Hunayn ibn Ishaq

Hunayn ibn Ishaq
Iluminure from the Hunayn ibn-Ishaq al-'Ibadi manuscript of the Isagoge
Born808 AD
Died873 AD
Academic work
EraIslamic Golden Age
Main interestsTranslation, Ophthalmology, Philosophy, Religion, Arabic grammar
Notable worksBook of the Ten Treatises of the Eye
InfluencedIshaq ibn Hunayn

Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (also Hunain or Hunein) (Arabic: أبو زيد حنين بن إسحاق العبادي; ʾAbū Zayd Ḥunayn ibn ʾIsḥāq al-ʿIbādī (808–873), known in Latin as Johannitius, was an influential Arab Nestorian Christian translator, scholar, physician, and scientist. During the apex of the Islamic Abbasid era, he worked with a group of translators, among whom were Abū 'Uthmān al-Dimashqi, Ibn Mūsā al-Nawbakhti, and Thābit ibn Qurra, to translate books of philosophy and classical Greek and Persian texts into Arabic and Syriac.[2]

Ḥunayn ibn Isḥaq was the most productive translator of Greek medical and scientific treatises in his day. He studied Greek and became known as the "Sheikh of the Translators".[3] He mastered four languages: Arabic, Syriac, Greek and Persian. Hunayn's method was widely followed by later translators. He was originally from al-Hirah, previously capital of the Lakhmid kingdom, but he spent his working life in Baghdad, the center of the Translation movement. His fame went far beyond his own community.[4]

  1. ^ Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq". Encyclopedia Britannica, Invalid Date, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hunayn-ibn-Ishaq. Accessed 13 May 2023.
  2. ^ Nadim (al-), Abū al-Faraj Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq (1970). Dodge, Bayard (ed.). The Fihrist of al-Nadim; a Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture. Translated by Bayard Dodge. New York & London: Columbia University Press. pp. 440, 589, 1071.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Seleznyov, N. "Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq in the Summa of al-Muʾtaman ibn al-ʿAssāl" in VG 16 (2012) 38–45 [In Russian].