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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
