Rabbi Maimon ben Yosef רבי מימון בן יוסף
dayan of Cordoba, Rambam's father and first teacher
Rabbi Maimon was dayan of Cordoba and a student of Ri Migash—a direct heir of the Rif's school. He was also his own son's first teacher: Rambam began his studies with him and went into exile with him when the Almohads took Cordoba in 1148.
The family wandered eleven years through Spain, then moved to Fez, then to the Land of Israel and to Egypt. In those years Rabbi Maimon wrote the Iggeret haNechamah—a letter to those who under threat of death had pronounced the Muslim formula: do not despair, the Almighty looks at the heart, hold to the little you can keep. A generation later his son would speak in the same tone and on the same matter in the Iggeret haShmad.
The sources give no exact years of life; the window of activity is set by generation, following Aharon Hyman and the lists of Seder haDorot.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- Iggeret haNechamah of Rabbi Maimon — the letter of consolation to the coerced
- Rambam, Iggeret Teiman — on his father and the teaching received from him
Basis: documents and evidence.