The first translations from the Greek authors are supposed to have been
made about A.D. 745, and are known to have been on the subjects of
philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. These translations are
understood to have been made by Christian or Jewish physicians.

As we have seen, the Jews had already established themselves at Baghdad,
and had founded schools of their own previous to the formation of the
college under Caliph Al-Mansour; but further than this we find the
Christians spread widely over the countries of Asia Minor, and we are
told, on the authority of Cosmo-Indicopleustes, that so early as A.D.
535 there was in almost every large town in _India_ a Christian Church
under the Bishop of Seleucia.

With these facts before us--1st, that Christian physicians were the
leaders of the Arabian school in the eighth century; 2nd, that large
numbers of Christian churches were actually in existence in India at
least two hundred years previously to the establishment of the college
at Baghdad; and 3rd, that Baghdad was almost, as it wore, the central
point of the great caravan route which from time immemorial had been the
course of communication between the East and West, can we doubt that an
extensive intercourse must have taken place, and should we not expect to
find some traces, if not the effects, of Indian science on the teaching
of the Arabian school.[1]

[Footnote 1: As to communication, the case of Saggid Mahmud (given
in Bellew’s _Indus to the Tigris_), who, merely to pray for the
recovery of his sick son, travelled with him from Ghazni by way of
Kandahur and Shikarpur to Bombay, thence by way of sea to Baghdad,
from there to Karbola, and back to Baghdad; and then by Kirmanshah