Māsarjawaih ( ar, ماسرجويه) was one of the earliest
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
physicians
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
of
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
origin, and the earliest
translator
Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...
from the
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
; he lived in
Basra
Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is hand ...
about 683 (
Anno Hegirae
The Hijri year ( ar, سَنة هِجْريّة) or era ( ''at-taqwīm al-hijrī'') is the era used in the Islamic lunar calendar. It begins its count from the Islamic New Year in which Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Yathrib ...
64). His name, distorted, has been transmitted in European sources; it has not yet been satisfactorily explained. Neuda (in "Orient, Lit." vi. 132) compares the name "''Masarjawaih''" with the Hebrew proper name "''Mesharsheya''"; but the ending "''-waih''" points to a
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
origin. The form "''Masarjis''" has been compared with the Christian proper name "''Mar Serjis''"; but it is not known that Masarjis embraced either
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
or
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
.
Masarjawaih's son, who also was a translator, and was the author of two treatises (on colors and on foods), was called "
Isa''", that is, "
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
"; whose name indicates that this son had converted to Christianity.
Masarjawaih translated the medical ''Pandects'' of the
archdeacon
An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denominations, above that o ...
or
presbyter
Presbyter () is an honorific title for Christian clergy. The word derives from the Greek ''presbyteros,'' which means elder or senior, although many in the Christian antiquity would understand ''presbyteros'' to refer to the bishop functioning as ...
Aaron of Alexandria (fl. –641) from the Syriac into Arabic and added to the thirty chapters of this translation two of his own. This is believed to be the first scientific book to have been translated into Arabic. He also wrote in Arabic two treatises, "The Virtues of Foods, Their Advantage and Their Disadvantage", and "The Virtues of the Medicinal Plants, Their Advantage and Their Disadvantage". None of these three writings has been preserved. Their contents, however, are known to a certain extent by quotations. How much Masarjawaih added to the translation of
Aaron
According to Abrahamic religions, Aaron ''′aharon'', ar, هارون, Hārūn, Greek (Septuagint): Ἀαρών; often called Aaron the priest ()., group="note" ( or ; ''’Ahărōn'') was a prophet, a high priest, and the elder brother of ...
's pandects can hardly be decided, as the works themselves are preserved in fragments only.
Resources
Gottheil, Richard and Max Schloessinger. "Masarjawaih".''
Jewish Encyclopedia
''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on th ...
''. Funk and Wagnalls, 1901–1906; which gives the following bibliography:
:*Steinschneider, in Z. D. M. G. liii. 428 et seq.;
:*''idem'', Die Arabische Literatur, § 16, pp. 13 et seq. G. M. Sc.
See also
*
Faraj ben Salim
Faraj ben Sālim (), also known as Farragut of Girgenti, Moses Farachi of Dirgent, Ferragius, Farragus, or Franchinus or Ferrauto, was a Sicilian-Jewish physician and translator who flourished in the second half of the thirteenth century.
Work ...
References
*
JE
{{Islamic medicine
Medieval Jewish physicians
Syriac–Arabic translators
7th-century Iranian physicians
Physicians from the Umayyad Caliphate
7th-century Jews
7th-century people from the Umayyad Caliphate
Medieval Jewish physicians of Persia
Jews from the Umayyad Caliphate