Texts that outlasted empires

Hasdai ibn Shaprut was an intellectual born in 915 at Jaén who served the Caliph Rahman III in Córdoba, Spain, and from 961 his successor Hakam II. Hasdai studied medicine and was fluent in Hebrew, Arabic and in Latin, which was used in that society only by higher Christian clergy. Initially he was appointed physician to the Caliph, who increasingly employed him as vizier, with wide ranging influence over foreign affairs.

Hakam II continued the library construction of his father - himself amassing some 400,000 books: the catalogue of the royal library extended to 44 volumes and the library is said to have employed more than 500 scribes and translators. The Caliphate maintained 70 other libraries across Spain including those at major universities, and in numerous private libraries and mosques. Al-Hakam sent book-buyers to distant regions of the Muslim Empire and commenced a great program of replication and translation into Arabic of huge numbers of Greek books - forming a joint committee of Arab Muslims and Iberian Mozarab Christians.

Hasdai facilitated and extended this vast project with acquisitions from European states - himself leading a team to translate the botanical codex of Pedanius Dioscorides, acquired through an alliance that he negotiated with the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII. These Arabic editions became a precious resource for later European scholars, who made Latin translations - often after the loss of the Greek originals.