Account of Scientific Transmission

Mid-12th Century

About This Entry

This passage comes from the introduction that Abraham Ibn Ezra wrote to his Hebrew translation of an Arabic commentary, written by the tenth-century Muslim Ibn al-Muthannā, on a set of astronomical tables by the ninth-century Muslim al-Khwārizmī. In it, Ibn Ezra describes the transfer of Indian astronomy to the Islamic world. Medieval Jewish rationalists, trying to validate their engagement with “secular” studies like philosophy, sometimes claimed that Jewish sages were the original source of Greek scientific wisdom. Ibn Ezra’s own scientific works played a critical role in the transfer of Arabic knowledge to Latin Europe, and many of his Hebrew texts were translated into Latin.

In ancient days, neither wisdom nor religion was found among the Arabs who dwell in tents, until the author of the Koran arose and gave them a new religion from his heart. After him came wise men who composed many books on their religious law, until there arose a great king of the Arabs whose name was al-Ṣafāḥ. He heard that in India there were many sciences, and so he ordered that a wise man be sought, fluent in both Arabic and the language of India, who might translate one of the books of their wisdom for him. He thought that some mishap might befall the translator because profane sciences were still unknown in Islam. They had only the Koran and wise traditions which they received from Muḥammad. He was told by certain people that there was a very distinguished book concerning counsels for government in the manner of fables from the mouths of dumb animals and that it contained many illustrations pleasing to the eye of the reader. The name of the book is Kalila wa-Dimna, which means the lion and the bull, and it is so called because they are spoken of in the first chapter. [Al-Ṣafāḥ] fasted from that day in the hope that the angel of dreams might appear and permit the book to be translated for him into Arabic. Then in a dream he saw what he had hoped for. So he sent for a Jew who knew both languages and ordered him to translate this book, for he feared that if an Arab were to translate the book, he might die. When he saw how wonderful the book was, for so it truly is, he yearned for more knowledge of the sciences of India, as may be seen. He gave great wealth to the Jew who translated that book so that he might travel to the city of Arin on the equator under the signs of Aries and Libra, where day is equal to night throughout the year, neither shorter nor longer, thinking, “perhaps he will succeed in bringing one of their wise men to the king.” So the Jew went and indulged in many subterfuges after which, for a large sum, one of the wise men of Arin agreed to go to the king. The Jew swore to him that he would detain him for only one year and that he would return him to his home. The scholar, whose name was Kanka, was brought to the king, and he taught the Arabs the basis of numbers, i.e., the nine numerals.

Then from this scholar, with the Jew as an Arabic-Indian interpreter, a scholar named Jacob b. Sharah translated a book containing the tables of the seven planets, all the procedures for the earth, the rising times of the zodiac signs, the declination and the ascending degree of the ecliptic, the arrangement of the astrological houses, knowledge of the upper stars, and eclipses of the luminaries.

Translated by Bernard R. Goldstein.

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Notes

Words in brackets appear in the original translation.

Credits

Abraham Ibn Ezra, “Account of Scientific Transmission,” from Ibn al-Muthannā’s Commentary on the Astronomical Tables of al-Khwārizmī, ed. and trans. Bernard R. Goldstein (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1967), 147–48. Used with permission of the publisher.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 3: Encountering Christianity and Islam.