In the Abbasid period, the Arab, Persian, Syriac and Indian scholars translated books of different fields such as medicine, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy and logic. Al-’abbood (1979: 148-153) summarizes the main reasons which encouraged the Arabs to transfer science and literature from other nations into Arabic:
1. Some Abbasid Caliphs, as Al-Mansour, Al-Rashid, and Al-Ma’moun, were interested in science. Books in medicine were translated during Al-Mansour period. The translation of books increased during Al-Rashid period. In Al-Ma’moun period, there was a remarkable increase in the transfer and translation of books from other languages. In this period, books in philosophy, engineering, music and medicine were translated.
2. Religious debates and discussions: the Arabs debated on some issues such as fate and destiny and wanted to explore the philosophy of other nations in this regard.
3. Need to know Greek philosophy and logic which facilitates discussions .
4.…show more content… The first method, associated with Yuhanna ibn al-Batriq and Ibn Naeemah al-Himsi, was a highly literal method translating each Greek word into its Arabic equivalent (word-for-word). In the absence of Arabic equivalents for Greek words, such words were borrowed into Arabic. This method was not successful and many of the translations rendered using this methods were later revised. The second method which was associated with Ibn Ishaq and Al-Jawhari was sense-for-sense translation. This method helped produce fluent target texts without distorting the norms of the target language. This Golden Period of translation under the early Abbasid rulers was followed by a period of original writing in various fields such as astronomy, alchemy, geography, linguistics, theology and philosophy. It is worth mentioning here that Arabic-speaking subjects of the Empire produced the most outstanding works in this