Born : 830 Baghdad, Abbasid Caliphate, now Iraq
Died : 910
(aged 80) Baghdad, Abbasid Caliphate, now Iraq
Occupation : Mathematician,
Translator
Notable works : Translation
of Euclid's Elemens, Translation of Ptolemy's Almagest
Years active : 850–
910.
Abū Yaʿqūb Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn (Arabic:
إسحاق
بن حنين) (c.
830 Baghdad, – c. 910-1) was an influential Arab physician and translator,
known for writing the first biography of physicians in the Arabic language. He
is also known for his translations of Euclid's Elements and Ptolemy's Almagest.
He is the son of the famous translator Hunayn Ibn Ishaq.
Hunayn ibn Ishaq is most famous as a translator. He was not a mathematician but trained in medicine and made his original contributions to the subject. However, as the leading translator in the House of Wisdom at one of the most remarkable periods of mathematical revival, his influence on the mathematicians of the time is of sufficient importance to merit his inclusion in this archive. His son Ishaq ibn Hunayn, strongly influenced by his father, is famed for his Arabic translation of Euclid's Elements.
Hunayn's father was
Ishaq, a pharmacist from Hira. The family were from a group who had belonged to
the Syrian Nestorian Christian Church before the rise of Islam, and Hunayn was
brought up as a Christian. Hunayn became skilled in languages as a young man,
in particular learning Arabic at Basra and also learning Syriac.
To continue his
education Hunayn went to Baghdad to study medicine under the leading teacher of
the time. However, after falling out with this teacher, Hunayn left Baghdad
and, probably during a period in Alexandria, became an expert in the Greek
language. Hunayn returned to Baghdad and established contact with the teacher
with whom he had fallen out. The two became firm friends and were close
collaborators on medical topics for many years.
Let us go back to a
time before Hunayn was born and describe the events which would lead to a
remarkeble period of scholarship. Harun al-Rashid became the fifth Caliph of
the Abbasid dynasty on 14 September 786. He brought culture to his court and
tried to establish the intellectual disciplines which at that time were not
flourishing in the Arabic world. It was during al-Rashid's reign that the first
Arabic translation of Euclid's Elements was made by
al-Hajjaj. The first steps began to be taken which would allow Greek knowledge
to spread through the Islamic empire, a process in which Hunayn was to play a
major role.
Al-Rashid had two sons,
the eldest was al-Amin while the younger was al-Ma'mun. Harun al-Rashid died in
809, the year after Hunayn's birth, and there was an armed conflict between his
two sons. Al-Ma'mun won the armed struggle, became Caliph and ruled the empire
from Baghdad. He continued the patronage of learning started by his father and
founded an academy called the House of Wisdom where Greek philosophical and
scientific works were translated. It should not be thought that the Arabs who
were translating these Greek texts simply sat down with a pile of Greek
manuscripts and translated them. Most of the difficulty occurred in searching
for the manuscripts which were to be translated. In order to find manuscripts
of the works of Aristotle and others, al-Ma'mun sent a team of his
most learned men to Byzantium. It is thought that Hunayn, being more skilled in
the Greek language than any of the other scholars in Baghdad, was on this
expedition.
As an example of the
lengths that Hunayn went in order to find a particular manuscript we quote his
description of a search for a medical manuscript (see for example).
I sought for [the manuscript] earnestly
and travelled in search of it in the lands of Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and
Egypt, until I reached Alexandria, but I was not able to find anything, except
about half of it at Damascus.
Al-Ma'mun recruited the most talented men for the
House of Wisdom such as al-Khwarizmi, al-Kindi and al-Hajjaj the first translator of Euclid's Elements into Arabic refered to
above. There they worked with Hunayn and later also with Thabit ibn
Qurra. Hunayn became a close friend of Muhammad
Banu Musa although relations between some
of the scholars was not good due to rivalry.
In 833 al-Ma'mun died
and was succeeded by his brother al-Mu'tasim. The house of Wisdom continued to
flourish under successive caliphs. Al-Mu'tasim died in 842 and was succeeded by
al-Wathiq.
Hunayn soon became
famous and participated in the scholarly meetings at which physicians and
philosophers discussed dificult problems in the presence of Caliph al-Wathiq.
Caliph al-Wathiq was succeeded as Caliph in 847 by
al-Mutawakkil who appointed Hunayn to the post of chief physician at his court,
a position he held for the rest of his life. Under both these Caliphs internal
arguments and rivalry arose between the scholars in the House of Wisdom and Hunayn
was most certainly involved in this rivalry. The rivalry could certainly become
serious and at one point Hunayn had his library confiscated and he was
imprisoned.
Hunayn is important for the many excellent
translations of Greek texts which he made into Arabic. In particular he
translated Plato and Aristotle. These translations were spread widely through
Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt.
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