Furthermore, when one surveys the texts that were translated during the Abbāsid times, one finds a major qualitative difference between the texts that were translated then and the texts that were translated before, either into Syriac or into Pahlevi. In the earlier times, such elementary, mainly descriptive texts were translated into the various languages. In the later Abbāsid times, most of the books that were sought for translation were on the whole theoretical in nature and were much more sophisticated in content. In contrast, one finds in the later period such translations as the Almagest of Ptolemy, Euclid's Elements, the Arithmetica of Diophantus, the Conics of Apollonius, and the Arithmetic of Nicomachus, and also more descriptive yet analytically theoretical texts, such as the Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy. There is no record that even the Tetrabiblos was been translated into Syriac or Pahlevi in pre-Abbāsid times. The Syriac text that is designated as the Tetrabiblos at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France [Syr. 346, fols. 1-35] is in fact a paraphrase, and a poor one at that, and not a translation of the type that was done in the case of the more theoretical texts that were translated into Arabic during the Abbāsid times. And yet we do not even know when this paraphrase was produced.
Therefore, when the classical narrative seeks the motivation for the translation activity in the dominance of the "Persian elements" in the Abbāsid empire, and in their desire to reclaim what they thought was theirs of the Greek sciences, that explanation creates more difficulties than it resolves, for it remains completely silent about the lack of concrete evidence for such motivation at the time of the supreme Persian ascendancy during Sasanian times. Furthermore, the legend of the translation of Persian sciences into Greek at the time of Alexander is not such a reliable story that it could be used as an explanatory basis for the translation movement that took place during the early Abbāsid times. In fact, the story itself is a part of the phenomenon of the translation movement itself and a feature of the intellectual life of early Abbāsid times and not the explanatory cause of it. In all likelihood, the story was created after the facts and thus itself needs to be explained.
(2) Another motivation for the translation activity during early Abbāsid times, which is often cited by proponents of the classical narrative, is the ascension of al-Ma'mūn to power in 813, and his reliance on the Mu'tazilite school of Kalam as a state theology. This particular caliph is often endowed with an interest in the philosophical sciences and a preoccupation with introducing the Mu'tazilite doctrines in the realm, so much so that he began to see dreams that justified his disposition. In one of those dreams he is supposed to have seen Aristotle himself,[27] and to have had the chance to interrogate the great master about the great ethical and philosophical issues of the day. He asked Aristotle, for example, "What is good?" Aristotle is supposed to have replied "That which is good in the mind." And when asked "What next?" Aristotle is supposed to have answered "That which is good in the law." When al-Ma'mūn persisted in asking "What next?" Aristotle is supposed to have added "That which is considered good by the people." But when he again asked "What next?" Aristotle stopped and said "There is no next." In another account, Aristotle is supposed to have continued to advise al-Ma'mūn to treat those "who advised him about gold like gold" (an apparent reference to alchemists), and then he is supposed to have said "and you should adhere to the oneness of God ('alaika bi-l-tawḥīd)." The last phrase is an obvious reference to the Mu'tazilite doctrine, as those people were called "the people of oneness" (ahl al-tawḥīd) on account of their insistence on God's oneness, which did not even allow the Qur'an, God's speech, to have been co-existent with Him at the beginning of time.
(3) The third motivation is also associated with the Mu'tazilites and their connection with al-Ma'mūn, who made their doctrine official state doctrine. This policy was also followed by two of his successors and eventually led to a type of inquisition often referred to in the sources as the miḥna (testing/ interrogation, inquisition),[28] hardly an enlightened open environment for scientific inquiry. In this miḥna people were supposed to declare that the Qur'an was created in time, specifically in agreement with the Mu'tazilite doctrine that insisted on God's oneness in the beginning. People who refused to adopt such a doctrine, including the great jurist Aḥmad b. Hanbal (d. 855), were put in jail.[29] This climate is supposed to have energized philosophical thinking during that period of Abbāsid rule, or at least so the classical narrative goes, and thus it must have motivated the acquisition of the major Greek philosophical texts, and thus opened the doors for the vast translations that followed. In other words, the classical narrative asserts that once the doctrinal debates within Islamic society reached their peak to become part of state policy, the state must have encouraged the translations of all those philosophical and scientific texts in order to buttress its intellectual position.
This explanation could have been plausible had it been supported by the facts. In this regard, the historical sources tell us that the Mu'tazilite connection with the state was indeed very short-lived, and when the caliph al-Mutawakkil came to power (847 A.D.) he not only reversed the policies of al-Ma'mūn but went on to support the Mu'tazilite opponents, at this time called ahl al-ḥadīth (people of tradition—meaning people who sought legal justifications in the traditions of the prophet, and less so in human reasoning as the Mu'tazilites had done). And yet it was during the reign of this last caliph that the greatest amount of translations from Greek sources were ever accomplished and mostly by the prolific translator of the time, the famous Ḥunain ibn Isḥāq (d. 873), who worked as a physician at al-Mutawakkil's court. The books that were translated from Greek, mostly during the time of al-Mutawakkil, far outweigh those that were patronized by al-Ma'mūn. In fact I know of only one surviving book that is expressly designated as having been translated at the order of al-Ma'mūn, but I am not sure whether that designation was there on the book when it was first translated in 829 or whether it was added later by an owner or some other librarian trying to give its history.[30]
The classical sources do in fact speak of all sorts of scientific activities that were patronized by al-Ma'mūn, some apparently verifiably real such as the mission he sent to the desert of Sinjar to measure the length of one degree along the Earth's meridian,[31] and to conduct some astronomical observations. Other, perhaps more fanciful, stories such as the missions he sent to Constantinople to acquire Greek scientific manuscripts or Greek scientists speak to some interest this caliph may have had in such matters.[32] But it is never clear whether those activities were indeed ordered by al-Ma'mūn himself or by bureaucrats working in his administration. The role of the bureaucrats will become clearer in the next chapter. For now, the same historical sources, report that the later bureaucrats, who worked in al-Mutawwakil's administration, were themselves the ones who sponsored and paid for a great number of books to be translated. They also executed a great number of scientific and technological projects.[33] In fact I do not know of a single book that was translated for al-Mutawakkil himself, despite the great intellectual activities that took place during his reign, but I know of a great number of books that were translated for three brothers, known collectively as Banū Mūsā, who worked at his court, and sometimes at great risk. I shall have reason to return to this aspect of the translation movement in the following chapter when I explain the alternative narrative regarding the rise of science in early Islamic times. For now, I continue with the critique of the classical narrative.
27
This story is elegantly parsed and deconstructed by Gutas (
28
On both of these terms, the Mu'tazila and their miḥna, see
30
A note on the title page of one of the Arabic translations of the
31
See, for example,
32
For the status of the manuscripts in Constantinople at that time, and the level of science in that city, see Gutas,
33
See, for example, the reports about the patronage of the three sons of Mūsā during the caliphate of al-Mutawakkil as reported by Ḥunain b. Isḥāq, the main translator of the period, in the treatise edited by Bergstrasser, and their undertaking of the digging of canals which they apparently sub-contracted in one instance to their protégé Ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī (d. after 861). The account of this failed project and the rescue of Banū Mūsā by the mathematician and engineer Sanad Ibn 'Alī (d. 864) is recounted in Ibn Abī Uṣaybi'a's