Practice question · True or false
The translation of Greek philosophy and science into Arabic was chiefly an act of preservation, adding little of its own.
Hints
- Ask what al-Khwarizmi, Ibn Sina and Ibn al-Haytham are known for.
- Algebra, a medical canon taught in Europe for five centuries, and a new optics are not storage.
Show the answer
False
Why
False, and the framing is the problem. Translation was the base for original work: algebra as a discipline, systematic optics, advances in astronomy and medicine. The "preservation" story survives because it flatters a narrative in which Europe is the real heir and the intervening centuries merely held the books.
Practise The Making of an Islamic World
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