Arabic Translations (of Greek scientific works not extant in the original)
Numerous Greek medical, scientific, and philosophical works available in Late Antiquity
were translated into Arabic in the 8th–11th cc. An unknown number of these came by way
of Syriac and, to a lesser degree, P T. In Arabic tradition, these
originally Greek works were much used, commented upon, cited, criticized, corrected, and
built upon in continuity of scientific tradition. Many Arabic authors explicitly tell us that
they saw themselves as continuing the sciences of the ancients in their research.
The Greek authors whose works had the greatest impact and were the most numerous in
Arabic translation are those studied most extensively in Late Antique schools and hence
most easily available and recently copied. Foremost were A as interpreted by the
Neo-Platonists and G as systematized in a 6th c. Alexandrian medical curriculum.
On the other hand, because the reception of Greek science and philosophy in Arabic
occurred at the end of Late Antiquity, the earliest Greek philosophers’ views (such as those
of T and P) are mostly transmitted in Arabic in gnomologia and doxo-
graphies, just as in Greek and Latin tradition.
Among extant translations are many not surviving in their original Greek. Therefore
Arabic MSS contain genuinely ancient scientific works of great interest to historians of
ancient Greek science, even to those who have no concern whatever with Arabic tradition as
such. Examples of texts surviving only in Arabic include P’ first proposition on the
eternity of the world and A A’ refutation of Gale ̄n’s criticisms of
Aristotle’s physics, as well as many other ancient traditions. In the area of doxography, too,
Arabic works preserve doctrines of the ancients not preserved elsewhere: for example, 18%
of the sayings of Diogene ̄s the Cynic survive only in Arabic.
Listed here are Greek scientific authors some of whose known works survive only in Arabic
in part or in their entirety, either complete or fragmentary (citations). This incomplete list of
38 provides a fair picture of authors or works surviving only in Arabic, in fragments or
more: A (A.), Alexander of Aphrodisias, A P,
-A T, pseudo-A, pseudo-Aristotle, B,
D (M.), D, D S, “D,” E (five
works), E, Gale ̄n (at least 27 works), H T, H, pseudo-
H, I P, K H, M, N
D, O A, P, P, P
A, P (M.), P, Proklos, P, R E,
pseudo-S, T, T, T (on burning mirrors), T-
M, T, V A, and Z
P.
Most of these Greek works surviving only in Arabic have not yet been studied in detail. In
some cases (as with pseudo-So ̄krate ̄s), Arabic works are clearly forgeries attributed to
ancient authorities. But even then, it is often unclear whether these counterfeits are faithful
translations from lost Greek forgeries or pseudepigraphs composed in Arabic.
Excluded from the list above are numerous other Arabic translations of texts surviving in
the original Greek that are not “scientific” by the criteria used in this volume, numbering in
the hundreds. Research in Arabic literature is still in the early stages of providing a com-
plete account of this entire Greco-Arabic tradition. There are millions [sic] of Arabic MSS
extant today, found from western Africa to south-east Asia, not to mention in European
and American collections. This ocean of MSS is partly uncatalogued, and many of the
ARABIC TRANSLATIONS