Complete Catalogue of Arabic-Latin Translations and Translators of the Middle Ages

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Dag Nikolaus Hasse
• Subject Area: Greek and Latin Philology ; History of Philosophy ; Islamic Studies, Arabian Studies, Semitic Studies
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 530581455

The Arabic-Latin translators of the Middle Ages had an enormous influence on European intellectual history, comparable to the Bible translators of antiquity and the Latin translators from Greek. The study of the Arabic-Latin translators is confronted with many puzzles, mainly concerning the identity of the anonymous translators, the time and place of translation, and the identification of the texts themselves. The solution to these puzzles will be addressed systematically and comprehensively for the first time in this project. The project will produce an annotated complete catalogue of all Arabic-Latin translations with ca. 550 entries, which will replace the previous catalogue by Ferdinand Wüstenfeld from 1877 with 198 entries. The Complete Catalogue will serve as a reference work for many medievalist disciplines. For the first time, systematic reasons for identifying translators will be researched for each of the ca. 550 translations. The project provides solutions to central philological, historical and computer-philological problems of the Arabic-Latin tradition, which will be published in a series of research articles. In this way, the project makes an important contribution to the understanding of the shared West Asian-North African-European culture of knowledge, which was shaped by pagan-ancient, Muslim, Jewish and Christian authors and linked by translations.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants