According to Maimonides, an afterlife continues for the soul of every human being, a soul now separated from the body in which it was " housed " during its earthly existence.

In Montpellier, where he lived from 1303 to 1306, he was much distressed by the prevalence of Aristotelian rationalism, which in his opinion, through the medium of the works of Maimonides, threatened the authority of the Old Testament, obedience to the law, and the belief in miracles and revelation.

He mentions even with reverence the name of Maimonides, whose work he possessed and studied ; but he was more inclined toward the mysticism of Nachmanides.

In them he concentrated on the idea that prophetic inspiration was possible even in post-Talmudic times, and, indeed, had taken place at various times and in various schools, from the Geonim to Maimonides and beyond.

By the 12th century, the Mishneh Torah ( i. e., Rabbi Moses Maimonides ) was criticizing Christianity on the grounds of idol worship, in that Christians attributed divinity to Jesus who had a physical body.

Maimonides was not the first Jewish thinker to criticise concubinage ; for example, it is severely condemned in Leviticus Rabbah.

As early as the 2nd century, however, some authorities declared this resurrection of the dead was a prophetic vision: an opinion regarded by Maimonides ( Guide for the Perplexed, II: 46 ) and his followers as the only rational explanation of the Biblical passage.

Besides the basic categories applied to the mitzvot in antiquity, during the medieval period Jewish law was classified by such works as Maimonides ' Mishneh Torah and Joseph Karo's Shulchan Aruch.

In Maimonides ' time, his list of tenets was criticized by Hasdai Crescas and Joseph Albo.

Anatoli was the son-in-law ( and possibly also the brother-in-law ) of Samuel ibn Tibbon, the well known translator of Maimonides.

Owing to this intimate connection with the ibn Tibbons, Anatoli was introduced to the philosophy of Maimonides, the study of which was such a great revelation to him that he, in later days, referred to it as the beginning of his intelligent and true comprehension of the Scriptures, while he frequently alluded to Ibn Tibbon as one of the two masters who had instructed and inspired him.

Mosheh ben Maimon ( משה בן מימון )‎, called Moses Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn (), or RaMBaM ( רמב " ם – Hebrew acronym for " Rabbi Mosheh Ben Maimon "), was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the most prolific and followed Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages.

Maimonides was born during what some scholars consider to be the end of the golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula, after the first centuries of the Moorish rule.

Maimonides was not known as a supporter of mysticism, although a strong intellectualistic type of mysticism has been discerned in his philosophy.

Some say, though, that it is probable Maimonides feigned a conversion to Islam before escaping, his forced conversion was ruled legally invalid per Islamic law when brought up by a rival in Egypt.

With the loss of the family funds tied up in David's business venture, Maimonides was constrained to assume the vocation of physician, for which he was to become famous, having been trained in medicine in both Córdoba and in Fes.

Maimonides died on December 12, 1204 ( 20th of Tevet 4965 ) in Fustat, and it is widely believed that he was briefly buried in the study room ( beit hamidrash ) of the synagogue courtyard, and that, soon after, in accordance with his wishes, his remains were exhumed and taken to Tiberias where he was re-interred.

Maimonides and his wife, the daughter of one Mishael ben Yeshayahu Halevi, had one child, Avraham, who was recognized as a great scholar, and who succeeded him as Nagid and as court physician at the age of eighteen.

The office of Nagid was held by the Maimonides family for four successive generations until the end of the 14th century.

A popular medieval saying that also served as his epitaph states, From Mosheh ( of the Torah ) to Mosheh ( Maimonides ) there was none like Mosheh.

But Maimonides was also one of the most influential figures in medieval Jewish philosophy.

" Maimonides was concerned about the need for the law to guard itself in public perceptions, to preserve its majesty and retain the people's respect.

For the next ten years Maimonides moved about in southern Spain, eventually settled in Fes in Morocco, the capital of the Almohads, where he studied at the University of Al-Karaouine.

Called upon, about 1238, for support by Solomon of Montpellier, who had been excommunicated by supporters of Maimonides, Nahmanides addressed a letter to the communities of Aragon, Navarre, and Castile, in which Solomon's adversaries were severely rebuked.

The influential medieval philosopher Maimonides maintained a skeptical ambiguity towards creation ex nihilo and considered the stories about Adam more as " philosophical anthropology, rather than as historical stories whose protagonist is the ' first man '.

Maimonides comments that even the villager in Shechem, whom Joseph inquired about his brother's whereabouts, was a " divine messenger " working behind the scene.

; Writings about Maimonides and Jewish philosophy

Although too late to be of relevance in identifying the sect mentioned by Muhammed, Maimonides wrote about the Sabians,.

Maimonides lists his Eight Levels of Giving, as written in the Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot matanot aniyim (" Laws about Giving to Poor People "), Chapter 10: 7-14:

Jesus is mentioned in Maimonides ' Epistle to Yemen, written about 1172 to Rabbi Jacob ben Netan ' el al-Fayyumi, head of the Yemen Jewish community during a time when Jews of that country were passing through a crisis inaugurated about 1165 by ' Abd-al-Nabi ibn Mahdi, and a campaign conducted by a recent convert to win them to his new faith.

The Tosafot quote principally Rashi ( very often under the designation " ḳonṭres " " pamphlet ", Rashi initially published his commentary in pamphlets ), many of the ancient authorities ( as Kalonymus of Lucca, Nathan b. Jehiel, and R. Hananeel ), some contemporary scholars ( as Abraham b. David of Posquières, Maimonides, Abraham ibn Ezra, and others ), and about 130 German and French Talmudists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

This included about 350 " prominent people ," among them Maimonides and his son Abraham, 200 " better known families ", and mentions of 450 professions and 450 goods.

This was enunciated by Maimonides in the Jewish principles of faith about the status of Moses:

According to Maimonides, about one hundred of the permanent 613 commandments based on the Torah, by rabbinical enumeration, directly concern sacrifices, ( excluding those commandments that concern the actual Temple and the priests themselves of which there are about another fifty )

Each chapter was about a term used to describe God ( such as " mighty ") and in each case, Maimonides presented a case that the word is a homonym, whereby its usage when describing a physical entity is completely different from when describing God.

1200 – Maimonides wrote about neuropsychiatric disorders and described rabies and belladonna intoxication.

Maimonides, perhaps the greatest codifier of Jewish Law, wrote in Laws of the Chosen House ch 7 Law 15 " One may bring a dead body in to the ( lower sanctified areas of the ) Temple Mount and there is no need to say that the ritually impure ( from the dead ) may enter there, because the dead body itself can enter ".

Maimonides decided that the hazzan who recited the prayers on an ordinary Sabbath and on week-days need not possess an appearance pleasing to everybody ; he might even have a reputation not wholly spotless, provided he was living a life morally free from reproach at the time of his appointment.

Maimonides intended to provide a complete statement of the Oral Law, so that a person who mastered first the Written Torah and then the Mishneh Torah would be in no need of any other book.

# Giving " in sadness " ( giving out of pity ): It is thought that Maimonides was referring to giving because of the sad feelings one might have in seeing people in need ( as opposed to giving because it is a religious obligation ).

Maimonides, a medieval Jewish scholar, drew on the early critiques of the need for sacrifice, taking the view that God always held sacrifice inferior to prayer and philosophical meditation.

Maimonides wrote that Alfasi's work " has superseded all the geonic codes … for it contains all the decisions and laws which we need in our day …".

In 1981, the first fine-needle aspiration biopsy in the United States was done at Maimonides Medical Center, eliminating the need for surgery and hospitalization.