Translation and the Making of a Medical Archive

Translation has occupied a central role in the historiography of Islamic science and medicine, and the “Translation Movement” from Greek to Arabic is often considered the birth moment of the “Golden Age.” In this view, translation is understood as a transition in which knowledge moves across a linguistic divide. However, this translation-as-transition paradigm fails to capture the linguistic diversity that existed on both sides of this seeming divide, and the production and consumption of this translated knowledge and its diffusion beyond the spheres of learned scientific and medical practice. In this article, I look at translation in the history of Islamic medicine not as a transition but rather as a part of a larger and more comprehensive process of archive making. Through following the works of translators and historians, I investigate how translation contributed to the production of a particular form of learned medicine.