Heritage of Antiquity
The territorial expansion of the Arabs in the 8th century AD allowed them to have fruitful contacts with cultures that had an older philosophical and scientific tradition, quite different from the one they had produced in the deserts of Arabia.
In this new historical scenario that emerged, the Arabs came into closer contact with Persia, Egypt, Syria, India, among others, cultures that provided various elements for much of the knowledge of the time was constituted in a reworked set that was, then, unified by the Arabic language.
In this rapid geographical expansion that encompassed centers of knowledge from Antiquity, the passage of science and knowledge from the ancients to the Arabs would have been difficult without the collaboration they obtained from translators, theologians and linguists who were neither Muslim nor Arab.
The help they received from Nestorian, Monophysite and Melkite Christians, mainly in Syria and Egypt, lasted until the time of translating Greek and Syriac texts into Arabic in Baghdad, notably by the Nestorian Christian Hunayn Ibn Ishaq.
It was in this scenario rich in influences that, in a short time, the Arabs found themselves in possession of a large part of the philosophical and scientific heritage of Antiquity, which was gradually translated into Arabic.