Contributions of non-Muslims to Islamic science
Hasdai ibn Shaprut, Abu Yusuf ben Yitzhak ben Ezra (c. 915 - c. 975):
Qusta ibn Luqa (820–912):
Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Abu Zayd (809/10-877):
• Born in Al-Andalus, Prospered at the court of Abd alRahman III, and died in Cordoba
• A Hispano-Jewish scholar, physician (to the caliph), translator of Greek into Arabic, and patron of science.
• Contributions: He encouraged and supported Jewish science, and he is to be partly credited for helping in transferring Jewish knowledge from the academies of Babylonia to Spain.
• Born in Baalbek,Syria, prospered in Bagdad and died in Armenia
• He was a Christian physician, philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, and translator of Byzantine Greek origin.
• Contributions: He produced many works of his own, writing mainly on medical subjects, but also on mathematics and astronomy.
• He was born in Hira, prospered in Jundishapur and in Bagdad, where he died.
• A famous Nestorian physician and one of the greatest scholars of his time.
• Contributions: He first worked for the Banu Musa, collecting Greek manuscripts and translating them into Arabic; he then became the leading translator of medical works.
• One of his famous contribution is his work on Ophthalmology, “Ten Treatises on Ophthalmology”, discussing various illnesses and treatments, as well as other fields of medicine and science
Isaac Israeli ben Solomon (Abu Ya'qub Ishaq ibn Suleiman al-Isra’ili, c. 832 – c. 932):
• Born in Egypt, lived and prospered in Qairawan, Tunis, where he died.
•Regarded as one of the foremost physicians and philosophers of his time, known as the father of medieval Jewish Neo-Platonism. All his works were written in Arabic and later translated into Hebrew, Latin, and Spanish.
• Contribution: He became the physician of the Fatimid caliph `Ubaid Allah al-Mahdi (909 to 934), at whose request he composed many medical writings.
Yahya Masawaih al-Mardini, known as Mesue the Younger (c. 915- 1015):
• Born in Mardin, Upper Iraq, worked in Baghdad, and died in Cairo;
•A great Arab Nestorian Christian
physician, worked at the service
of the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah.
• Contributions: He is known for his pharmaceutical books: a 12-part complete pharmacopeia titled “Antidotarium sive Grabadin medicamentorum”, which for centuries remained the standard textbook of pharmacy in the west, and a book on purgatives and emetics, “De medicins laxativis”. In his works, he describes some of the earliest methods of distilling empyreumatic oils and for the extraction of shale oil.
