Now these pseudo-Sabæans of Ḥarrán, a remnant of the ancient Syrian pagans of Mesopotamia, included “une élite d'hommes fort instruits, un corps d'aristocrates d'esprit, qui se sont distingués dans les sciences, et qui ont enrichi les littératures syrienne et arabe d'un grand nombre d'ouvrages traitant de diverses matières.”* Ḥarrán, since the time of Alexander the Great, had been deeply under the influence of Greece, so that it was surnamed <text in Greek script omitted>, and its inhabitants, though speaking at this time the purest dialect of Syriac, were in many cases partly Greek by extraction. Strongly opposed to the Christianity professed by most of their compatriots, they were deeply attached to Greek culture, and more particularly to the Neo-Platonist philosophy; and for this reason their city had long served as a rallying-point for all those, including the Emperors Caracalla and Julian the Apostate, who clung passionately to pagan Culture. And now, under the 'Abbásid Caliphate, it was these pagans of Ḥarrán who, more than any one else, imparted to the Muslims all the learning and wisdom of the Greeks which they had so jealously guarded; providing the capital of the Caliphs with a series of brilliant scholars, such as Thábit b. Qurra († A.D. 901), his son Abú Sa'íd Sinán, his grandsons Ibráhím and Abu'l-Ḥasan Thábit, his great-grandsons Isḥáq and Abu'l-Faraj, and many others, whose biographies will be found in chap. xii of the first book of Chwolson's great work. Many of these attained positions of the greatest eminence as physicians, astronomers, mathematicians, geometricians, and philosophers; and, thanks to their influence at a Court singular in the world's history for its devotion to learning, their co-religionists were suffered to continue in their thinly-disguised paganism.

The Syrians, both heathen and Christian, were, indeed, the great transmitters of Greek learning to the East, whence it was brought back by the Arabs to the West. The matter is so important that I subjoin a translation of Carl Brockel-mann's excellent remarks:—

“Syria and Mesopotamia were, from the time of Alexander the Great and his followers, exposed to the influences of Greek civilisation. The supremacy of the Romans and their successors the Byzantines in Syria furthered in every way the diffusion of Hellenic culture, which made special progress from the time when, associated with Christianity, it began to react on the religious sense of the people. The Syrians were, indeed, but feebly disposed for original production, but they were extraordinarily inclined and fitted to assimilate to themselves the results of foreign intellectual endeavour. Thus there arose in the Syrian monasteries numerous translations, not only of the spiritual literature most widely current in the Greek Church, but also of nearly all the profane authors (notably of Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen) who dominated the secular learning of that epoch.

“Already in the Persian Empire under the rule of the Sásánians the Syrians were the transmitters of Greek culture. Naturally it was only secular learning which was there promoted by the Court and Government. About the year A.D. 550 Khusraw Anúshirwán founded at Jundí-Shápúr in Khuzistán a university for the pursuit of philosophical and medical studies, and this plant of Græco-Syrian culture continued to flourish even into 'Abbásid times.

“Greek learning found a third home in the Mesopotamian city of Ḥarrán, whose inhabitants, surrounded by a wholly Christianised population, had retained their ancient Semitic heathenism. With them, as formerly in Babylon, the disposition for mathematical and astronomical studies was closely united therewith. But with them also, notwithstanding the fairly high level which they had already attained through the Assyrian-Babylonian civilisation, these studies did not remain uninfluenced by the Greek spirit.

“From all these three sources, now, was Greek learning brought to the Arabs in translations. Already at the Court of al-Manṣúr we meet with a physician from Jundí-Shápúr, who is supposed to have translated medical works into Arabic, while under Hárún flourished the translator Yuḥanná b. Másawayhi. But it was the Caliph al-Ma'mún, himself filled with understanding of, and a lively interest in, all scientific endeavours, who gave the greatest impulse to this activity. The Baytu' l-Ḥikma (‘House of Wisdom’), with its attached library and astronomical observatory, founded by him in Baghdad, was the culminating point of an active endeavour to promote learning. The translations produced under him and his immediate successors have entirely overshadowed those of the older school, and are alone preserved to us.”

Amongst the most eminent translators whose names here follow are the Christians, Qusṭá b. Lúqá of Ba'labakk (Baalbek); Ḥunayn b. Isḥáq of Ḥíra, his son Isḥáq, and his nephew Ḥubaysh.

Thus did the civilisation of 'Abbásid Baghdad become the inheritor of the ancient wisdom of Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, India, and Greece; and for this it was chiefly indebted to heathens like Thábit b. Qurra, Christians like Ḥunayn and Qusṭá, Magians, converted or unconverted, like Ibnu 'l-Muqaffa', * or Mu'tazilite “heretics” like 'Amr b. Baḥr al-Jáḥi dh, besides sundry Jews and Nabathæans. To this splendid synthesis the Arabs, though, as it has been said, “one of the acutest peoples that have ever existed,” lent little save their wonderful and admirable language; but the functions of assimilation, elucidation, and transmission they performed in a manner which has made mankind, and especially Europe, their debtors. That they were sensible of their own indebtedness to these non-Muslims, who bestowed upon them the wisdom of the ancients, appears, amongst other things, from the elegy composed in praise of Thábit b. Qurra, the Sabæan physician and mathematician, by the poet Sarí ar-Raffá,* wherein he says: “Philosophy was dead, and he revived it amongst us; the traces of medicine were effaced, and he restored them to light.”

Strange and heterogeneous were the elements which made up the intellectual atmosphere of Baghdad during the first century of 'Abbásid rule. The pious Muslims of Mecca and Madína who came thither were scandalised to find unbelievers invested with the highest offices at Court, and learned men of every religion holding friendly debate as to high questions of ontology and philosophy, in which, by common consent, all appeal to revealed Scripture was forbidden. Yet was there one religious community which seemed wholly excluded from the general toleration of that latitudinarian Court: to wit, the Manichæans, or Zindíqs as they were generally called. Persecutions of the Zindíqs are mentioned by Ṭabarí as occurring in the reign of al-Mahdí (A.D. 780, 782) and al-Hádí (A.D. 786-7). In the reign of Hárúnu'r-Rashíd a special Inquisitor (Ṣáḥibu 'z-Zanádiqa) was appointed to detect and punish Manichæans,* amongst whom not only Persians and other foreigners, but even pure Arabs, like the poets Ṣáliḥ b. 'Abdu' l-Quddús and Mutí' b. Ayás, were numbered. In the reign of al-Ma'mún, whose truly Persian passion for religious speculation earned him the title of Amíru'l-Káfirín, “Commander of the Unfaithful,”* the lot of the Zindíqs was less hard; nay, according to von Kremer* it was fashionable to pose as a heretic, and we find a poet remonstrating in the following lines with one of these sheep dressed in wolf's clothing:—

“O Ibn Ziyád, father of Ja'far!
Thou professest outwardly another creed than that which thou
hidest in thy heart.
Outwardly, according to thy words, thou art a Zindíq,
But inwardly thou art a respectable Muslim.
Thou art no Zindíq, but thou desirest to be regarded as in the
fashion!”