ABSTRACT
… in addition to the academies of Syriac learning, Muslims had also incorporated Harran into their realm during the Caliphate of ‘Umar … Situated on the small river Jullab, at the intersection of important caravan routes to Asia Minor, Syria and Mesopotamia, the town is believed to have been the birthplace of Abraham. According to al-Biruni, the town resembled the shape of the moon and it was a community of star worshippers … The Arabic translations from the Pahlavi, Sanskrit and Syrian texts preceded the translations from the Greek … The translation activity quickly gained momentum and by the time of al-Ma’mum the internal dynamic of the Islamic tradition of learning had clearly displayed a need for a more systematic, organized and larger-scale translation movement. Al-Ma’mum and several influential personages of his court responded positively to this need and established the famous ‘House of Learning’ which became the hub of one of the most fascinating cross-cultural movements of transmission of knowledge … This brief account of the translation movement helps us to construct the environment in which the Islamic tradition began to take shape … It received its kinetic flow from the reflection on nature and the human condition by the early Qur’an exegetes and, starting in the middle of the eighth century, it came upon a rich harvest of scientific texts, concepts, theories and techniques from Greek, Persian and Indian sources. What came into the body of Islamic thought from outside was neither accidental, nor marginal. It was as sustained, deliberate and systematic effort that actively sought manuscripts, books and personages to satiate its internal needs …
