Human works, like human beings, result from two factors: the influence of environment and the response of individuality. A balanced appreciation of both is key to understand cultural manifestations. An emblematic case is Ibn Rushd’s ‘rationalism’: the view that reason and critical thinking should define true religion (al-d?n al-qayyim). Ibn Rushd (d. 1198) advocated this view under the influence and patronage of the Almohad regime. His contribution is nonetheless intellectually independent as it serves Ibn Rushd’s own project. 1. Relevance: The investigation of Rushdian thought is highly significant. For one thing, it contributes a Maghrib?/Andalus? perspective to the debate over environment’s orienting intellectual endeavour. For another, it highlights the historical foundations of contemporary ‘Rushdiyya’ and Islamic reformism (Nah?a). Finally, it casts new light on Ibn Rushd viewed not merely as a scholar of Aristotle but as an all-round intellectual in Muslim Spain. 2. Thesis: Ibn Rushd’s thought is essentially rooted in the Almohad creed as defined by Ibn T?mart. For Ibn T?mart true faith revolves around intellectual endeavour (al-?ilm wa-l-?alab); for Ibn Rushd, similarly, faith results from the use of demonstrative reason (min qibal al-burh?n). At the same time, while serving the Almohad regime, Ibn Rushd creatively adapts Almohadism for his own project: founding society on philosophy. To this aim (i) he discards the authority of al-Ghaz?l? advocated by the Almohads (Ibn al-Qa???n 1990; al-Marr?kush? 1968; Ibn ?uml?s 2000); unlike early Almohadism, (ii) he invokes political power for 'fal?sifa' as a class separate and protected from the general public. 3. Structure: My paper consists of two parts. First I will analyse Ibn Rushd’s position relative to Almohadism. Subsequently I will identify its germ in the work of Ibn ?ufayl (d. 1185). Ibn ?ufayl represents an initial, hybrid stage of philosophers’ response to Almohadism. He gives literary flesh to “the official theology of the Almohad movement” (Montgomery Watt 1964). But against Almohadism he anticipates claim (ii) of Ibn Rushd -- though still rejecting claim (i). 4. Methodology: My inquiry relies on a comparative study, textual and doctrinal, of Arabic sources: Ibn T?mart’s ?Aq?da and his Murshidas; Ibn ?ufayl’s ?ayy b. Yaq??n; Ibn Rushd’s ?am?ma, Fa?l al-maq?l, Kashf man?hi? al-adilla, Tah?fut al-Tah?fut. It results in a balanced assessment of current scholarship, polarized between the opposite views of Ernest Renan (1852) and Dominique Urvoy (1990; 1998; 2005).