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Hunayn ibn Ishaq

 

 
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Hunayn ibn Ishaq ( ; known in Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 as Johannitius (809-873) was a famous and influential Assyrian
Assyrian

Assyrian may refer to:in antiquity:*ancient Assyria**the Old Assyrian period **the Middle Assyrian period **the Neo-Assyrian period *Assyria , a province of the Achaemenid Empire...
 scholar, physician
Physician

A physician, medical practitioner, doctor of medicine, or medical doctor practices medicine, and is concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease and injury....
, and scientist
Scientist

A scientist, in the broadest sense, refers to any person that engages in a system activity to acquire knowledge or an individual that engages in such practices and traditions that are linked to schools of thought or philosophy....
, known for his work in translating scientific and medical works in Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 into Arabic. Although Arabic historical sources refer to him as an Arab
Arab

An Arab is a person who Identity as such on linguistic or cultural grounds. The plural form, Arabs , refers to the Ethnocultural group at large....
, as well as some modern sources, other modern sources refer to him as Assyrian
Assyrian people

The Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac people are an ethnic group whose origins lie in the Fertile Crescent, their Assyrian/Syriac homeland today being divided between Northern Iraq, Syria, Western Iran, and Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia....
.

in was born in Al-Hira, near Kufa
Kufa

Kufa is a city in Iraq, about 170 km south of Baghdad, and 10 km northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000....
, the son of a Nestorian pharmacist.






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Hunayn ibn Ishaq ( ; known in Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 as Johannitius (809-873) was a famous and influential Assyrian
Assyrian

Assyrian may refer to:in antiquity:*ancient Assyria**the Old Assyrian period **the Middle Assyrian period **the Neo-Assyrian period *Assyria , a province of the Achaemenid Empire...
 scholar, physician
Physician

A physician, medical practitioner, doctor of medicine, or medical doctor practices medicine, and is concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease and injury....
, and scientist
Scientist

A scientist, in the broadest sense, refers to any person that engages in a system activity to acquire knowledge or an individual that engages in such practices and traditions that are linked to schools of thought or philosophy....
, known for his work in translating scientific and medical works in Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 into Arabic. Although Arabic historical sources refer to him as an Arab
Arab

An Arab is a person who Identity as such on linguistic or cultural grounds. The plural form, Arabs , refers to the Ethnocultural group at large....
, as well as some modern sources, other modern sources refer to him as Assyrian
Assyrian people

The Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac people are an ethnic group whose origins lie in the Fertile Crescent, their Assyrian/Syriac homeland today being divided between Northern Iraq, Syria, Western Iran, and Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia....
.

Biography

Hunein was born in Al-Hira, near Kufa
Kufa

Kufa is a city in Iraq, about 170 km south of Baghdad, and 10 km northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000....
, the son of a Nestorian pharmacist. As a young man, Hunayn went to Baghdad
Baghdad

Baghdad is the Capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is also coterminous. With a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq, and the second largest city in the Arab World....
 where he enrolled in a medical school under the direction of Masawaiyh
Masawaiyh

Yuhanna ibn Masawaih, also written Ibn Masawaih, Masawaiyh, and in Latin Mesue, Masuya, Mesue Major, Msuya, and Mesue the Elder was an Assyrian physician from the Academy of Gundishapur....
. Hunein learned Greek and began privately to translate Greek medical texts into Arabic. In 830, he was put in charge of the Bayt al Hikmah (House of Wisdom), a college of scholars supported by the Abbasids for the purpose of translating Greek texts. He translated many treatises of Galen
Galen

Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamum , was a prominent Ancient Rome physician and philosopher of Greek origin, and probably the most accomplished medical researcher of the Roman period....
 and the Galenic school into Syriac
Syriac language

Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from the 4th to the 8th centuries, the classical language of Edessa, Mesopotamia, preserved in a large body of Syriac literature....
, and thirty-nine into Arabic
Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
; through his renderings some important works of Galen escaped destruction. Hunayn also translated Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
's Categories, Physics, and Magna Moralia
Magna Moralia

The Magna Moralia is a treatise on Ethics traditionally attributed to Aristotle, though the consensus now is that it represents an epitome of his ethical thought by a later, if sympathetic, writer....
; Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
’s Republic
Republic (Plato)

The Republic is a Socratic dialogue by Plato, written in approximately 380 BC. It is one of the most influential works of philosophy and Political philosophy, and Plato's best known work....
, Timaeus
Timaeus

Timaeus is a Greek name, meaning "Honour". It may refer to:*Timaeus , a Socratic dialogue by Plato*Timaeus of Locri, the 5th-century Pythagorean philosopher, appearing in Plato's dialogue...
, and Laws; Hippocrates
Hippocrates

Hippocrates of Cos II or Hippokrates of Kos - ancient Greek: ; Hippokr?tes was an Ancient Greece physician of the Age of Pericles, and was considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine....
’ Aphorisms, Dioscorides’ Materia Medica
Materia medica

Materia medica is a Latin medicine term for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing....
, Ptolemy
Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman Greek mathematics, Greek astronomy, geographer and astrologer. He lived in History of Roman Egypt, and was probably born there in a town in the Thebaid called Ptolemais Hermiou; he died in Alexandria around 168 AD....
's quadri-partition, and the Old Testament
Old Testament

In Western Christianity, the Old Testament refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christianity Bible Biblical canon. These works correspond to the Hebrew Bible , with some variations and additions....
 from the Septuagint
Septuagint

The Septuagint , or simply "LXX", is the Koine Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, translated in stages between the 3rd century BC and 1st century BC in Alexandria....
 Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
.

In addition to his work of translation, he wrote treatises on general medicine and various specific topics, including a series of works on the eye
Eye

Eyes are Organ that detect light, and send signals along the optic nerve to the visual system and other areas of the brain. Complex optical systems with resolving power have come in ten fundamentally different forms, and 96% of animal species possess a complex optical system....
 which remained influential until the fifteenth century.

Later medieval sources knew him by the Latinized name, Joannitius. His son Ishaq ibn Hunayn helped him with his translations and wrote other books by himself.

Work


Ishaq was considered one of the best translators of his time. Bilingual from his childhood in Arabic and Syriac, he was considered a better translator, since he considered more than one text. In this manner Hunain translated several Greek works on the sciences, mostly dealing with medicine and philosophy. He is also credited with an Arabic Old Testament, and trained many translators of the House of Wisdom later responsible for the better translations of the time. Hunain describes his work as follows, on his collation of multiple texts of Galen's De methodo medendi:

"For the first six books only a single manuscript, and besides that a very faulty one, was at my disposal at the time. I was therefore unable to produce these books in the manner required. Later I came across another manuscript and collated the text with it and corrected it as much as possible. It would be better if I could collate a third manuscript with it if only I were fortunate enough to find one."

Hunayn and the Caliph

Hunayn is also famous for his ethics as a physician. Supposedly Caliph Al-Mutawakkil
Al-Mutawakkil

Al-Mutawakkil ?Ala Allah Ja?far ibn al-Mu?tasim was an Abbasid caliph who reigned in Samarra from 847 until 861. He succeeded his brother al-Wathiq and is known for putting an end to the Mihna "ordeal", the Inquisition-like attempt by his predecessors to impose a single Mu'tazili version of Islam....
 decided to test Hunayn by offering him a large sum to create a poison to use against an enemy; when Hunayn put him off, he offered him more money. Hunayn then lectured him that it was against his professional ethics to harm rather than heal. Al-Mutawakil had Hunayn imprisoned, and threatened to execute him for his defiance. When Hunayn still refused, Al-Mutawakil had him released from prison and richly rewarded for his ethical behavior and integrity.

See also

  • List of Arab scientists and scholars
    List of Arab scientists and scholars

    This is a list of scientists and scholars from the Arab World and Islamic Spain that lived from Ancient history up until the beginning of the Modern era, consisting primarily of scholars during the Middle Ages....


External links

  • ;