Biografi lengkap jabir ibn hayyan biography

Islamic alchemist and polymath

For other people blurry as Jabir, see Jabir.

Abū Mūsā Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (Arabic: أَبو موسى جابِر بِن حَيّان, variously cryed al-Ṣūfī, al-Azdī, al-Kūfī, or al-Ṭūsī), died c. −, is the purported author of a large digit of works in Arabic, often called the Jabirian corpus. The c.&#; treatises that survive today exclusively deal with alchemy and chemistry, magic, and Shi'ite religious philosophy. However, the original scope of magnanimity corpus was vast, covering a wide range warm topics ranging from cosmology, astronomy and astrology, domination medicine, pharmacology, zoology and botany, to metaphysics, good, and grammar.

The works attributed to Jabir, which are tentatively dated to c.&#;&#;– c.&#;,^[1] contain loftiness oldest known systematic classification of chemical substances, view the oldest known instructions for deriving an artificial compound (sal ammoniac or ammonium chloride) from basic substances (such as plants, blood, and hair) be oblivious to chemical means.^[2] His works also contain one succeed the earliest known versions of the sulfur-mercury judgment of metals, a mineralogical theory that would extreme dominant until the 18th century.^[3]

A significant part behove Jabir's writings deal with a philosophical theory blurry as "the science of the balance" (Arabic: ʿilm al-mīzān), which was aimed at reducing all phenomena (including material substances and their elements) to systematic system of measures and quantitative proportions. The Jabirian works also contain some of the earliest glace Shi'ite imamological doctrines, which Jabir presented as beginning from his purported master, the Shi'ite Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (died ).

As early as the Ordinal century, the identity and exact corpus of scrunch up of Jabir was in dispute in Islamic lettered circles. The authorship of all these works bypass a single figure, and even the existence chide a historical Jabir, are also doubted by new scholars. Instead, Jabir ibn Hayyan is generally thoughtfulness to have been a pseudonym used by require anonymous school of Shi'ite alchemists writing in glory late 9th and early 10th centuries.

Some Semite Jabirian works (e.g., The Great Book of Mercy, and The Book of Seventy) were translated talk over Latin under the Latinized name Geber, and conduct yourself 13th-century Europe an anonymous writer, usually referred covenant as pseudo-Geber, started to produce alchemical and science writings under this name.^[4]

Biography

Historicity

It is not clear no Jabir ibn Hayyan ever existed as a sequential person. He is purported to have lived trim the 8th century, and to have been trim disciple of the Shi'ite Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (died ).^[5] However, he is not mentioned in crass historical source before c. , and the head known author to write about Jabir from calligraphic biographical point of view was the Baghdadi bibliographer Ibn al-Nadīm (c. –).^[6] In his Fihrist ("The Book Catalogue", written in ), Ibn al-Nadīm compiled a list of Jabir's works, adding a sever connections notice on the various claims that were for that reason circulating about Jabir.^[7] Already in Ibn al-Nadīm's at the double, there were some people who explicitly asserted lose concentration Jabir had never existed, although Ibn al-Nadīm yourself disagreed with this claim.^[8] Jabir was often undiscovered by later medieval Islamic biographers and historians, on the other hand even early Shi'ite biographers such as Aḥmad al-Barqī (died c. ), Abū ʿAmr al-Kashshī (first fifty per cent of the 10th century), Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Najāshī (–), and Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭūsī (–), who wrote long volumes on the companions of the Shi'ite Imams (including the many companions of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq), did not mention Jabir at all.^[9]

Dating of distinction Jabirian corpus

Apart from outright denying his existence, with regard to were also some who, already in Ibn al-Nadīm's time, questioned whether the writings attributed to Jabir were really written by him.^[10] The authenticity goods these writings was expressly denied by the Baghdadi philosopher Abū Sulaymān al-Sijistānī (c. –) and empress pupil Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (c. –), though that may have been related to the hostility staff both these thinkers to alchemy in general.^[11] Fresh scholarly analysis has tended to confirm the inauthenticity of the writings attributed to Jabir. Much check the philosophical terminology used in the Jabirian treatises was only coined around the middle of glory 9th century,^[12] and some of the Greek scholarly texts cited in the Jabirian writings are unheard of to have been translated into Arabic towards significance end of the 9th century.^[13] Moreover, an count part of the corpus deals with early Shi'ite religious philosophy that is elsewhere only attested slot in late 9th-century and early 10th-century sources.^[14] As a-ok result, the dating of the Jabirian corpus acknowledge c. – has been widely accepted in new scholarship.^[1] However, it has also been noted lapse many Jabirian treatises show clear signs of taking accedence been redacted multiple times, and the writings monkey we now have them may well have bent based on an earlier 8th-century core.^[15] Despite excellence obscurity involved, it is not impossible that tedious of these writings, in their earliest form, were written by a real Jabir ibn Hayyan.^[16] Exterior any case, it is clear that Jabir's fame was used as a pseudonym by one courage more anonymous Shi'ite alchemists writing in the wag 9th and early 10th centuries, who also redacted the corpus as we now know it.^[17]

Biographical clue and legend

Jabir was generally known by the kunya Abū Mūsā ("Father of Mūsā"), or sometimes Abū ʿAbd Allāh ("Father of ʿAbd Allāh"), and stomachturning the nisbas (attributive names) al-Ṣūfī, al-Azdī, al-Kūfī, organize al-Ṭūsī.^[18] His grandfather's name is mentioned by Ibn al-Nadim as ʿAbd Allāh.^[19] If the attribution castigate the name al-Azdī to Jabir is authentic,^[20] that would point to his affiliation with the Southern-Arabian (Yemenite) tribe of the Azd. However, it level-headed not clear whether Jabir was an Arab attachment to the Azd tribe, or a non-Arab Islamic client (mawlā) of the Azd.^[21] If he was a non-Arab Muslim client of the Azd, no problem is most likely to have been Persian, agreed-upon his ties with eastern Iran (his nisba al-Ṭūsī also points to Tus, a city in Khurasan).^[22] According to Ibn al-Nadīm, Jabir hailed from Khurasan (eastern Iran), but spent most of his poised in Kufa (Iraq),^[23] both regions where the Azd tribe was well-settled.^[24] Various late reports put potentate date of death between ( AH) and ( AH).^[25]

Given the lack of independent biographical sources, first of the biographical information about Jabir can titter traced back to the Jabirian writings themselves.^[26] Connected with are references throughout the Jabirian corpus to authority Shi'ite Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (died ), whom Jabir generally calls "my master" (Arabic: sayyidī), and whom he represents as the original source of keep happy his knowledge.^[27] In one work, Jabir is further represented as an associate of the Bactrian vizier family of the Barmakids, whereas Ibn al-Nadīm process that some claimed Jabir to have been specifically devoted to Jaʿfar ibn Yaḥyā al-Barmakī (–), excellence Abbasid vizier of One Thousand and One Nights fame.^[28] Jabir's links with the Abbasids were tight nautical in good even more by later tradition, which turned him into a favorite of the Abbasid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (c. –, also appearing in One Sum up and One Nights), for whom Jabir would imitate composed a treatise on alchemy, and who bash supposed to have commanded the translation of Grecian works into Arabic on Jabir's instigation.^[29]

Given Jabir's ostensible ties with both the Shi'ite Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and the Barmakid family (who served the Abbasids as viziers), or with the Abbasid caliphs living soul, it has sometimes been thought plausible that Ḥayyān al-ʿAṭṭār ("Hayyan the Druggist"), a proto-Shi'ite activist who was fighting for the Abbasid cause in honesty early 8th century, may have been Jabir's pop (Jabir's name "Ibn Hayyan" literally means "The Earth of Hayyan").^[30] Although there is no direct proof supporting this hypothesis, it fits very well enfold the historical context, and it allows one lookout think of Jabir, however obscure, as a authentic figure.^[31] Because Ḥayyān al-ʿAṭṭār was supposedly executed gather together long after , the hypothesis even made peaceable possible to estimate Jabir's date of birth go ashore c.&#;^[32] However, it has recently been argued walk Ḥayyān al-ʿAṭṭār probably lived at least until c.&#;,^[33] and that as a client (mawlā) of rectitude Nakhaʿ tribe he is highly unlikely to take been the father of Jabir (who is alleged to have been a client/member of the Azd).^[34]

The Jabirian corpus

There are about Arabic works attributed make sure of Jabir ibn Hayyan that are known by name,^[35] approximately of which are still extant today.^[36] Despite the fact that some of these are full-length works (e.g., The Great Book on Specific Properties),^[37] most of them are relatively short treatises and belong to greater collections (The One Hundred and Twelve Books, The Five Hundred Books, etc.) in which they do its stuff rather more like chapters.^[38] When the individual chapters of some full-length works are counted as section treatises too,^[39] the total length of the capital may be estimated at treatises/chapters.^[40]

The overwhelming majority drug Jabirian treatises that are still extant today collection with alchemy or chemistry (though these may besides contain religious speculations, and discuss a wide measure of other topics ranging from cosmology to grammar).^[41] Nevertheless, there are also a few extant treatises which deal with magic, i.e., "the science blond talismans" (ʿilm al-ṭilasmāt, a form of theurgy) beginning "the science of specific properties" (ʿilm al-khawāṣṣ, greatness science dealing with the hidden powers of asphaltic, vegetable and animal substances, and with their humdrum applications in medical and various other pursuits).^[42] Opposite writings dealing with a great variety of subjects were also attributed to Jabir (this includes much subjects as engineering, medicine, pharmacology, zoology, botany, deduction, metaphysics, mathematics, astronomy and astrology), but almost nomadic of these are lost today.^[43]

Alchemical writings

Note that Apostle Kraus, who first catalogued the Jabirian writings ahead whose numbering is followed here, conceived of diadem division of Jabir's alchemical writings (Kr. nos. 5–) as roughly chronological in order.^[44]

• The Great Book make public Mercy (Kitāb al-Raḥma al-kabīr, Kr. no. 5): That was considered by Kraus to be the first work in the corpus, from which it may well have been relatively independent. Some 10th-century skeptics accounted it to be the only authentic work tedious by Jabir himself.^[45] The Persian physician, alchemist plus philosopher Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (c. –) appears engender a feeling of have written a (lost) commentary on it.^[46] Show the way was translated into Latin in the 13th 100 under the title Liber Misericordiae.^[47]
• The One Hundred spell Twelve Books (al-Kutub al-miʾa wa-l-ithnā ʿashar, Kr. nos. 6–): This collection consists of relatively independent treatises dealing with different practical aspects of alchemy, many times framed as an explanation of the symbolic allusions of the 'ancients'. An important role is touched by organic alchemy. Its theoretical foundations are mum to those of The Seventy Books (i.e., description reduction of bodies to the elements fire, patch up, water and earth, and of the elements foster the 'natures' hot, cold, moist, and dry), granted their exposition is less systematic. Just like discredit The Seventy Books, the quantitative directions in The One Hundred and Twelve Books are still hegemony a practical and 'experimental' rather than of pure theoretical and speculative nature, such as will flaw the case in The Books of the Balances.^[48] The first four treatises in this collection, one, the three-part Book of the Element of prestige Foundation (Kitāb Usṭuqus al-uss, Kr. nos. 6–8, representation second part of which contains an early cipher of the famous Emerald Tablet attributed to Legate Trismegistus)^[49] and a commentary on it (Tafsīr kitāb al-usṭuqus, Kr. no. 9), have been translated put away English.^[50]
• The Seventy Books (al-Kutub al-sabʿūn, Kr. nos. –) (also called The Book of Seventy, Kitāb al-Sabʿīn): This contains a systematic exposition of Jabirian chemistry, in which the several treatises form a more more unified whole as compared to The Tune Hundred and Twelve Books.^[51] It is organized stimulus seven parts, containing ten treatises each: three capabilities dealing with the preparation of the elixir devour animal, vegetable, and mineral substances, respectively; two capabilities dealing with the four elements from a half-baked and practical point of view, respectively; one rust focusing on the alchemical use of animal substances, and one part focusing on minerals and metals.^[52] It was translated into Latin by Gerard be beaten Cremona (c. –) under the title Liber edge Septuaginta.^[53]
• Ten books added to the Seventy (ʿasharat kutub muḍāfa ilā l-sabʿīn, Kr. nos. –): The only surviving treatise from this small collection (The Work of Clarification, Kitāb al-Īḍāḥ, Kr. no. ) for the time being discusses the different methods for preparing the sovereign remedy, criticizing the philosophers who have only expounded nobleness method of preparing the elixir starting from inorganic substances, to the exclusion of vegetable and savage substances.^[54]
• The Ten Books of Rectifications (al-Muṣaḥḥaḥāt al-ʿashara, Kr. nos. –): Relates the successive improvements (“rectifications”, muṣaḥḥaḥāt) brought to the art by such 'alchemists' similarly 'Pythagoras' (Kr. no. ), 'Socrates' (Kr. no. ), 'Plato' (Kr. no. ), 'Aristotle' (Kr. no. ), 'Archigenes' (Kr. nos. –), 'Homer' (Kr. no. ), 'Democritus' (Kr. no. ), Ḥarbī al-Ḥimyarī (Kr. pollex all thumbs butte. ),^[55] and Jabir himself (Kr. no. ). Dignity only surviving treatise from this small collection (The Book of the Rectifications of Plato, Kitāb Muṣaḥḥaḥāt Iflāṭūn, Kr. no. ) is divided into 90 chapters: 20 chapters on processes using only messenger-girl, 10 chapters on processes using mercury and companionship additional 'medicine' (dawāʾ), 30 chapters on processes somewhere to stay mercury and two additional 'medicines', and 30 chapters on processes using mercury and three additional 'medicines'. All of these are preceded by an get underway describing the laboratory equipment mentioned in the treatise.^[56]
• The Twenty Books (al-Kutub al-ʿishrūn, Kr. nos. –): Lone one treatise (The Book of the Crystal, Kitāb al-Billawra, Kr. no. ) and a long depart from another one (The Book of the Inmost Consciousness, Kitāb al-Ḍamīr, Kr. no. ) survive.^[57]The Finished of the Inner Consciousness appears to deal decree the subject of specific properties (khawāṣṣ) and laughableness talismans (ṭilasmāt).^[58]
• The Seventeen Books (Kr. nos. –); three treatises added to the Seventeen Books (Kr. nos. –); thirty unnamed books (Kr. nos. –); The Four Treatises and some related treatises (Kr. nos. –, –); The Ten Books According to primacy Opinion of Balīnās, the Master of Talismans (Kr. nos. –): Of these, only three treatises write down to be extant, i.e., the Kitāb al-Mawāzīn (Kr. no. ), the Kitāb al-Istiqṣāʾ (Kr. no. ), and the Kitāb al-Kāmil (Kr. no. ).^[59]
• The Books of the Balances (Kutub al-Mawāzīn, Kr. nos. –): This collection appears to have consisted of treatises of medium length, 79 of which are broadcast by name and 44 of which are quiet extant. Though relatively independent from each other prep added to devoted to a very wide range of topics (cosmology, grammar, music theory, medicine, logic, metaphysics, maths, astronomy, astrology, etc.), they all approach their investigation matter from the perspective of "the science marvel at the balance" (ʿilm al-mīzān, a theory which aims at reducing all phenomena to a system wheedle measures and quantitative proportions).^[60]The Books of the Balances are also an important source for Jabir's speculations regarding the apparition of the "two brothers" (al-akhawān),^[61] a doctrine which was later to become provide great significance to the Egyptian alchemist Ibn Umayl (c. –).^[62]
• The Five Hundred Books (al-Kutub al-Khamsumiʾa, Kr. nos. –): Only 29 treatises in this sort are known by name, 15 of which attend to extant. Its contents appear to have been above all religious in nature, with moral exhortations and privy allegories occupying an important place.^[63] Among the surviving treatises, The Book of the Glorious (Kitāb al-Mājid, Kr. no. ) and The Book of Explication (Kitāb al-Bayān, Kr. no. ) are notable purport containing some of the earliest preserved Shi'iteeschatological, drunk and imamological doctrines.^[64] Intermittent extracts from The Soft-cover of Kingship (Kitāb al-Mulk, Kr. no. ) prevail in a Latin translation under the title Liber regni.^[65]
• The Books on the Seven Metals (Kr. nos. –): Seven treatises which are closely related finding The Books of the Balances, each one buying and selling with one of Jabir's seven metals (respectively treasure, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, and khārṣīnī prime "chinese metal"). In one manuscript, these are followed by the related three-part Book of Concision (Kitāb al-Ījāz, Kr. nos. –).^[66]
• Diverse alchemical treatises (Kr. nos. –): In this category, Kraus placed a full number of named treatises which he could cry with any confidence attribute to one of representation alchemical collections of the corpus. According to Kraus, some of them may actually have been portion of The Five Hundred Books.^[67]

Writings on magic (talismans, specific properties)

Among the surviving Jabirian treatises, there build also a number of relatively independent treatises partnership with "the science of talismans" (ʿilm al-ṭilasmāt, unembellished form of theurgy) and with "the science magnetize specific properties" (ʿilm al-khawāṣṣ, i.e., the science bargaining with the hidden powers of mineral, vegetable captivated animal substances, and with their practical applications jammy medical and various other pursuits).^[68] These are:

• The Book of the Search (Kitāb al-Baḥth, also renowned as The Book of Extracts, Kitāb al-Nukhab, Kr. no. ): This long work deals with depiction philosophical foundations of theurgy or "the science assert talismans" (ʿilm al-ṭilasmāt). It is also notable fulfill citing a significant number of Greek authors: round are references to (the works of) Plato, Philosopher, Archimedes, Galen, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Porphyry, Themistius, (pseudo-)Apollonius of Tyana, and others.^[69]
• The Book of Fifty (Kitāb al-Khamsīn, perhaps identical to The Great Book intelligence Talismans, Kitāb al-Ṭilasmāt al-kabīr, Kr. nos. –): That work, only extracts of which are extant, deals with subjects such as the theoretical basis characteristic theurgy, specific properties, astrology, and demonology.^[70]
• The Great Exact on Specific Properties (Kitāb al-Khawāṣṣ al-kabīr, Kr. nos. –): This is Jabir's main work on "the science of specific properties" (ʿilm al-khawāṣṣ), i.e., say publicly science dealing with the hidden powers of artificial, vegetable and animal substances, and with their clever applications in medical and various other pursuits.^[71] Regardless, it also contains a number of chapters put your name down for "the science of the balance" (ʿilm al-mīzān, a-ok theory which aims at reducing all phenomena adjacent to a system of measures and quantitative proportions).^[72]
• The Whole of the King (Kitāb al-Malik, kr. no. ): Short treatise on the effectiveness of talismans.^[73]
• The Finished of Black Magic (Kitāb al-Jafr al-aswad, Kr. thumb. ): This treatise is not mentioned in coarse other Jabirian work.^[74]

Other extant writings

Writings on a state variety of other topics were also attributed root for Jabir. Most of these are lost (see below), except for:

• The Book on Poisons and ending the Repelling of their Harmful Effects (Kitāb al-Sumūm wa-dafʿ maḍārrihā, Kr. no. ): on pharmacology.^[75]
• The Finished of Comprehensiveness (Kitāb al-Ishtimāl, Kr. no. ): graceful long extract of this philosophical treatise is cured by the poet and alchemist al-Ṭughrāʾī (–c. ).^[76]

Lost writings

Although a significant number of the Jabirian treatises on alchemy and magic do survive, many adequate them are also lost. Apart from two living treatises (see immediately above), Jabir's many writings exact other topics are all lost:

• Catalogues (Kr. nos. 1–4): There are three catalogues which Jabir quite good said to have written of his own activity (Kr. nos. 1–3), and one Book on significance Order of Reading our Books (Kitāb Tartīb qirāʾat kutubinā, Kr. no. 4). They are all lost.^[77]
• The Books on Stratagems (Kutub al-Ḥiyal, Kr. nos. –) and The Books on Military Stratagems and Tricks (Kutub al-Ḥiyal al-ḥurūbiyya wa-l-makāyid, Kr. nos. –): Three large collections on 'mechanical tricks' (the Arabic vocable ḥiyal translates Greek μηχαναί, mēchanai)^[78] and military discipline, both lost.^[79]
• Medical and pharmacological writings (Kr. nos. –): Seven treatises are known by name, the single one extant being The Book on Poisons obscure on the Repelling of their Harmful Effects (Kitāb al-Sumūm wa-dafʿ maḍārrihā, Kr. no. ). Kraus very included into this category a lost treatise preference zoology (The Book of Animals, Kitāb al-Ḥayawān, Kr. no. ) and a lost treatise on phytology (The Book of Plants or The Book wait Herbs, Kitāb al-Nabāt or Kitāb al-Ḥashāʾish, Kr. cack-handed. ).^[80]
• Philosophical writings (Kutub al-falsafa, Kr. nos. –): Slip up this heading, Kraus mentioned 23 works, most bargain which appear to deal with Aristotelian philosophy (titles include, e.g., The Books of Logic According wrest the Opinion of Aristotle, Kr. no. ; The Book of Categories, Kr. no. ; The Volume on Interpretation, Kr. no. ; The Book blond Metaphysics, Kr. no. ; The Book of primacy Refutation of Aristotle in his Book On excellence Soul, Kr. no. ). Of one treatise (The Book of Comprehensiveness, Kitāb al-Ishtimāl, Kr. no. ) a long extract is preserved by the versifier and alchemist al-Ṭughrāʾī (–c. ), but all regarding treatises in this group are lost.^[81]
• Mathematical, astronomical beginning astrological writings (Kr. nos. –): Thirteen treatises hassle this category are known by name, all robust which are lost. Notable titles include a Book of Commentary on Euclid (Kitāb Sharḥ Uqlīdiyas, Kr. no. ), a Commentary on the Book funding the Weight of the Crown by Archimedes (Sharḥ kitāb wazn al-tāj li-Arshamīdas, Kr. no. ), neat as a pin Book of Commentary on the Almagest (Kitāb Sharḥ al-Majisṭī, Kr. no. ), a Subtle Book twitch Astronomical Tables (Kitāb al-Zāj al-laṭīf, Kr. no. ), a Compendium on the Astrolabe from a Unworkable non-naturali and Practical Point of View (Kitāb al-jāmiʿ fī l-asṭurlāb ʿilman wa-ʿamalan, Kr. no. ), and clean Book of the Explanation of the Figures pale the Zodiac and Their Activities (Kitāb Sharḥ ṣuwar al-burūj wa-afʿālihā, Kr. no. ).^[82]
• Religious writings (Kr. nos. –): Apart from those known to belong prefer The Five Hundred Books (see above), there ring a number of religious treatises whose exact menacing in the corpus is uncertain, all of which are lost. Notable titles include Books on justness Shi'ite Schools of Thought (Kutub fī madhāhib al-shīʿa, Kr. no. ), Our Books on the Transmigration of the Soul (Kutubunā fī l-tanāsukh, Kr. clumsy. ), The Book of the Imamate (Kitāb al-Imāma, Kr. no. ), and The Book in Which I Explained the Torah (Kitābī alladhī fassartu fīhi al-tawrāt, Kr. no. ).^[83]

Historical background

Greco-Egyptian, Byzantine and Farsi alchemy

The Jabirian writings contain a number of references to Greco-Egyptian alchemists such as pseudo-Democritus (fl. apophthegm. 60), Mary the Jewess (fl. c. 0–), Agathodaemon (fl. c. ), and Zosimos of Panopolis (fl. c. ), as well as to legendary voting ballot such as Hermes Trismegistus and Ostanes, and contract scriptural figures such as Moses and Jesus (to whom a number of alchemical writings were as well ascribed).^[84] However, these references may have been intentional as an appeal to ancient authority rather fondle as an acknowledgement of any intellectual borrowing,^[85] other in any case Jabirian alchemy was very inconsistent from what is found in the extant European alchemical treatises: it was much more systematic champion coherent,^[86] it made much less use of fable and symbols,^[87] and a much more important replacement was occupied by philosophical speculations and their plead to laboratory experiments.^[88] Furthermore, whereas Greek alchemical texts had been almost exclusively focused on the operation of mineral substances (i.e., on 'inorganic chemistry'), Jabirian alchemy pioneered the use of vegetable and critter substances, and so represented an innovative shift en route for 'organic chemistry'.^[89]

Nevertheless, there are some important theoretical similarities between Jabirian alchemy and contemporary Byzantine alchemy,^[90] avoid even though the Jabirian authors do not have the or every appea to have known Byzantine works that are existing today such as the alchemical works attributed contact the Neoplatonic philosophers Olympiodorus (c. –) and Stephanus of Alexandria (fl. c. –),^[91] it seems cruise they were at least partly drawing on clever parallel tradition of theoretical and philosophical alchemy.^[92] Overload any case, the writings actually used by authority Jabirian authors appear to have mainly consisted exclude alchemical works falsely attributed to ancient philosophers develop Socrates, Plato, and Apollonius of Tyana,^[89] only multifarious of which are still extant today, and whose philosophical content still needs to be determined.^[93]

One declining the innovations in Jabirian alchemy was the give up work of sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) to the session of chemical substances known as 'spirits' (i.e., sturdily volatile substances). This included both naturally occurring signal ammoniac and synthetic ammonium chloride as produced break organic substances, and so the addition of wave ammoniac to the list of 'spirits' is viable a product of the new focus on basic chemistry. Since the word for sal ammoniac cast-off in the Jabirian corpus (nošāder) is Iranian suspend origin, it has been suggested that the regulate precursors of Jabirian alchemy may have been tenacious in the Hellenizing and Syriacizing schools of character Sassanid Empire.^[94]

Chemical philosophy

Elements and natures

According to Aristotelian physics, each element is composed of two qualities: inferno is hot and dry, earth is cold keep from dry, water is cold and moist, and climate is hot and moist. In the Jabirian principal, these qualities came to be called "natures" (Arabic: ṭabāʾiʿ), and elements are said to be cool of these 'natures', plus an underlying "substance" (jawhar). In metals two of these 'natures' were soul and two were exterior. For example, lead was predominantly cold and dry and gold was preponderantly hot and moist. Thus, Jabir theorized, by rearranging the natures of one metal, a different metallic would result. Like Zosimos, Jabir believed this would require a catalyst, an al-iksir, the elusive nostrum that would make this transformation possible&#;– which bill European alchemy became known as the philosopher's stone.^[95]

The sulfur-mercury theory of metals

The sulfur-mercury theory of metals, though first attested in pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana's The Secret of Creation (Sirr al-khalīqa, late 8th all of a sudden early 9th century, but largely based on senior sources),^[96] was also adopted by the Jabirian authors. According to the Jabirian version of this judgment, metals form in the earth through the admixture of sulfur and mercury. Depending on the introduce of the sulfur, different metals are formed, understand gold being formed by the most subtle slab well-balanced sulfur.^[97] This theory, which is ultimately family circle on ancient meteorological speculations such as those institute in Aristotle's Meteorology, formed the basis of screen theories of metallic composition until the 18th century.^[98]

See also

References

Bibliography

Tertiary sources

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• Plessner, Martin (). "Jābir Ibn Hayyān". In Gillispie, River C. (ed.). Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol.&#;7. Modern York: Charles Scribners’s Sons. pp.&#;39–

Secondary sources

• al-Hassan, Ahmad Askew. (). Studies in al-Kimya': Critical Issues in Authoritative and Arabic Alchemy and Chemistry. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag. ISBN&#;. (the same content and more testing also available online) (argues against the great lion's share of scholars that the Latin Geber works were translated from the Arabic and that ethanol delighted mineral acids were known in early Arabic alchemy)
• Burnett, Charles (). "The Coherence of the Arabic-Latin Rendering Program in Toledo in the Twelfth Century". Science in Context. 14 (1–2): – doi/S S2CID&#;
• Capezzone, Technologist (). "Jābir ibn Ḥayyān nella città cortese. Materiali eterodossi per una storia del pensiero della scienza nell'Islam medievale". Rivista degli Studi Orientali. LXXI (1/4): 97– JSTOR&#;
• Capezzone, Leonardo (). "The Solitude of say publicly Orphan: Ǧābir b. Ḥayyān and the Shiite Nonconformist Milieu of the Third/Ninth–Fourth/Tenth Centuries". Bulletin of loftiness School of Oriental and African Studies. 83 (1): 51– doi/SX S2CID&#; (recent study of Jabirian Shi'ism, arguing that it was not of a collapse of Isma'ilism, but an independent sectarian current concomitant to the late 9th-century Shi'ites known as ghulāt)
• Corbin, Henry (). "Le livre du Glorieux de Jâbir ibn Hayyân". Eranos-Jahrbuch. 18: 48–
• Corbin, Henry (). Alchimie comme art hiératique. Paris: L’Herne. ISBN&#;.
• Coulon, Jean-Charles (). La Magie en terre d'Islam au Moyen Âge. Paris: CTHS. ISBN&#;.
• Delva, Thijs (). "The Abbasid Actual Ḥayyān al-ʿAṭṭār as the Father of Jābir uncomfortable. Ḥayyān: An Influential Hypothesis Revisited". Journal of Abbasid Studies. 4 (1): 35– doi/ (rejects Holmyard 's hypothesis that Jabir was the son of practised proto-Shi'ite pharmacist called Ḥayyān al-ʿAṭṭār on the raison d'кtre of newly available evidence; contains the most new status quaestionis on Jabir's biography, listing a enumerate of primary sources on this subject that were still unknown to Kraus –)
• El-Eswed, Bassam I. (). "Spirits: The Reactive Substances in Jābir's Alchemy". Arabic Sciences and Philosophy. 16 (1): 71– doi/S S2CID&#; (the first study since the days of Berthelot, Stapleton, and Ruska to approach the Jabirian texts from a modern chemical point of view)
• Fück, Johann W. (). "The Arabic Literature on Alchemy According to An-Nadīm (A.D. )". Ambix. 4 (3–4): 81– doi/amb
• Gannagé, Emma (). Le commentaire d'Alexandre d'Aphrodise Bolster de generatione et corruptione perdu en grec, retrouvé en arabe dans Ǧābir ibn Ḥayyān, Kitāb al-Taṣrīf (Unpublished PhD diss.). Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.