A different angle: translation and politics

Apart from being a purely linguistic and/or philosophical issue, the so-called 'translation movement' taking place in the central regions of the Islamic world, i.e. Iraq und Persia, in the 9th and 10th centuries cannot be satisfactorily explained without discussing the political motifs involved. Most translators and philosophers depended to a greater or lesser extent on political officeholders or rich traders for their livelihood; indeed, most translations were directly commissioned by members of politically and/or economically influential groups.

While the interest of the elite at the center (Baghdad) in Greek scientific and philosophical texts seems to have been motivated by a number of considerations - of which genuinely philosophical inclinations seem to be the least important -, local rulers seem to have had no compunctions using philosophic issues as part of their political legitimation. In a time of crumbling central control, the acquisition and stabilization of political and military power on the periphery of the Abbasid state became a matter of utmost importance for local officeholders striving to disassociate themselves as completely as possible from the center.

Their claim to power still rested in part on their being an extension of the religious and political authority of the Caliph, who had to formally invest them with their office. Conversely, they had to pay at least nominal allegiance to the Abbasid caliphate. Although the Abbasid caliphs lost political ground to local centers of power over time, the Muslim population still identified strongly with the Caliph as the ultimate source of political and - most of all - religious authority.

Keeping this in mind, the instrumentalization of philosophical and scientific experts and their disputes could be explained as part of an overall strategy aiming to identify the local ruler with the scientific and philosophical inclinations of the court - aiming to prove that he was in touch with, if not part of, intellectual life at the center and enjoying the prestige of 'belonging'. Contenders for power at the local level had to prove that they, too, were part of contemporary intellectual life, that they qualified for membership of this intellectual and political elite.

But fostering scientific and philosophical discussion alone was not enough to bring the local power elite on par with the court - they had to carefully choose positions and theories favoured by the court as well. The theological and philosophical ideas pitted against each other during the infamous mihna, the theological backlash against decades of free-wheeling philosophical theorizing, were employed as political weapons both at the center and the periphery. The period of the mihna could serve as a prime example of the way philosophy and theology were used to undermine the legitimacy of officeholders, from ministers and advisors in Baghdad down to provincial rulers.

One of the most interesting issues to be investigated would be how deeply attached officeholders identifying with specific philosophical tenets really were: Did ideas purely serve as weapons in an arena defined by political allegiances? Could they be discarded at will, in acordance with political shifts at the center? Or were scientific and philosophical disputes personal in the sense that local elites identified with an idea so much as to engender a rift between these local groups and the center, thereby losing the legitimacy derived from this connection to the nominal fountainhead of power, the caliph?