Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2026
Maimonides was born in Córdoba, in Andalusia, in 1137 or 1138. His father, Maimon, was a dayyan or Jewish court judge, and thus held a high position in the flourishing Córdoba Jewish community. The family seems to have been sufficiently well-off, perhaps through the kind of mercantile activities in which many Iberian Jews engaged.
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