 Abū al-Walīd Muḥammad ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd was born in Cordova in 1126. He belonged to an influential Andalusian family, famous for its judicial power and for its scholarship in the religious sciences. His father was a prominent judge, but the most important figure in the family was his grandfather, who also bears his name, Ibn Rushd, and so the philosopher is called “the grandson” (al-ḥafīd) to distinguish him from his grandfather (al-jadd). The latter was both a well-known judge and a famed jurist, being the author of many books in jurisprudence following the Mālikī school.