The Syriac Contribution to Arab Civilization

The aim of this book is to demonstrate the movement of Greek thought into Arabic via the Syriac language. After an introduction in which he offers a general overview of the question of the relationship between Syriac and Arabic and the translation of Greek texts into Arabic, in addition to short profiles of figures such as Abu Bishr Matta and Yahya b. ‘Adi, al-Hamad devotes the four sections of this book to profiling four different authors who either wrote in Syriac or whose works were transmitted into Arabic via Syriac translations: Porphyry, John Philoponos (‘the Grammarian’), Jacob of Edessa and Dionysios of Tellmahre. Special attention is paid to the philosophic and scientific content of their work.