Maimonides

Born in Córdoba in 1135 or 1138, Moses ben Maimon fled Spain with his family in 1148 when the Almohad Caliphate gave Jews the choice between Islam and exile. Two decades of wandering through Fez, Acre, Jerusalem, and Alexandria ended when he settled in Fustat between 1168 and 1171, where he built parallel careers as astronomer, philosopher, and physician—eventually serving as personal doctor to Saladin. His fourteen-volume Mishneh Torah codified halakha with an authority that endures, and his thirteen principles of faith became doctrinal bedrock, though Spanish critics loudly contested his wor…