Syria or Iraq, 502-504 A.H. [1108-1111 A.D.]

Euclid's Stoicheia ("Elements") was written around 300 B.C. and remained the definitive textbook of geometry for the next 2,000 years. It was the first ancient mathematical book translated from Greek into Arabic, around 820 A.D. It was retranslated several times thereafter by Arab mathematicians who hoped to improve on the previous translations and to provide textbooks which would transmit the gist of the work in a simpler form. Evidence in the colophon suggests the present manuscript took its author two years to complete, which, along with frequent substantive corrections to the text, suggest that the book records the process of his reading and simultaneous epitomization of Euclid's Elements.

Between 1200 and 1400 Europe acquired the inheritance of Greek mathematics through the Arab world. It was the Arabic translations of Euclid, Archimedes and Ptolemy which revived interest in their works in Europe, and in some cases only the Arabic versions have survived. Arabic-speaking authors of the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish faiths translated Greek works into Arabic, often through Syriac intermediate versions, some of which survive. In their mathematical works they also introduced Indian numerals (which we now call Arabic numerals). There is evidence that at least some parts of Euclid's Elementswere translated or summarized in Latin from an original Greek source by European authors around the 4th century A.D., but later authors writing around the 12th century found that the text available in its several Arabic versions was the more complete and clearer.

This manuscript was produced as part of the ongoing Arab assimilation of Greek mathematics and at the point in time when this inheritance began to be transmitted to the West.

Glazed paper, 92 leaves, 188 x 95 mm, 15 lines, in arabic, written in naskh.