Methodology of Great Muslim Philosophers’ Encounter with the Translation Trend of the Abbassid Period

Researchers in the field of Islamic studies in the West have chosen the name of “Translation Movement” to refer to the trend of the translation of the books of different nations into Arabic during the Abbasid period. This trend, which continued for two centuries in different spontaneous or guided forms, received some reactions from the Islamic society. One of the important questions in this regard is what the attitude of the distinguished Muslim philosophers of that period, particularly al-Kindī, Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā, was to this movement. The present study indicates that, unlike the common response in the historiography of the translation trend, instead of a translation movement, during this time we are faced with a philosophical movement alongside a scientific one in the history of Islam. The philosophers mentioned above separated their judgments of three problems, namely, translation, translators and interpreters, and translated and interpreted works, from each other. Based on their own philosophical movement, which was in conformity with the principles of Islamic thought, they had three methodological, reformist, and critical reactions to this trend. They evaluated the translated works based on Islamic philosophical theorems and benefitted from them with some innovations in their own philosophical systems.