Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn (215–298 AH/AD 830–910) is best known for his role in the translation of Greek texts, both philosophical and mathematical, into Arabic. In addition to his work in the translation institute founded for his father, Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq (193–263 AH/AD 809–877), he served as a physician to the court under caliphs al‐Mu ˓atamid and al‐Mu ˓atadid. Although Ḥunayn was a Nestorian Christian, some sources imply that Isḥāq converted to Islam.
As a translator, Isḥāq followed the scientific approach developed and applied by his father with such success to the Galenic corpus. Rather than translate mechanically word‐by‐word, he attempted to capture the meaning of each Greek thought unit in an appropriate form in the target language. (Both Isḥāq and his father are said to have preferred to translate first from Greek into their native Syriac, only later producing an Arabic version based on the Syriac. Assuming such reports to be true, the paucity of Syriac translations among extant...
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References
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Young, G.D. (2008). Isḥāq Ibn Ḥunayn. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_9259
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