Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE

Greek into Arabic

(10,680 words)

The transmission of Greek learning to subsequent ages and to

di ferent linguistic areas, including its transmission into Article Table of Contents
Arabic culture, was a process of momentous importance in
1. The rst encounter:
the history of ideas. As exempli ed by Boethius (d. 525 C.E.),
Alchemy, encyclopaedism,
translations of Greek philosophic and scienti c works into and the Syriac heritage of
Latin began at the end of antiquity, as a means of countering Greek philosophy and
the loss of the Graeco-Latin bilingualism of the Roman science
Empire. In the sixth century there also appeared translations 2. Philosophy, astronomy,
from Greek into Syriac. Then, by the second/eighth century, mathematics, and medicine:
the Graeco-Arabic translations had come to the fore: they play The translations of the early
an important role both in themselves and as the starting point ʿAbbāsid age and the
for the development of philosophical and scienti c literature beginnings of scienti c
in Arabic. The Muslim scholars of the classical age clearly literature in Arabic
recognised that philosophy and the sciences (ʿulūm al-awāʾil, 3. Greek systems of
“the sciences of the ancients”) were non-Islamic in their knowledge in the Muslim
origin, as detailed by Gerhard Endress (Wissenschaftliche, world: Aristotle, Galen, and
Ptolemy in the Būyid age
400). The Greeks were praised for their learning. Although
and after
well aware that other peoples, too, developed various sciences,
4. The legacy of the
Ṣāʿid al-Andalusī (d. 463/1070), in his Kitāb al-taʿrīf bi-ṭabaqāt
translations in the Muslim
al-umam (“Book of information about the categories of the West
nations”), deems the Greeks to have brought knowledge to its
highest point (20–1). The transmission of Greek learning Bibliography
covered many elds: philosophy in all its aspects, astronomy,
mathematics and optics, medicine, and the encyclopaedic
sciences including, as was the case at that time, alchemy, physiognomy, and magic. The Muslim
world obviously did not become acquainted with this legacy all at once, but in various stages during
the second-fourth/eighth-tenth centuries. The present survey considers both the diachronic and
the systematic aspects of this process.
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1. The rst encounter: Alchemy, encyclopaedism, and the Syriac heritage of Greek
philosophy and science

Even though traces of Graeco-Roman enculturation have been detected in pre-Islamic poetry and
in the Qurʾān itself, the rst encounter of the Arabs with Greek learning predictably took place after
the conquest of Syria (14/635) and the establishment of the Umayyad caliphate in Damascus
(41/661). The cultivated milieus of Syrian Christianity were acquainted with Greek philosophy and
medicine: well before the rise of Islam the Christians of Syria had already moved from antagonism
to Greek culture to assimilation of it (Brock, From antagonism). Following the lead of the
philosophical school of Alexandria, where he had been educated, Sergius of Reshʿaynā (d. 536 C.E.)
set for himself the task of making Aristotle’s logic available to his own language community
(Hugonnard-Roche, La logique). Both a prelate and the physician-in-chief of the town of Reshʿaynā
(Theodosiopolis), Sergius was interested not only in logic but also in cosmology and medicine: his
Syriac versions of the pseudo-Aristotelian De mundo (“On the cosmos”) and of a treatise on the
same topic by Alexander of Aphrodisias (second-third century C.E.) are extant. Sergius also
translated extensively the medical writings by Galen (d. after 210 C.E.), as Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq (d.
260/873) writes in his account of his own translations of Galen (Bergsträsser, ed., Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq,
17; see also Degen). Not only Greek medicine but also astronomy attracted the interest of the
learned people of Syria: the Almagest by Ptolemy (d. c. 168 C.E.) was translated. The assimilation of
Greek learning continued after Sergius, with a prevailing focus on Aristotle’s logic. The in uence of
the late antique model can be seen from the presentation of the Isagoge by Porphyry (d. c. 305 C.E.)
as an introduction not only to Aristotle’s Categories but also to his entire logical oeuvre (the
Organon). The Isagoge was translated more than once into Syriac and was commented upon (Brock,
The Syriac commentary).

Scholarly work on the Organon was continued after Sergius by Paul the Persian ( . under the
Sāsānian emperor Chosroes I, r. 531–78 C.E.), Proba (sixth century C.E.), and Athanasius of Balad,
Jacob of Edessa, and George, Bishop of the Arabs (seventh-eighth centuries C.E.). Syrian Christians
were also acquainted with Greek psychology and ethics, with gnomologies, and with Neoplatonic
metaphysics, especially in the Christian adaptation of Dionysius the ps.-Areopagite. In addition,
there are Syriac translations of Greek works on the natural sciences, broadly speaking: astronomy,
geoponica, and alchemy. Also the so-called Romance of Alexander misattributed to Callisthenes, the
nephew of Aristotle, was translated into Syriac, through which the Syriac-speaking world became
acquainted with the Hellenistic legend of Alexander the Great (d. 323 B.C.E.). This legacy prompted
the rst translations into Arabic. In his Kitāb al- hrist (“Book of the catalogue”), Ibn al-Nadīm (d.
after 385/995) records that the caliph Muʿāwiya (r. 41–60/661–80) ordered some philosophers from
Egypt to translate for him Greek and Coptic books on alchemy (K. al-Fihrist, 242). Under the caliph
Hishām (r. 105–25/724–43) the pseudo-Aristotelian “Letters on government to Alexander the Great”
were translated into Arabic, forming the nucleus of the Sirr al-asrār (“Secret of secrets”), the most
famous of the Arabic “mirrors for princes,” combining encyclopaedism and the advice of a sage,
Aristotle, to his royal disciple, Alexander. To this age belongs also the Arabic translation of two
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other pseudo Aristotelian writings: De mundo and On virtues and vices Alongside the rise in the
other pseudo-Aristotelian writings: De mundo and On virtues and vices. Alongside the rise in the
Umayyad court of interest in alchemy and “mirrors for princes,” the rst encounter of the Arab
conquerors with the culture of conquered Syria also resulted in a certain exposure to Greek
philosophy. It is worth noting that the pseudo-Aristotelian writings whose Arabic translation has
been mentioned above elaborate on two main topics touched upon in the “mirrors for princes”:
cosmology and ethics. On the other hand, under Umayyad rule and beyond, the Christian
scholarship of Syria continued to produce specialised works on Aristotelian logic, a tradition of
learning that extended well into the ʿAbbāsid age, in the third-fourth/ninth-tenth centuries.

2. Philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine: The translations of the early

ʿAbbāsid age and the beginnings of scienti c literature in Arabic

In the rst two centuries of the ʿAbbāsid dynasty, which ruled from 132/749 (sometimes in name
only), translations into Arabic blossomed in the new capital, Baghdad. According to the historian
al-Masʿūdī (d. 346/957), al-Manṣūr (r. 136–58/754–75) was the rst caliph to have books translated
for him from foreign languages, including the animal fable Kalīla wa-Dimna and the Sindhind, a
mathematical-astronomical handbook of Indian origin (Endress, Wissenschaftliche, 415), as well as
Ptolemy’s Almagest, the Elements by Euclid (d. 286 B.C.E.), and Nicomachus of Gerasa’s Arithmetic
( rst century C.E.); he also mentions some books by Aristotle on logic and other subjects (al-
Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab, § 3446). This account is supported by other sources: we know that Kalīla
wa-Dimna was translated from Persian by a secretary of al-Manṣūr, Ibn al-Muqa faʿ (d. 129/756),
who dealt also with philosophy: an epitome of the rst treatises of the Organon in its late ancient
arrangement, that is, one that includes Porphyry’s Isagoge, is extant under his name. Al-Manṣūr’s
successor, al-Mahdī (r. 158–69/775–85), had Aristotle’s Topics translated for him by the Nestorian
patriarch of Baghdad, Timothy I. During the rst two centuries of ʿAbbāsid rule, an impressive
number of philosophical and scienti c works were translated, either directly from Greek or via
Syriac intermediaries of the original works.

This owering, after the seminal activity of translation done under the Umayyads, has been
accounted for in various ways. Some ancient sources point to the policy of the rst ʿAbbāsid rulers,
as does Ibn al-Nadīm, who devotes a chapter of his book to “the reason why books on philosophy
and other ancient sciences became plentiful in this country” (K. al-Fihrist, 243), pointing to the
caliph al-Maʾmūn (r. 198–218/813–33) as the instigator of the translations. The caliph, says Ibn al-
Nadīm, was inspired by Aristotle himself, who appeared to him in a dream, giving instructions
about the behaviour he should adopt in his kingship. “This dream was one of the most de nite
reasons for the output of books” (K. al-Fihrist, 243; the dream also appears in other sources in
varying versions). According to Dimitri Gutas, this ction was fabricated within circles closest to
the caliph, as an item of “apologetic and tendentious historiography” intended “to justify al-
Maʾmūn’s rationalistic and pro-Muʿtazili policy” (Gutas, Greek thought, 101). Another view is that the
ideological element admittedly at work in this ction goes in the opposite direction, presenting the
caliph as heavily in uenced by the pagan Aristotle; the story of the dream was “an attack against
the prevailing in uence of rational science. Its origin should be located in conservative circles, viz.
the followers of the line of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal” (van Konigsveld, 360; for a balanced account, see Di/
the followers of the line of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (van Konigsveld, 360; for a balanced account, see Di
Branco, Un’istituzione). Whatever the case, the narrative clearly re ects the fact that the ʿAbbāsid
court was involved in the process of the acquisition of non-Qurʾānic sciences (Sabra, Appropriation,
228; in the same vein Gutas, Greek thought). This involvement is corroborated by an o cial mission
sent to the lands of the Byzantines, in search of scienti c books (K. al-Fihrist, 243), as well as by the
activities connected with the Bayt al-Ḥikma (House of Wisdom). Scholars disagree on the nature of
this institution, which has been described in terms ranging from an academy for translations to the
private library of the caliph. The Bayt al-Ḥikma had a director, Salm, who was appointed as the head
of the delegation mentioned above; he was accompanied by al-Ḥajjāj b. Maṭar, the translator of
Euclid’s Elements and the reviser of the translation of the Almagest, and by Yaḥyā b. al-Biṭrīq, the
translator of Plato’s Timaeus and Aristotle’s On the heavens (Endress, Wissenschaftliche, 423–4). In
his entry on the Almagest, Ibn al-Nadīm says in so many words that Salm, the director (ṣāḥib) of the
Bayt al-Ḥikma, supervised various scholars who had been entrusted with the revision of the
translation of Ptolemy’s work previously made for the wazīr Yaḥyā b. Khālid b. Barmak (K. al-Fihrist,
267–8), indicating that scienti c translations were connected with the Bayt al-Ḥikma (Di Branco,
Un’istituzione) and that the “House of Wisdom” was indeed, as Endress has termed it, “a research
centre on exact natural sciences, astronomy/astrology, and mathematics” (Wissenschaftliche, 426).

The Greek works to be translated came from various places, not only in the narrow sense of the
provenance of the manuscripts, but also in the broader sense of the traditions of learning that, at
the end of antiquity, organised the systems of higher education in the Graeco-Roman world. One
pathway of transmission was labelled “from Alexandria to Baghdad” by the German Orientalist Max
Meyerhof, on the basis of an account by al-Fārābī (d. 339/950–1), also recorded by the historian al-
Masʿūdī and two physicians, Ibn Riḍwān (d. 460/1068) and Ibn Jumayʿ (d. 594/1198). In his lost work
on the genesis of philosophy (partially known to us thanks to Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, d. 668/1270), al-
Fārābī outlines the transmission of learning from Alexandria to Antioch, from Antioch to Ḥarrān,
and eventually to Baghdad. This account has been deemed ctitious on various counts, but the
relationship it establishes between the philosophical school of Alexandria and the rise of Arabic
philosophy and science can hardly be discarded as completely false. The fact that al-Fārābī
mentions Ḥarrān, coupled with other bits of information, has led some scholars to make the
transmission of Greek learning pivot on the “city of the Moon God,” Ḥarrān, where, according to al-
Masʿūdī, pagans involved in planetary cults were still dwelling in his time and where their meetings
took place. Taking into account that some of the scientists and translators of the early ʿAbbāsid age
came from Ḥarrān, as is the case with Thābit b. Qurra (d. 288/901), one may infer that there was a
tradition of Greek learning there, mostly in astronomic and mathematical sciences. It has been
argued that the Neoplatonic philosopher Simplicius (sixth century C.E.) taught there after having
left the court of Chosroes I, but this attempt at raising Ḥarrān to the role of the connecting point
between late antique philosophy and the Arab world has not gained a rm footing in scholarship.
Late antiquity, with its institutions of learning and conceptual patterns, predictably fuelled the rise
of science and philosophy in the Arab world, but it is also reasonable to assume that various
channels of transmission contributed to shaping the image of the disciplines, and their basic texts,
undisputed authorities, and fundamental doctrines.
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As for the methods by which written documents were acquired, in addition to the o cial
delegations sent in search of manuscripts, various individual e forts are attested: some scholars,
such as Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq, set out on long journeys in search of manuscripts. In a letter Ḥunayn
wrote to a certain ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā he notes all the books of Galen that, as far as he knew, had been
translated and some that had not been translated. In this letter he also sets forth his translation
method, explaining that he rst accumulated as many Greek manuscripts of a given title as
possible, then collated them in order to produce “a single corrected copy,” and then proceeded to
translate the work (Bergsträsser, ed., Ḥunain ibn Isḥāq, 5 and 17). Other scholars, such as Qusṭā b.
Lūqā (d. 298/910), arrived in Baghdad bringing books with them. A native of Baalbek, Qusṭā b. Lūqā
was a Melkite Christian, whose activity as a translator covered many elds: astronomy, mathematics
and related sciences, medicine, and philosophy. Qusṭā also translated the rst book of Alexander of
Aphrodisias’s commentary on Aristotle’s On generation and corruption, lost in Greek, part of
Alexander’s lost commentary on the Physics, and parts of the commentary of the same work by
Philoponus (d. 574 C.E.). He also translated Aetius’s Placita, a doxographical account datable to the
early second century C.E. on the physical doctrines of Greek antiquity.

Qusṭā settled in Baghdad around 246/860. At that moment a circle of translators and scientists was
already active, under the guidance of the man who has been described by later sources as “the
philosopher of the Arabs,” Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb b. Isḥāq al-Kindī (d. after 256/870), the initiator of
falsafa. The existence of the “circle of al-Kindī” was discovered by Endress (Proclus Arabus). An in-
depth analysis of the lexical features of a number of Arabic translations of scienti c and
philosophical works led Endress to the conclusion that they had been produced by scholars sharing
a common ground. The information provided by some of the texts translated and by the
biobibliographers such as Ibn al-Nadīm point to al-Kindī as the prominent gure of this milieu. He
dedicated some of his works to the caliph al-Maʾmūn himself and was appointed preceptor to the
son of al-Maʾmūn’s successor, al-Muʿtaṣim (r. 218–227/833–842). A key personality in the ʿAbbāsid
court, notwithstanding some reversals, al-Kindī had Aristotle’s Metaphysics translated for him by
Eustathius (Usṭāth), as recorded by Ibn al-Nadīm (K. al-Fihrist, 251). Some have identi ed this
Usṭāth with the Patriarch of Alexandria, who also translated the Geoponica (Agriculture) by
Vindanius Anatolius (fourth century C.E.), but this identi cation has been challenged (Endress, The
circle of al-Kindi, 52 n. 21). Usṭāth also translated Aristotle’s Nicomachean ethics, a translation that
has in part come down to us (Ullmann, ed., Nikomaschische Ethik).

Another scholar of Greek lineage, Yaḥyā b. al-Biṭrīq (“the son of the patrikios”), who was a member
of Salm’s retinue during the mission mentioned above, authored the earliest translation of
Aristotle’s On the heavens, a work that provides the backdrop for al-Kindī’s cosmological works.
Usṭāth’s Arabic version of the Metaphysics similarly provides the background for al-Kindī’s Risāla fī
l-Falsafa al-ūlā (“On rst philosophy”). Aristotle’s On the heavens, along with an epitome of his
Meteorology and a selection of On the parts of animals plus On the generation of animals, was also
translated by Yaḥyā b. al-Biṭrīq. The translation of the short treatises on physiological phenomena,

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the Parva naturalia, and probably also that of the treatise De anima (“On the soul”), and surely that
of a Neoplatonic paraphrase of the same work, show the deep interest of al-Kindī and his circle in
Aristotle’s all-embracing science.

Another movement was destined to have an even greater impact on the subsequent development
of Arab philosophical thought: that of adding to Aristotle’s cosmology and metaphysics a
theological “pinnacle” derived from post-Aristotelian thought, especially—although not exclusively
—Neoplatonic (Endress, The circle of al-Kindī; Endress, Building the library). Within the circle of
al-Kindī were translated some writings by Alexander of Aphrodisias on issues such as divine
providence and the structure of the cosmos. The Christian Ibn Nāʿima, from the city of Emesa
(Ḥimṣ), translated a selection of the Enneads by Plotinus (d. 270 C.E.). The Arabic Enneads, heavily
reworked, circulated under the pseudepigraphic label Theology of Aristotle. It was al-Kindī himself,
as we are told in the Prologue of this work, who “corrected” this work for Aḥmad, the son of al-
Muʿtaṣim (ps.-Theology of Aristotle, ed. Badawī, 3). Another Neoplatonic text, also attributed to
Aristotle, was a reworked selection of the Elements of theology by Proclus (d. 485 C.E.). This work
adopts the format of Euclid’s geometrical Elements, organising into theorems the doctrine of the
procession of the many from the transcendent One. A number of these theorems are extant in
Arabic translation, interspersed within a collection of genuine writings by Alexander of
Aphrodisias, who allegedly extracted all these items “from Aristotle’s Theology” (Endress, Proclus
Arabus, 64–7). A rearrangement of them, attributed to Aristotle himself, is known in Arabic as the
Kitāb al-īḍāḥ li-Arisṭūṭālīs fī l-khayr al-maḥḍ (“Book of Aristotle’s exposition of pure good,” known as
the Liber de Causis in the Latin version of the twelfth century C.E.). The Theology and the Book of
the pure good credited “Aristotle” with the overarching model of a cosmic hierarchy in which the
degrees of reality originate from the transcendent One, a view that features in most of the Arabic-
Islamic philosophical systems from al-Fārābī to Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna, d. 428/1037) and beyond. Parts
of John Philoponus’s lengthy polemical treatise On the eternity of the world against Proclus have
been discovered, under Alexander of Aphrodisias’s name, in an Arabic translation that bears the
hallmarks of the circle of al-Kindī (Hasnawi). Also Proclus’s Eighteen arguments on the eternity of
the cosmos, which are extant in Greek only as a part of Philoponus’s refutation mentioned above,
feature in Arabic as an independent work, translated within this circle as well as re-translated later
on. Another case of pseudepigraphy and reworking clearly connected with the “circle of al-Kindī” is
that of Hippolytus of Rome (third century C.E.), whose survey of Greek philosophical schools,
heavily adapted, was attributed to Ammonius, the head of the philosophical school of fth- and
sixth-century Alexandria.

The importance of the activity of the circle of al-Kindī can hardly be exaggerated: for the rst time
Arab scholarship, going beyond the handbooks of logic and the “mirrors for princes,” was faced with
Greek discussions on crucial metaphysical topics such as the nature of God, divine causality and
the laws of nature, human possibility of grasping and expressing God’s essence, and the
immortality of the soul, its provenance from a higher realm, and its destiny in the afterlife, not to
mention the philosophical ideal of wisdom as the key to happiness in this life. All these points were
in potential con ict with the Qurʾān and the worldview that originated from it, if not in themselves,/
in potential con ict with the Qur ān and the worldview that originated from it, if not in themselves,
at least in the broader sense of representing a competing and equally all-embracing view of God
and the cosmos, and humankind and its destiny. However, the conviction emphatically uttered by
al-Kindī in his First philosophy was that Aristotle, the most eminent of the Greeks, taught on all
these matters truths that go hand in hand with the Qurʾān—which became a typical tenet of
Arabic-Islamic philosophy, echoed three centuries later in the Muslim West by Ibn Rushd (Averroes,
d. 595/1198; Endress, The defence of reason).

Simultaneously with the translations mentioned, one can notice the appearance of philosophical
and scienti c treatises, a literary genre previously unknown in Arabic. Examples of this include not
only al-Kindī’s On rst philosophy, but also Qusṭa b. Lūqā’s treatise on The di ference between spirit
and soul, which echoes his translations of Galen, as well as his works On resolving problems in the
third book of Euclid, On the translation of Diophantus’s Algebra, On the calculation of the ascendant
according to algebra, and On the use of the spherical astrolabe. A great number of Arabic treatises in
every branch of philosophy and the scienti c disciplines were to follow in subsequent centuries. In
the formative period under examination here, items that have been labeled as belonging to “The
Eisagoge complex” (Peters, Aristotle and the Arabs, 79), that is, the literary genre of the introductory
survey, are al-Kindī’s Epistle on de nitions (a sort of dictionary of philosophical terms) and his
treatise On the number of Aristotle’s books. Examples of this can be found also in geometry,
astronomy, and medicine.

A contemporary of al-Kindī, the Christian Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq was the leading personality of another
circle of translators, whose focus was on medicine, science, and philosophy. Ḥunayn was the pupil
of Yūḥannā b. Māsawayh (d. 243/857), a member of one of the Syrian families of doctors who were
appointed to the faculty of the hospital of Baghdad from the time of its founding by the caliph
Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 170–93/786–809). Ḥunayn himself was a scholar who also commissioned
translations of medical works from others (Endress, Wissenschaftliche, 422–4 and 440–8). His
translations, into both Syriac (for his fellow Christian physicians) and Arabic (for his Muslim
patrons), include some fty treatises by Galen. Other treatises by Galen and a large part of the
Greek medical literature were translated by him and by other translators and scientists of what has
been called the “school of Ḥunayn.” Among them is Ḥunayn’s son Isḥāq (d. 298/910), who translated
the Pragmateia (Medical compendium) by Paul of Aegina (seventh century C.E.) and many
philosophical works. Ḥunayn’s nephew Ḥubaysh b. al-Ḥasan al-Aʿsam ( . late third/ninth century?)
translated into Arabic the Syriac versions done by Ḥunayn of On a fected parts, The pulse for
beginners, and On the therapeutic method. Iṣṭifān b. Bāsil (d. c. 245/860) translated from Greek the
Materia medica by Dioscorides ( rst century C.E.) and the Collectiones by Oribasius (fourth century
C.E.). Abū ʿUthmān al-Dimashqī, who in 302/914 was appointed director of one of the Baghdad
hospitals, translated Galen’s On the anatomy of the nerves. A learned physician and scientist from
Ḥarrān, Thābit b. Qurrā translated Ptolemy’s Almagest and a large number of mathematical works
(Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius of Perga, Hypsicles, Nicomachus of Gerasa); he also wrote
extensively on Euclid, Ptolemy, and Aristotle.

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Ḥunayn, Isḥāq, and the other scientists and translators that the classical Arabic sources connect in
various ways with them were also interested in philosophy. Some of their works are revisions of
earlier translations, as is the case with the Timaeus (K. al-Fihrist, 246). Ḥunayn is credited also with
the translation of Plato’s Laws (K. al-Fihrist, 246). As for Aristotle, the works on logic were translated
(or re-translated), either by Ḥunayn, or by Isḥāq, or again by one or another scholar belonging to
the same circle: this is, for instance, the case with the treatise On interpretation, translated by
Tadhārī b. Bāsīl Akhī al-Iṣṭifān. In most cases, it is the translation of a member of this circle that is
extant. At times the information given in the manuscripts does not match that of the
bibliographical sources, as is the case with the Categories, whose translation is attributed to Ḥunayn
in the Kitāb al- hrist (248), but attributed to Isḥāq in the manuscript that forms the basis of the
modern edition. Predictably, the testimony of the manuscripts is sometimes erroneous: famous
translators might have been credited with translations not authored by them, as is the case with
Aristotle’s De anima, which is attributed to Isḥāq b. Ḥunayn, but has convincingly been shown to be
alien to his style and lexical habits (Gätje; Arnzen, Aristoteles’ De anima). There are also cases in
which a partial translation was made by Ḥunayn, and Isḥaq brought it to completion: the Posterior
analytics, says Ibn al-Nadīm (K. al-Fihrist, 249), was translated in this way into Syriac; later on, an
Arabic version of this Syriac text was made. Also according to Ibn al-Nadīm (K. al-Fihrist, 249), the
Topics was translated into Syriac by Isḥāq, but the extant text is the Arabic version made by Abū
ʿUthmān al-Dimashqī.

The philosophical interests of Ḥunayn, Isḥaq, and their associates extended beyond the Organon.
Isḥāq translated Aristotle’s Physics and this translation is extant, accompanied by a series of glosses
and commentaries. Ḥunayn revised the Arabic version of On the heavens (K. al-Fihrist, 250) made
within the circle of al-Kindī, and wrote a compendium of the Meteorology. He is also credited with
the Syriac translation of On generation and corruption, while Isḥāq is credited with the Arabic
version (K. al-Fihrist, 251); both translations, however, are lost.

The translation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics is a particularly interesting case. Ibn al-Nadīm says that
the work was translated for al-Kindī by Usṭāth, but he also mentions a translation by Isḥāq (K. al-
Fihrist, 251). This account was con rmed by a Leiden manuscript of the Great commentary on the
Metaphysics by Ibn Rushd, published by Maurice Bouyges. Ibn Rushd’s commentary follows the text
of the Metaphysics as it is divided into units (lemmata), most of which are given in Usṭāth’s
translation, but occasionally in Isḥāq’s. There are also cases in which the main text shows Isḥāq’s
translation, with that of Usṭāth copied in the margin. The case of the Nicomachean ethics is similar:
books I–IV are extant in Isḥāq’s translation, mentioned also in the K. al-Fihrist (252), while books V–
X survive in the translation by Usṭāth (Ullmann, ed., Nikomachische ethic, 2:16).

Isḥaq also translated Theophrastus’s Metaphysics, and a number of post-Aristotelian philosophical

works were translated into Syriac and/or Arabic by scholars of this circle. While the works of Galen
lay at the core of Ḥunayn’s interest, he did not limit himself to translating his medical books, but
travelled far and wide in search of a complete copy of Galen’s (lost) logical work On demonstration.
He reports that he managed to nd only about half the text of that work, with the books not in any /
 p g y y

order, while another contemporary found several books not included in those Ḥunayn had found
(Bergsträsser, ed., Ḥunain ibn Isḥāq, 47.15; see Endress, Wissenschaftliche, 425). Ḥunayn also
translated into Syriac Galen’s summary of Plato’s Timaeus; the Arabic version by one of his pupils is
extant and has been edited (Kraus and Walzer, eds., Galeni compendium). The Greek exegetical
tradition on basic texts by Plato and especially Aristotle seems to have dictated the choice by
Ḥunayn and his associates of the Greek works to be translated. In particular, these include both
commentaries and original works by Alexander of Aphrodisias: his De anima (lost in Arabic, but
extant in Hebrew translation from the Arabic), the short but very in uential On intellect, along with
other parts of his so-called Mantissa (Supplement, to the De Anima) and a number of Questions,
which raise various controversial points and resolve them with reference to the principle that
Aristotle’s philosophy is a systematic and totally consistent whole. Also Alexander’s treatise On the
cosmos, which had been translated into Syriac by Sergius of Reshʿaynā more than three centuries
before, was translated into Arabic within this circle. Abū ʿUthmān al-Dimashqī’s name is often
connected with translations of Alexander of Aphrodisias, and also with that of Porphyry’s Isagoge.
Isḥāq b. Ḥunayn translated the paraphrase by Themistius (d. c. 388 C.E.) of Aristotle’s De anima.
This Arabic version is edited, by M. C. Lyons, under the title An Arabic translation of Themistius’
Commentary on Aristotle’s De anima (Oxford 1973).

The Neoplatonic texts that are extant in Arabic were mostly translated within the circle of al-Kindī,
but Ḥunayn and his associates also gave this tradition some attention. Some Proclus was translated,
including the nal part of his commentary on the Timaeus (lost in Greek), and the Eighteen
arguments, which had already been translated within the circle of al-Kindī (Wakelnig). The
controversy about the eternity of the world versus creation in time attracted much attention: the
Arabic translation of two treatises by John Philoponus on this issue—one of them attested in Greek
only through quotations and the other lost—belongs in all likelihood to this period. It looks as if
every e fort was made by Ḥunayn and his associates to create in the eld of philosophy a canon of
the basic readings and their authoritative exegeses, comparable to that which was well established
in medicine. At variance with what happens with the translations of the circle of al-Kindī, there are
no instances of pseudepigraphy in the output of this milieu. An exception is the collection of works
by Alexander of Aphrodisias and by Proclus mentioned above, the translations of which are
attributed to Abū ʿUthmān al-Dimashqī, but which are not by him. Being interested in Alexander’s
works, al-Dimashqī was involved in one way or another in the transmission of this collection, which
may explain the mention of his name in some of the manuscripts, conveying a bundle of texts that
were in fact produced within the circle of al-Kindī (Endress, Proclus Arabus, 64–7).

In philosophy, the focus of Ḥunayn and his associates was on Aristotle and the exegesis of his
works: the undisputed authority granted to him inspired the label al-muʿallim al-awwal (the First
Teacher), adopted by later authors such as Ibn Sīnā. On this point, Ḥunayn and his associates
followed the lead of al-Kindī, who, himself following the late Neoplatonic pattern of the school of
Alexandria, attributed to Aristotle the role of representing the peak of philosophical science.
However, the translations of Ḥunayn and his circle paved the way for the rise of an awareness alien
to al-Kindī, namely, the recognition of possible dissensions among the Greek philosophers, /
to al Kindī, namely, the recognition of possible dissensions among the Greek philosophers,
apparent from Alexander’s defence against opponents of the truth and inner consistency of the
Aristotelian corpus, and even more from Philoponus’s attacks on Aristotle’s doctrine of the eternity
of the cosmos. Both the variety of the sources translated and this awareness of possible
inconsistencies prepared for the development of an exegetical school, the so-called “Aristotelians of
Baghdad.” Against this backdrop are also better understood the re ections of al-Fārābī on
philosophy as a science and on its status with respect to other elds of learning, as well as religion.
The early Būyid age provides the scenario for this development.

3. Greek systems of knowledge in the Muslim world: Aristotle, Galen, and Ptolemy
in the Būyid age and after

By the time of the establishment of Būyid rule in Baghdad in 334/946, the urban cultivated elites
had developed into various and at times competing groups, both within the religious sciences and
outside them, including traditionists, theologians, jurists, grammarians, belletrists, scientists, and
also falāsifa, the philosophers. The existence of at least one philosophical majlis (learned circle)
especially focused on the Aristotelian corpus in fourth/tenth-century Baghdad is well attested, and
by the early Būyid age falsafa was acknowledged as a proper eld by both its practitioners and
detractors.

In the rst decades of the fourth/tenth century, the Nestorian Christian Abū Bishr Mattā b. Yūnus
(d. 328/940) came to Baghdad, after having been trained in Aristotelian logic at the school of the
monastery of Mār Mārī, south of Baghdad. He had no Greek, but his translations into Arabic from
the Syriac versions of philosophical texts, coupled with his own exegetical works on Aristotle, raised
him to the rank of a renowned master in Aristotelian studies. He is credited with translations of
works by Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, and Olympiodorus. Abū Bishr Mattā
features as the champion of falsafa in a well-known dispute with the grammarian Abū Saʿīd al-Sīrāfī
(d. 368/979) over the merits of logic versus grammar. If the record of the dispute made by al-
Tawḥīdī (d. 414/1023) is trustworthy, Abū Bishr Mattā’s plea for the universality of logical rules did
not overcome the arguments of al-Sīrāfī; however, it was granted survival and ampli cation in the
thought of his pupil al-Fārābī. The latter endorsed the idea of logic as the universal language of
human reason, independent of any cultural, linguistic, or religious di ference.

Al-Fārābī, a Muslim, was the pupil of Abū Bishr Mattā, who was a Nestorian Christian. Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī
(d. 364/974), a Jacobite Christian, was likewise a student of Abū Bishr. This means that the
Aristotelians of Baghdad followed the path of the interfaith attitude laid down by the learned
circles of al-Kindī’s and Ḥunayn’s times.

But while Ḥunayn and his associates were interested not only in philosophy, but also in the
mathematical and natural sciences, especially medicine, the “Baghdad Aristotelians” narrowed the
focus to philosophical literature. In their endeavour to make available as many exegetical works on
Aristotle as possible, they reworked a great number of translations. Mattā b. Yūnus translated from
Syriac into Arabic many works by Aristotle and on Aristotle, which had previously been translated /
from Greek into Syriac by Ḥunayn and his circle; of some of Mattā’s translations, the sources
mention also a revision made by Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī. This is the case, for example, with Alexander of
Aphrodisias’s commentary on the De caelo (Ibn al-Nadīm, K. al-Fihrist, 264) as well as with
Themistius’s paraphrase of the same work (Endress, Works of Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, 29–30). Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī is
also credited with translations into Arabic of Plato’s Laws, of Aristotle’s Topics (from Ḥunayn’s
Syriac version), of the Sophistical refutations (from the Syriac version of Theophilus of Edessa), of
the Poetics, possibly of the Meteorology, and of Alexander of Aphrodisias’s commentaries on the
Categories and the Physics, the latter being, more precisely, the correction of an earlier translation
by a certain Abū Rawḥ al-Ṣābiʾ. Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī was also acquainted with Simplicius’s commentary on
the Categories, whose Arabic translation is lost but is mentioned by Ibn al-Nadīm (K. al- hrist, 248)
and left some traces in the scholarly work of this circle. In fact, the translations mentioned above
were put in service of the research carried on by the scholars who gathered to study Aristotle, as is
made evident by two documents bearing traces of the exegetical activity of this circle, the so-called
“Organon of Baghdad,” a Paris manuscript with an annotated “edition” of Aristotle’s logical works
(Hugonnard-Roche, Remarques) and a Leiden manuscript of the Arabic version of Aristotle’s
Physics with marginal annotations taken from the commentaries by Alexander of Aphrodisias and
John Philoponus, from Themistius’s paraphrase and from Abū Bishr Mattā’s and Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī’s own
exegetical notes (Endress, Wissenschaftliche, 451).

That the documentary material available in this circle was quite impressive is shown by the Ṣiwān
al-ḥikma (“Repository of wisdom”), a biobibliography of Greek and Arab philosophers from Thales
to the authors of the fourth/tenth century, itself lost but attested by three works derived from it.
The Siwān is falsely attributed to Abū Sulaymān al-Sijistānī (d. 371/981), the successor of Yaḥyā b.
ʿAdī in the leadership of the circle, but is connected in some way with his teaching activity. Abū
Sulaymān al-Sijistānī was the teacher of Ibn al-Nadīm, and the extensive information on Greek
philosophy and science in the latter’s Kitāb al- hrist is eloquent testimony to knowledge in
fourth/tenth-century Baghdad of the Greek philosophical legacy. Although not directly connected
with Baghdad, but based on works translated there, the encyclopaedia of the Brethren of Purity
(Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, second half of the fourth/tenth century), composed in all likelihood in Basra,
borrows heavily from the translated texts, mostly the Neoplatonic ones. The philosophical literature
produced in Baghdad reached to the provincial courts of Transoxania, as is shown by the education
received by Ibn Sīnā and by the libraries he visited. Both his philosophical summa, the Kitāb al-
shifāʾ (“Book of healing”), and his polemics against the “Baghdadis” are grounded in and are a
reaction to the foundational texts and their interpretations.

Greek science underwent a similar process: the commentaries on Ptolemy’s Almagest paved the
way for the development of planetary theories (Saliba), and the attempts at systematising Galen’s
doctrines fuelled medical science (Ullmann, Medizin; Strohmaier, La ricezione), both in the form of
structured treatises covering the entire eld and in that of monographs devoted to such
subdisciplines as ophthalmology and surgery. The tradition of encyclopaedism inaugurated by al-
Kindī and ampli ed in the circle of Ḥunayn continued: the renowned physician Abū Bakr Ibn
Zakariyyāʾ al-Rāzī (d. 313/925 or 320/932) dealt also with philosophy; conversely, Ibn Sīnā and Ibn /
Zakariyyā al Rāzī (d. 313/925 or 320/932) dealt also with philosophy; conversely, Ibn Sīnā and Ibn
Rushd provide examples of philosophers also writing extensively on medicine. However, the
scienti c elds were by the fourth/tenth century much more specialised than in al-Kindī’s or
Ḥunayn’s times, and the specialists who authored personal works counting as summae of each
discipline—as for instance the medical encyclopaedia al-Ḥāwī fī l-ṭibb by al-Rāzī, or the Zīj
(astronomical tables) by al-Battānī (d. 317/929)—did not hesitate to challenge the established
authorities. Instances of this are, for example, al-Rāzī’s al-Shukūk ʿalā Jālīnūs (“Doubts about
Galen”) and al-Shukūk ʿalā Baṭlamiyyus (“Doubts about Ptolemy”) by Ibn al-Haytham (c. 354–
432/965–1040). This process, which has been labelled “appropriation” (Sabra, Appropriation), had
far-reaching implications. “The products of Greek science, in becoming more and more a part of
Islamic culture, were disassociated from the Hellenistic worldview that was such a potent force in
leading to the original appropriation. Thus this transformed Greek science became more utilitarian
(or ‘instrumentalist’) and less tied to a religiously suspect metaphysics” (Ragep and Ragep, xviii).
The mathematician-astronomers attached to the mosque provide a good example of this process.

The rise of the madrasa, the institution of Muslim higher education centred on law and the
religious disciplines, and its proliferation in the second half of the fth/eleventh century left little
room for the teaching of sciences in and by themselves. Philosophy too underwent a process of
appropriation, in so far as a certain amount of philosophical argumentation was embedded in
speculative theology (kalām). Within the educational programme of the madrasa, philosophy in
itself features only in the form of logical propaedeutics to the study of religious law, a move that has
been described in terms of “clericalisation of the sciences and rationalisation of religion,” especially
apparent in Mongol and post-Mongol times (Endress, Dreifache Ancilla, 120). Theologians
“regarded rational demonstration as a rm basis of sound argument in the service of Islam, and
prepared the way for an Islamic scholasticism”; in the long run, their attempt at “building a theology
made scienti c paved the way to a philosophy made religious” (Endress, Cycle of knowledge, 127).

4. The legacy of the translations in the Muslim West

The wave of translations of Greek philosophical and scienti c works that took place in the early
ʿAbbāsid age reached the Muslim West, re ected in the history of the famed library of Córdoba,
which by the time of the Umayyad ruler al-Ḥakam II (r. 350–66/961–76) was reported to have
numbered some 400,000 volumes. (Unfortunately, much of the library’s collection su fered
dispersal or destruction as a consequence of religion-based purges, such as that decreed by the de
facto ruler Ibn Abī ʿĀmir al-Manṣūr (368–92/978–1002), who ordered all the books on philosophy
and astronomy to be burned publicly, and the siege, fall, and sack of the city at the hands of Berber
troops in 403/1013.) In his Ṭabaqāt al-umam (“Categories of the nations”; ed. Cheikho, 65–7), Ṣāʿid
al-Andalusī reports that al-Ḥakam II had books on the sciences of the ancients sent to him from
Baghdad and from Egypt, and that he had scholars and scientists from the East joining his court.
This undertaking may count as another conduit for Greek learning in Arabic translation; in one
case, the name of the scholar and the title of the work travelling with him are known: Abū l-Ḥakam
al-Kirmānī brought to al-Andalus the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity (Endress, Wissenschaftliche,
455–6; Balty-Guesdon, Al-Andalus et l’héritage grec). Travels to the East by the learned men of al- /
455 6; Balty Guesdon, Al Andalus et l héritage grec). Travels to the East by the learned men of al
Andalus may also have fuelled the scienti c culture of the Muslim West, notwithstanding the
hostile attitude towards the secular sciences both of the Mālikite school of law, which dominated
the Muslim West, and of Almoravid rule (in al-Andalus 478–540/1086–1145).

A complete inventory of the Arabic versions of Greek scienti c and philosophic texts that reached
al-Andalus has not yet been made, but the presence in the Iberian peninsula of various works may
be inferred from the existence of translations of these works into Latin, as well as from the
commentaries authored by Andalusian scholars, which obviously presuppose the existence of the
texts commented upon in Arabic. This is the case with the Aristotelian corpus, which was known
almost in its entirety, as is proved by the commentaries devoted to Aristotle’s Physics, On the
heavens, and On generation and corruption by Ibn Bājja (d. 533/1139), and on a much larger scale by
Ibn Rushd’s various exegetical works (summaries, paraphrases, and lemmatic commentaries) on
the most important works of Aristotle, as well as post-Aristotelian works, such as Porphyry’s
Isagoge. The Greek commentaries forming the backbone of the exegetical activity in Baghdad also
reached al-Andalus, as is attested by the extensive use made of them by Ibn Rushd in his own
exegeses of Aristotle. Ibn Rushd was especially conversant with the Arabic Alexander, but he was
also acquainted with the Arabic Themistius. The multifarious legacy of the age of translations from
Greek into Arabic was transmitted to Ibn Rushd also through al-Fārābī’s and Ibn Sīnā’s works:
embedded in them, it was the typical intermingling of Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism of
classical Arabic philosophy that reached al-Andalus and Ibn Rushd. Some of the creations of the
circle of al-Kindī circulated in the libraries of the Muslim West: Ibn Bājja quotes as “Alexander’s”
genuine works some of the theorems of Proclus’s Elements of theology imbricated with Alexander’s
Questions, and the pseudo-Aristotelian al-Khayr al-maḥḍ was translated into Latin in Toledo in the
second half of the twelfth century C.E.

Greek scienti c works translated into Arabic, in addition to the Almagest, include the Arabic
version of Ptolemy’s Planisphere, as well as Arabic versions of Euclid’s Elements and Data, of
Archimedes’ Measurement of the circle and On the sphere and cylinder, of Autolycus’s On the moving
sphere, of Hypsicles’s Anaphoricus, as well as Arabic versions of many medical works by Galen, and
Dioscorides’ Materia medica. Their presence in al-Andalus is ascertained in most cases from the
extant Latin translations made from the Arabic; but much more numerous are the scienti c
writings of the Arab authors who, in addition to assimilating Greek science, had written their own
works in the various elds of medicine, astronomy, mathematics, optics, alchemy, and magic.
Examples of this are the astrological work of Abū Maʿshar al-Balkhī (d. 272/886), and the works on
arithmetic and the astronomy tables by Muḥammad b. Mūsā al-Khwarīzmī (d. c.235/850), both well
known in al-Andalus. As mentioned above, apropos Ibn al-Haytham, the personal works of the
Arab scientists, rooted as they are in the Greek foundational texts, at times give room for views
con icting with the doctrines held in the Greek texts. This scienti c literature paved the way for the
critical assessment of some basic doctrines, as is the case with the challenge to Ptolemy’s
cosmology by the Andalusian al-Biṭrūjī (d. c.600/1204) and by Ibn Rushd, in what has been labelled
the “Andalusian restoration of Aristotle’s cosmos” (Sabra, The Andalusian revolt; Endress,
Mathematics and philosophy). /
Mathematics and philosophy).
Cristina D'Ancona

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Rasmus Olsen Besthorn and Johan Ludvig Heiberg (eds.), Codex Leidensis 339, 1. Euclidis Elementa ex
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ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī (ed.), Arisṭūṭālīs fī al-samāʿ wa-l-āthār al-ʿulwiyya, Cairo 1961

Pieter L. Schoonheim (ed.), Aristotle’s Meteorology in the Arabico-Latin tradition, Leiden 2000

J. Brugman and Hendrik Joan Drossaart Lulofs (eds.), Aristotle. Generation of animals. The Arabic
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Überlieferung im Islam, Stuttgart 1989

John Tytler (ed.), The aphorisms of Hippocrates translated into Arabic by Honain ben Ishak, physician
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Richard Walzer (ed.), Galens Schrift über die Siebenmonatskinder, RSO 15 (1935), 323–57

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Malcolm C. Lyons (ed.), Galeni De causis contentivis libelli versio arabica (Berlin 1969), 50–73

Malcolm C. Lyons (ed.), Galeni De diaeta in morbis acutis secundum Hippocratem libelli versio
arabica (Berlin 1969), 74–111

Muḥammad Salīm Sālim (ed.), Kitāb Jālīnūs fī raq al-ṭibb lil-mutaʿallimīn, Cairo 1978

Muḥammad Salīm Sālim (ed.), Kitāb Jālīnūs ilā Ghalawqun fī l-taʾattī li-shifāʾ al-amrāḍ, Cairo 1982

Muḥammad Salīm Sālim (ed.), Kitāb Jālīnūs ilā Ṭūthrun fī l-nabḍ lil-mutaʿallimīn, Cairo 1985

Muḥammad Salīm Sālim (ed.), Kitāb Jālīnūs fī l-isṭaqisāt ʿalā raʾy Ibqurāṭ, naql Abī Zayd Ḥunayn b.
Isḥāq al-ʿIbādī al-mutaṭabbib, Cairo 1986

/
Emilie Savage-Smith (ed.), Galen On nerves, veins and arteries. A critical edition and trans. from the
Arabic, with notes, glossary and an introductory essay, Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison
1969

Hans H. Biesterfeldt (ed.), Galens Traktat, Daß die Kräfte der Seele den Mischungen des Körpers
folgen in arabischer Übersetzung, Wiesbaden 1973

Glen M. Cooper (ed.), De diebus decretoriis, from Greek into Arabic. A critical edition, with trans. and
comm., of Ḥunayn Ibn Isḥāq, Kitāb ayyām al-buḥrān, Farnham 2011

Felix Klein-Franke (ed.), The Arabic version of Galen’s Περὶ ἐθῶν, JSAI 1 (1979), 125–50

Manfred Ullmann (ed.), Die Schrift des Rufus von Ephesos über die Gelbsucht in arabischer und
lateinischer Übersetzung, Göttingen 1983

Manfred Ullmann (ed.), Rufus von Ephesos. Krankenjournale, Wiesbaden 1978

Manfred Ullmann (ed.), Die Schrift des Rufus von Ephesos über die Gelbsucht in arabischer und
lateinischer Übersetzung, Göttingen 1983

Albert Z. Iskandar (ed.), Galeni de optimo medico cognoscendo libelli versio arabica, Berlin 1988

César E. Dubler (ed.), La Materia médica de Dioscórides. Transmissión medieval y renacentista, vol. 2,
La versión árabe de la materia médica de Dioscórides, Barcelona 1952–9

Peter E. Pormann (ed.), The oriental tradition of Paul of Aegina’s Pragmateia, Leiden 2004

Wilhelm Kutsch (ed.),Ṯābit b. Qurra’s arabische Übersetzung der Ἀριθμητικὴ εἰσαγωγή des Nikomachos
von Gerasa, Beirut 1958

William Thomson (ed.), The Commentary of Pappus on Book X of Euclid’s Elements. Arabic text and
translation, Cambridge MA 1930, repr. Frankfurt am Main 1997

Nathan Sidoli and J. Len Berggren, The Arabic version of Ptolemy’s Planisphere or Flattening the
surface of the sphere. Text, translation, commentary, Sciamus. Sources and commentaries in exact
sciences 8 (2007), 37–139

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī (ed.), Manṭiq Arisṭū, 3 vols., Cairo 1948–52, repr. Kuwait and Beirut 1980

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī (ed.), Arisṭūṭālīs, al-Ṭabīʿa. Tarjamat Isḥāq b. Ḥunayn, 2 vols., Cairo 1964

Hans Daiber (ed.), Ein Kompendium der aristotelischen Meteorologie in der Fassung des Ḥunain ibn
Isḥāq, Amsterdam and Oxford 1975

Ilai Alon (ed ) The Arabic translation of Theophrastus’ Metaphysica JSAI 6 (1985) 163–217 /
Ilai Alon (ed.), The Arabic translation of Theophrastus Metaphysica, JSAI 6 (1985), 163–217
Dimitri Gutas (ed.), Theophrastus On rst principles (known as his Metaphyiscs). Greek text and
medieval Arabic translation, Leiden and Boston 2010

Paul Kraus and Richard Walzer (eds.), Galeni Compendium Timaei Platonis allorumque dialogorum
synopsis quae extant fragmenta, London 1943, repr. Nendeln 1973

Jacob Freudenthal (ed.), Die durch Averroes erhaltenen fragmente Alexanders zur Metaphysik des
Aristoteles, Berlin 1885

James Finnegan (ed.), Texte arabe du Περὶ νοῦ d’Alexandre d’Aphrodise, MFOB 33 (1956), 157–202

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī (ed.), Commentaires sur Aristote perdus en grec et autres épîtres, Beirut 1971

Charles Genequand (ed.), Alexander of Aphrodisias On the cosmos, Leiden, Boston, and Cologne
2001

Malcolm C. Lyons (ed.), An Arabic translation of Themistius’ commentary on Aristotle’s De anima,

Oxford 1973

Elvira Wakelnig (ed.), The other Arabic version of Proclus’ De aeternitate mundi. The surviving rst
eight arguments, Oriens 40 (2012), 51–95.

Studies

Sebastian Brock, Two letters of the Patriarch Timothy from the late eighth century on translations
from Greek, ASP 9 (1999), 233–46

Vittorio Berti, Vita e studi di Timoteo I, patriarca cristiano di Baghdad. Ricerche sull’epistolario e sulle
fonti contigue, Paris 2009

Dimitri Gutas, Greek thought, Arabic culture. The Graeco-Arabic translation movement in Baghdad
and early ʿAbbāsid society (2nd-4th/8th–10th centuries), London 1998

Pieter S. van Koningsveld, Greek manuscripts in the early Abbasid Empire. Fiction and facts about
their origin, translation and destruction, BO 3–4 (1998), 345–71

Marco Di Branco, Un’istituzione sasanide? Il Bayt al-Ḥikma e il movimento di traduzione, Studia

graeco-arabica 2 (2012), 255–63

Abdelhamid I. Sabra, The appropriation and subsequent naturalization of Greek science in

medieval Islam. A preliminary statement, History of Science 25 (1987), 223–43, repr. in F. Jamil Ragep
and Sally P. Ragep, with Steven Livesey (eds.), Tradition, transmission, transformation. Proceedings of
two conferences on pre-modern science held at the University of Oklahoma (Leiden 1996), 3–28
/
Youssef Eche, Les bibliothèques arabes publiques et sémi-publiques en Mésopotamie, en Syrie et en
Égypte au Moyen Age, Damascus 1967

Marie-Geneviève Balty-Guesdon, Le bayt al-ḥikma, Arabica 39 (1992), 131–50

Françoise Micheau, Les institutions scienti ques dans le Proche-Orient médiéval, in Roshdi Rashed
(ed.), Histoire des sciences arabes, vol. 3, Technologie, alchimie et sciences de la vie (Paris 1997), 233–
54

Dimitri Gutas and Kevin van Bladel, Bayt al-Ḥikma, EI3

Max Meyerhof, Von Alexandrien nach Bagdad. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des philosophischen und
medizinischen Unterrichts bei den Arabern, SB Preuss. Akad. der Wiss., Phil.-hist. Kl. 23 (1930), 389–
429

Gotthard Strohmaier, Von Alexandrien nach Bagdad. Eine ktive Schuhltradition, in Jürgen Wiesner
(ed.), Aristoteles Werk und Wirkung. Paul Moraux gewidmet, II (Berlin and New York 1987), 380–9

Dimitri Gutas, The “Alexandria to Baghdad” complex of narratives. A contribution to the study of
philosophical and medical historiography among the Arabs, Documenti e studi sulla tradizione
loso ca medievale 10 (1999), 155–93

Tamara M. Green, The city of the moon god. Religious traditions of Harran, Leiden 1992

Kevin van Bladel, The Arabic Hermes. From pagan sage to prophet of science, Oxford and New York
2009

Giuseppe Gabrieli, Nota bio-bibliogra ca su Qusṭā ibn Lūqā, Rendiconti della Reale Accademia dei
Lincei, V, serie XXI (1912–3), 341–82

Gerhard Endress, The circle of al-Kindī. Early Arabic translations from the Greek and the rise of
Islamic philosophy, in Gerhard Endress and Remke Kruk (eds.), The ancient tradition in Christian
and Islamic Hellenism. Studies on the transmission of Greek philosophy and sciences, dedicated to H. J.
Drossaart Lulofs on his ninetieth birthday (Leiden 1997), 43–76

Gerhard Endress, Building the library of Arabic philosophy. Platonism and Aristotelianism in the
sources of al-Kindī, in Cristina D’Ancona (ed.), The libraries of the Neoplatonists (Leiden 2007), 319–
50

Cristina D’Ancona, La Teologia neoplatonica di “Aristotele” e gli inizi della loso a arabo-
musulmana, in Richard Goulet and Ulrich Rudolph (eds.), Entre Orient et Occident. La philosophie et
la science gréco-romaines dans le monde arabe (Geneva 2011), 135–90

/
Cristina D’Ancona and Richard Taylor, Liber de Causis, in RichardGoulet (ed.), Dictionnaire des
philosophes antiques, Supplément (Paris 2003), 599–647

Ahmed Hasnawi, Alexandre d’Aphrodise vs Jean Philopon. Notes sur quelques traités d’Alexandre “
perdus ” en grec, conservés en arabe, ASP 4 (1994), 53–109

Gerhard Endress, The defence of reason. The plea for philosophy in the religious community,
ZGAIW 6 (1990), 1–49

Francis E. Peters, Aristoteles Arabus. The oriental translations and commentaries on the Aristotelian
corpus, Leiden 1968

Francis E. Peters, Aristotle and the Arabs, New York 1968

Christel Hein, De nition und Einteilung der Philosophie. Von der spätantiken Einleitungsliteratur zur
arabischen Enzyklopädie, Frankfurt am Main, Bern, and New York 1985

Helmut Gätje, Studien zur Überlieferung der aristotelischen Psychologie im Islam, Heidelberg 1971

Gerhard Endress, Mathematics and philosophy in medieval Islam, in Jan P. Hogendijk and
Abdelhamid I. Sabra (eds.), The enterprise of science in Islam. New perspectives (Cambridge MA
2003), 121–76

Gotthelf Bergsträsser, Neue Materialen zu Ḥunain ibn Isḥāq’s Galen-Bibliographie, AKM 19/2 (1932),
repr. Nendeln 1966

M. Meyerhof, New light on Ḥunain ibn Isḥâq and his period, Isis 8 (1926), 685–724, repr. in Fuat
Sezgin (ed.), Hunain ibn Ishaq (d. 260/873). Texts and studies, Frankfurt am Main 1999

Gotthard Strohmaier, Ḥunayn b. Isḥāḳ al-Ibādī, EI2

Gotthard Strohmaier, Der syrische und der arabische Galen, in Hildegard Temporini (ed.), Aufstieg
un Niedergang der römischen Welt 2, vol. 37, part 2 (Berlin and New York 1994), 1987–2017

Véronique Boudon-Millot, L’ecdotique des textes médicaux grecs et l’apport des traductions
orientales, in Richard Goulet and Ulrich Rudolph (eds.), Entre Orient et Occident. La philosophie et la
science gréco-romaines dans le monde arabe (Geneva 2011), 321–87

John Watt, Syriac translators and Greek philosophy in early Abbasid Iraq, Journal of the Canadian
Society for Syriac Studies 4 (2004), 15–26

Gerhard Endress, Saʿīd b. Yaʿḳūb al-Dimashḳī, EI2

Roshdi Rashed (ed.), Thābit ibn Qurra. Science and philosophy in ninth-century Baghdad, Berlin and
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N Y k
New York 2009
Dimitri Gutas, Platon. Tradition arabe, in Richard Goulet (ed.), Dictionnaire des philosophes
antiques, part Va (Paris 2012), 845–63

Rüdiger Arnzen, Plato’s Timaeus in the Arabic tradition. Legends—testimonies—fragments, in

Francesco Celia and Angela Ulacco (eds.), Il Timeo. Esegesi greche, arabe, latine (Pisa 2012), 181–267

Cristina D’Ancona, Aristotle and Aristotelianism, EI3

Henri Hugonnard-Roche, Porphyre de Tyr. Survie orientale, in Richard Goulet (ed.), Dictionnaire des
philosophes antiques, part Vb (Paris 2012), 1447–68

Gerhard Endress, Proclus de Lycie. Œuvres transmises par la tradition arabe, in Richard Goulet
(ed.), Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, part Vb (Paris 2012), 1657–74

Joel L. Kraemer, A lost passage from Philoponus Contra Aristotelem in Arabic translation (Simpl. De
caelo I, 3, 270b5–11), JAOS 75 (1965), 318–27

Gérard Troupeau, Un épitomé arabe du De contingentia mundi de Jean Philopon, in Enzo Lucchesi
and Henri D. Sa frey (eds.), Mémorial André-Jean Festugière. Antiquité païenne et chrétienne (Geneva
1984), 77–88

Ulrich Rudolph and Renate Würsch (eds.), Grundriß der Geschichte der Philosophie.Philosophie in
der islamischen Welt, vol. 1, 8.–10. Jahrhundert, Basel 2012.

3. Sources

Douglas M. Dunlop (ed.), The Muntakhab Ṣiwān al-ḥikmah of Abū Sulaimān as-Sijistānī. Arabic text,
introduction and indices, The Hague, Paris, and New York 1979

Ẓahīr al-Dīn al-Bayhaqī, Tatimmat Ṣiwān al-ḥikma, ed. Rafīq al-ʿAjam (ed.), Beirut 1994.

The works translated: editions and translations

Jaroslaus Tkatsch, Die arabische Übersetzung der Poetik des Aristoteles und die Grundlage der Kritik
des griechischen Textes, Vienna and Leipzig 1928–32

Alexander of Aphrodisias, Traité de la providence, Περὶ προνοίας, version arabe de Abū Bišr Mattā ibn
Yūnus, ed. Pierre Thillet, Paris 2003

Themistius, Paraphrase de la Métaphysique d’Aristote (livre Lambda), ed. Rémi Brague, Paris 1999

Wilhelm Kutsch and Khalil Georr, Texte arabe du Grand commentaire de la Physique d’Aristote par
Abū ʿAlī ibn al-Samḥ. 1er livre, MFOB 39 (1963), 266–310

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī (ed ) Commentaires sur Aristote perdus en grec et autres épîtres Beirut 1972 /
Abd al-Raḥmān Badawī (ed.), Commentaires sur Aristote perdus en grec et autres épîtres, Beirut 1972.
Studies

Gerhard Endress, Mattā b. Yūnus, EI2

Gerhard Endress, Grammatik und Logik. Arabische Philologie und griechische Philosophie im
Widerstreit, in Burkhard Mojsisch (ed.), Sprachphilosophie in Antike und Mittelalter, (Amsterdam
1986), 163–299

Joel L. Kraemer, Humanism in the renaissance of Islam. The cultural revival during the Buyid age,
Leiden, New York, and Cologne 19922

Henri Hugonnard-Roche, La Poétique. tradition syriaque et arabe, in Richard Goulet (ed.),

Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, Supplément (Paris 2003), 208–18

Gerhard Endress, The works of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. An analytical inventory, Wiesbaden 1977

Henri Hugonnard-Roche, Remarques sur la tradition arabe de l’Organon d’après le manuscrit Paris,
Bibliothèque Nationale, ar. 2346, in Charles Burnett (ed.), Glosses and commentaries on Aristotelian
logical texts. The Syriac, Arabic and medieval Latin traditions (London 1993), 19–28

Henri Hugonnard-Roche, L’Organon. Tradition syriaque et arabe, in Richard Goulet (ed.),

Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques (Paris 1989), 1:502–28

Maroun Aouad, La Rhétorique. Tradition syriaque et arabe, in Richard Goulet (ed.), Dictionnaire des
philosophes antiques (Paris 1989), 1:455–72

Elias Giannakis, The structure of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī’s copy of Aristotle’s Physics, ZGAIW 8 (1993),
251–8

Paul Lettinck, Aristotle’s Physics and its reception in the Arabic world, with an edition of the
unpublished parts of Ibn Bājja’s Commentary on the Physics, Leiden, New York, and Cologne 1994

Henri Hugonnard-Roche, De caelo. Tradition syriaque et arabe, in Richard Goulet (ed.), Dictionnaire
des philosophes antiques, Supplément (Paris 2003), 283–94

Marwan Rashed, De generatione et corruptione. Tradition arabe, in Richard Goulet (ed.),

Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, Supplément (Paris 2003), 304–14

M. Zonta, Les Éthiques. Tradition syriaque et arabe, in Richard Goulet (ed.), Dictionnaire des
philosophes antiques, Supplément (Paris 2003), 648–51

Richard Goulet and Maroun Aouad, Alexandros d’Aphrodisias, in Richard Goulet (ed.), Dictionnaire
des philosophes antiques (Paris 1989), 1:125–39
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H l t Gätj Si liki i d bi h Üb li f D Il ( 8 )6
Helmut Gätje, Simplikios in der arabischen Überlieferung, Der Islam 59 (1982), 6–31
Gerhard Endress, La “ Concordance entre Platon et Aristote ”. L’Aristote arabe et l’émancipation de
la philosophie en Islam médiéval, in Burkhard Mojsisch and Olaf Pluta (eds.), Historia philosophiae
medii aevi. Studien zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters (Amsterdam and Philadelphia
1991), 237–57

George Saliba, A history of Arabic astronomy. Planetary theories during the golden age of Islam, New
York and London 1994

Manfred Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam, Leiden and Cologne 1970

Manfred Ullmann, Die Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften im Islam, Leiden and Cologne 1972

Gotthard Strohmaier, La ricezione e la tradizione. La medicina nel mondo bizantino e arabo, in

Mirko D. Grmek (ed.), Storia del pensiero medico occidentale (Rome and Bari 1993–8), vol. 1,
Antichità e medioevo (1993), 167–215

F. Jamil Ragep and Sally P. Ragep, with Steven Livesey (eds.), Tradition, transmission, transformation.
Proceedings of two conferences on pre-modern science held at the University of Oklahoma, Leiden 1996

Gerhard Endress, The cycle of knowledge. Intellectual traditions and encyclopaedias of the rational
sciences in Arabic Islamic Hellenism, in Gerhard Endress (ed.), Organizing knowledge.
Encyclopaedic activities in the pre-eighteenth century Islamic world (Leiden 2006), 103–33

Gerhard Endress, Die dreifache Ancilla. Hermeneutik und Logik im Werk des Sayfaddīn al-Āmidī, in
Dominik Perler and Ulrich Rudolph (eds.), Logik und Theologie. Das Organon im arabischen und im
lateinischen Mittelalter (Leiden and Boston 2005), 117–45.

4. Studies

Marie-Geneviève Balty-Guesdon, Al-Andalus et l’héritage grec d’après les Ṭabaqāt al-umam de Ṣāʿid
al-Andalūsī, in Ahmad Hasnawi, Abdelali Elamrani-Jamal, and Maroun Aouad (eds.), Perspectives
arabes et médiévales sur la tradition scienti que et philosophique grecque (Leuven 1997), 331–42

Salma Khadra Jayyusi (ed.), The legacy of Muslim Spain, 2 vols., Leiden and New York 1992

Danielle Jacquart and Françoise Micheau, La médecine arabe et l’Occident médiéval, Paris 1990

Matthias M. Tischler and Alexander Fidora (eds.), Christlicher Norden, Muslimischer Süden.
Ansprüche und Wirklichkeiten von Christen, Juden und Muslimen auf der Iberischen Halbinsel im
Hoch- und Spätmittelalter, Munster 2011

Douglas M. Dunlop, Philosophical predecessors of Ibn Bājjah, IQ 2 (1955), 100–16

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Abdelhamid I. Sabra, The Andalusian revolt against Ptolemaic astronomy. Averroes and al-Biṭrūjī, in
Everett Mendelsohn (ed.), Transformation and tradition in the sciences. Essays in honor of I. Bernard
Cohen (Cambridge 1984), 133–53

Gerhard Endress, Averrois Opera. A bibliography of editions and contributions to the text, in
Gerhard Endress and Jan A. Aertsen (eds.), Averroes and the Aristotelian tradition. Sources,
constitution, and reception of the philosophy of Ibn Rushd (1126–1198) (Leiden, Boston, and Cologne
1999), 339–81.

Cite this page

D'Ancona, Cristina, “Greek into Arabic”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett
Rowson. Consulted online on 09 September 2020 <http://dx.doi.org.proxy.queensu.ca/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_27523>
First published online: 2016
First print edition: 9789004305748, 2016, 2016-1