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]