The Oxford Anthology

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The transmission of Greek thought to the Muslim world of the Middle Ages is a phenomenon of the greatest significance. Large parts of Greek science and philosophy were translated into Arabic between the 8th and 10th c. AD. At its height this translation movement was directly supported by the Abbasid caliphate. The legacy of Greece quickly acted as a spur to Muslim authors to adapt and further the ideas of 'the ancients'. The creative achievements of Muslims encouraged western Europeans in the late Middle Ages to learn Arabic and translate their works into Latin. The claim sometimes made by Muslims to have started the European renaissance has much justification to it. And Muslims' continuing awareness that the intellectual inheritance of Greco-Roman antiquity is as much 'theirs' as 'ours' has ramifications of importance beyond academia. There are now increasingly few scholars who have a command of the Greek and Arabic needed to work in the field of Greco-Arabic. Thus the need to continue studying the medieval Islamic transmission of and response to Greek culture is of critical importance.This project edits and translates for the first time a fascinating example of how Muslims transmitted and developed Greek thought. The 'Oxford Anthology' survives in a unique Oxford manuscript. It consists of around 100 passages of philosophical or medical/psychological material drawn mostly from Greek authors (and some Muslim ones). The major voices are Aristotle, Plato, Galen, and 'the Greek Shaykh' (see below). Anthologies range from simple ragbags of passages to carefully assembled and internally coherent texts. The Oxford Anthology is of the latter kind. It is best seen as a reader of key ideas about metaphysics, psychology, and ethics. Such a collection offers very good insight into the cultural knowledge of the literate classes. Through it we may obtain knowledge of their knowledge. The edition and translation of the Anthology, and the study built around it, will open a new perspective on the lively intellectual world of late medieval Islam and the circulation of knowledge that was so important to educated society of the time.The manuscript of the Anthology probably dates to the early 13th c.; copyist's annotations show that it was not an autograph. The form of the text makes it plausible to hold that the work was meant to be read out. Additions in a later hand indicate that it continued to be used in this way. We seem to have a precious example of a book designed for discussion and teaching. The loss of the beginning and end of the MS has resulted in the loss of the author's name. The title given on the flyleaf - 'The Cabinet of Wisdom' - is a later, but not inappropriate, guess. The 'Cabinet' is a well-known collection of medical and philosophical material originating in Baghdadi intellectual circles of the late 10th c. The Anthology draws on one prominent member of this community, al-'Amiri (d. 992). It also uses a younger member of the Baghdadi philosophical tradition, Miskawayh (d. 1030), who is the latest figure to be named, both quoting his 'Refinement of Morals' and mining it for passages of Aristotle. The anthologist uses translations of Aristotle and Plotinus (known to Arabs as the 'Greek Shaykh', more or less 'Anonymus Graecus') which were produced for the 9th c. philosopher Kindi, and used by Miskawayh and his friends. Further, in form and content there are parallels with such works as Miskawayh's 'Perennial Wisdom' and the 'On Happiness' attributed to 'Amiri, as well the 'Cabinet' itself. These are the background to our collection.The project will undertake comparative study of related texts, their language, and patterns of quotation, to unravel the Anthology's formal and intellectual connections. The edition, translation, and study will make the work fully available to scholars and to all those interested in exploring the shared roots of Islamic and western culture.