Go to index
Maimonides was born in the Spanish city of Cordoba at a time when about one-fifth of the people in southern Spain were Jews. However, Maimonides and his family fled to Cairo because of rising anti-Semitism in Spain. There Maimonides worked as a physician but spent much of his time studying the Old Testament and books of Jewish law.
Maimonides wrote a book of philosophy called The Guide for the Perplexed . The book influenced the ideas of many Christian thinkers including St. Thomas Aquinas. In his later years Maimonides became famous throughout Europe. England's King Richard asked him to be his royal physician. but Maimonides preferred to stay in Cairo and pursue his work as a philosopher.