Sunday Morning

~ Live & Learn

One of the earliest texts on the eye—its structure, its diseases, its treatments—Ten Treatises on Ophthalmology, was written in the ninth century by the Arab physician Hunayn ibn Ishaq. The individual components of the eye, he wrote, all have their own nature and they are arranged so that they are in cosmological harmony, reflecting, in turn, the mind of God.

~ Colum McCann, Apeirogon: A Novel (Random House, February 25, 2020)

Photo: A Photographer’s Eye, Nicholas Nixon

21 thoughts on “Sunday Morning”

  1. so interesting how he mixed science, art, and spirituality all into what makes an eye. perhaps every living thing, and every part of it, has these same 3 elements –

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  6. Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
    The eye … a simply amazing structure among the many in our bodies!! … ‘ The individual components of the eye, he wrote, all have their own nature and they are arranged so that they are in cosmological harmony, reflecting, in turn, the mind of God.’
    Colum McCann, Apeirogon: A Novel (Random House, February 25, 2020).

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  7. How wonderful to be reminded that wisdom has been with us for aeons, and all over our globe! Eyes are such spectacular manifestations of cosmic being–and the inner eye maybe even more so.

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  10. Had to read that several times to grasp the full meaning. But I’m a pretty good reader of eyes, so maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention to the writing but got lost in the reading of the eye….
    Our eyes are a wonder-full thing; I dare say that having seen my mum going blind and being on the same path too, one truly learns to appreciate their ‘talking’…. I literally SAW the stores coming down in my (much, much later) bros-in-law’s eyes after we had first a bizarre conversation and then a sort of a starring down time where we looked and locked (into) each other’s eyes – and this coming down of the shutters in the eyes of this guy I’ll never forget.

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  12. Wisdom through the ages…eye sight such a precious gift, a miracle
    Ḥunayn ibn Isḥaq 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 is the father of Arab translations. He mastered four languages: Arabic, Syriac, Greek and Persian.
    Profession: Physician, Scientist, Translator
    Place of death: Baghdad
    Place of birth: Al-Hirah wikipedia

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