Approximately eighty years after the Abbasid dynasty in 750 CE rose to power in Bagdad, the Abbasid Caliph (ruler) al-Ma’mun (d. 833 CE) established in Baghdad Bayt al-Hikma (the House of Wisdom), an educational institution where Muslim and non-Muslim scholars together sought to gather the world’s knowledge not only via original writing but also through translation. Probably the most well-known and industrious translator of the era was Hunayn ibn Ishaq (d. 873 CE), known in the West by the Latinized name “Joannitius.” Referred to as “the sheikh of the translators,” Hunayn is credited with an immense number of translations, ranging from works on medicine, philosophy, astronomy, and mathematics, to magic and oneiromancy. This article looks at Hunayn’s work, briefly places this key figure within the translatorial habitus, discusses his methodology towards translation, as described in his own works, and examines that methodology in light of the sociological and sociolinguistic factors of the time.