It is notorious that the Arabs knew almost nothing about Homer beyond that he was a poet. In a book entitled siwān al-hikma (the cupboard of wisdom) by Muhammad b. Tāhir b. Bahrām al-Sijāzi (†c. A.D. 980) a chapter is given up to him. It says that Aristotle relied on his poems continually and all praised him for his skill as a poet, his solid knowledge and excellent counsel. One Stephen (probably the son of Basil) translated some of his poems into Arabic. To the question, ‘Who is the greatest Greek poet?’, Diogenes replied, ‘Each one of them—in his own estimation; but most say Homer’. A brief dialogue is quoted:

Homer. I wonder that men, who can copy God, do not do so but copy animals.