Hunayn ibn Ishaq
808-873 9th century
Doing one's work with exactness, and refusing to make a weapon of it.
Who was Hunayn ibn Ishaq?
A Christian of the Church of the East, son of a pharmacist from Hira, he became in Baghdad the greatest translator of his century: he brought Greek medicine into Syriac and Arabic, and travelled as far as Egypt to recover lost manuscripts. Physician to the caliph, he was imprisoned for refusing to prepare a poison. His translations fed the physicians of East and West for seven hundred years.
In their own words
I sought for it earnestly and travelled in search of it in Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, until I reached Alexandria, and found nothing except about half of it, at Damascus.
I have skill only in what is beneficial, and I have studied nothing else.
Two things prevented me: my religion and my profession. My religion decrees that we should do good even to our enemies, how much more to our friends. And my profession is instituted for the good of human beings.