Hunayn ibn Ishaq

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Hunayn Ibn Ishaq (Arabic: حنين بن إسحاق), or more formally Abu Zayd Hunayn Ibn Ishaq al Ibadi (809-873) was a famous and influential Arab^[1] Nestorian scholar, physician, and scientist, known for his work in translating scientific and medical works in Greek into Arabic.

As a young man, Hunayn went to Basrah, where he studied under Khalil Ibn Ahmad^[2]. Then he went to Baghdad where he enrolled in a medical school under the direction of Masawaiyh. Ishaq 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 and the Galenic school into Syriac, and thirty-nine into Arabic; through his renderings some important works of Galen escaped destruction. Hunayn also translated Aristotle's Categories, Physics, and Magna Moralia; Plato’s Republic, Timaeus, and Laws; Hippocrates’ Aphorisms, Dioscorides’ Materia Medica, Ptolemy's quadri-partition, and the Old Testament from the Septuagint Greek.

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 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.

[edit] Hunayn and the Caliph

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