Avenpace or Aben

Pace] the name being corrupted by the Latins into

See also:

• Avenpace or Aben Pace] the name being corrupted by the Latins into Avempace i.e. son of the goldsmith known as Ibn Bajja or Ibn Sa'igh AVEMPACE [Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Yahya

Avempace i.e. son of the

See also:

• GOLDSMITH
• GOLDSMITH, LEWIS (c. 1763–1846)
• GOLDSMITH, OLIVER (1728–1774)

goldsmith known as

See also:

• IBN

Ibn Bajja or Ibn Sa'igh AVEMPACE [

See also:

• ABU

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Yahya  , the earliest and one of the most distinguished of the Arab philosophers of Spain . Little is known of the details of his life . He was born probably at Saragossa towards the close of the nth th century . According to Ibn Khaqan, a contemporary writer, he became a student of the exact sciences and was also a musician and a poet . But he was a philosopher as well, and apparently a sceptic . He is said to have rejected the Koran, to have denied the return to God, and to have regarded death as the end of existence . But even in that orthodox age he became vizier to the amir of Murcia . Afterwards he went to Valencia, then to Saragossa . After the fall of Saragossa (1119) he went to Seville, then to Xativa, where he is said to have returned to Islam to save his life . Finally he retired to the Almoravid court at Fez, where he was poisoned in 1138 . Ibn `Usaibi a gives a list of twenty-five of his works, but few of these remain . He had a distinct influence upon Averroes (see ARABIAN PHILOSOPHY) .

For his life see M'G. de Slane's trans. of Ibn Khallikan's

Biographical Dictionary (Paris and London, 1842), vol. iii. pp . 13o if., and Ibn `Usaibi`a's biography translated in P. de Gayangos' edition of the History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, by al-Maqqari (London, 184o), vol. ii., appendix, p. xii . List of extant works in C . Brockelmann's Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, vol. i. p . 46o . For his philosophy cf . T . J. de Boer's The History of Philosophy in Islam (London, 1903), ch. vi . (G . W .