How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs

-->

For those who are interested in history and culture, there is an interesting book: http://www.aina.org/books/hgsptta.htm

Below are some characteristic excerpts:

Public business had been carried on in Greek, and all who aspired to share in the administration had to learn and use Greek.

ARISTOTLE dominated the latter school of Alexandria and his influence inevitably passed over to the Christian world and so to Islam.

BAGHDAD was founded in 762. Harun ar-Rashid became khalif in 786 and in his reign Baghdad became the centre of a movement which aimed at translating Greek scientific material into Arabic.

P.S. See also     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_of_the_Classics



Commentary on the book
O'Leary writes a fascinating history of a critically important phase in mesopotamian history. After all, it was the Arabs who brought with them into Spain the Arabic versions of the Greek works, from which translations were made into Latin and spread throughout Europe, which was then in its dark age. It is this Greek body of knowledge that brought Europe out of its dark age and into the renaisance - the rebirth or revival.




The question remains: by whom, where, and when was the Greek body of knowledge transmitted to the Arabs themselves. O'Leary tells us:


 Greek scientific thought had been in the world for a long time before it reached the Arabs, and during that period it had already spread abroad in various directions. So it is not surprising that it reached the Arabs by more than one route. It came first and in the plainest line through Christian Syriac writers, scholars, and scientists. Then the Arabs applied themselves directly to the original Greek sources and learned over again all they had already learned, correcting and verifying earlier knowledge. Then there came a second channel of transmission indirectly through India, mathematical and astronomical work, all a good deal developed by Indian scholars, but certainly developed from material obtained from Alexandria in the first place. This material had passed to India by the sea route which connected Alexandria with north-west India. Then there was also another line of passage through India which seems to have had its beginnings in the Greek kingdom of Bactria, one of the Asiatic states founded by Alexander the Great, and a land route long kept open between the Greek world and Central Asia, especially with the city of Marw, and this perhaps connects with a Buddhist medium which at one time promoted intercourse between east and west, though Buddhism as a religion was withdrawing to the Far East when the Arabs reached Central Asia.