Hunayn ibn Ishaq (rear RTL حُنَينبنإسحق) or Abou Zayd Hunayn ibn Ishaq Al-Ibadi (809 - 873) was a Médecin and a Arab Scientifique important known to have translated Greek works into Arabic. He was called, “Master of the translators of Islam”.

Biography

Originating in Al-Hira (Low Euphrate), it is the son of a pharmacist nestorien and will become him even deacon of the church nestorienne of Mésopotamie. It leaves its small town with its adolescence, to settle in the town of Baghdad or it follows studies of medicine under Ibn Massawayh, a Arab Christian. It leaves then to Greece to learn how to speak Greek, it remains there during two years and it is put into private to translate Greek medical works into Arabic. It translates inter alia Dioscoride and Galien. In 830, it becomes responsible for the houses of wisdom ( Bayt Al Hikmah ), a university Abbasside, of which one of the missions was to translate Greek works. It translates with the assistance of his son Ishâq and its Hubaysh nephew a hundred book. It revises works of Plato, Ménélas, Aristote, Apollonius, Alexandre d' Aphrodisie, Artémidore and Hippocrates. Its work of translation touches with all the fields, energy of mathematics, with the Old Testament while passing by the Logique. In addition to its work of translation, he wrote several treaties on medicine and the various matters which is referred to it, as Kitab Al masae he fî tib (Book of the questions about medicine) which was a book of reference in the world medical of the Middle Ages. He also wrote a treaty of Ophtalmologie which made authority in the world medical until the 15th century. He also worked on the Odontologie (Prophylaxie and therapy of the teeth). Its book " questions about the eye " who was a small treaty on disease prevention and the therapy of the teeth was translated into Latin, in 1279 at the request of Charles of Anjou.

Hunayn and the caliph

He is also famous for his ethics as a doctor. It is the first to have lent a medical oath. The Caliph Al-Mutawakkil would have required of him in exchange of a great amount of money to prepare a poison so that it can get rid of the one of his enemies. But Hunayn refuses the demand for saying to him,

My Science does not carry, writes it that on the beneficial substances; I did not study others of them. Two things retained me to prepare the mortal poison: my religion and my profession. The first teaches me that we must make good even with our enemies, and stronger reason with our friends. As for my profession, it was instituted for the greatest benefit of humanity, with an exclusive aim to cure and relieve. Moreover, like all the doctors, I swore to give to nobody any substance mortelle.

Taking that like a provocation, the caliph imprisons it and threatens it to carry out it if it did not agree to prepare this poison. Always refusing to obey the orders the caliph finally decides to release it from prison and to reward it by offering to him a great amount of money for his moral integrity. He serves then the caliph as personal doctor.

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