The House of Wisdom and the translations

Under the caliph al-Mamun, translation in Baghdad becomes a business of state: manuscripts are collected, translators paid, versions collated. The Christian Hunayn ibn Ishaq and his school render Galen and Hippocrates into Arabic; Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, the Persian chronicles and Indian astronomy follow. So there survived works whose Greek originals are lost; through the Arabic translations and their Latin renderings they will return to Europe. On these same books Jewish philosophy will be raised — from Saadia Gaon to Maimonides.