The period with which this chapter is concerned is the heyday of Islamic philosophy, between the ninth and the twelfth centuries, in the area dominated by Islam and stretching between Persia in the east and the Iberian peninsula in the west and as far south as Yemen. Islamic political hegemony over these vast terrains, combined with the ubiquitous presence of the ruling Muslim religion, and the adoption of Arabic as a lingua franca for all walks of life and in all cultural milieus, had a unifying cultural effect and created the reality that we call “Islamic medieval culture.” In medieval terms, this was a world-culture, encompassing both Muslim and non-Muslim communities, and expressed in Arabic as well as in other languages.

Jews living in these times and areas were part and parcel of the greater Islamic culture, and their belonging to it was a decisive factor in shaping medieval Jewish thought. We know very little about the Jewish communities during the first two centuries of Islamic rule, but from the beginning of the third Islamic century (which corresponds to the middle of the ninth century ce) a vigorous Jewish culture surfaces. The old learning centers – the yeshivot – of Iraq (Baghdad) continued to play a leading role for world Jewry, but other competing centers also flourished: in Palestine and Syria (Jerusalem and Aleppo), North Africa (such as Cairo, Alexandria, and Qayrawan), and in the Iberian peninsula (such as Cordoba and Toledo).