IBN BĀJJAH (d. AH 533/1139 CE), known in Arabic as Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn al-Ṣāʾigh and in Latin as Avempace, was the founder of Islamic metaphysics in Andalusia. Ibn Bājjah was also a poet and musician, an astronomer who dismissed the Ptolemaic epicycles, a politician, and a man of affairs. Born in Saragossa, reportedly of Jewish ancestry, he became a vizier when Saragossa fell to the Almoravids in 1110, but he was subsequently imprisoned while on an embassy to the former ruler. After his release, he avoided the Christian conquest of Saragossa by withdrawing to Valencia, only to be imprisoned for heresy at Játiva. This time Ibn Rushd's father or grandfather secured his release. He served twenty years as vizier to Yaḥyā ibn Yūsuf ibn Tāshufīn, lived in Seville and Granada, circulated...