rabid anti-Black views, and by this admission make an attempt at self-education in real humanity? Perish the thought.

This comes off as stretched apologetics for someone who expressed repugnant/disparaging views. Maimonides didn't merely say that the "Kushites" (which can itself be seen an obsfuscatory translation - he was referring to Black Africans) had a different religion or that they were intellectually uneducated. He explicitly places them between human beings and apes. That's his language.

He states that Kushites/Black Africans, and those who resemble them in our climates (emphasis mine) are incapable of even approaching the supreme religious value. Ergo, it's not "climate" that matters, but their personhood (or lack thereof)

Your appeal to medieval context also doesn't settle the question. Suppose Galenic or Aristotelian theories of geography influenced Maimonides. That can explain why he believed something. It doesn't establish that the belief wasn't prejudicial. And also there seems to a massive halachah hole in your mention of the influences that would push the Rambam into saying such repulsive remarks. The Kuzari, for instance, describes the Abyssinian/‘negro’ as capable of receiving only the human form and speech ‘in its least developed form.’ That's strikingly close to the conceptual territory Maimonides later occupies. And that's just fish in barrel amongst.

You can't simply say, "this was Aristotle, this was Miskawayh," and leave out Judaism. Maimonides was a Jewish thinker synthesizing Jewish sources with the philosophical sciences available in his world. The Guide itself is fundamentally an attempt to reconcile Scripture and rabbinic Judaism with Aristotelian philosophy. Both rabbinic Judaism with Aristotelian philosophy have elements which can be deemed racist to modern audiences.

And there's another problem. You're emphasizing that Maimonides could potentially be willing to allowed a Black convert to enter the Jewish community. That's important, but it doesn't erase the passage in the Guide. A person can believe that members of an ethnic population are presently intellectually degraded while nevertheless believing that an individual member of that population can become educated, rational, and religious (but not enough to obtain shleimut ha-sekhel... da'at Hashem)

In fact, your own formulation seems to concede the central point: you say that Maimonides thought that living in Africa changed people (again, not entirely accurate, see line 2). But that in of itself is a claim about a population's characteristics based on geography. Modern readers would recognize that as a form of racial or environmental determinism. That is something one might attribute to a hate group.

Calling that ‘modern biological racism’ may indeed be historically imprecise. But implying that Maimonides was simply refering to 'climates' or merely inherited it from Greco-Arabic civilization is even more inaccurate.

So perhaps ‘racist’ is not the most historically precise word. But if your argument is that Maimonides's anthropology contains a hierarchy in which Black Africans are characterized as less rational, spiritually inferior, and positioned between humans and apes, the text itself makes that difficult to deny. TheBrokenShards (talk) 14:21, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Please read the source that I linked. You need to use a reliable source. Shahak isn't, he's a radical polemicist and out of step with scholarship. Your personal opinion on Maimonides' racial view is not relevant. Reliable and reputable scholars agree it's anachronistic to project back our modern ideas of race and ethnicity to the 1100s. Andre🚐 18:56, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Hmm? I did read the source you linked. I even subtly referenced it in my reply above. While the author opposes saying the word "racism" (which I can buy) - it confirms clearly the Maimonides expressed anti-Black/anti-African bigotry. In fact, the entire thing appears to be a collection of relatively weak attempts to rebuke the author's perception that the historiographical consensus is that it was Rabbinic Judaism that invented the modern concept racial prejudice. It did have quite a few relevant passages. I will cite one below:

" Now, it is all too clear that the judgement on Negros [...], is by no means benevolent: the absence of any doctrinal or religious affiliation is the seal of their irrationality. But is there really a racist orientation in this? In other words, can one cry out in scandal because the undisputed authority of the Jewish people has uttered sentences worthy of an intolerant bigot? Maimonides is not, however, equating black men with apes. Instead, what he is doing is tracing their distinguishing feature (irrationality) to the climate to which they belong, according to an operation that was not at all unusual for the time,¹⁶ and indeed made so much their own by the Jews that it was used ‘at will’: the idea of a correspondence between an inhabited quadrant and the temperament of its inhabitants was appropriated to liken dark-skinned people to beasts, insofar as they were scorched by a heat so inexorable that it forced them to live like savages."

I will admit this it caused a raised eyebrow or two. As I indicated in my previously reply, I don't buy that the Rambam was purely talking about 'climate'.

He very expressly stated that Kushites/Black Africans, and those who resemble them in our climates (emphasis mine) are incapable of even approaching the supreme religious value. Ergo, it's not "climate" that matters, but their personhood (or lack thereof)

Towards the end the author even says:

[...] it is impossible to rehabilitate Maimonides, absolving him completely of the charge of racism [...]

So your source ultimately conceeds that Maimonides at the very least held some prejudiced views towards certain populations. Fitting for a "controversy" section!

"Your personal opinion on Maimonides' racial view is not relevant." I disagree... given it is my personhood that is being discussed. I find it a tad bit controversial to know if I am on par with a monkey, or below a human, or whatnot. I'm certainly entitled to point out what the text actually says. But more importantly, this isn't dependent on my personal opinion.

Your own source laments that the historiography (think "reliable and reputable scholars") has long identified the passages written by the Rambam to support the idea of the rabbinic origin of racism ("even to identify it as the birthplace of racial prejudice in Western thought"). This is a great reason to include Maimonides's quotes about Black Africans! Even if it is not true, it is worth a mention on his biography, as the other commenter stated.

fyi the scholarly position isn't simply “modern race categories are anachronistic, therefore there's nothing here.” The more careful position is: the modern category of biological race cannot simply be projected onto Maimonides, but his text nevertheless contains an explicit hierarchy involving Black populations, rationality, geography, and human status. That is worthy of analysis, and that analysis can find in a "controversy" section on this page. TheBrokenShards (talk) 07:00, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

If you can make an addition that accurately summarizes the above quotes from then source I linked without editorializing or inserting your opinion for a flat read of the source and the historiography, I will not object to it or revert it or argue with you. Note though however you are slightly misinterpreting the part where he does discuss that historiography. Make sure that you summarize it accurately without reading into it something it doesn't say or interpreting it beyond what it explicitly states, and you'll be in good shape. Andre🚐 07:04, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

References