Without the active participation of religious minorities, the translation movement could not have taken place. Translations and commentaries on Greek philosophy and science in Syriac and Armenian, the languages of scholarship in Eastern Christian communities, became a crucial bridge between Greek and Arabic scientific culture.13 Nestorian Christians, an Orthodox sect that originated in Syria but was deemed heretical and driven into Persia, played a key role in translating Greek writings from Syriac into Arabic.
