Systematization and Margins of the Translation of the Sciences of the Ancients into Arabic

Abstract

This article presents a critical study of the systematisation and the margins of the transmission of the sciences of the ancients into Arabic during the Middle Ages. To address this analysis, we will first focus on the dream of Caliph al-Ma'mūn that gave rise to the first translation project in the Arab-Islamic world. Secondly, we will examine the unpublished translation theories that al-Jāḥiz placed at the service of al-Ma'mūn's project. Thirdly, we will explore the close relationship that these theories had with the Mu'tazilí doctrine adopted by the political institutions to accelerate the process of transmission of the Greek scientific legacy to Arabic. Finally, we will analyse the ideological causes of the decline of translation in Eastern Islam and how the translation heritage became the raw material for the translation circle created in the Islamic West to transmit the scientific knowledge of the ancients to the Latin world.