Final Report Summary - ALCH (Early Arabic Literature in Context: the Hellenistic Continuum.)
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