Moses Maimonides (born Cordoba 1138 – d. Cairo 1204) is considered one of the greatest Jewish scholars and intellectuals of all time.

Maimonides was, first and foremost, a preeminent interpreter of Jewish law (Halakah), producing groundbreaking legal codes, commentaries and wide-ranging legal opinions as leader of numerous Jewish communities. Yet, he was also a widely influential philosopher and physician, famous throughout Jewish, Muslim and Christian intellectual circles of his time.  Maimonides constantly strove to reconcile his knowledge of philosophy and science with Jewish law and theology. 

Due both to his impressive intellectual horizons and to his outstanding influence among Jews and non-Jews, Maimonides is known in Jewish tradition as The Great Eagle.

Maimonides' personal biography is representative of the fate of Spanish Jewryat that time: born in Cordoba, where he absorbed Islamic science and culture, he fled from the intolerant Almohads to Morocco and then to Fustat (Cairo) in Egypt, where he received the patronage of the Ayyubid court.