Worterbuch zu den griechisch-arabischen Ubersetzungen des 9. Jahrhunderts (review)

In Arabic translation, the De materia medica of Dioscorides and the De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis ac facultatibus (SM) of Galen were fundamental to the development of pharmacology and materia medica in the medieval Islamic world. The systematic analysis in Galen's SM, which is more attentive to the theory underlying and justifying pharmacology, begins (books I-V) with an assessment of the qualities and strengths of drugs, established according to objective criteria, and then proceeds to use this foundation as the rational basis for an alphabetical classification of medical plants (books VI-VIII), minerals (IX), animal products (X), and marine-based materials (XI). The work also reflects Galen's broad learning and interests: he quotes from classic historiography, literature, and philosophy, and recognizes that alongside the formal scientific medicine of his day there existed a folkloric tradition that was also influential (if regarded with suspicion by Galen himself). SM thus makes use not only of the terminology of Greek science, but also of everyday vocabulary, so that "Galen's work provides a portrait of the culture of his time" (p. 59).

Manfred Ullmann's purpose here is to provide, in dictionary form, a resource exploiting SM's potential as a source for promoting our understanding of the passage of Hellenistic culture and learning into the civilization of medieval Islam. But the task is not so straightforward, as Ullmann demonstrates in his introduction. First of all, we find that the commonly accepted attribution of the Arabic translation of the Greek text is wrong: the translator was not Hubaysh ibn al-Hasan, as stated in Hunayn's Risāla; this passage was added after the initial composition of the Risāla and is missing from an earlier version. The translator named in all of the manuscripts of the Arabic translation of the Galenic text is none other than Hunayn ibn IsHīq, and as the style of the translation is identical to that of Hunayn himself in his Risāla, it seems clear that he was responsible for the Arabic version. Another complication is that it is known that about seventy years before Hunayn, at about the beginning of the ninth century, the Greek text had already been translated by al-Bitrīq. Ibn al-Baytār, for example, at one point uses the older version by al-Bitrīq to correct Hunayn. So is there any place where this older version is attested? Ullmann finds that in an Istanbul manuscript the translation of book VI differs from the rest of the text and represents the work of another translator, and he argues convincingly that this is from the earlier translation by al-Bitrīq.

In his dictionary, then, Ullmann compares these two versions against the Greek text. Lemmata are arranged according to the Greek alphabet, and show how each Greek word or phrase was rendered in the two Arabic versions. One can therefore see at a glance how the two translators agreed and differed in their comprehension and rendering of what lay before them. As noted above, it is of special importance that the Galenic text reflects such a broad picture of the use and range of the Greek language in Hellenistic times; in this dictionary one thus also sees how all this was assimilated into Arabic learning in the early centuries of Islam. A large number of other Greek and Arabic texts are also brought to bear to clarify various terms and usages, and a concise index of Arabic words (pp. 801-904) will enormously facilitate use of the dictionary by those approaching Greco-Arabica from the Arabic side.

Language dictionaries should of course be based on actual attested usage. For modern literary Arabic there is the masterful work of Wehr, but for classical Arabic it will be many years before the Wörterbuch der klassischen arabischen Sprache, another major project for which Ullmann is largely responsible, will reach completion. For the Arabic literature translated from Greek...