KNOWLEDGE is the hallmark of an advanced and civilized society. Islam also stands for a knowledge-based society, where knowledge is not merely some black marks on a white sheet of paper but shapes a particular way of life, i.e. Islam. Inspired by this noble vision, Muslims started learning and pursuing the knowledge, which was not earlier accessible to them. Translation became the tool, which speeded up the process of acquiring knowledge, leading to the creation of a noble society. The birth of Islam in the 7th century is the most important event in the history of the Arab people. It changed the political, cultural and linguistic landscape of the area forever. The spread of Islam began during the lifetime of the Noble Prophet (peace be upon him) and gathered phenomenal speed after his death in 632 C.E. By 698 C.E., Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt and North Africa became part of the new political and religious order. Islam presents a system of life built around a body of beliefs and a well-defined approach to individuals and society. The Islamic social order, built around certain sound principles and practices earlier unknown to mankind, stood as a unique innovation and project in human history. Islam has laid great emphasis on knowledge. It has made seeking knowledge obligatory for every Muslim man and woman. The Qur'an is full of exhortations to pursue knowledge. The very first Qur'anic revelation is such a forceful exhortation for the acquisition of knowledge. It says, ‘Read: In the name of your Lord Who created man from a clot. Read and your Lord is the most bounteous, Who taught man that which he knew not.' The traditions (Ahadith) of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) offer further insight into education. One Hadith says, ‘He who goes forth in search of knowledge is in the way of Allah till he returns,' while another says, ‘the superiority of the learned man over the devout man is like mine over the most contemptible among you. God, his angles, the inhabitants of the heaven and earth, even the ants in their hole and the fish in water invoke blessings on him who teaches men what is good.' This approach towards knowledge encouraged members of the Muslim community to acquire and cultivate it. As a result, search for knowledge thus became a noble goal of life. But at the same time, Islam firmly believes in the imperative necessity of utility, honesty and purity in the cultivation and advancement of knowledge; it does not subscribe to the concept of knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) himself was Ummi (unlettered), but he did not spare any occasion to get his followers educated. For instance, he gave some of the captives of the Battle of Badr the assignment of educating at least 10 Muslim children each. Thus, he fixed their ransom to teach the art of reading and writing to the children of Muslim society. It was under his dynamic leadership that a community of almost illiterate and ignorant people turned into the torchbearers of knowledge and learning, culture and civilization, and spread out to the nooks and comers of the then known world. In the period of the rightly-guided Caliphs, i.e. Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali, the frontier of the Islamic State extended far beyond the Arabian Peninsula. This proved rewarding in the sense that the process of synthesis between the cultures and traditions of the conquered people and the conquerors started. The Muslims did not spare any effort in the enormous task of educating and directing the communities, which were entering the fold of Islam. Simultaneously, they realized the importance of learning the languages, cultures and science of the conquered nations and made every possible effort in that direction. Following the sincere efforts of the pious Caliphs, the Umayyads and later on Abbasids built the magnificent super-structure of their unprecedented literary and academic achievements. The Umayyad period witnessed a number of developments, which laid the long-term foundations of the Islamic Empire: The development of a postal service, Arabic coinage and, most importantly, the establishment of Arabic as the official language of administration. Translation activity also gained impetus during this period. There is a general agreement that the first translations were carried out during this period which were from Greek and Coptic into Arabic. Al-Nadim claims in his book, Al-Fihrist that it was Prince Khalid, son of the second Umayyad Caliph, who commissioned the first translations from Greek and Coptic, having turned to the pursuit of knowledge following his failure to secure the position of Caliph. Al-Nadim further suggests that the first treaties to be translated were on alchemy, because Khalid believed it was possible to turn minerals into gold. The translations also included treaties on medicine and astrology during this period. A vast amount of Greek gnomologia (wisdom literature) was translated into Arabic towards the end of the Umayyad period, including virtually all gnomologia connected with Aristotle and Alexander. These translations were to have a strong influence on Arabic poetry in the 9th and 10th centuries. The Umayyad Caliphs, no doubt, contributed towards progress in science, arts and translations and laid down the foundation for the great cultural, scientific and material progress of the Abbasid period. The Abbasid Caliphate was the most glorious period in Arab history in terms of higher material, cultural and intellectual development. The Umayyad Empire, from first to last, was co-ordinate with the limits of Islam and consisted of largely Arabs, which is no longer true of the Abbasid Empire. It was overall more international in composition and character, with ethnic Arabs forming only one part of the nation. It represented the longest period stretching from 750 C.E. to 1285 C.E. The Abbasid period is associated with the legendary stories of Arabian Nights, Kalila wa Dimna and House of Wisdom on the one hand, and the scholars of great standing as Ibn Sina, Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Al-Beruni, Al-Tabari, Al-Masudi and many other luminaries on the other. Commentaries on the Qur'an were written, the traditions of the Prophet were gathered and sifted and schools of jurisprudence were developed. Thousands of books were translated and written on different topics. After the conquest of Alexandria in 642 C.E., the Arabs began to look into the riches of its great scholarly tradition. The first centre of education was founded in the early 8th century in Egypt and Iraq. Later on, Abbasid Caliphs took an active interest in translation. Al-Mansur – the second Abbasid Caliph – commissioned a number of translations and set up a translation chamber. Al-Rashid similarly supported translation activity and enlarged the translation chamber set up by Al-Mansur. But it was Al-Mamun, whose reign, known as the Golden Era of Islam, established the most important institution, i.e. Bayt Al-Hikma (House of Wisdom) in 830 C.E., which became the popular centre of higher learning and translation in the Arab-Islamic history. Bayt Al-Hikma, in Baghdad, worked as an academy, library and translation bureau. It had a strength of 65 translators, working from Greek, Syriac, Persian, Sanskrit and Aramaic. Al-Nadim in his book Al-Fihrist says that in Bayt Al-Hikma alone 47 translators worked from Greek and Syriac, 17 from Persian, two from Sanskrit and one from Aramaic. An amazing amount of knowledge, wisdom and scholarship from the above-mentioned languages were translated into Arabic under the Abbasid Caliphs. Ptolemy's geography was translated into Arabic several times, most notably by Thabit Bin Qurrah. Greek works on moral philosophy, starting with Aristotle's Ethics, were among the first to be translated, which laid the foundation for the indigenous version of philosophy known as Ilm Al-Akhlaq. Indian works like the Hindu numeral system, the “Zero” and others were introduced into the Muslim world, and later to Europe via translation. A great number of the translators active during this period were also Christian. The most notable was Yuhanna Bin Masawayh, who headed Bayt Al-Hikma and wrote Daghal Al-Ayn (Disorder of the Eye). The other most outstanding translator during this period was Hunayn Bin Ishaq, who was paid by Al-Mamun in gold, matching the weight of books he translated. He is credited with translating around 100 manuscripts into Syriac and 39 into Arabic, including the works of Aristotle, Plato and Ptolemy. Two methods of translation seem to have been adopted during this period. The first, associated with Yuhanna Bin Al-Batriq and Bin Naima, was highly literal and consisted of translating each Greek word with an equivalent Arabic word and, where none existed, borrowing the Greek word into Arabic. This method was not successful overall and many of the translations carried out by Al-Batriq, were later revised under Al-Mamun, most notably by Hunayn Bin Ishaq. The second method, associated with Bin Ishaq and Al-Jawhari, consisted of translating sense-for-sense, creating fluent target texts, which conveyed the meaning of the original without distorting the target language. This golden era of translation under the Abbasid rule was followed by a rich period of original writing in many fields, including astronomy, alchemy, geography, linguistics, theology and philosophy, which were later translated into Latin and became one of the sources of European Renaissance. The Arabs undoubtedly are credited with initiating the first organized, large-scale translation activity in history. This activity started during the reign of the Umayyads and reached its zenith under the Abbasids. The flowering of knowledge in the Muslim world during the 10th and llth centuries later provided impetus for the development of all branches of knowledge in the West, including natural sciences and philosophy. It could not have happened without the implementation of the intense programme of translation carried out under the Abbasid Caliphs. – The writer was formerly a Research Scholar, Department of Arabic, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. __
