Dear Reader,
Peace be upon you.
One night in Baghdad, the 9th
century Caliph Al-Mamun was visited by a dream. The philosopher Aristotle
appeared to him, saying that the reason of the Greeks and the revelation of
Islam were not opposed. On waking, the Caliph demanded that all of
Aristotle’s works be translated into Arabic, and they were.
Over the next 200 years (about 800 A.D. to 1150 A.D.) major works in philosophy,
medicine, engineering and mathematics in Greek, Syriac, Sanskrit, Pahlavi and
other languages were translated into Arabic. This endeavour became known as the
'translation movement'.
As Islam grew The Quran was more widely read, Arabic became the
lingua franca of the time, and the translation movement created the potential
for people from all kinds of nationalities, to engage
with each other in a quest for knowledge and exchange.
Led by a boundless eagerness to import knowledge from across the world, it was a
movement of extraordinary depth and scope, and according to many scholars,
awakened the European Renaissance, and future generations, including us, have
benefited from this multi-generational effort.
In the same vision, our aim is to utilize knowledge
and minds across the world in a collaborative effort to translate the Arabic
text of the book that sparked this revolution: The Quran, using its own internal system, to the lingua franca of
our time, English, to hopefully awaken a worldwide renaissance in its
understanding.
Sincerely,
www.TranslationMovement.com
ETA: when the foundation has been laid.