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Iraq: The earliest known medical description of the eye, from a 9th century work by Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809-873), 12th century CE manuscript

Iraq: The earliest known medical description of the eye, from a 9th century work by Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809-873), 12th century CE manuscript

Hunayn ibn Ishaq ( Latin: Iohannitius) (809 – 873) was a famous and influential scholar, physician, and scientist of Nestorian Arab Christian descent. He and his students transmitted their Syriac and Arabic translations of many classical Greek texts throughout the Islamic world, during the apex of the Islamic Abbasid Caliphate.

Hunayn ibn Ishaq was the most productive translator of Greek medical and scientific treatises in his day. He studied Greek and became known among the Arabs as the 'Sheikh of the translators'. He mastered four languages: Arabic, Syriac, Greek and Persian.

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