ABSTRACT
A classic article from the 1930s by Max Meyerhof, ‘From Alexandria to Baghdad’, established this catchphrase as an indicator of the passage of Greek culture, particularly in philosophy and medicine, from late antiquity to the early Islamic Near East. Meyerhof’s presentation is here reviewed, with a discussion of both its strengths and its shortcomings, and the new evidence and insights introduced which have emerged since his day. While his dependence upon the narrative in a work of al-Fārābī now seems insufficiently critical, judicious use of both Syriac and Arabic evidence enables us to see that his interest in identifying a scholarly institution supportive of Greek culture in the period between the end of the School of Alexandria and the rise of Arabic interest was not necessarily misplaced. Syriac evidence points to the school of Qenneshre as just such an institution.
