:)

The origins of the treatise are uncertain. No Greek original exists, though there are claims in the Arabic treatise that it was translated from the Greek into Syriac and from Syriac into Arabic by a well-known 9th-century translator, Yahyá ibn Bitriq. It appears, however, that the treatise was actually composed in Arabic. We can with certainty say that the section on physiognomy was circulating in Arabic before AD 940, for there is a manuscript now in the British Library (OIOC, MS Or. 12070) copied in 941/330 by one Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī ibn Durustawayh of Isfahan which contains this particular fragment of the treatise, though it is not called Sirr al-asrār. It antedates all references to the Sirr al-asrār (Secret of Secrets) and is earlier than all other known manuscript copies. It is likely that the treatise now known as The Secret of Secrets gradually evolved over a long period through the accretion of material on a wide range of topics, including statecraft, ethics, physiognomy, astrology, alchemy, magic, and medicine. A Latin translation of the Secret of Secrets from the Arabic was made in the mid-12th century by Joannes Hispalensis (preserved in some 150 copies) and again in the first half of the 13th century by Philippus Tripolitanus (preserved in more than 350 copies). It was extremely influential in Europe, where it was known as the Secretum secretorum and formed the basis of subsequent translations into Czech, Croatian, German, Icelandic, English, Castilian, Catalan, Portuguese, French, and Italian. It was also translated from the Arabic into Hebrew and then into Russian.