The Philological Rendering of Arabic Medical Texts into Modern Western Languages

Abstract

In order to better understand the problems that arise when accessing and interpreting medieval Arabic medical texts, it is helpful to discuss the origins of the texts themselves. When the Islamized Arabs set out in the seventh century to conquer the lands bordering the Arabian peninsula, they encountered peoples whose cultures were more developed than their own. At first, for political reasons, the administrations of these conquered regions were left completely untouched, and all contact with the native populations was avoided. Only military camps were founded, although these grew nonetheless in the course of time. Only after about one hundred years did Arabic become the administrative language, it having taken the native populations that long to acquire it as a colloquial language.¹ The common speech that developed in this way had a great influence on the written Arabic in which medical texts were then written. Today, when we speak of “Arabic medicine,” it is only because the texts were written in that language, not because they were an independent creation of an Arabian or Islamic culture. The cultural envoys who used this language were themselves the Hellenized scholars of conquered peoples: Christians, Jews, and Persians.² Hellenistic tradition — in local raiment — was thus of decisive importance for Islamic learning.