The Translation Movement: Dialog between Greek and Islamic Civilizations

The precent article is an introduction by Franz Rosenthal, the prominent German orientalist, on a book in which he has tried to compile parts of the classic Islamic words that are in fact translations or adaptions of prior Greek texts; in order to prove the influence of Greek civilization on Islamic culture. The objective of this work is to explain the extent of the quantity and quality of Muslim contact with the Greek Classic heritage and various channels through which that heritage influenced the progressive Islamic thought of the succeeding ages. In his analytical introduction - the present translation - Rosenthal discusses the general importance of Islam's contact with the Greek Classic heritage and insists that this contact must be considered as the beginining of a fundamental and fruitful change in the history of mankind. In this view, west central Arabia can be regarded as a part, though a very far off one, of ancient Helenistic world. Considering the cultural revolution in the Arabian Peninsula following the advent of Islam and the Translation Movement of early Islamic centuries, he emphasizes the historical significance of the Muslims' adaptation of the Greek Classic heritage.