GREEK THOUGHT,
ARABIC CULTURE
With the accession of the Arab dynasty of the ‘Abbasids to power
and the foundation of Baghdad (762 AD), a Graeco-Arabic trans-
lation movement was initiated that lasted for well aver cwo centuries.
By the end of the tenth century, almost all scientific and philo-
sophical secular Greck works that were available in late antiquity,
including such diverse topics as astrology, alchemy, physics, mathe-
matics, medicine, and philosophy, had been translated into Arabic,
Greek Thought, Arabic Culrare explores the social, political, and
ideological factors operative in carly “Abbasid sociery that occasioned
and sustained the translation movement. Ie discusses the social
groups that supported and benefited from the translation movement
and studies the paramount role played by the incipient Arabic
scientific and philosophical tradition in its symbiotic relationship
with the translation movement. Finally, it traces the legacy of the
translation movement in Islamic lands and abroad, suggesting a
direet link with the ninch-century classical revival in Byzantium.
Greck Thought, Arabic Culture provides a stimulating, erudite and
well-documented analysis 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-).GREEK THOUGHT,
ARABIC CULTURE
The Graeco-Arabic Translation
Movement in Baghdad and Early
“Abbasid Society
(2nd—4th/8th-10th centuries)
Dimitri Gutas
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