Linking two languages (separating two cultures): the continuity of qāḍī Ibn Mu‘ādh al-Jayyānī’s text on dawn and dusk

Abstract

The Liber de crepusculis by Gerard of Cremona (1114–1187) is the Latin version of a lost text written by cadi Ibn Mu‘ādh al-Jayyānī about the calculation of the height of the atmosphere, a question related to issues of ‘ilm al-tawqīt (timekeeping). This paper presents the Arabic textual tradition of this optics problem and the two main textual branches that have transmitted Ibn Mu‘ādh’s lost Arabic text: 1) the Latin branch: Gerard of Cremona’s De crepusculis and 2) the Hebrew branch: the translation by Samuel ben Judah of Marseille. The paper concludes that Gerard of Cremona's alterations to the text during the translation process were made for sociolinguistic reasons and it discusses the methodological relevance of using the concept of necessitas et utilitas to better understand the translation process, which must be viewed not just as a linguistic matter arising out Latin scholars’ need to expand learning and knowledge in the late Middle Ages, but also as a complex process, comprising both cultural and linguistic elements, that linked two languages, Arabic and Latin, but also separated two cultures.