THE ARABS. ' 2l& 



adherents of Islamisrn toward anatoraica] investigations im- 

 peded their advance in zoology. They remained contented 

 with that which they were able to appropriate to thernselvey 

 irom translations of the works of Aristotle and Galen ;* but, 



deaArahes, publ. par L. Am. Sediilot, t. i., 1834, p. 312-318; t. ii., 1835, 

 preface, with Humboldt's Examen Crit. de V Hist, de la Geogr., t. iii., 

 p. 64, and Asie Cenirale, t. iii., p. 593-596, iu which the data occur 

 whicla I derived from the Mappa Mtnidi of AlHacus of 1410, in the 

 " Alphonsine Tables,''^ 1483, and iu JNIadrignano's Itinerariuvi Portugal- 

 lensium, 1508. It is singular that Edrisi appears to know nothing of 

 Kliobbet Arin (Cancadora, more properly Kankder). Sediilot the 

 yoimger (in the Mimoire surles Systemes Gdographiqucs dcs Grecs et des 

 Arabes, 1842, p. 20-25) places the meridian of Arin in the group of the 

 Azores, while the learned commentator of Abulfeda, Reinaud {Memoire 

 sur VInde anterieurement au Xle siecle de Vere Chrclicnne d'apres les 

 icrivains Arabes ei Persans, p. 20-24), assumes that "the word Arin 

 has originated by confusion from Azpi, Ozein, and Odjein, an old seat of 

 cultivation (according to Biirnouf, Udjijayaui iu Malwa), the ^O^r/vrj of 

 Ptolemy. This Ozene was supposed to be in the meridian of Lanka, 

 and iu later times Arin was conjectured to be an island on the coast of 

 Zanguebar. perhaps the Hggvvov of Ptolemy." Compare, also, Am. 

 Sediilot, Mim. sur les Instr. Astron. des Arabes, 1841, p. 75. 



* The Calif Al^Mamuu caused many valuable Greek manuscripts to 

 be purchased in Constantinople, Armenia, Syria, and Egypt, and to be 

 translated direct from Greek into Arabic, iu consequence of the earlier 

 Arabic versions having long been founded on Syrian translations (Jour- 

 dain, Recherches CHt. sur V Age et sur VOrigine des Traductions Latines 

 d^Aristote, 1819, p. 85, 88, and 226). Much has thus been rescued by 

 the exertions of Al-Mamun, which, without the Arabs, would have 

 been wholly lost to us. A similar service has been rendered by Ar- 

 menian translations, as Neumann of Munich was the first to show. Un- 

 happily, a notice by the historian Guezi of Bagdad, which has been 

 preserved by the celebrated geographer Leo Africanus, in a memoir 

 entitled De Viris inter Arabes illustribus, leads to the conjecture that 

 at Bagdad itself many Greek originals, which were believed to be use^ 

 less, were burned ; but this passage may not, perhaps, refer to import- 

 ant manuscripts already translated. It is capable of several interpre 

 tations, as has been shown by Bernhardy {Grundriss der Griech. Litte- 

 ratnr, th. i., s. 489), in opposition to Heeren's Geschichte der Classischen 

 Litteratur, bd. i., s. 135. The Arabic translations of Aristotle have 

 often been found serviceable in executing Latin versions of the original, 

 as, for instance, the eight books of Physics, and the History of Animals ; 

 but the larger and better part of the Latin translations have been made 

 direct from the Greek (Jourdain, Reck. Crit. sur VAge des Traductions 

 d^ Aristote, p. 230-236). An allusion to the same two-fold source may 

 be recognized in the memorable letter of the Emperor Frederic H. of 

 Hohenstaufen, in w-hich he recommends the translations of Aristotle 

 which he presents, in 1232, to his universities, and especially to that of 

 Bologna. This letter expresses noble sentiments, and shows that it 

 was not only the love of natural history which taught Frederic IL to 

 appreciate the philosophical value of the " Compilationes varias qu;e 

 ab Aristotele aliisque philosophis sub GnBcis Arabicisque vocabulis an 

 tiquitus edita.' sunt." He writes as follows : " We have from onr earlies' 



