Eighth to the Sixteenth Century - Rashid Islamic Center

128 • The Making of Islamic Scienceto another and is at times compared to Hunayn ibn Ishaq (d. 873),the Nestorian Christian who translated some 129 works from Greekand Syriac into Arabic and whom we have mentioned in Chapter 2.Another important aspect of this second phase of translations fromArabic into Latin is the absence of any substantial link between thetranslators of this period and the Muslim scholars and scientists wholived in the eastern parts of the Muslim world. Most of this translationactivity was based on what was available in Spain.During the thirteenth century, William of Moerbeke (fl. 1260–1286) rendered the entire Aristotelian corpus into Latin, along withmany works of Aristotle’s Muslim commentators. He also revisedolder translations and translated a number of neo-Platonic works.The most important translation for the science and religion discoursein Europe, however, was yet to come: the translations of Ibn Rushdby Michael Scot, a Scotsman who inaugurated Averroism into theEuropean tradition. Among other translations of note from thiscentury are Alfred Sareshel’s translation of the alchemical part ofIbn Sina’s al-Shifa and Michael Scot’s translation of al-Bitruji’s workon astronomy in 1217. In astronomy, the most important work of thiscentury was The Alfonsine Tables, drawn up at Toledo around 1272 byorder of the king of Castile and León, Alfonso X (d. 1284). Alfonsowas the son of Ferdinand III (d. ca. 1252), the conqueror of someof the most important cities of Muslim Spain including Cordoba,Murcia, and Seville. Alfonso’s entourage included many scholars, bothChristian and Jewish, who knew Arabic. He patronized translationsfrom Arabic into Castilian, making it a new vehicle for scientificcommunication. These new tables extended the scope of translationsfrom Arabic. Their impact on the Latin astronomical tradition shouldbe seen in the context of an already existing Islamic influence onLatin astronomy due to translations of the astronomical tables ofal-Khwarizmi and other Muslim scientists. The Alfonsine Tables tookfull advantage of the earlier translations, in particular building uponthe Toledian Tables, a compendium of Islamic astronomical tablescompiled by Said al-Andalusi and his circle and translated into Latinin the twelfth century.The Alfonsine Tables divided the year into 365 days, 5 hours, 49minutes, and 16 seconds. Once translated into Latin (in 1320s Paris)