The Autobiography of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq
(809–873 or 877)
Introduction
Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq was a Nestorian Christian from the Iraqi town of al-Ḥīra. He traveled to Baghdad to seek a career in medicine but quarreled with his teacher and left the city. Several years later he returned, having learned classical Greek so well that even his former teacher came to rely on him for translations of Greek medical texts. Ḥunayn may have learned his Greek in Alexandria or Constantinople; he was also proficient in Arabic, Syriac, and possibly Persian. Muslim as well as Christian scholars sought his services as a translator, and he reportedly enjoyed the patronage of the ‘Abbāsid caliphs. Working from older Syriac translations of the classical texts or (as he preferred) the original Greek, Ḥunayn rendered into Arabic works by Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen, in addition to composing more than seventy scientific treatises of his own. As a translator, he broke with the older practice of word-by-word rendition, and his translations are remarkable even today for their clarity and precision. He and his successors created a new scientific vocabulary for Arabic and made possible the successful appropriation and naturalization of Greek thought into the intellectual life of the Islamic world.
As the autobiography ascribed to him explains, however, his fame provoked his rivals to plot against him. The text of the autobiography appears in a biographical entry on Ḥunayn compiled by Ibn Abī Uṣaybi‘a (d. 1270), a historian of medicine. After bemoaning the treachery of his fellow Christians and describing their envy of his superior abilities, Ḥunayn tells the tale of how his coreligionist and fellow physician Jibrīl ibn Bakhtīshū‘ tricked him into spitting on an icon in the presence of the caliph al-Mutawakkil. Such an offense made Ḥunayn an iconoclast, and the head of the Nestorian church recommended that the caliph punish him. Ḥunayn was accordingly flogged and imprisoned. His rivals then pressed the caliph to execute him. The sovereign was reportedly on the verge of doing so when a miraculous intervention persuaded him to relent.
Ḥunayn's epistle on his trials and tribulations resembles, to some degree, the Greek genre of apologetic autobiography, but it is also highly reminiscent of the biblical/Qur’ānic story of Joseph. Both Ḥunayn and Joseph are betrayed by their “brothers” (coreligionists in the case of Ḥunayn), falsely accused and imprisoned, and finally released, absolved, and rewarded as a result of a ruler's dream. The epistle thus presents a fascinating amalgam of Greek and biblical elements in an Arabic literary form. The conspicuously literary character of the text—as manifested, for example, in the narration of conversations Ḥunayn cannot possibly have overheard—has led some scholars to doubt its authenticity. Gotthard Strohmaier, for example, concludes that one of Ḥunayn's disciples composed it to defend his teacher against charges of iconoclasm. Indeed, Ḥunayn's iconoclastic opinions are attested in several other sources, although none of these is entirely trustworthy either. In any event, the epistle remains one of the earliest prose works in Arabic in the autobiographical mode. If it was in fact composed by another hand, it is remarkable that this later author should have chosen such an innovative and, at the time, virtually unknown form of Arabic writing when seeking to clear Ḥunayn of the accusations brought against him by the Church.
Bibliography
Cooperson, Michael.
“The Purported Autobiography of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq.”
Edebiyât: Special Issue—Arabic Autobiography, N.S. 7, no. 2 (1997): 235–49. 
Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought and Arabic Culture: The Graeco-ArabicTranslation Movement in Baghdad and Early ‘Abbāsid Society (2nd–4th/8th–10thCenturies). London: Routledge, 1998.
Ibn Abī Uṣaybi‘a. ‘Uyūn al-anbā’ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbā’. Ed. Nizār Riḍā. 2 vols. Beirut: Dār Maktabat al-Ḥayāt, 1965. 257–74.
Rosenthal, Franz.
“Die arabische Autobiographie.”
Studia Arabica 1 (1937): 15–19.
Salama-Carr, Myriam. La traduction à l'époque abbaside: L'école de Hunayn ibn Ishaq et son importance pour la traduction. Paris: Didier, 1990.
Strohmaier, Gotthard.
“Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq und die Bilder.”
Klio 43–45 (1965): 525–33.
Epistle on the Trials and Tribulations Which Befell Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq
[‘Uyūn, pp. 257–74]
Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq writes:
My enemies so tormented me that I was no longer able to sleep. I would lie awake at night, and during the day I was too distracted to work. My persecutors felt neither remorse for their cruelty nor gratitude for all the favors I had bestowed upon them in the past. They attacked me and wronged me because they envied my learning and resented the preeminence that God Almighty had granted me over my contemporaries. Most of my tormentors were members of my own family; in fact, it is with them that my trials and sufferings began. Those I favored over other members of the profession came next. I trained them, directed their studies, advanced their careers, treated them well, and introduced them to [the works of] Galen, but they repaid my kindness with a malice compelled by their natures.
They slandered me in the ugliest possible ways, spreading the most sordid kind of rumors about me and keeping important confidences from me, until suspicions were aroused and opinion turned against me. Everywhere I found prying eyes. I was observed so closely that my very words were cataloged and used against me. On the basis of malicious insinuations, meanings I had not intended were painstakingly extracted from my words and accusations against me multiplied. My enemies stirred up hatred for me among peoples of all sects, not just the members of my own denomination. Councils were convened on my account where people offered invidious interpretations of my behavior. Every time I learned of such things, I praised God anew, and bore with fortitude what I could not change.
The situation eventually reached the point where I found myself utterly ruined and heartbroken, in prison, and reduced to the narrowest of circumstances. During that time I was unable to obtain even the smallest amount of gold or silver, a book, or even a single sheet of paper to peruse.
Then God Almighty cast His glance of mercy upon me and restored His favor to me, restoring His bounty, which I had once known so well. The restoration of my wealth was due to a certain person who had been especially zealous in his hatred. This aptly illustrates Galen's remark that “the best people are those who can turn the animosity of evil men to advantage.”[1] This person turned out to be the best enemy I ever had!
Now I shall recount what happened to me in the incidents I have just described:
How could it have been otherwise? How could I not have provoked such animosity, stirred up so much envy, and set the councils of the great abuzz with slander and abuse? Money was paid to have me killed, those who insulted me were honored, and those who treated me generously were humiliated. And yet all this happened, not because I had offended or ill-treated a single one of them, but because I had risen above them and surpassed them in learning and in labor, and transmitted to them precious knowledge from languages that they knew poorly, that they would not have been led to on their own, or of which they knew nothing. All this I did with the greatest possible eloquence and felicity of expression, without fault or flaw, without sectarian tendentiousness, and without obscurantism or vulgarity. This is attested by the Arab rhetoricians, specialists in syntax and rare expressions. My readers never stumbled over a solecism, a wrongly voweled word, or a poorly expressed thought. I used the most elegant and yet the easiest phrases. A lay reader who knew nothing of philosophical methods and belonged to no Christian sect would still appreciate my work and realize its importance. In fact, such people spend a great deal of money on works I have translated, preferring them to works translated by all others before me. Furthermore, let me say without fear of contradiction that all men of culture—regardless of religious affiliation—befriend me and take my part, treat me with honor, receive what I teach them with gratitude, and reward me with many favors. But as for those Christian physicians, most of whom themselves learned from me, and whom I watched grow up, it is they who cry for my blood, even though they could never manage without me.
Sometimes they would say: “Who is Ḥunayn, after all? Just a man who translates books for a fee—no more than a tradesman; at least, we can't see any difference. A knight can pay a smith a dinar to forge a replica of his sword, and the smith might make one hundred dinars a month. Ḥunayn only services our tools, but he does not work with them himself, just as a swordsmith is no good at handling swords, no matter how skilled he may be in making them. Imagine a swordsmith trying to take the field with knights! That's Ḥunayn for you. What does he know about medicine, having never diagnosed a disease in his life? All he wants is to be like us, so people will call him `Ḥunayn the physician' instead of `Ḥunayn the translator.' The best thing would have been for him to stick to his own profession and keep his nose out of ours. He would get more money out of us, and we would treat him better, if only he would stop holding consultations, peering at bottles, and prescribing drugs.” Or they would say: “Ḥunayn cannot enter anyone's house, high or low, without them mocking him and tittering to one another as he leaves the room.”
Every time I heard things like this I would feel a tightness in my chest, and I would contemplate killing myself out of anger and frustration. There was nothing I, a lone man standing against a horde of enemies, could do to stop them. Yet I knew in my own mind that it was their envy that drove them to do what they were doing, although even they realized how ugly it appeared. Malicious envy is a perennial human failing. As anyone with any idea of religion knows, the first act of envy was Cain's murder of his brother Abel after God refused Cain's sacrifice and accepted Abel's. Since envy has always existed, it is hardly surprising that I too should have been one of its victims. As they say: “Envy is punishment enough for him who feels it,” and, “The envious one punishes himself more than he punishes his rival.” Arabic poetry has much to say about malicious envy, for example:
What this and other poets have said on this subject would take a long time to relate without adding much to the point.
They may envy me, but I do not reproach them. Many virtuous men before me have been envied.
I shall remain as I am—they shall continue to feel as they feel; Indignant and resentful are most of us buried.
I am the one they resent, but I shall not change. I lie heavy on their hearts while my own is unworried.
Ironically, many of the same people, when baffled by a difficult case, would make their way to me and ask me to confirm their own diagnoses or have me prescribe medicines and treatments. The soundness of my recommendations was confirmed again and again. But the ones who came to seek my opinion were at the same time my most vituperative enemies; I shall do nothing more for them until the time comes when I have God to judge between them and me. I said nothing at the time, however, for I was not dealing with one or two rivals, but with fifty-six, all Nestorians like myself, and all in much greater need of me than I of them. Furthermore, as so many of them were in the service of the caliph, their influence was great. They were virtually in charge of the kingdom. My position was weaker than theirs in two respects: first, I was alone, and second, those people who had my interests at heart depended on my rivals' patron, the caliph.
The whole time, I complained to no one of my sufferings, great as they were. Instead, I would express my gratitude toward my persecutors on every public occasion and in the presence of high-ranking persons. When it was pointed out to me that they were deriding me and slandering me in their assemblies, I dismissed the notion. Affecting disbelief, I would say that we—my rivals and I—were as one, bound by the ties of faith, birthplace, and profession, and that I could not imagine that such people could speak ill of anyone, much less of me. When my remarks reached them, they would say: “He's trying to allay his fears by pretending not to hear.” The more they slandered me, the more I praised them.
I shall now tell of the final trap they set for me (not counting what happened before with the Banū Mūsā, the Galenites, and the Hippocratics regarding the matter of the first accusation).[2] Here then, is the story of my last tribulation:
Bakhtīshū‘ the physician[3] succeeded in setting in motion a plot against me by which he was able to place me in his power. This he did by means of an icon depicting the Madonna holding Our Lord in her lap and surrounded by angels. It was beautifully worked and most accurately painted, and had cost Bakhtīshū‘ a great deal of money. He had it carried to the court of the caliph al-Mutawakkil,[4] where he positioned himself to receive the icon as it was brought in, and to present it personally to the caliph, who was extremely impressed with it. Bakhtīshū‘, still in the caliph's presence, began kissing the icon repeatedly.
“Why are you kissing it?” asked Mutawakkil.
“If I do not kiss the image of the Mistress of Heaven and Earth, your Majesty, then whose image should I kiss?”
“Do all the Christians do this?” asked Mutawakkil.
“Yes, your Majesty,” replied Bakhtīshū‘, “and more properly than I do now, because I am restraining myself in your presence. But in spite of the preferential treatment granted the Christians, I know of one Christian in your service who enjoys your bounty and your favors, but who has no regard for this image and spits on it. He is a heretic and an atheist who believes neither in the oneness of God nor in the Afterlife. He hides behind a mask of Christianity, but in fact denies God's attributes and repudiates the prophets.”
“Who is this person you are describing?”
“Ḥunayn the translator,” said Bakhtīshū‘.
“I'll have him sent for,” said Mutawakkil, “and if what you say turns out to be true, I'll make an example of him. I'll drop him in a dungeon and throw away the key; but not before I've made his life miserable and ordered him tortured over and over until he repents.”
Bakhtīshū‘ said, “With your Majesty's permission, might his summons be delayed until such time as I return?” Mutawakkil assented to his request.
Bakhtīshū‘ left the palace and came to see me.
“My dear Ḥunayn,” he said, “you should know that someone has presented the caliph with an icon. He's quite taken with it and thinks it's of Syrian origin. He keeps saying how marvelous it is. If we let him keep it, and praise it in his presence, he'll never stop dangling it in front of us and saying, `Look! It's a picture of your god and his mother!' He has already said to me, `Look at this wonderful image! What do you think of it?' I told him, `It's a picture like the ones they paint on the walls of bathhouses and churches or use in decorations; it is not the kind of thing we are concerned about or pay any attention to at all.' He said, `So it means nothing to you?' `That's right,' I said. `Spit on it, then, and we shall see if you are telling the truth,' he said. So I spat on it and left him there laughing up a storm. Of course I did this just so he would get rid of it and stop provoking us with it and making us feel different from everyone else. If someone gives him the idea of using it against us, the situation can only get worse. So, if he calls for you and asks you questions like the ones he asked me, the best thing to do is to do what I did. I have spread the word among the rest of our friends who might see him, and told them to do the same.”
I fell for this stupid trick and agreed to follow his advice. Barely an hour after he left, the caliph's messenger arrived to summon me. When I entered the caliph's presence, I saw the icon before him.
“Isn't this a wonderful picture, Ḥunayn?”
“Just as you say, your Majesty.”
“What do you think of it? Isn't it the image of your god and his mother?”
“God forbid, your Majesty! Is God Almighty an image, can He be depicted? This is a picture like any other.”
“So this image has no power at all, either to help or to harm?”
“That's right, your Majesty.”
“If it's as you say, spit on it.”
I spat on it, and he immediately ordered me thrown in prison.
Then he sent for Theodosius, the head of the Nestorian church.[5] The moment he saw the icon, he fell upon it without even saluting the caliph and held it close, kissing it and weeping at length. A retainer moved to stop him, but the caliph ordered him away. Finally, Theodosius—after much weeping—took the icon in his hand, stood up, and pronounced a long benediction on the caliph. The caliph answered the greeting and ordered him to take his seat. Theodosius sat down holding the icon in his lap.
Mutawakkil said, “What do you think you are doing taking something from in front of me and putting it in your lap without permission?”
“Your Majesty,” said Theodosius, “I have more right to it. Of course the caliph—may God grant him long life!—has precedence over us all, but my faith does not allow me to leave an image of the Holy Family lying on the ground, in a place where its sanctity is unrecognized, or even in a place where its sanctity might not be recognized. It deserves to be placed where it will be treated as it deserves, with the finest of oils and most fragrant incense burning before it continually.”
The caliph said, “Then you may leave it in your lap for now.”
“I ask your Majesty to bestow it as a gift to me, and to deem it equivalent to an annual income of a hundred thousand dinars, until I can discharge the debt I owe your Majesty. Your Majesty will find me ready to grant any request he may make of me in the future.”
“I give you the image,” said the caliph. “But I want you to tell me how you deal with someone who spits on it.”
Theodosius replied, “If he is a Muslim, then there is no punishment, since he does not recognize its sanctity. Nevertheless, he should be made aware of it, reprimanded, and reproached—in accordance with the severity of the offense—so that he never does it again. If he is a Christian and ignorant, people are to reproach and rebuke him, and threaten him with awful punishments, and condemn him, until he repents. At any rate, only someone totally ignorant of religion would commit such an act. But should someone in full command of his own mind spit on this image, he spits on Mary the Mother of God and on Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“And how must you deal with such a person?”
“I, your Majesty, can do nothing, having no authority to punish with whip or rod, nor do I have a deep dungeon to imprison him in. But I can excommunicate him and forbid him to enter the church and to partake in Communion, and I can prohibit Christians from intercourse or conversation with him, and I can make life a severe trial for him. He would remain an outcast among us until he repents and recants. Then he must move through the community and disburse a part of his wealth in alms to the poor and the downtrodden, and observe all the prayers and fasts. At that point we invoke our Scripture—`If ye forgive not the sinners, your own sins will not be forgiven you'—and lift the ban of excommunication on the offender, and all would be as it was before.”
Then the caliph ordered Theodosius to take the icon, and told him to do as he liked with it, and gave him a hundred dirhams, telling him to spend it on his icon. After he had left, the caliph sat a while marveling at him and his love and adoration for his god.
“This is a truly amazing thing,” said the caliph, and then ordered me brought in. He called for the ropes and the whip, and ordered me stripped and spread before him. I was struck a hundred lashes. Then the caliph ordered that I be confined and tortured, and that all my furnishings, riding animals, books, and the like be carried off. My houses were destroyed and the wreckage was dumped in the river. I remained confined in the palace for six months under conditions so appalling that I was transformed into an object of pity for those who saw me. The beatings and the tortures were repeated every few days.
I remained thus until the fifth day of the fourth month of my imprisonment, when the caliph fell ill. He became so ill that he was unable to move or stand: everyone, including him, gave up any hope of his recovery. Nevertheless, my enemies the physicians were at his bedside day and night to attend to him and administer his medicines. All the while, they would continue to bring up my case to him: “If your Majesty would only rid us of that heretical atheist, he would be ridding the world of a great menace to religion.”
They continued pressing him to do something about me, accusing me of all sorts of vile things in his presence, until finally he said, “So what would you have me do with him?” “Get rid of him once and for all,” they replied. In the meantime, whenever one of my friends came to ask about me or tried to intercede for me, Bakhtīshū‘ would say, “That, your Majesty, is one of Ḥunayn's disciples; he holds the same opinions as his master.” Thus, the number of people who could help me diminished whereas the number of people plotting against me increased, and I despaired of my life. At last, in the face of their persistent demands, the caliph said, “I'll kill him first thing tomorrow morning and spare you any more trouble on his account.” The whole lot of them were greatly relieved and returned cheerfully to their own affairs.
A palace functionary informed me that I had been condemned. With distraught mind and aching heart, in terror of what was to befall me on the morrow, innocent, having done nothing to deserve such a punishment, nor committed any offense other than falling victim to a plot and playing into the hands of my enemies, I beseeched God Almighty to vouchsafe me such providence as He had shown me in the past. I prayed: “Dear God, You know I am innocent, and You are the one to save me.” At last my anxiety gave way to sleep.
Then I felt someone shaking me, and heard a voice say, “Rise and praise God, for He has delivered you from the power of your enemies. He will cure the caliph at your hands so put your heart at rest.”
I awoke terrified. “Since I invoked Him while awake,” I thought, “why deny having seen Him in my sleep?” And so I prayed continuously until the break of day.
When the eunuch arrived and opened my door earlier than usual, I thought, “The time is all wrong—they are going ahead with it after all. My enemies' triumph is at hand.” I begged God for His help.
The eunuch had been sitting only a moment when his page arrived accompanied by a barber. “Come, fortunate one,” said the eunuch, “and have your hair cut.” After the haircut, he took me to the bath and had me washed and cleaned and perfumed on the caliph's orders. When I emerged from the bath the eunuch put splendid clothes on me and left me in his booth, where I waited until the rest of the physicians arrived. Each took his appointed place. The caliph called out, “Bring in Ḥunayn!”
Those assembled had no doubt that he was calling me in to have me executed. Seeing me, he had me approach closer and closer until I at last sat directly before him. He said, “I have gratified a well-wisher of yours and forgiven you your crimes. Give thanks to God for your life, then treat me as you see fit, for I have been ill too long.”
I took his pulse and prescribed cassia pods, handpicked off the stalk, and manna, which were the obvious things to prescribe for his constipation.[6]
“God help you, your Majesty, if you take his medicine,” clamored my rivals, “it can only make your condition much worse.”
“Do not try and argue with me—I have been commanded to take whatever he prescribes,” said the caliph. He ordered the drug prepared and took it at once.
Then he said, “Ḥunayn, acquit me of all I have done to you. The one who interceded for you is powerful indeed.”
“His Majesty is blameless in his power over me. But how is it that he spared my life?”
The caliph spoke up: “Everyone must hear what I am about to say.” They gave him their full attention and he said:
As all of you know, you left last night under the impression that I was going to execute Ḥunayn this morning, as I had promised. Last night, I was in too much pain to fall asleep. About midnight, I dropped off, and dreamed that I was trapped in a narrow place, and you my physicians, along with my entire retinue, were far off in the distance. I kept saying, ‘Damn you, why are you staring at me? Where am I? Is this a place fit for me?!' But you sat silent, ignoring my cries. Suddenly a great light shone upon me as I lay there, a light that terrified me. And there stood before me a man with a radiant face, and behind him another man dressed in sumptuous clothes. The man before me said, `Peace be with you,' and I answered his greeting. `Do you recognize me?' he asked.
`No,' I said.
`I am Jesus Christ,' he said.
I trembled and shuddered in terror and asked, `Who is that with you?'
`Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq.'
I said, `Forgive me—I cannot rise to greet you.'
He said, `Pardon Ḥunayn, and absolve him of his crime, for God has forgiven him. Take what he prescribes for you and you will recover.'
“I awoke unable to stop thinking about what Ḥunayn had suffered at my hands, and marveling at the power of his intercessor. Now it is my duty to restore to him what was rightfully his. You are all dismissed; it is he who shall attend me. Every one of you who asked me to take his life shall bring me ten thousand dirhams as blood-price. Those who were not present need pay nothing. Whoever fails to bring this amount will lose his head.”
Then he spoke to me: “You may take your appointed seat.”
The group dispersed and each member returned with the ten thousand dirhams. When all they had brought had been collected, the caliph ordered that a like amount be added from his own treasury, for a total of more than two hundred thousand dirhams, and ordered it handed over to me.
By the end of the day, the medicine had moved his bowels three times, and he felt the onset of recovery. “All you wish, Ḥunayn, is yours,” he said, “for your standing is much enhanced in my eyes, and you are far more important to me than ever before. I shall restore your losses many times over, reduce your rivals to abject dependence upon you, and elevate you above all of your colleagues.”
Then he commanded that three houses belonging to him personally be renovated. They were houses the likes of which I had never occupied in all my days, nor known any of my fellow physicians to own. Everything I needed—furniture, bedding, utensils, books, and the like—was delivered as soon as the houses were made over to me. This was confirmed in the presence of notaries in view of the substantial value of the houses—a figure in the thousands of dinars. In this way, the caliph, out of concern and affection for me, wanted to ensure that the houses would belong to me and my children without anyone being able to contest our right to them.
When all his instructions regarding the transport of the property to the houses had been carried out, including the installation of curtains and hangings, and there remained only the matter of actually moving in, the caliph ordered the money due me, multiplied many times over, brought before me. He then had me conveyed in a train of five of his best mules, with all their trappings. He also gave me three Greek retainers, and granted me a monthly stipend of fifteen thousand dirhams, which, in addition to my accumulated back pay from my time in prison, added up to a substantial sum. Furthermore, his servants, the women of the harem, and the rest of his family and retainers, contributed countless moneys, robes of honor, and parcels of land. In addition, the services I used to perform outside the caliphal residence were transferred, in my case, to the interior of the residence. I became the leading representative of the physicians—my allies as well as the others. This crowned my good fortune; this is what the enmity of evildoers wrought. As Galen said, “The best of people are those who can turn the animosity of evil men to advantage.”
It is certainly true that Galen suffered great tribulations, but they were never as bad as mine.[7]
I can indeed tell you that, time and again, the first people to scurry to my door and to ask me to intercede for them with the caliph, or to consult me on an illness that had baffled them, were the same rivals who had inflicted upon me the miseries I have already described to you. And I swear by the God I worship, the First Cause, that I would show them goodwill, and hasten to do favors for them. I bore no grudges against them, nor did I ever avenge myself on them for what they did to me. Everyone marveled at the goodwill with which I performed services for my rivals, especially when people heard what my rivals were saying about me behind my back, and in the presence of my master, the caliph. I would also translate books for them on request, without profit or reward, whereas in the old days I used to earn the weight of the translated work in gold dirhams.[8]
I have recounted all this for no other reason than to remind the wise man that trials may befall the wise and the foolish, the strong and the weak, the great and the small. Those trials, although they respect no differences of degree, must never give him cause to despair of that Divine Providence which shall deliver him from his affliction. Rather, he must trust, and trust well, in his Creator, praising and glorifying Him all the more. Praise the Lord, then, Who granted me a new life, and victory over my oppressors, and Who raised me above them in rank and prosperity. Praise Him ever anew and always.
This is Ḥunayn's entire statement as given in his own words.
Notes
1. The title of a treatise by Galen. [BACK]
2. The Banū Mūsā—Aḥmad, al-Ḥasan, and Muḥammad—were the sons of Mūsā ibn Shākir, astronomer at the court of the caliph al-Ma’mūn (r. 813–33). They wrote on the sciences, particularly geometry, and patronized translators, including Ḥunayn. The incidents in question remain unidentified. [BACK]
3. Bakhtīshū‘ ibn Jibrā’īl, like Ḥunayn, was a Nestorian Christian court physician. He was known for his enormous wealth and his “erudition, loyalty, integrity, charity and perfect adherence to manly conduct” (Ibn Abī Uṣaybi‘a, ‘Uyūn al-anbā’, 201– 9). Ironically, he is said to have had his own difficulties with the caliphs: both al-Wāthiq and al-Mutawakkil dismissed him and confiscated his property, in both cases because of plots hatched by jealous or suspicious rivals. [BACK]
4. The tenth ‘Abbāsid caliph, reigned 847–61. [BACK]
5. The head of the Nestorian ecclesiastical heirarchy was called the catholicos. Theodosius held this office from 853 to 858 [C.E.] [BACK]
6. Cassia pods (Ar. khiyār shanbar) are produced by the “Pudding Pipe tree” (Cassia fistula) and pulped for medicinal use; “manna” (Ar. taranjubīn) is the sugary exudate of the flowering ash (Fraxinus ornis), collected from cuts in the bark. Cassia and manna were used as purgatives or laxatives. [BACK]
7. Galen is said to have lost his library in a fire. [BACK]
8. Ibn Abī Uṣaybi‘a (d. 1270) notes: “I have come across many of these books, and acquired a good number of them for myself. They are written in Muwallad Kūfī script, in the hand of al-Azraq, Ḥunayn's scribe. They are written in a broad hand, with a thick stroke, and in widely separated lines, on sheets twice and three times as thick as today's paper, and cut to a size one-third of standard Baghdādī paper. Ḥunayn produced his books in this way to increase the size and weight of the volumes because he was paid their weight in gold dirhams. Since the paper he used was so thick, it is little wonder that his works have survived all these many years.” Ibn Abī Uṣaybi‘a, ‘Uyūn, 270–71. [BACK]