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A scholarly movement in which translators translated books of science and wisdom from world languages into Arabic to share knowledge.
A major scholarly initiative that flourished in the Abbasid era, particularly at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad under caliphs like Harun al-Rashid and al-Ma'mun. Scholars and translators of diverse backgrounds collaborated to translate foundational texts in medicine, astronomy, mathematics, geometry, and philosophy into Arabic, sparking groundbreaking discoveries.
Storytellers (10–12) read the Explorers text, then cross to the Scholars text.
A major intellectual movement that began under late Umayyad rule and reached its zenith during the early Abbasid period in Baghdad (2nd–3rd centuries AH / 8th–9th centuries CE). Supported by caliphal and ministerial patronage, scholars such as Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Thabit ibn Qurra, and Ibn al-Muqaffa translated classical heritage from Greek, Syriac, Pahlavi, and Sanskrit into Arabic. Far from being mechanical translation, this movement involved rigorous critical editing, commentary, and standardization of scientific vocabulary, providing the indispensable foundation for original empirical science and philosophy in Islam.
Overview
The translation movement was the effort to render the books of ancient philosophy and science into Arabic in the Abbasid period. Ibn al-Nadim, in the Fihrist, relates an account of why so many of these books came into the lands of Islam. 2
Ibn al-Nadim's account
Ibn al-Nadim relates that al-Ma'mun saw in a dream a man sitting on his throne, who told him that he was Aristotle, and answered his question about the meaning of "the good." Ibn al-Nadim counts this dream among the strongest causes of the production of the books. 2
Al-Ma'mun wrote to the king of the Romans asking permission to translate what he chose of the ancient sciences kept in his treasury, and the king answered after refusing. Al-Ma'mun sent a group, among them al-Hajjaj ibn Matar, Ibn al-Bitriq, and Salm, who was in charge of the House of Wisdom, and they took what they found and translated it. 2
The Banu Shakir and the translators
The Banu Shakir, astrologers, took care to bring out books from the lands of the Romans, and they sent Hunayn ibn Ishaq and others. Ibn al-Nadim reports from Abu Sulayman al-Mantiqi that they paid the translators, among them Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Habish ibn al-Hasan, and Thabit ibn Qurra, about five hundred dinars a month. 2
This picture comes from Ibn al-Nadim alone. What is not recorded here, namely other sources that confirm or discuss it, needs a further source.
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Sources
- al-Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim , p. 339-340
- al-Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim , p.339-340
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “The Abbasid Translation Movement”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/concept/harakat-al-tarjama/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-25.