Abu ’Uthma̢ẖ al-Jahidh was a major literary figure in the Abbasid era, and Classical Arabic in general. Born in Basra, he moved to Baghdad to work in teaching, and was, for a short period, the head of the government correspondence department for Caliph al-Ma‘mun (786–833). According to him, poetry cannot be translated, nor is transmitting it possible. When it is translated into another language, its arrangement becomes fragmented, and its meter void. Its beauty dwindles, and its wondrous quality falls away. The books of India have been transmitted to people, and Greek wisdom has been translated, along with the literary tradition of the Persians. In the process of translation, some have increased in excellence, while others have been diminished of their original quality. The development of translation activities during the Abbasid period led a number of contemporary scholars to interrogate the very concept of linguistic and cultural transfer and its boundaries.