The medieval Arabs had many manuscripts of the ancient Greek  When needed, they translate them into Arabic  Medieval Arab philosophers were very interested in Aristotle's Theory of Poetry, which was obviously not shared by Arab poets, because a poet interested in it must want to read Homer's poems  Aristotle himself often quotes Homer's poems
A series of medieval Arab stories, such as Arab Night, are very similar to some parts of Homer's epic.
 However, Homer's poems were not translated into Arabic until modern times