Ibn Bajja

Medieval Andalusian polymath who pioneered scientific methodology in Islamic Golden Age

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn al-Sayigh, known as Ibn Bajja (Avempace), was an 11th-century Andalusian philosopher whose groundbreaking work bridged Greek philosophy and Islamic thought. His most revolutionary contribution was developing early concepts of the scientific method centuries before European Renaissance thinkers.

As the first philosopher in the Islamic West, Ibn Bajja challenged Aristotle's physics in Tadbir al-Mutawahhid (The Regime of the Solitary), proposing that motion requires continuous force application - a concept later expanded in Newtonian physics. His theory of contact motion fundamentally changed medieval understanding of dynamics.

What makes Ibn Bajja truly revolutionary was his establishment of experimental verification as essential to scientific inquiry. In Kitab al-Nabat (The Book of Plants), he combined empirical observation with philosophical analysis, creating a template for later scientists like Ibn Tufail and Averroes.