 Moses ben Maimon  (Maimonides  in Latin; in Jewish scholarship “Rambam”; 1138–1204) was educated in Spain (see entry on  the influence of Islamic thought on Maimonides)  but was forced to flee by Almohad policy and settled in Egypt. Like Averroes, Maimonides looked back to Aristotle himself and al-Fārābī, and believed that Aristotle had achieved as perfect a science as possible. But how far was that science compatible with Jewish teaching? In his voluminous writings on Jewish law, he seems to have been willing to accept Aristotelian demonstration as providing the literal truth. In the Guide of the Perplexed, written late in his life, Maimonides undertakes a profound investigation of this question of (in)compatibility, ostensibly arguing against Aristotle’s central contention that the world is eternal  (§3.1),  which, he says, destroys Jewish law. At the beginning of the Guide, however, he explains that he will sometimes disguise his meaning, and some scholars believe that, correctly interpreted, the Guide supports the Aristotelian view, whilst others see its ultimate conclusions as  sceptical.[17]