From Qāḍī to Philosophical Icon: Ibn Rushd and the Epistemic Reconfiguration of Islamic Studies in Europe

This article revisits the modern reception of Ibn Rushd (d. 595/1198) in Euro-pean intellectual history. Since the nineteenth century, especially after Ernest Renan (d. 1892), he has often been presented as the emblem of an Islamic rationalism compatible with European modernity. Such portrayals tend to privilege Ibn Rushd the commentator on Aristotle and the author of the Tahāfut al-tahāfut, while paying far less attention to Ibn Rushd the Mālikī jurist and qāḍī, including his discussions of jihad and other legal matters. Fo-cusing on close readings of selected passages, the article questions this split between “the philosopher” and “the judge.” It suggests that the separation owes less to tensions within Ibn Rushd’s own writings than to later habits of reading shaped by modern, secular disciplinary boundaries. By restoring the coherence and complexity of Ibn Rushd’s thought, this paper calls for a reas-sessment of the epistemology and paradigms through which the medieval Islamic intellectual heritage is read and interpreted in modern scholarship.