Greek Thought, Arabic Culture

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.

Dimitri Gutas is Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at Yale University. He is the author of Greek Wisdom Literature in Arabic Translation (1975), Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition (1988), and, with Gerhard Endress, A Greek and Arabic Lexicon (1992-).

Introduction; Part 1 Translation and Empire; Chapter 1 The Background of the Translation Movement; Chapter 2 Al-Man??r; Chapter 3 Al-Mahd? and his Sons; Chapter 4 Al-Ma'm?n; Part 2 Translation and Society; Chapter 5 Translation in the Service of Applied and Theoretical Knowledge; Chapter 6 Patrons, Translators, Translations; Chapter 7 Translation and History; Chapter 8 Epilogue;