Hunayn ibn Ishaq

Hunayn ibn Ishaq (Latinized as Johannitius; full name Abu Zayd Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi) was a physician and the most accomplished translator of the early Abbasid era. He was a Christian of the Church of the East — the community Western writers long called "Nestorian." His nisba "al-Ibadi" points to the al-Ibad, Arab tribes of al-Hira who had become Christian before the rise of Islam.

Born around 809 CE near al-Hira in lower Iraq, he is reported to have perfected his Arabic at Basra and studied medicine in Baghdad under the celebrated physician Yuhanna ibn Masawayh. Tradition holds that he then disappeared for some two years to learn Greek "in the land of the Greeks" (whether in Byzantine territory or at Alexandria, the sources disagree), returning able to recite Homer.

Back in Baghdad he became the leading figure in the movement, encouraged by the caliphs, that rendered Greek science into Arabic. Working with his son Ishaq, his nephew Hubaysh, and other pupils, he translated a vast body of Galen and Hippocrates, along with Plato, Aristotle and others, and wrote original medical works, including a treatise on the eye. He set rigorous standards, collating manuscripts to fix a sound text.

It is reported that under the caliph al-Mutawakkil he served as chief physician but was briefly imprisoned and stripped of his library after a court intrigue, then reinstated. He died in Baghdad in 873 CE. He is remembered as a foundational bridge between Greek and Arabic learning.