Do refer to the nice wikipedia article on Rambam/Maimmonides:
The following texts are taken from the jewishvituallibrary online site:
Rambam's stature in Judaism is so high that there is even a popular expression among Jews: “From Moses [of the Torah] to Moses [Maimonides] there was none like Moses.” The spanish born Rabbi was such an eminent scholar in Jewish studies that Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote, "If one did not know that Maimonides was the name of a man, one would assume it was the name of a university". To this day, Maimonides and the French Jewish sage Rashi are the most widely studied Jewish scholars. Maimonides was one of the few Jewish thinkers whose teachings also influenced the nonJewish world; much of his philosophical writings in the Guide were about God and other theological issues of general, not exclusively Jewish, interest. Thomas Aquinas refers in his writings to “Rabbi Moses,” and shows considerable familiarity with the Guide. In 1985, on the 850th anniversary of Maimonides's birth, Pakistan and Cuba — which do not recognize Israel — were among the cosponsors of a UNESCO conference in Paris on Maimonides. Vitali Naumkin, a Soviet scholar, observed on this occasion: “;Maimonides is perhaps the only philosopher in the Middle Ages, perhaps even now, who symbolizes a confluence of four cultures: GrecoRoman, Arab, Jewish, and Western.” More remarkably, Abderrahmane Badawi, a Muslim professor from Kuwait University, declared: “I regard him first and foremost as an Arab thinker.” This sentiment was echoed by Saudi Arabian professor Huseyin Atay, who claimed that “if you didn't know he was Jewish, you might easily make the mistake of saying that a Muslim was writing.” That is, if you didn't read any of his Jewish writings. Maimonides scholar Shlomo Pines delivered perhaps the most accurate assessment at the conference: “Maimonides is the most influential Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages, and quite possibly of all time” (Time magazine, December 23, 1985).
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