What others said about Arabic Read in the original
Telling scholars what Arabic holds for them:
“There is no language, my reader (I except Greek and Latin), that contains more monuments of solid learning and of the whole circle of the sciences. In theology it has many weighty writers. In medicine, good God, how great is the crowd of its writers! Shall I mention Rhazes, Avicenna, Mesue, Serapion? How good, how serious writers!”
William Bedwell
1563 – 1632
English clergyman, mathematician and Semitist, known as the father of Arabic studies in England.
Original text — Latin
Nulla, mi Lector, lingua est, (Græcam & Latinam excipio) quæ plura solidæ eruditionis & encyclopædiæ monumenta continet. In THEOLOGIA multos ea & graues scriptores habet. In re MEDICA, bone Deus, quanta est scriptorum caterua? Memorabo Rhasin, Abin-Sennam, Mesuem, Serapionem? quàm bonos, quàm serios scriptores!
In Arabic
ليس في اللغات، يا قارئي، لغةٌ، وأستثني اليونانيّة واللاتينيّة، تحوي من آثار العلم الرصين والمعرفة الجامعة أكثرَ ممّا تحوي. ففي علم الدين لها كتّابٌ كثيرون أجلّاء. وفي الطبّ، يا الله، ما أعظمَ جمهرةَ كتّابها! أأذكر الرازيَّ، وابنَ سينا، وماسويه، وسرابيون؟ ما أجودَهم، وما أرصنَهم من كتّاب!
Source
D. Iohannis apostoli et evangelistae epistolae catholicae omnes, Arabicè, «Ad pium lectorem Praefatio», Leiden: Ex officina Plantiniana Raphelengii, 1612, p. p. 4
The English translation is Voice of Arabic's, made from the original.
Encyclopaedia here means the whole circle of the learned arts, not an encyclopaedia in today's sense. Translation from the Latin by Voice of Arabic.
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