““This translation movement, during the course of which almost all non-literary and non-historical secular Greek works on science and philosophy were translated upon demand into Arabic, was introduced by the caliphs and the ruling elite of the newly established Arab Abbasid dynasty (750– 1258) as an ideological response to pressing political and social problems. Once thus introduced and sponsored from the top, the translation movement found further support from below in the incipient scientific tradition in Arabic, which was developing at the hands of scholars and scientists actively recruited to the capital by the same elite who were commissioning the translations.””
