Arab translators and Islam’s golden era

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.



sumber dari: saudigazette.com.sa