Fund translation or original writing?
Baghdad's House of Wisdom holds a budget that covers one great project: a translation campaign bringing Greek and Indian medicine, philosophy and astronomy into Arabic, or funding Arab authors writing new books of their own? The decision: import knowledge or make it?
The positions
the translation party
a thousand years of Greek learning in one generation through translation
The evidence
the translators collated texts until Arabic became learning's tongue
Sources: building/bayt-al-hikmaplace/baghdad
the authorship party
who never authors stays a pupil forever; the nation writes its books
The evidence
from that same milieu came al-Khwarizmi and Ibn Sina a generation on
Sources: building/bayt-al-hikmaperson/al-khwarizmiperson/ibn-sina
You decide
Which project would you have funded as the vizier? Write your reason.
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