HUNAYN IBN ISHAQ
Lived AD 809-873. Was a Nestorian Christian during the glory years of the Abbasid
Caliphate in Iraq. He studied Greek and became known among the Arabs as
the "Sheikh of the translators." He translated the Septuagint, Hippocrates, some
of Plato and Aristotle, and other Greek works into Arabic, and almost all of Galen's
scientific output into Syriac and Arabic.
He was also a great doctor and the Caliph al-Mutawakkil appointed him as his
private physician. The Caliph once offered him a large reward to concoct a poison
for an enemy, but Hunayn refused and so was thrown into prison for a year. When
brought again before the Caliph and threatened with death his reply was, "I have
skill only in what is beneficial, and naught else." The Caliph then claimed to be
only testing his integrity, and then asked him what prevented him from preparing
the deadly poison. Hunayn replied:
Two things: my religion and my profession. My religion decrees that we should
do good even to our enemies, how much more to our friends. And my profession
is instituted for the benefit of humanity and limited to their relief and cure.
Besides every physician is under oath never to give anyone a deadly medicine.
A modern French historian has called him "the greatest figure of the ninth century."
Source: Phillip K. Hitti, The Arabs - A Short History, Chicago: Gateway, 1949,
pp. 118-119.
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