EAST AND WEST 147 



al-Mansur, Harun al-Rashld, al-Ma Ynun — the new civilization 

 developed with incredible speed and efficacy. It was doubly rooted 

 in the past: the Prophet had transmitted to them with very few 

 modifications Semitic monotheism and morality, and their Persian 

 tutors had incited them to drink deeply from the older sources of 

 learning, Sanskrit and Greek. From the Hindus they learned arith- 

 metic, algebra, trigonometry, iatrochemistry; from the Greeks, 

 logic, geometry, astronomy, and medicine. It did not take them 

 long to realize the immensity of the Greek treasure and they had 

 no rest until the whole of it (that is, as much as was available to 

 them) was translated into Arabic. 



In this enterprise they received invaluable help from the Syrians 

 and other Christian subjects of the Caliphate who spoke Greek, 

 Syriac, and pretty soon Arabic. These Oriental Christians, though 

 somewhat Hellenized, had always been treated with suspicion and 

 disfavor by the Byzantine government, and if (as is very prob- 

 able) they shared Tatian's views, it is not surprising that no love 

 was lost between them. Being repulsed and persecuted by the 

 Greeks, their readiness to help their Muslim conquerors was not 

 astonishing. The Syrians spoke Arabic with so much alacrity 

 that they gradually allowed this new language to supersede their 

 own. These born polyglots were natural intermediaries; it is they 

 who prepared the earliest translations from the Greek into Arabic 

 and who initiated their masters in the Greek knowledge. Thus 

 were the first bridges between Hellas and Islam built by Chris- 

 tians. 



The immense cultural importance of Islam lies in the fact that 

 it finally brought together the two great intellectual streams which 

 had flowed independently in ancient times. Previous attempts, as 

 I have already indicated, had failed. Jews and Greeks had mixed 

 in Alexandria but, in spite of the fact that the former had learned 

 the language of the latter and that one of their learned men, Philo, 

 had made a deep study of both traditions, there had been no real 

 fusion. The Christians had not succeeded any better, because of 

 their single-hearted devotion to the new Gospel, which reduced 



