MARCH 31
Gerard of Cremona
Gerard, who was born in Cremona, Lombardy, in 1114, was a medieval scholar who translated the works of many major Greek and Arabic writers into Latin, there being a great body of scientific and philosophical literature in these languages which were well worth making available to all the known world at that time. In this sense, he performed the same service for his countrymen that Hunain Ibn Ishaaq had done for eastern Arabia. He went specially to Toledo, in Spain, to learn Arabic so that he could read the Almagest by Ptolemy, the Greek astronomer, geographer and mathematician who lived in the second century A.D. The Almagest was a vast computation of the astronomical knowledge of the ancients, and was accepted as authoritative up to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. As such, this was one of Gerard’s most significant translations. He was assisted in his task by two other scholars, one Christian and one Jewish. With this, and other such books, the gates of Greek and Arabic sciences were opened for the first time to the west. In the field of medicine, he translated books by Buqrat and Galen, almost all of the books by Hunain and Al-Kindi, Abul Qasim Zuhravi’s book on surgery and many other books on the physical sciences, including the pamphlet on fossils which is attributed to Aristotle. Besides these, he rendered into Latin Avicenna’s massive volume on law and many other books by Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Ishaaq and Sabit, etc.
Many other purveyors of knowledge were later to follow in Gerard’s footsteps. In the words of Dr Maz Mirhaf, ‘He was the founder of Arabism in the western world.”
In 1187, in Toledo, Gerard fell ill, and felt that his end was near. He wondered what would happen when he was gone. “These books in Arabic are so precious,” he thought, “and who is going to translate them into western languages?” His reflections moved him profoundly and he was fired with a new zeal and energy. In spite of his rapidly failing health, he then succeeded in translating the remainder of his valuable collection of books. Legend has it that in the space of one month before his death, he had completed the translations of no less than 80 books.
When one feels sufficiently inspired to perform a task, one undertakes it at all costs, even on one’s death bed, and even when one’s external circumstances are totally adverse. It is one’s will and one’s motivation to work which are of prime importance. Health and strength are secondary.
