Notes from the lecture

The Arabic connection


The books of Philo and Hero were only saved in Arabic translations. Otherwise they would have been lost.

Between the 8th and 10th Centuries AD the Arabs translated mostly the books of science (in the Christian West most of them werent studied until the 12th century according to the professor)

The Caliph Harun al-Rashid, founded "The House of Wisdom" in Bahgdad in 830. His son Al-Ma'mun, was the one who continued his work of gothering the known knowledge and at his time is when most of the Greek literature was translated.
The Arabs interest in the Greek literature was mainly for the applied knowledge, on mathematics, engineering, astronomy, geography and medicine.

Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809–873) an Assyrian Nestorian Christian physician and scientist, translated the greatest of the greek physicians Galin, Hippocrates and Pedanius Dioscorides but also Aristotle and Plato's Republic.

The Syrian Monophysite philosopher Qusta ibn Luqa (820–912), translated in Arabic the books of Hero and Euclid among others.

This is the difference between the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates and what we see today, he concluded.