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Abū Zakariyyāʾ Yaḥyā (or Yūḥannā) Ibn al-Biṭrīq, active in the first half of the third/ninth century, was one of the first translators of Greek into Arabic. Ibn Juljul (d. 384/994) records that he was a mawlā (“client”) of the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Maʾmūn (r. 198–218/813–33) in Baghdad, from which one could infer that he was a convert to Islam. Arab bibliographers such as Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa (d. 668/1288) judge that he did not have sufficient command of either Arabic or Greek and that he could not read the old Greek discrete (majuscule…

Abū Yaʿqūb Isḥāq b. Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq al-ʿIbādī (d. 298/910) was, like his father Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq (d. 260/873–4), a leading translator of ancient Greek texts, well versed in the Arabic, Syriac, and Greek Ianguages. Ḥunayn’s nisba al-ʿIbādī indicates that Isḥāq was of Arab Christian descent. He followed the medical profession of his father, who dedicated to him some of his translations of Galen (d. c.216 C.E.). These translations were from Greek into Syriac, not into Arabic, as Syriac was then still the language of the medical profes…

Ḥubaysh b. al-Ḥasan al-Aʿsam al-Dimashqī (fl. second half of the third/ninth century) was a nephew, pupil, and collaborator of the renowned translator of Greek medical and philosophical works into Arabic Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq (d. 260/873) and, like him, a member of the Apostolic Church of the East (also called the East Syriac or Nestorian church). Ḥunayn’s famous Risāla (epistle) on the translations of Galen credits Ḥubaysh with preparing thirty-six Arabic versions of Galen’s works, at the request of Muslim clients in the ʿAbbāsid capital. These outnumber t…

Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq al-ʿIbādī (192–260/808–73) was one of the main agents of the reception of Greek knowledge under ʿAbbāsid rule and the most famous translator of Greek texts into Syriac and Arabic. His translations formed a foundation for the continuation of rationalist Galenic medicine amongst Muslim physicians and, through their mediation, also in the mediaeval West. Life According to Ibn al-Nadīm (d. after 385/995), he died in 260/873, which is to be preferred to the 264/877 given by Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa (d. 668/1270) (Bergsträsser, 33). His nisba al-ʿIbādī indicates that he hailed …

Hippocrates (b. after 460, d. c.379 B.C.E.) regarded in the West as in the Muslim world as “the father of medicine,” was a historical figure—his younger contemporary Plato mentions him twice in his dialogues as a well known physician. Little is known about his life. He was born on the Aegean island of Cos and died in Larissa (Thessaly). He belonged to a family of physicians who called themselves Asclepiads. As an itinerant practioner, he travelled throughout Asia Minor, Thrace, and Greece. The writings (in the Ionian dialect) that are presently attributed to Hippocrates give …

The School of Alexandria, the late antique institution for the teaching of philosophy and medicine, deeply influenced the development of those fields in the Muslim world. 1. The school in late antiquity The famous Alexandrian School of philosophy and medicine had its origin in the prosperous intellectual climate of the Ptolemaic dynasty, the successors to Alexander the Great in Egypt. In late antiquity, as a preeminent seat of higher education, it had a far-reaching impact on the educated class in Greek territories and also in…

The modern term “ doxography” refers to a kind of philosophical literature that originated in Greek antiquity and had the aim of giving an unbiased account of the teachings of the various philosophical schools. In the European Renaissance and later it provided valuable information about the pre-Socratics and later thinkers who stood outside the mainstream of Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism, and thus it served to stimulate new ideas. In Islam the role of the translated texts was different, as in them the ancient authorities were more and more brought into line with Muslim beliefs. There…

[German Version] I. Greek and Roman Antiquity – II. Practical Theology – III. Islam– I. Greek and Roman Antiquity ʿΩροσκόπος/ hōroskópos “the watcher of the hours,” was originally a term for the ascendant, then the first 30° section of the Dodecatropos, and finally the position of all the stars at a particular time. The approx. nine Egyptian (between 38 bce and 93 ce) and 180 Greek (from 62 bce until 621 ce) horoscopes have been passed down on stone, papyrus, ostracon, or as graffiti, and also in didactic poetry (as sphragis in Manetho's writings) and in special…

Asclepius (Asqalībiyūs or Asqulābiyūs) was the most prominent god of healing in Greek and Roman mythology; his attribute, a staff with a serpent coiled around it, became the emblem of medicine in modern times. In a commentary on the Hippocratic oath, ascribed to Galen and translated into Arabic, Asclepius is seen as a mortal who was raised to heaven in a column of fire. A note by the Nestorian translator Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq (d. 260/873) and preserved by Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa (d. 668/1270) explains the pa…