ARABS AND CLASSICAL GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE

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ARABS AND CLASSICAL GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE

WIKIPEDIA

Transmission of the Classics

The ideas of Aristotle and Plato, shown in Raphael's The School of Athens, were partly lost to Europeans for centuries.
The introduction of Greek philosophy and science into the culture of the Latin West in the Middle Ages was an event that transformed the intellectual life of Western Europe.[1] It consisted of the discovery of many original works, such as those written by Aristotle in the classical period, commentaries on his works written in late Antiquity, and commentaries from early Muslim philosophers in the Arab world, or Muslim world, written during the Islamic Golden Age from the 9th to 12th centuries.[2]

Early Medieval period

As knowledge of Greek declined with the fall of the Roman Empire, so did knowledge of the Greek texts, many of which had remained untranslated.[3] The fragile nature of papyrus, as a writing medium, meant that older texts not copied onto expensive parchment would eventually crumble and be lost. The Byzantines, for whom Greek was the dominant language, made use of only parts of their classical Greek heritage, and were more interested in preserving Christian writings. Thus, for a long time in Europe after the execution of Boethius (one of the last writers with a good understanding of both Latin and Greek philosophy) in 524/525 CE/AD, there was a disregard for Greek ideas.

Two periods of translation

The transfer of Greek works from the Byzantines to the Latin West took place in two main stages. The first occurred in Baghdad, when Greek works were translated into Arabic in the 8th and 9th century during Abbasid rule.[7] The second is “the great age of translation” in the 12th and 13th centuries as Europeans conquered formerly Islamic territories in Spain and Sicily. Scholars came from all over Europe to benefit from Arab learning and culture.[7] About the same period, after the Fourth Crusade, scholars such as William of Moerbeke gained access to the original Greek texts that had been preserved in the Byzantine empire, and translated them directly into Latin.[8] There was a later stage when Western knowledge of Greek began to revive in Renaissance Humanism, and especially after the Fall of Constantinople when there was an influx of refugee Greek scholars in the Renaissance.

Baghdad's House of Wisdom

بيت الحكمة

The Abassids moved their capital from Arabia to Baghdad.^[16] Here, translation work exploded within the House of Wisdom, a university of sorts created in 830 under Caliph Abdallah-al-Mamun. Al-Mamun had sent emissaries to the Byzantines to gather Greek manuscripts for his new university, making it a center for Greek translation work in the Arab world.^[11] At first only practical works, such as those on medicine and technology were sought after, but eventually works on philosophy became popular.^[22]
Most scholars agree that during this period rhetoric, poetry, histories, and dramas were not translated into Arabic, since they were viewed as serving political ends which were not to be sought after in Arab states. Instead, philosophical and scientific works were almost the entire focus of translation. This has been disputed by a minority of scholars, however, who argue that stories such as Arabian Nights carry clear parallels to Greek literature—evidence that many Arabs were familiar with Greek humanities more than is thought.^[23]

Over a century and a half, Arab scholars translated all scientific and philosophic Greek texts available to them.^[4] The translation movement at the House of Wisdom was kick-started by the translation of Aristotle's Topics. By the time of al-Ma'mum, translators had moved on from looking only at Persian astrological texts and Greek works were already in their third translation.^[3] Authors translated include: Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Euclid, Plotinus, Galen, Sushruta, Charaka, Aryabhata and Brahmagupta.




P.S. More information in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_of_the_Classics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom