The Translation Movement of the Abbasid Period, which lasted for almost
three hundred years, was a unique event in world history. During this
period, much of the intellectual tradition of the Greeks, Persians, and
Indians was translated into Arabic-a language with no prior history of
translation or of science, medicine, or philosophy. This book
investigates the cultural and political conflicts that translation
brought into the new Abbasid state from a sociological perspective,
treating translation as a process and a product.
The opening chapters outline the factors involved in the initiation and
cessation of translational activity in the Abbasid period before dealing
in individual chapters with important events in the Translation
Movement, such as the translation of Aristotle's Poetics into Arabic,
Abdullah ibn al-Muqaffa's seminal translation of the Indian/Persian
Kalilah wa Dimna into Arabic and the translation of scientific texts.
Other chapters address the question of whether the Abbasids had a theory
of translation and why, despite three hundred years of translation, not
a single poem was translated into Arabic. The final chapter deals with
the influence of translation during this period on the Arabic language.
Offering new readings of many issues that are associated with that
period, informed by modern theories of translation, this is key reading
for scholars and researchers in Translation Studies, Oriental and Arab
Studies, Book History and Cultural History.
