ALCH · Early Arabic Literature in Context: the Hellenistic Continuum

Early Arabic Literature in Context: the Hellenistic Continuum.

The project entitled "Early Arabic Literature in Context: the Hellenistic Continuum" started from the study of a number of biographical notices on the ancient sages and prophets preserved by Arabic authors and scientists between the ninth and the thirteenth century. These entries are preserved in a variety of books which served as encyclopaedias and reference tools for scholars who added material of their own as the books were copied. The focus of the project was the important but little-studied book of al-Mubashshir Ibn Fatik, The Choicest Maxims and Best Sayings, written at the Fatimid (Shii) court in Cairo in the middle of the eleventh century. At first glance a collection of wise sayings, as well as a dictionary of philosophers' biographies, Ibn Fatik's Choicest Maxims adds the prophets of Antiquity to the famous Greek philosophers and physicians. Translated into Spanish under the title of Bocados de Oro and from there on, into Latin [the anonymous Liber Philosophorum Moralium Antiquorum], Provençal, Old French [Guillaume de Tignonville's Les dictz moraulx des Philosophes], Old English [Stephen Scrope's Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers], the book was a success of Medieval literature. The idea of a Hellenistic continuum stemmed from the discovery of parallels between Ibn Fatik's Choicest Maxims and Greek and Latin texts preserved from the Roman era on and depending ultimately on lost Hellenistic texts. One of the research questions was whether it could be established that the information available to the translators of Baghdad and Cairo did not stem only from Late Antiquity, but also from earlier times. Another research question, that of the reliance on Greek or Syriac originals, could not always be answered since we can find elements leading to both. The polyglottism of the translators and their methods of working from several different texts are key factors in this apparent aporia. A conclusion from the case-studies achieved during the project is that the classical Greek library had fallen from interest during the centuries preceding the Graeco-Arabic translation movement. It is rather through the important medical works that we find an important corpus of texts assembled, edited and enriched during the Roman period and later, circulating all over the Near and Middle East, from Syria to Egypt and Iran. Galen's medical works included long discussions on philosophy, logic, but also some literary material. These all passed into Arabic, as Galen's own works and his commentaries of Hippocrates represent a massive part of the Greek legacy available to Arabic medieval readers. A better awareness of the common Mediterranean heritage is a desideratum in a world where religious fundamentalism is on the rise. In the Arab world, interest in what could be called the 'classics' has always existed, but the recent domination of Gulf money on most projects has somehow slowed down cultural projects of non-religious content. As a result, the understanding of the history of religions is far from satisfactory from a scholarly perspective. The achievements of the different Arabo-Islamic courts in the fields of sciences occurred when societies where pluralistic and cosmopolite. An accurate representation of the past is a prerequisite for mutual acceptance and dialogue. For this reason, the common Hellenistic, Roman and Late Antique heritage has to be put in the foreground. In the long term, primary and secondary schools in the Mediterranean countries should consider the benefits of organizing regularly a "Heritage week" where the history of any area will be highlighted, from prehistory to the Middle Ages, with an emphasis on the multiplicity of cultures and languages. Dr Emily Cottrell, Post-doctoral fellow, ERC Advanced Project "Greek Into Arabic", University of Pisa, emilycottrell@yahoo.fr

Data: CORDIS, © European Union