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Imagine the Khalifa Mammu standing at the entrance of a grand stone building in the 9th century Baghdad.

Listen to the sound that fills this space, the rustling of parchment, the murmur of scholars debating in half a dozen languages.

The Greco-Roman translation movement was unlike anything seen before.

The government sponsored scholars to study the works of ancient civilizations,

the famous Greeks, saving the texts of the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy,

from being completely forgotten.

But this was not mere preservation. Greek

philosophy met and intertwined with Islamic thought. Ancient medicine was tested

against new observations. Mathematical concepts were refined and expanded. This is the

story of how one civilization saved the knowledge of another,

and in doing so transformed itself and the intellectual trajectory of the entire world forever.

In order to understand this translation movement, we need to set up the scene and the context.

With little science, philosophy, or literature of their own, the early

Muslims embraced learning about the intellectual cultures of the people they conquered

with a gusto and enthusiasm rarely seen before. Al-Mansur himself had requested and received

a number of books from the Byzantine Emperor, including books of the great mathematician

Euclid. Then Abbasid military campaigns in Byzantine lands led to the acquisition of many more

Greek manuscripts during the times of Hanur Rashid, and also Al-Mamun sent further requests to the

Emperor Leo for sending over more Greek works.

Now the Arabs didn't know Greek, so they first employed translators from their non-Muslim subjects,

such as some of the Jewish and also Nestorian Christians.

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