Authors: Dimitri Gutas
ISBN-13: 9780415061339, ISBN-10: 0415061334
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Taylor & Francis, Inc.
Date Published: July 2005
Edition: (Non-applicable)
From the middle of the eighth century to the tenth century, almost all non-literary and non-historical secular Greek books, including such diverse topics as astrology, alchemy, physics, botany and medicine, that were not available throughout the eastern Byzantine Empire and the Near East, were translated into Arabic.
Greek Thought, Arabic Culture explores the major social, political and ideological factors that occasioned the unprecedented translation movement from Greek into Arabic in Baghdad, the newly founded capital of the Arab dynasty of the 'Abbasids', during the first two centuries of their rule. Dimitri Gutas draws upon the preceding historical and philological scholarship in Greco-Arabic studies and the study of medieval translations of secular Greek works into Arabic and analyses the social and historical reasons for this phenomenon.
Dimitri Gutas provides a stimulating, erudite and well-documented survey of this key movement in the transmission of ancient Greek culture to the Middle Ages.
Preface | ||
Note on Dates, Names, and Transliteration | ||
Table: The 'Abbasid Caliphs During the Translation Movement | ||
Introduction: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement as a Social and Historical Phenomenon | 1 | |
Pt. I | Translation and Empire | |
1 | The Background of the Translation Movement: Material, Human, and Cultural Resources | 11 |
2 | Al-Mansur: Early 'Abbasid Imperial Ideology and the Translation Movement | 28 |
3 | Al-Mahdi and His Sons: Social and Religious Discourse and the Translation Movement | 61 |
4 | Al-Ma'mun: Domestic and Foreign Policies and the Translation Movement | 75 |
Pt. II | Translation and Society | |
5 | Translation in the Service of Applied and Theoretical Knowledge | 107 |
6 | Patrons, Translators, Translations | 121 |
7 | Translation and History: Developments from the Translation Movement | 151 |
Epilogue | 187 | |
App | Greek Works Translated into Arabic | |
A Bibliographical Guide by Subject | 193 | |
Bibliography and Abbreviations | 197 | |
Chronological Bibliography of Studies on the Significance of the Translation Movement for Islamic Civilization | 212 | |
General Index | 216 | |
Index of Manuscripts | 230 |