Technical Arts Related To Alchemy in Old Egypt
One of the oldest civilizations all over the world was that of ancient Egypt, which emerges from pre-history into the period of more or less precise chronological record at a date perhaps not far removed from 3400 B.C. This highly developed civilization endured for over 3,000 years, during which it spread its influence far and wide; some archaeologists, indeed, claim to see in all other civilizations the signs of an Egyptian origin. However this may be, it is universally agreed that in technical arts Egyptian workers pointed the way to the rest of the world, and it is to them that we must turn for the first discovery of those facts that make chemistry possible.
Of course, our knowledge of the very earliest developments of chemical arts is dependent upon the discovery of products as far as some 3000 years B.C. tin bronzes were made.
Primitive arts that provide data of a chemical nature are those of the metallurgist, the glass-maker, the dyer and the like, many of which reached an astonishingly high level of perfection in ancient Egypt.
Metallurgy
Metallurgy in particular was carried on with an elaborate technique and a business organization not unworthy of the modern world, while the systematic exploitation of mines was an important industry employing many thousands of workers. Even as early as 3400 B.C., at the beginning of the historical period, the Egyptians had an intimate knowledge of copper ores and of processes of extracting the metal. During the fourth and subsequent dynasties (i.e. from about 2900 B.C. onwards), metals seem to have been entirely monopolies of the Court, the management of the mines and quarries being entrusted to the highest officials and sometimes even to the sons of the Pharaoh. Whether these exalted personages were themselves professional metallurgists we do not know, but we may at least surmise that the details of metallurgical practice, being of extreme importance to the Crown, were carefully guarded from the vulgar. And when we remember the close association between the Egyptian royal family and the priestly class we appreciate the probable truth of the tradition that chemistry first saw the light in the laboratories of Egyptian priests.
Copper and Iron Extraction.
In addition to copper, which was mined in the eastern desert between the Nile and the Red Sea, iron was known in Egypt from a very early period and came into general use about 800 B.C. According to Lucas, iron appears to have been an Asiatic discovery. It was certainly known in Asia Minor about I300 B.C., for one of the Kings of the Hittites sent Rameses II, the celebrated Pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty, an iron sword and a promise of a shipment of the same metal . The Egyptians called iron 'the metal of heaven' or ba-en-pet, which indicates that the first specimens employed were of meteoric origin, the Babylonian name has the same meaning. It was no doubt on account of its rarity that iron was prized so highly by the early Egyptians, while its celestial source would have its fascination. Strange to say, it was not used for decorative, religious or symbolical purposes, which - coupled with the fact that it rusts so readily - may explain why comparatively few iron objects of early dynastic age have been discovered. One which fortunately has survived presents several points of interest: it is an iron tool from the masonry of the great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza, and thus presumably dates from the time when the Pyramid was being built, i.e. about 2900 B.C. This tool was subjected to chemical analysis and was found to contain combined carbon, which suggests that it may have been composed of steel. By 666 B.C. the process of case-hardening was in use for the edges of iron tools, but the story that the Egyptians had some secret means of hardening copper and bronze that has since I been lost is probably without foundation. Desch has shown that a hammered bronze, containing 10.34 per cent. of tin, is considerably harder than copper and keeps a cutting edge much better.
Of the other non-precious metals, tin was used in the manufacture of bronze, and cobalt has been detected as a coloring agent in certain specimens of glass and glaze. Neither metal occurs naturally in Egypt, and it seems probable that supplies of ore were imported from Persia. Lead, though it never found extensive application, was among the earliest metals known, specimens having been found in graves of pre-dynastic times.
Galena (PbS) was mined in Egypt at Gebel Rasas ('Mountain of Lead'), a few miles from the Red Sea coast; and the supply must have been fairly good, for when the district was re-worked from 19I2 to 1915 it produced more than I8,000 tons of ore.
The vast quantities of gold amassed by the Pharaohs were the envy of contemporary and later sovereigns. Though much was imported, received by way of tribute, or captured in warfare, the Egyptian mines themselves were reasonably productive.
Over one hundred ancient gold workings have been discovered in Egypt and the Sudan, though within the limits of Egypt proper there appear to have been gold mines only in the desert valleys to the east of the Nile near Ikoptos, Ombos and Apollinopolis Magna. Of one of these mines - possibly near Apollinopolis - a plan has been found in a papyrus of the fourteenth century B.C., and the remains of no fewer than 1,300 houses for gold-miners are still to be seen in the Wadi Fawakhir, half-way between Koptos and the Red Sea. In one of the treasure chambers of the temple of Rameses III, at Medinet-Habu, are represented eight large bags, seven of which contained gold.
The Egyptian word for gold is nub, which survives in the name Nubia, a country that provided a great deal of the precious metal in ancient days. French Scientist Champollion regarded it as a kind of crucible, while Rossellini and Lepsius preferred to see in it a bag or cloth, with hanging ends, in which the grains of gold were washed - the radiating lines representing the streams of water that ran through. Crivelli has more recently advanced the theory that the gold symbol is the conventional sign for a portable furnace used for the fusion of gold, and that the rays represent the flames, which, 'as can be observed in the use of this type of furnace, are unable to ascend because the wind inclines them horizontally'. In the later dynasties, the Egyptians themselves forgot the original signification of the sign and drew it as a necklace with pendent beads, though Elliot Smith says that this was the primitive form and became the determinative of Hathor, the Egyptian Aphro dite, who was the guardian of the Eastern valleys where gold was found.
The gold mines in Nubia and other parts of the Egyptian empire seem to have been very efficiently designed and controlled, though with a callous disregard for the human element employed.
Alluvial auriferous sand was also treated, a distinction being made between the gold obtained in this way and that extracted from the mines. The latter was called nub-en-set, i.e. 'gold of the mountain', while alluvial gold was named nub-en-mu, i.e. 'gold of the river'. Auriferous sand was placed in a bag made of a fleece with the woolly side inwards; water was then added and the bag vigorously shaken by two men. When the water was poured off, the earthy particles were carried away, leaving the heavier particles of gold adhering to the fleece. There is a picture of this operation on one of the buildings at Thebes.
Mercury
Mercury (Greek-hydrargyros, liquid silver; latin-argentum vivum, live or quick silver) is stated to have been found in Egyptian tombs of from 1500-1600 B.C.
Metal and Mysticism.
In the early centuries of our era, however, there gradually developed a mysticism among chemical writers due to Egyptian and Chaldean religious magical ideas, and there developed a fanciful relation of the metals as such to the sun and the planets, and as a consequence there arose the believe that it was necessary to confine the number of metals to seven.
Thus Olympidorous-in the 6th century of our era gives the following relation:
Gold.....................the Sun
Silver...................the Moon
Electrum.................Jupiter
Iron.....................Mars
Copper...................Venus
Tin......................Mercury
Lead.....................Saturn
Metallurgy was by no means the only art practiced with conspicuous success by the ancient Egyptian craftsmen. Glass was almost certainly the invention, not of the Phoenicians, but of the Egyptians, and was produced on a large scale from a very early date.
Art of Glass Making
This art is of very ancient origin with the Egyptians, as is evident from the glass jars, figures and ornaments discovered in the tombs. The paintings on the tombs have been interpreted as descriptive of the process of glass blowing. These illustrations representing smiths blowing their fires by means of reeds tipped with clay. So can conclude that glass-blowing is apparently of Egyptian origin, at the beginning of our era.
The remains of glass furnaces discovered by Flinders-Petrie at Tel-El-Amarna (1400 B.C.) illustrate the manufacture of rods, beads, and jars or other figures, formed apparently by covering clay cores with glass and later removing the cores.
Egyptian glass articles were of colored glass, often beautifully patterned.
From analyses of ancient Egyptian glass articles, it show that generally the glass was a soda-lime glass with rather soda content as compared with modern soda-lime glass. The given analyses do not differ from those of some soda-lime glasses of modern times. Lead was used in glasses from very ancient times. French scientist analyzed a vase of the Fourth dynasty in Egypt which contained about one quarter lead.
Artificial pearls, made of glass, were manufactured in such numbers that they formed an important article of export trade, and the old legends of enormous emeralds and other precious stones are most reasonably explained on the assumption that the preparation of paste jewelry was widely undertaken.
The earliest glass-works of which the remains have been found date from the eighteenth dynasty, and the oldest dated glass object is a large ball bead bearing the cartouche of Amen-Hotep I, now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. The invention of glass-blowing, as opposed to the older method of glass-molding, is comparatively recent, dating back only to about the beginning of the Christian Era. Sir Flinders Petrie has shown that the relieves at Beni-Hassan, which were formerly supposed to represent glass-blowers are more probably to be interpreted as metal-workers blowing a fire.
Textile and Dyeing Materials.
The begining of the art of weaving and the art of dyeing are lost in antiquity. Mummy cloths of varying degrees of fitness, still evidencing the dyer's skill, are preserved in many museums.
The invention of royal purple was perhaps as early as 1600 B.C. From the painted walls of tombs, temples and other structures which have been protected from exposure to weather, and from the decorated surfaces of pottery, chemical analysis often is able to give us knowledge of the materials used for such purposes.
Thus, the pigments from the tomb of Perneb (at estimated 2650 B.C.) which was presented to Metropolitan Museum of New York City in 1913, were examined by Maximilian Toch. He found that the red pigment proved to be iron oxide, haematite; a yellow consisted of clay containing iron or yellow ochre; a blue color was a finely powdered glass; and a pale blue was a copper carbonate, probably azurite; green were malachite; black was charcoal or boneblack; gray, a limestone mixed with charcoal; and a quantity of pigment remaining in a paint pot used in the decoration, contained a mixture of haematite with limestone and clay. So many analyses results made by known scientists all serve to illustrate the character of the evidence furnished by chemical analysis of surviving samples of the products of early chemical industries.
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Islam House
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Alchemy in Islamic Times
On 8 June, A.D. 632, the Prophet Mohammed (Peace and Prayers be upon Him) died, having accomplished the marvelous task of uniting the tribes of Arabia into a homogeneous and powerful nation.
In the interval, Persia, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, the whole North Africa, Gibraltar and Spain had been submitted to the Islamic State, and a new civilization had been established.
The Arabs quickly assimilated the culture and knowledge of the peoples they ruled, while the latter in turn-Persians, Syrians, Copts, Berbers, and others-adopted the Arabic language. The nationality of the Muslim thus became submerged, and the term Arab acquired a linguistic sense rather than a strictly ethnological one.
As soon as Islamic State had been established, the Arabs began to encourage learning of all kinds. schools, colleges, libraries, observatories and hospitals were built throughout the whole Islamic State, and were adequately staffed and endowed.
In the same time, scholars were invited to Damascus and Baghdad without distinction of nationality or creed. Greek manuscripts were acquired in large numbers and were studied, translated and provided with scholarly and illuminating commentaries.
The old learning was thus infused with a new vigor, and the intellectual freedom of men of the desert stimulated the search for knowledge and science.
In early days at least, the Muslims were eager seekers for knowledge, and Baghdad was the intellectual center of the world. Historians have justly remarked that the school of Baghdad was characterized by a new scientific spirit.
Proceeding from the known to the unknown; taking precise account of phenomena; accepting nothing as true which was not confirmed by experience, or established by experiment, such were fundamental principles taught and acclaimed by the then masters of the sciences.
Cultural Background
Three of the 'Abbasid Caliphs distinguished themselves greatly in this respect: the second, al-Mansur (754-775), who founded Baghdad, and, even more so, the fifth, Harun-al-Rashid whose fame has been immortalized by many legends and the seventh, Al-Ma'mun (813-833). All of them encouraged the work of the translators who were busily unlocking the treasures of Greek knowledge.
First of all the word 'alchemy', as the article al- indicates, is Arabic (al-klmya'). The origin of the word kimya', pre-Arabic, is arguable. Several more or less plausible or legendary hypotheses have been advanced. For some the word came from the Egyptian kemi (black), whence the Greek kemia which might indicate two things:
Egypt, 'the black land' according to Plutarch - alchemy would be preeminently the science of Egypt; 'the Black', the original matter of transmutation, i.e. the art of treating 'black metal' to produce precious metals.
For others, the word 'chemy' could have come from the Greek khymeia, 'fusion', i.e. the art of melting gold and silver. A Byzantine text states that Diocletian ordered the destruction of Egyptian books relating to khymeia, to the 'fusion' of gold and silver.
Islamic Alchemy In Western Writings
Following the work of French chemist Marcellin Berthelot on alchemy, many researchers on the basis of original texts discovered and published, became interested in the study of alchemy with the Arabs: Lippmann, Wiedemann, Ganzenmuller, Stapleton, Holmyard, Plessner and especially Paul Kraus whose work about Jabir ibn Hayyan is still a classic in this subject. More recently Henry Corbin in his research on Shi'ism has tried to give an esoteric interpretation of the great alchemy texts. His ideas created a school of thought and some contemporary authors, Roger Deladriere and Pierre Lory for instance, did not escape his influence. Arabic alchemy is no longer the 'terra incognita' which, a century ago, challenged the insight of historians of science.
The large quantity of accumulated facts suggested a synthetic presentation to Fuat Sezgin and Manfred Ullmann. The former produced his in the frame of his series Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums; the fourth volume, appearing in 1971, dedicated several pages to alchemy. In his turn, Ullmann, in his book Die Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften in Islam, appearing in 1972, presented in about a hundred pages the whole of Arabic alchemic literature studying successively the translations and pseudoepigraphs from Greek authors, Egyptian, Indian, Persian, Jewish and Christian sources, then alchemy theories, the research of the elixir, laboratory experiments and the material employed, and the whole is copiously documented.
THE SOURCES OF ALCHEMY AMONG MUSLIMS
Pythagoras (Fithaghurus)
Pythagoras is often mentioned in Arabic philosophy and in gnomic literature. Jaldaki calls him al-mu'allim al-awwal because he acquired the science from hermetic texts. Jabir refers to him as an alchemic author and speaks of Ta'ifat Fthaghurus, the school of Pythagoras, and of his book Kitab almu'sahhahat (Book of Adjustments). Other quotations refer to Pythagoras's theory of numbers. Tughra'i mentions him several times and refers to his treatise about 'natural numbers'. The fragments of texts which are attributed to him could have come either from Turba philosophorum, where he is among the participants, or from other texts.
Archelaos
Archelaos is mentioned in the Fihrist (p. 352, 25) and by al-Kindi in his Fada'il Misr (p. 191, 11). He is considered as the disciple of Anaxagoras and the teacher of Socrates. He should not be confused with his Byzantine namesake, author of an alchemic poem of 336 verses. The Arabs consider him as the author of Turba philosophorum (Mu.shafal aljama'a) and attribute to him the Risalat madd al-ba hr dhat al-ru'ya, a text which had been revealed in a vision about the tide and which was translated into Latin with the title Visio Arislei. This text is introduced as the continuation of Turba philosophorum.
Socrates
Socrates is considered not only as a wise man but also as an alchemist. Jabir calls him 'the father and mother of all philosophers' and considers him as the prototype of the real chemist. From Socrates to Jabir, there is a continuous tradition which attributes entire treatises to him. Jabir affirms that Socrates was opposed to the writing down of alchemic knowledge to avoid its exposition to the ignorance of the masses. Most references to Socrates refer to his arithmetical speculations (theory of the balance) and also to artificial generation.
Plato (Aflatun)
Olympiodorus already (at the end of the sixth century) considered Plato as an alchemist and Ibn al-Nadlm mentions him in the list of alchemists. Butrus al-Ilmlml mentions an alchemic device called ,hammam Aflatun (Plato's bath).
Among the books attributed to him by the Arabs we can mention the Summa Platonis of which we only have the Latin version. There is a commentary to this book - the Kitab al-Rawabi' - whose Arabic text was edited by Badawi and whose Latin translation is known by the name Liber quartorum. The contents of this work are mainly alchemic but it contains also information on geometry, physiology and astrology. The ancient authors cited are Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Hipparchus, Proclus, the Sophists, Ostanes, Hermes, Asclepius and Hippocrates.
We note also that Plato takes up the story in the forty-fifth discourse in Turba philosophorum; this speech ends with the phrase al-tabi'a tulzimu-ltabi'ata wa-l-tabi'atu taqharu-i-tabSata wa-i-tabi'ata tafra hu li-l-tabl'ati (nature necessarily accompanies nature, nature overcomes nature, nature rejoices in nature), an aphorism often mentioned in Arabic alchemic literature under the name of Plato or anonymously. It comes from the Physika kai Mystika of Democritus.
Aristotle (Aristu)
Aristotle is considered as an alchemist author not so much because of his fourth book Meteorologica but because of his reputation as an all-round scholar. He wrote a book on alchemy for his disciple Alexander. In 618, by order of Heraclius, the book was translated into Syriac by the monk Jean, and the Bishop of Nisibis, Eliyya bar Shinaya, made sure of its orthodoxy. Finally Abdishu' bar Brika, Bishop of Sinjar, and later of Nisibis, made a commentary on it in Syriac of which there still exists an Arabic translation. The text contains an introduction in which Abdlshu reports the legendary history of the text followed by a Ietter from Alexander to Aristotle where the former poses questions to which the latter responds. This dialogue is called sahifat kanz Allah al-akbar (Epistle of the Great Treasure of God). it includes three chapters: (1) About the great principles of alchemy; (2) Alchemic operations; (3) The elixir. Pythagoras, Democritus, Asclepiades, Hermes, Plato, Ostanes and Balmas are mentioned in the text.
We also have a dialogue between Aristotle and the Indian Yuhin sent by the Indian king as messenger to Alexander. Ibn al-Nadim reports this dialogue to Ostanes. Finally in the Jabirian corpus there is a Kitab Musahhaha Aristutalis.
Porphyry (d. c. 303)
Porphyry is often mentioned, especially by Jabir who attributes artificial generation to him. The later alchemists such as Tughra'i and Jaldakl also mention him.
Galen (Jahnus) (d. c. 199 AD)
According to a note in Kitab al-hajar 'ala ra'y Balinas, Galen was interested in alchemy before dedicating himself to philosophy. In fact, he is sometimes mentioned as an authority on alchemy' and fragments of alchemy texts attributed to Galen can be found in the National Library of Cairo.
Bolos the Democritean of Mendes
Bolos the Democritean lived in the second century before Christ. The work of this scholar is varied: alchemy, astrology, medicine. He is probably at the origin of the alchemic tradition transmitted by the work of pseudo-Democritus: Physika kai Mystika. He expounds there the four traditional branches of alchemy: gold, silver, precious stones, dyes. One can find the famous formula which aims to synthesize the quintessence of the alchemic art: 'one nature is charmed by another nature, one nature overcomes another nature, one nature dominates another nature'.
How can this axiom be explained in practical terms? Zosimus, commentator of the fourth century, explains: 'we can proceed with the transmutation of common metal into noble metal by working alloys or by purifying the metals, basing ourselves on the affinity between metals, knowing their "sympathies and antipathies". Raw material, sympathy, transmutation by qualitative change (of the colours), we have thus the principles that constitute alchemy.' Thus the school of Bolos brings to the Egyptian technique a philosophical reasoning which will open the way to the science of the Great Work. 'Once again', says Festugiere, 'we see the union of the Greek spirit and the Oriental art.' The art exists, from ancient times; the goldsmiths of Egypt work metals, stones and purple. But although they have innumerable recipes transmitted from father to son and kept in temple archives, they lack a reasoning method. No-one has yet joined these practices with the principles which explain and justify them. There is practice but not theory. This is what the Greek spirit provides. The merit of Bolos of Mendes was to join theory and experiment and thus found a pseudoscience which would cross the ages up to modern chemistry.
About the same time alchemy was practiced in most Egyptian towns. This first alchemy is a mixture of hermetic or Gnostic elements and old Greek philosophy: Heraclitus, Empedocles and their speculations about the four elements, Parmenides with his theory on the unity of the whole, the Platonic cosmogony of Timaeus.
Zosimus
The most famous character of this time is Zosimus of Panopolis (Akhmim, in Upper Egypt). He probably lived at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth century; he wrote an encyclopedia with twenty-eight books on alchemy which he dedicated to his sister Theosebeia. Some sections are original but most of it reproduces old texts lost to the present time. His name in Arabic, because of the ambiguity of the writing, is often transcribed under different forms: Risimus, Rusim, Rusam. Al-Qifli affirms that he lived before Islam.
Some of his aphorisms and anecdotes are reported by Arab authors such as Jahiz, Ibn Durayd, al-Tawhidi,. Ibn Arfa' Ra's calls him 'the universal wise man and the brilliant flame' (al-hakim aljami' wa-i-shihab al-lami'). Ibn al-Nadlm mentions four books from Zosimus: Kitab al-mafatih f-l-santa; Kitab al-sab'tuna risala; Kitab al-'anasir; Kitab ila jamb alhukama' fi-lsan'a.
The epistle from Zosimus to Theosebeia has the title Mushaf al-suwar (The Book of Images). The name of Theosebeia is often rendered as Atusabiya, Amtuthasiya, Uthasiya, etc. Zosimus can be placed at the end of an evolution in alchemy. With Bolos, it became philosophical; with Zosimus it becomes a mystical religion where the idea of salvation is predominant. In fact, the period which separates Bolos the Democritean from Zosimus saw intense alchemic activity. Vastly different elements - Egyptian magic, Greek philosophy, neo-Platonism, Babylonian astrology, Christian theology, pagan mythology - can be found in Zosimus' texts. He is full of gnostic and hermetic books, he knows the Jewish speculations about the Old Testament. He gives to alchemy a religious character which will remain forever, at least in its traditional course, since with the Arab alchemists it will retain its concrete technical character before meeting the Ismaeli gnostic speculations.
Zosimus and his contemporaries who collected their predecessors' traditions insist on their connection with the Egypt of the Pharaohs or with the Persia of Zoroastra and Ostanes. We can find texts under the name of Agathodaimon compared with Hermes. Some written pieces even say that alchemic texts were engraved in hieroglyphs on steles but it was absolutely forbidden to divulge them.
This Greek-Egyptian alchemy survived in Alexandria for several centuries. From here it will go to Constantinople, where several recensions of the 'collection of Greek alchemists' were compiled, and to the Arabs when they conquered Egypt in the seventh century.
Hermes and Hermetic literature
According to Ibn al-Nadlm (351, 19) Arab alchemists considered the Babylonian Hermes as the first one to have mentioned the art of alchemy. Exiled by his countrymen, he came to Egypt where he became king. He wrote a certain number of books on alchemy and was equally interested in the study of the hidden forces of nature.
The Fihrist gives a list of thirteen books of Hermes about alchemy but in fact some of them are about magic. Other texts have been traced: Alfalakiyya al-kubra (The Great Epistle of the Celestial Spheres) by Hermes of Denderah; Risalat al-sirr; Kitab Hirmis ila Tat f-l-santa; Risalat harb al-kawakEb al-barbawiyya; Tadblr Hirmis al-Haramisa; sahlfat Hirmis al'ugma, commentated by Jaldaki; Risalat Qabas al-qabis fi tadbir Hirmis al-Haramisa.
Sirr al-Khaliqa of Ballnas
The Kitab Sirr al-khaliqa wa santat al-tabia also has the title Kitab al-'ilal (The Book of Causes); it was sometimes called simply li-lashya'. In the introduction a certain Sajiyus is introduced, a priest from Nablus who commented on the story of Bal.
Muslim Alchemists
The Arabs appeared in history in the seventh century. Alchemy had by then gone through a long path. The first contacts took place in Egypt, in Alexandria, where the traditions went back several centuries before Christianity.
Muslim alchemy was derived from the Greek. The frequency with which Greek authors are quoted, the numerous theories that are common to both Greek and Arabic alchemy, and the large number of Arab technical terms clearly taken over from Hellenic treatises (e.g. hayuli, atisyus, athalia, iksir, qambar,S) prove beyond doubt the affiliation of Muslim and Greek alchemy. The transmission was made partly through direct contact in Egypt, partly through the medium of Syrian Christian translators, and partly by way of Persia. There are unmistakable traces of Persian influence, manifested distinctly by linguistic affinities in technical names and usage and in names of minerals. These traces are sufficiently well marked to render it probable that Persia was, indeed, one of the main channels through which alchemy came to Islam; and it is not without interest to note that many of the principal Muslim alchemists were Persians.
It has already been observed that Chinese alchemy has so much in common with Greek and Arabic alchemy as to afford support to the hypothesis that all three had a common origin; and there is some reason to believe that the Chinese practiced a kind of alchemy long before the days of Islam. The remote origins of Arabic alchemy are therefore still to some extent uncertain, but there is very little to recommend the suggestion that the Arabs received any direct introduction to alchemy from the Chinese. Whatever may be the cause of the similarity between Chinese, Greek and Muslim alchemical ideas.
JABIR IBN HAIYAN (721-815)
The greatest chemist of Islam has long been familiar to western readers under the name of Geber, which is the medieval rendering of the Arabic Jabir. Since the work of Paul Kraus we are on more solid ground with Jabir ibn Haiyan.
He is Abu Musa Jabir ibn Haiyan al-Azdl (al-Tusl, al-~artusl, al-Harram meaning that he was a Sabian?; al-Sufi). Flourished mostly in kufa. The most famous Arabic' alchemist; the alchemist Geberu of the Middle Ages. He may be the author of a book on the astrolabe, but his fame rests on his alchemical writings preserved in Arabic: the 'Book of the Kingdom', the 'Little Book of the Balances', the 'Book of Mercury', the 'Book of Concentration', the 'Book of Eastern Mercury', and others. According to the treatises already translated (by Berthelot), his alchemical doctrines were very anthropomorphic and animistic. But other treatises (not yet available in translation) show him in a better light. We find in them remarkably sound views on methods of chemical research; a theory on the geologic formation of metals; the so-called sulphur-mercury theory of metals (the six metals differ essentially because of different proportions of sulphur and mercury in them); preparation of various substances (e.g., basic lead carbonate; arsenic and antimony from their sulphides). Jabir deals also with various applications, e.g., refinement of metals, preparation of steel, dyeing of cloth and leather, varnishes to water-proof cloth and protect iron, use of manganese dioxide in glass making, use of iron pyrites for writing in gold, distillation of vinegar to concentrate acetic acid. He observed the imponderability of magnetic force.
It is possible that some of the facts mentioned in the Latin works, ascribed to Geber and dating from the twelfth century and later, must also be placed to Jabir's credit. It is impossible to reach definite conclusions until all the Arabic writings ascribed to Jabir have been properly edited and discussed. It is only then that we shall be able to measure the full extent of his contributions, but even on the slender basis of our present knowledge, Jabir appears already as a very great personality, one of the greatest in mediaeval science. Jabir admits the Aristotelian theory about the composition of matter-earth, water, air, fire-but he develops it along a different path. First, there are four elementary qualities, or natures: heat, cold, dryness, humidity. When they get together with a substance they form compounds of the first degree, i.e. hot, cold, dry, wet. The union of two of these qualities gives
hot + dry + substance -------------- fire
hot + wet + substance -------------- air
cold + wet + substance ------------- water
cold + dry + substance ------------- earth
One of his chief contributions to the theory of chemistry lies in his views upon the constitution of metals. To understand his conceptions properly, we must hark back to Aristotle, whose philosophy of nature was universally accepted in its main principles by the scientists of Islam. According to Aristotle, it still be remembered, all substances are composed of the four elements, fire, air, water, and earth, which are themselves interconvertible. The immediate constituents of minerals and metals are two exhalations, one an 'earthy smoke' and the other a watery vapour'; the former consists of small particles of earth on the way to becoming fire, while the latter consists of small particles of water on the way to becoming air. Neither exhalation is ever entirely free from some admixture of the other. Stones and other minerals are formed when the two exhalations become imprisoned in the earth, the dry or smoky exhalation predominating; metals are formed under similar circumstances if the watery exhalation predominates.
Jabir accepted this theory of the constitution of metals, but appears to have regarded it as too indefinite to explain observed facts or to afford a guide to practical methods of transmutation. He therefore modified it in such a fashion as to make it less vague, and the theory he suggested survived, with some alterations and additions, until the beginning of modern chemistry in the eighteenth century. The two exhalations, he believed, when imprisoned in the bowels of the earth, are not immediately changed into minerals or metals, but undergo an intermediate conversion. The dry or smoky exhalation is converted into sulphur and the watery one into mercury, and it is only by the subsequent combination of sulphur and mercury that metals are formed. The reason of the existence of different varieties of metals is that the sulphur and mercury are not always pure, and that they do not always combine in the same proportion. If they are perfectly pure and if, also, they combine in the most complete natural equilibrium, then the product is the most perfect of metals, namely gold. Defects in purity or proportion, or both, result in the formation of silver, lead, tin, iron or copper, but since these metals are essentially composed of the same constituents as gold, the accidents of combination may be removed by suitable treatment. Such treatment is the object of alchemy.
The idea that the transmutation of the metals was possible had the excellent merit of provoking incessant experiment, but unfortunately the alchemists were always prone to theorize to an inordinate extent. Moreover, at Alexandria, the mystical beliefs of the Gnostics and the Neo-Platonists - however admirable and attractive in themselves - had a very detrimental effect upon experimental science. Alchemy thus became less and less a matter for experimental research and more and more the subject of ineffable speculation and superstitious practice, not to say fraudulent deception.
The practical applications of chemistry were not neglected. Jabir describes processes for the preparation of steel and the refinement of other metals, for dyeing cloth and leather, for making varnishes to waterproof cloth and to protect iron, for the preparation of hair-dyes and so on. He gives a recipe for making an illuminating ink for manuscripts from 'golden' marcasite, to replace the much more expensive one made from gold itself, and he mentions the use of manganese dioxide in glass-making. He knew how to concentrate acetic acid by the distillation of vinegar, and was also acquainted with citric acid and other organic substances.
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Razi (866-925)
After the death of Jabir, nearly a century elapsed before Islam produced a worthy successor. History records a few alchemists in the interval, but it is only with the Persian chemist and physician Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Razi (known to the West as Rhazes) that Jabir's great example is successfully followed.
According to one of his biographers, Razi was born in A.D. 866 at Ray, an ancient town on the southern slopes of the Elburz Range that skirts the south of the Caspian Sea. In his early youth he devoted himself to the study of music, literature, philosophy, manichaeism, magic and alchemy.
After his first visit to Baghdad, when he was at least 30 years of age, that he seriously took up the study of medicine under the well-known doctor Ali ibn Sahl (a Jewish convert to Islam, belonging to the famous medical school of Tabaristan or Hyrcania). Razi showed such skill in the subject that he quickly surpassed his master, and wrote no fewer than a hundred medical books. He also composed 33 treatises on natural science (exclusive of alchemy), on mathematics and astronomy, and more than 45 on philosophy, logic and theology. On alchemy, in addition to his Compendium of Tweltne Treatises and Book of Secrets, he wrote about a dozen other books, two of which were refutations of works by other authors in which the possibility of alchemy had been attacked.
As to the man himself, one of the inhabitants of Ray who recollected Razi described him as a man with a large square head. He used to take his seat in the lecture room, with his own pupils next him, and the pupils of these men behind them, and, behind these again, other pupils. Whenever any one came with a question, he used first to ask the back row. If they could answer, he went away; but, if not, he used to pass on to the others, and they, in their turn, if they could give a correct answer, tried to satisfy him; otherwise Razi would speak on the subject himself. He was a liberal and generous man, and so compassionate to the poor and sick that he used to distribute alms to them freely and even nurse them himself. He was always reading or copying, and "I never visited him" (said the narrator) "without finding him at work on either a rough or a fair copy". His eyes were always watering 'on account of his excessive consumption of beans', and he became blind towards the end of his life. He died in his native town on 26 October, A.D, 925, at the age of 60 years and 2 months.
Razi is of exceptional importance in the history of chemistry, since in his books we find for the first time a systematic classification of carefully observed and verified facts regarding chemical substances, reactions and apparatus, described in language almost entirely free from mysticism and ambiguity.
Razi's scheme of classification of the substances used in chemistry shows such a sound, it is the first time that we find such a systematic classification. The list of these products as mentioned in Sirr al-asrar book is as follows:
A. The earthly substances (al-'aqaqtr al-turabiyya) Mineral substances
1. The SPIRITS (al-arwah)
Mercury, sat ammoniac, arsenic sulphate (orpiment and realgar), sulphur
2. The BODIES (al-ajsad)
Gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, tin, Kharsind
3. The STONES (al-ahjar)
Pyrites (marqashita), iron oxide (daws), Zinc oxide (tutiya), azurite, malachite, turquoise, haematite, arsenic oxide, lead sulphate (kohl), mica and asbestos, gypsum, glass
4. The VITRIOLS (al-zajat)
Black, alums (al-shubub), white (qalqadzs), green (qalqand), yellow (qulqutar), red
5. BORAX (al-bawariq)
6. The SALTS (al-amlah)
B. Vegetable substances
Rarely used, they are mainly employed by physicians.
C. Animal substances
Hair, scalp, brain, bile, blood, milk, urine, eggs, horn, shell
To these 'natural substances' we need to add a certain number of artificially obtained substances; al-Razl mentions litharge, lead oxide, verdigris, copper oxide, zinc oxide, cinnabar, caustic soda, a solution of polysulphur of calcium and other alloys.
The insistence of al-Razl in promoting research work in the laboratory brought its fruits in pharmacy.
Razi gives also a list of the apparatus used in chemistry. This consists of two classes: (i) instruments used for melting metals, and (ii) those used for the manipulation of substances generally. In the first class were included the following:
Blacksmith's hearth
Bellows
Crucible
Descensory
Ladle
Tongs
Shears
Hammer or Pestle
File
Semi-cylindrical iron mould
The second class included:
Crucible Flasks
Alembic Phials
Receiving flask Cars
Aludel Cauldron
Beakers Sand-bath
Glass cups Water-bath
Shallow iron pan Large oven
Sieve Hair-cloth
Heating-lamps Filter of linen
Cylindrical stove Potter's Kiln
Chafing-dish Mortar
Flat stone mortar Stone roller
Round mold Glass funnel
It will be observed that the list was comprehensive, but Razi completes the subject by giving details of making composite pieces of apparatus, and in general provides the same kind of information as is to be found nowadays in manuals of laboratory arts.
Like Jabir, Razi was a firm believer in the possibility of transmutation, and Stapleton describes his scheme of procedure approximately as follows:
The first stage: consisted in the cleansing and purification of the substances employed, by means of distillation, calcination, amalgamation, sublimation and other processes. Having freed the crude materials from their impurities,
The next stage: was to reduce them to an easily fusible condition. This was done by an operation known as aeration, that resulted in a product which readily melted, without any evolution of fumes, when dropped upon a heated metal plate.
The third stage: was to bring the 'berated' products to a further state of disintegration by the process of solution. The solutions of different substances, suitably chosen in proportion to the amount of 'bodies', 'spirits', &c., they were supposed to possess, were brought together by the process of combination.
Finally: the combined solutions underwent the process of coagulation or solidification, the product which it was hoped would result, being the Elixir. This, as previously explained, was a substance of which a small quantity, when projected upon a larger quantity of baser metal, would convert the latter into silver or gold.
From a general study of his chemical works, Stapleton says that hence forward Razi must be accepted as one of the most remarkable seekers after knowledge that the world has ever seen - not only 'unique in his age and unequaled in his time', but without a peer until modern science began to dawn in Europe with Galileo and Robert Boyle. The evidence of his passion for objective truth that is furnished by his chemical writings, as well as the genius shown by the wide range of books he wrote on other subjects, force us to the conclusion that - with the possible exception of his acknowledged master, Jabir - Razi was the most noteworthy intellectual follower of the Greek philosophers of the seventh to fourth centuries B.C. that mankind produced for 1900 years after the death of Aristotle. His supreme merit lay in his rejection of magical and astrological practices, and adherence to nothing that could not be proved, by experiment and test, to be actual fact.
Later Arab Alchemists
No account of chemistry in Islam would be even approximately complete which omitted to mention four of Arab Alchemists: Abu'l-Qasim of Iraq, Aidamir al-Jildaki, Al-Tughra�i and Al-Majriti.
The first of these men lived in the thirteenth century, probably at Cairo, and has left us several books which, apart from their intrinsic interest, serve to indicate the trend of alchemical thought and practice in Islam after the process of transmission to Europe had been in action for some considerable time. It is very obvious that in Abu'l-Qasim's time the reaction of European scientific thought upon Islam had not yet begun, and the contrast between the two intellectual worlds could not be better exemplified than in the persons of Abu'l-Qasim and his contemporary Roger Bacon. The driving force of Islam was beginning to grow weak, while the new stimulus that Arabic learning had given to Europe had resulted in a scientific renaissance which was to reach its full development not long afterwards. Abu'l-Qasim's outlook is that of his predecessors of three or four centuries earlier, and although there was unquestionably some advance in empirical practical chemistry, the theoretical views expressed are supported by quotations not merely from Jabir but from the still earlier alchemists of the Alexandrian school. Abu'l-Qasim himself seems to have been a good experimentalist and a comparatively logical thinker, but his general views often represent a retrograde movement upon those of Jabir.
Aidamir al-Jildaki (?-1342)
Who also lived for part of his life at Cairo, is of importance chiefly on account of his extensive and deep knowledge of Muslim chemical literature. He apparently spent the major portion of his existence in collecting and explaining all the books upon alchemy that he could discover, and labours are now beginning to receive their reward; for writings form an indispensable source of a great deal of our knowledge of chemistry and chemists in Islam. In a few instances it is possible to observe that he must have carried out experimental work himself, but for the most part his books are commentaries upon the works of earlier writers. Thus his great End of the Search is a commentary upon Abu'l-Qasim's book Knowledge acquired concerning the Cultivation of Gold, and although his explanations are not seldom more obscure than the passages they are designed to illuminate, he had the admirable habit of making innumerable and lengthy quotations from Khalid, Jabir, Razi and many other authors, and his books are thus a rich storehouse of information upon Muslim chemistry. It is therefore necessary to inquire into the question whether his quotations and historical facts are authentic, and whether his reliability is to be accepted or doubted. Fortunately, it often happens that a book from which he quotes is extant, and his quotations in such cases can of course be checked. A test conducted on these lines has shown that Jildaki was conscientious and although he does not always come through unscathed, his general trustworthiness can be safely assumed. He thus deserves the warmest thanks of all who are interested in the history of chemistry.
Al-Tughra'i (1063-1120)
This alchemist, who was a civil servant under the Seljuks Malik-shah and Muhammad, has great importance as a poet and a writer. His Lamiyyat al'ajam is very famous. He was executed in 1121.
In his Nihaya, Jaldakl tries to appraise the scientific value of al-Tughra'l: he was the most important alchemist since Jabir; his style has become perfect but his books can only be read by those who are already advanced in the great art. In his Kitab al-Masabt,h wa-l-maf tech (The Lamps and the Keys), he reports the teaching of the Ancients; he is more theoretical than practical. He declares in his poem that he has inherited his alchemy knowledge from Hermes. According to Jaldakl, his most important book on alchemy is MafAti,h al-rahma wa masabl,h al-,hikma.
Al-Majriti ( -1007)
In Andalusia, under the Caliphat of al-Hakam II (961-76) flourished scholars in all the domains, including alchemy. One of these was Maslama b. Ahmad, from Cordoba, better known under the name al-Majriti because he lived for a long time in Madrid. He assimilated Muslim sciences in the Arab Orient where he seems to have had close contacts with the originators of the famous Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa'. He brought to Spain a new edition of this encyclopaedia. He is known in particular for his astronomical work: a revision of the Persian astronomical tables in Arabic chronology, a commentary on the Planispherium of Ptolemy and a treatise on the astrolabe. The last two were translated quite early into Latin and were very successful .
An important alchemy work, Rutbat' al-Hakzm wa mudkhal al-tathm (Rank of the Wise Man and Isagoge oh! Teaching), is attributed to him, and an astrological work called Chayat al-Haklm. The last was translated into Spanish in 1256 by order of Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile and Leon (from 1252 to 1284), and later it became popular in Latin under the name of Picatrix. Rabelais in Pantagruel mentions it when he speaks of the "Reverend Father of Devil Picatrix, rector of the diabolic faculty in Toledo". The attribution of the book to al-Majriti was considered false as the internal critique shows that this work could only have been written after 1009, while al-Majriti died in 1007.
Holmyard redeveloped an interest in Rutbat al-Haklm. The author first expresses his views on the way an aspiring alchemist should be educated: by study mathematics, books from Euclid and Ptolemy, natural sciences with Aristotle or Apollonius of Tyana; then he needs to acquire a manual ability and practice precise observation, reasoning about chemical substances and their reactions; in his research he needs to follow the laws of nature, like a physician: a physician diagnoses the disease and administers the medicine, but it is Nature who acts.
General Review of Muslim Chemistry
Until the time of Jabir, chemistry was 'without form and void'. The solid technical knowledge of the craftsmen was lost in the vapourings of occultists, and if there were any men with a more reasonable view of chemical science, its aims, its objects and its methods, we find no record of them. By the efforts of Jabir and Razi, the two Muslim chemical geniuses, much of the vast accretion of unbridled speculation was cleared away, and chemistry first began to take shape as a true science. Experimental fact was at last informed with the beginnings of reasonable theory, while on the practical side a workmanlike scheme of classification was evolved and a divide range of substances was carefully investigated and systematically characterized. The common laboratory methods of distillation, sublimation, calcination, reduction, solution and crystallization were improved and their general purposes well understood. The refinement of metals, by cupellation and in other ways, was brought to a high degree of perfection, and the careful assay of gold and silver was accompanied by extraordinary accuracy in methods of weighing and in the determination of specific gravity.
On the theoretical side, the idea that 'base' metals could be transmuted into gold or silver overshadowed every other. The generally accepted belief was that elixirs could be prepared which, by an action we should now describe as catalytic, would convert practically unlimited amounts of lead, mercury, tin, copper, or even iron into silver first and then into gold. There were alternative theories as to the means whereby transmutation could be effected, but as we may more conveniently study these in their later developments a mere reference to them in passing may be sufficient at the moment. The philosophical justification for the almost universal credence in the possibility of transmutation is to be found ultimately in the Aristotelian conception of the Four Elements and proximately in Jabir's theory that all metals are composed of sulphur and mercury. Its practical justification lay in the elegant manner in which it explained numerous phenomena and stimulated unceasing research.
Chemistry, in the work of the great chemists from Jabir to the time of Avicenna, was concerned chiefly not so much with alchemy but with concrete technical matters such as the development of apparatus, the preparations of, and the study of their reactions. The development of chemistry in the period, although almost entirely empirical, was of great importance in that a new high level was attained in the accumulation of chemical data. The previous period of such great growth had taken place long before 3000-500 B.C., in Mesopotamia. In many ways, Muslim chemistry grew in the same manner as it did in Mesopotamia with the difference that the Arabs were more careful in their larger number of experiments, made careful notations of their laboratory results, and developed their laboratory apparatus to a high point of perfection. This was the real beginning of scientific method in the science of chemistry. Not only did the Muslims organize their scientific knowledge as did ancient Mesopotamians before them, but they used experiments to gain scientific data. Because of this accent on experiment in later times, there is much more practical discussion of the categories of matter in the Muslim literature than may be found in the Mesopotamian literature where appearances were of prime consideration.
Alongside experiment, logical speculation took its place in chemical science as an important adjunct. Although Muslim theorizing was grossly inadequate, it was, however, carried out by important chemists in an effort to explain results of laboratory work and not necessarily to add to the so-called 'natures'. This was a distinct Muslim advancement over their Greek, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian predecessors.
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In the interval, Persia, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, the whole North Africa, Gibraltar and Spain had been submitted to the Islamic State, and a new civilization had been established.
The Arabs quickly assimilated the culture and knowledge of the peoples they ruled, while the latter in turn-Persians, Syrians, Copts, Berbers, and others-adopted the Arabic language. The nationality of the Muslim thus became submerged, and the term Arab acquired a linguistic sense rather than a strictly ethnological one.
As soon as Islamic State had been established, the Arabs began to encourage learning of all kinds. schools, colleges, libraries, observatories and hospitals were built throughout the whole Islamic State, and were adequately staffed and endowed.
In the same time, scholars were invited to Damascus and Baghdad without distinction of nationality or creed. Greek manuscripts were acquired in large numbers and were studied, translated and provided with scholarly and illuminating commentaries.
The old learning was thus infused with a new vigor, and the intellectual freedom of men of the desert stimulated the search for knowledge and science.
In early days at least, the Muslims were eager seekers for knowledge, and Baghdad was the intellectual center of the world. Historians have justly remarked that the school of Baghdad was characterized by a new scientific spirit.
Proceeding from the known to the unknown; taking precise account of phenomena; accepting nothing as true which was not confirmed by experience, or established by experiment, such were fundamental principles taught and acclaimed by the then masters of the sciences.
Cultural Background
Three of the 'Abbasid Caliphs distinguished themselves greatly in this respect: the second, al-Mansur (754-775), who founded Baghdad, and, even more so, the fifth, Harun-al-Rashid whose fame has been immortalized by many legends and the seventh, Al-Ma'mun (813-833). All of them encouraged the work of the translators who were busily unlocking the treasures of Greek knowledge.
First of all the word 'alchemy', as the article al- indicates, is Arabic (al-klmya'). The origin of the word kimya', pre-Arabic, is arguable. Several more or less plausible or legendary hypotheses have been advanced. For some the word came from the Egyptian kemi (black), whence the Greek kemia which might indicate two things:
Egypt, 'the black land' according to Plutarch - alchemy would be preeminently the science of Egypt; 'the Black', the original matter of transmutation, i.e. the art of treating 'black metal' to produce precious metals.
For others, the word 'chemy' could have come from the Greek khymeia, 'fusion', i.e. the art of melting gold and silver. A Byzantine text states that Diocletian ordered the destruction of Egyptian books relating to khymeia, to the 'fusion' of gold and silver.
Islamic Alchemy In Western Writings
Following the work of French chemist Marcellin Berthelot on alchemy, many researchers on the basis of original texts discovered and published, became interested in the study of alchemy with the Arabs: Lippmann, Wiedemann, Ganzenmuller, Stapleton, Holmyard, Plessner and especially Paul Kraus whose work about Jabir ibn Hayyan is still a classic in this subject. More recently Henry Corbin in his research on Shi'ism has tried to give an esoteric interpretation of the great alchemy texts. His ideas created a school of thought and some contemporary authors, Roger Deladriere and Pierre Lory for instance, did not escape his influence. Arabic alchemy is no longer the 'terra incognita' which, a century ago, challenged the insight of historians of science.
The large quantity of accumulated facts suggested a synthetic presentation to Fuat Sezgin and Manfred Ullmann. The former produced his in the frame of his series Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums; the fourth volume, appearing in 1971, dedicated several pages to alchemy. In his turn, Ullmann, in his book Die Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften in Islam, appearing in 1972, presented in about a hundred pages the whole of Arabic alchemic literature studying successively the translations and pseudoepigraphs from Greek authors, Egyptian, Indian, Persian, Jewish and Christian sources, then alchemy theories, the research of the elixir, laboratory experiments and the material employed, and the whole is copiously documented.
THE SOURCES OF ALCHEMY AMONG MUSLIMS
Pythagoras (Fithaghurus)
Pythagoras is often mentioned in Arabic philosophy and in gnomic literature. Jaldaki calls him al-mu'allim al-awwal because he acquired the science from hermetic texts. Jabir refers to him as an alchemic author and speaks of Ta'ifat Fthaghurus, the school of Pythagoras, and of his book Kitab almu'sahhahat (Book of Adjustments). Other quotations refer to Pythagoras's theory of numbers. Tughra'i mentions him several times and refers to his treatise about 'natural numbers'. The fragments of texts which are attributed to him could have come either from Turba philosophorum, where he is among the participants, or from other texts.
Archelaos
Archelaos is mentioned in the Fihrist (p. 352, 25) and by al-Kindi in his Fada'il Misr (p. 191, 11). He is considered as the disciple of Anaxagoras and the teacher of Socrates. He should not be confused with his Byzantine namesake, author of an alchemic poem of 336 verses. The Arabs consider him as the author of Turba philosophorum (Mu.shafal aljama'a) and attribute to him the Risalat madd al-ba hr dhat al-ru'ya, a text which had been revealed in a vision about the tide and which was translated into Latin with the title Visio Arislei. This text is introduced as the continuation of Turba philosophorum.
Socrates
Socrates is considered not only as a wise man but also as an alchemist. Jabir calls him 'the father and mother of all philosophers' and considers him as the prototype of the real chemist. From Socrates to Jabir, there is a continuous tradition which attributes entire treatises to him. Jabir affirms that Socrates was opposed to the writing down of alchemic knowledge to avoid its exposition to the ignorance of the masses. Most references to Socrates refer to his arithmetical speculations (theory of the balance) and also to artificial generation.
Plato (Aflatun)
Olympiodorus already (at the end of the sixth century) considered Plato as an alchemist and Ibn al-Nadlm mentions him in the list of alchemists. Butrus al-Ilmlml mentions an alchemic device called ,hammam Aflatun (Plato's bath).
Among the books attributed to him by the Arabs we can mention the Summa Platonis of which we only have the Latin version. There is a commentary to this book - the Kitab al-Rawabi' - whose Arabic text was edited by Badawi and whose Latin translation is known by the name Liber quartorum. The contents of this work are mainly alchemic but it contains also information on geometry, physiology and astrology. The ancient authors cited are Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Hipparchus, Proclus, the Sophists, Ostanes, Hermes, Asclepius and Hippocrates.
We note also that Plato takes up the story in the forty-fifth discourse in Turba philosophorum; this speech ends with the phrase al-tabi'a tulzimu-ltabi'ata wa-l-tabi'atu taqharu-i-tabSata wa-i-tabi'ata tafra hu li-l-tabl'ati (nature necessarily accompanies nature, nature overcomes nature, nature rejoices in nature), an aphorism often mentioned in Arabic alchemic literature under the name of Plato or anonymously. It comes from the Physika kai Mystika of Democritus.
Aristotle (Aristu)
Aristotle is considered as an alchemist author not so much because of his fourth book Meteorologica but because of his reputation as an all-round scholar. He wrote a book on alchemy for his disciple Alexander. In 618, by order of Heraclius, the book was translated into Syriac by the monk Jean, and the Bishop of Nisibis, Eliyya bar Shinaya, made sure of its orthodoxy. Finally Abdishu' bar Brika, Bishop of Sinjar, and later of Nisibis, made a commentary on it in Syriac of which there still exists an Arabic translation. The text contains an introduction in which Abdlshu reports the legendary history of the text followed by a Ietter from Alexander to Aristotle where the former poses questions to which the latter responds. This dialogue is called sahifat kanz Allah al-akbar (Epistle of the Great Treasure of God). it includes three chapters: (1) About the great principles of alchemy; (2) Alchemic operations; (3) The elixir. Pythagoras, Democritus, Asclepiades, Hermes, Plato, Ostanes and Balmas are mentioned in the text.
We also have a dialogue between Aristotle and the Indian Yuhin sent by the Indian king as messenger to Alexander. Ibn al-Nadim reports this dialogue to Ostanes. Finally in the Jabirian corpus there is a Kitab Musahhaha Aristutalis.
Porphyry (d. c. 303)
Porphyry is often mentioned, especially by Jabir who attributes artificial generation to him. The later alchemists such as Tughra'i and Jaldakl also mention him.
Galen (Jahnus) (d. c. 199 AD)
According to a note in Kitab al-hajar 'ala ra'y Balinas, Galen was interested in alchemy before dedicating himself to philosophy. In fact, he is sometimes mentioned as an authority on alchemy' and fragments of alchemy texts attributed to Galen can be found in the National Library of Cairo.
Bolos the Democritean of Mendes
Bolos the Democritean lived in the second century before Christ. The work of this scholar is varied: alchemy, astrology, medicine. He is probably at the origin of the alchemic tradition transmitted by the work of pseudo-Democritus: Physika kai Mystika. He expounds there the four traditional branches of alchemy: gold, silver, precious stones, dyes. One can find the famous formula which aims to synthesize the quintessence of the alchemic art: 'one nature is charmed by another nature, one nature overcomes another nature, one nature dominates another nature'.
How can this axiom be explained in practical terms? Zosimus, commentator of the fourth century, explains: 'we can proceed with the transmutation of common metal into noble metal by working alloys or by purifying the metals, basing ourselves on the affinity between metals, knowing their "sympathies and antipathies". Raw material, sympathy, transmutation by qualitative change (of the colours), we have thus the principles that constitute alchemy.' Thus the school of Bolos brings to the Egyptian technique a philosophical reasoning which will open the way to the science of the Great Work. 'Once again', says Festugiere, 'we see the union of the Greek spirit and the Oriental art.' The art exists, from ancient times; the goldsmiths of Egypt work metals, stones and purple. But although they have innumerable recipes transmitted from father to son and kept in temple archives, they lack a reasoning method. No-one has yet joined these practices with the principles which explain and justify them. There is practice but not theory. This is what the Greek spirit provides. The merit of Bolos of Mendes was to join theory and experiment and thus found a pseudoscience which would cross the ages up to modern chemistry.
About the same time alchemy was practiced in most Egyptian towns. This first alchemy is a mixture of hermetic or Gnostic elements and old Greek philosophy: Heraclitus, Empedocles and their speculations about the four elements, Parmenides with his theory on the unity of the whole, the Platonic cosmogony of Timaeus.
Zosimus
The most famous character of this time is Zosimus of Panopolis (Akhmim, in Upper Egypt). He probably lived at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth century; he wrote an encyclopedia with twenty-eight books on alchemy which he dedicated to his sister Theosebeia. Some sections are original but most of it reproduces old texts lost to the present time. His name in Arabic, because of the ambiguity of the writing, is often transcribed under different forms: Risimus, Rusim, Rusam. Al-Qifli affirms that he lived before Islam.
Some of his aphorisms and anecdotes are reported by Arab authors such as Jahiz, Ibn Durayd, al-Tawhidi,. Ibn Arfa' Ra's calls him 'the universal wise man and the brilliant flame' (al-hakim aljami' wa-i-shihab al-lami'). Ibn al-Nadlm mentions four books from Zosimus: Kitab al-mafatih f-l-santa; Kitab al-sab'tuna risala; Kitab al-'anasir; Kitab ila jamb alhukama' fi-lsan'a.
The epistle from Zosimus to Theosebeia has the title Mushaf al-suwar (The Book of Images). The name of Theosebeia is often rendered as Atusabiya, Amtuthasiya, Uthasiya, etc. Zosimus can be placed at the end of an evolution in alchemy. With Bolos, it became philosophical; with Zosimus it becomes a mystical religion where the idea of salvation is predominant. In fact, the period which separates Bolos the Democritean from Zosimus saw intense alchemic activity. Vastly different elements - Egyptian magic, Greek philosophy, neo-Platonism, Babylonian astrology, Christian theology, pagan mythology - can be found in Zosimus' texts. He is full of gnostic and hermetic books, he knows the Jewish speculations about the Old Testament. He gives to alchemy a religious character which will remain forever, at least in its traditional course, since with the Arab alchemists it will retain its concrete technical character before meeting the Ismaeli gnostic speculations.
Zosimus and his contemporaries who collected their predecessors' traditions insist on their connection with the Egypt of the Pharaohs or with the Persia of Zoroastra and Ostanes. We can find texts under the name of Agathodaimon compared with Hermes. Some written pieces even say that alchemic texts were engraved in hieroglyphs on steles but it was absolutely forbidden to divulge them.
This Greek-Egyptian alchemy survived in Alexandria for several centuries. From here it will go to Constantinople, where several recensions of the 'collection of Greek alchemists' were compiled, and to the Arabs when they conquered Egypt in the seventh century.
Hermes and Hermetic literature
According to Ibn al-Nadlm (351, 19) Arab alchemists considered the Babylonian Hermes as the first one to have mentioned the art of alchemy. Exiled by his countrymen, he came to Egypt where he became king. He wrote a certain number of books on alchemy and was equally interested in the study of the hidden forces of nature.
The Fihrist gives a list of thirteen books of Hermes about alchemy but in fact some of them are about magic. Other texts have been traced: Alfalakiyya al-kubra (The Great Epistle of the Celestial Spheres) by Hermes of Denderah; Risalat al-sirr; Kitab Hirmis ila Tat f-l-santa; Risalat harb al-kawakEb al-barbawiyya; Tadblr Hirmis al-Haramisa; sahlfat Hirmis al'ugma, commentated by Jaldaki; Risalat Qabas al-qabis fi tadbir Hirmis al-Haramisa.
Sirr al-Khaliqa of Ballnas
The Kitab Sirr al-khaliqa wa santat al-tabia also has the title Kitab al-'ilal (The Book of Causes); it was sometimes called simply li-lashya'. In the introduction a certain Sajiyus is introduced, a priest from Nablus who commented on the story of Bal.
Muslim Alchemists
The Arabs appeared in history in the seventh century. Alchemy had by then gone through a long path. The first contacts took place in Egypt, in Alexandria, where the traditions went back several centuries before Christianity.
Muslim alchemy was derived from the Greek. The frequency with which Greek authors are quoted, the numerous theories that are common to both Greek and Arabic alchemy, and the large number of Arab technical terms clearly taken over from Hellenic treatises (e.g. hayuli, atisyus, athalia, iksir, qambar,S) prove beyond doubt the affiliation of Muslim and Greek alchemy. The transmission was made partly through direct contact in Egypt, partly through the medium of Syrian Christian translators, and partly by way of Persia. There are unmistakable traces of Persian influence, manifested distinctly by linguistic affinities in technical names and usage and in names of minerals. These traces are sufficiently well marked to render it probable that Persia was, indeed, one of the main channels through which alchemy came to Islam; and it is not without interest to note that many of the principal Muslim alchemists were Persians.
It has already been observed that Chinese alchemy has so much in common with Greek and Arabic alchemy as to afford support to the hypothesis that all three had a common origin; and there is some reason to believe that the Chinese practiced a kind of alchemy long before the days of Islam. The remote origins of Arabic alchemy are therefore still to some extent uncertain, but there is very little to recommend the suggestion that the Arabs received any direct introduction to alchemy from the Chinese. Whatever may be the cause of the similarity between Chinese, Greek and Muslim alchemical ideas.
JABIR IBN HAIYAN (721-815)
The greatest chemist of Islam has long been familiar to western readers under the name of Geber, which is the medieval rendering of the Arabic Jabir. Since the work of Paul Kraus we are on more solid ground with Jabir ibn Haiyan.
He is Abu Musa Jabir ibn Haiyan al-Azdl (al-Tusl, al-~artusl, al-Harram meaning that he was a Sabian?; al-Sufi). Flourished mostly in kufa. The most famous Arabic' alchemist; the alchemist Geberu of the Middle Ages. He may be the author of a book on the astrolabe, but his fame rests on his alchemical writings preserved in Arabic: the 'Book of the Kingdom', the 'Little Book of the Balances', the 'Book of Mercury', the 'Book of Concentration', the 'Book of Eastern Mercury', and others. According to the treatises already translated (by Berthelot), his alchemical doctrines were very anthropomorphic and animistic. But other treatises (not yet available in translation) show him in a better light. We find in them remarkably sound views on methods of chemical research; a theory on the geologic formation of metals; the so-called sulphur-mercury theory of metals (the six metals differ essentially because of different proportions of sulphur and mercury in them); preparation of various substances (e.g., basic lead carbonate; arsenic and antimony from their sulphides). Jabir deals also with various applications, e.g., refinement of metals, preparation of steel, dyeing of cloth and leather, varnishes to water-proof cloth and protect iron, use of manganese dioxide in glass making, use of iron pyrites for writing in gold, distillation of vinegar to concentrate acetic acid. He observed the imponderability of magnetic force.
It is possible that some of the facts mentioned in the Latin works, ascribed to Geber and dating from the twelfth century and later, must also be placed to Jabir's credit. It is impossible to reach definite conclusions until all the Arabic writings ascribed to Jabir have been properly edited and discussed. It is only then that we shall be able to measure the full extent of his contributions, but even on the slender basis of our present knowledge, Jabir appears already as a very great personality, one of the greatest in mediaeval science. Jabir admits the Aristotelian theory about the composition of matter-earth, water, air, fire-but he develops it along a different path. First, there are four elementary qualities, or natures: heat, cold, dryness, humidity. When they get together with a substance they form compounds of the first degree, i.e. hot, cold, dry, wet. The union of two of these qualities gives
hot + dry + substance -------------- fire
hot + wet + substance -------------- air
cold + wet + substance ------------- water
cold + dry + substance ------------- earth
One of his chief contributions to the theory of chemistry lies in his views upon the constitution of metals. To understand his conceptions properly, we must hark back to Aristotle, whose philosophy of nature was universally accepted in its main principles by the scientists of Islam. According to Aristotle, it still be remembered, all substances are composed of the four elements, fire, air, water, and earth, which are themselves interconvertible. The immediate constituents of minerals and metals are two exhalations, one an 'earthy smoke' and the other a watery vapour'; the former consists of small particles of earth on the way to becoming fire, while the latter consists of small particles of water on the way to becoming air. Neither exhalation is ever entirely free from some admixture of the other. Stones and other minerals are formed when the two exhalations become imprisoned in the earth, the dry or smoky exhalation predominating; metals are formed under similar circumstances if the watery exhalation predominates.
Jabir accepted this theory of the constitution of metals, but appears to have regarded it as too indefinite to explain observed facts or to afford a guide to practical methods of transmutation. He therefore modified it in such a fashion as to make it less vague, and the theory he suggested survived, with some alterations and additions, until the beginning of modern chemistry in the eighteenth century. The two exhalations, he believed, when imprisoned in the bowels of the earth, are not immediately changed into minerals or metals, but undergo an intermediate conversion. The dry or smoky exhalation is converted into sulphur and the watery one into mercury, and it is only by the subsequent combination of sulphur and mercury that metals are formed. The reason of the existence of different varieties of metals is that the sulphur and mercury are not always pure, and that they do not always combine in the same proportion. If they are perfectly pure and if, also, they combine in the most complete natural equilibrium, then the product is the most perfect of metals, namely gold. Defects in purity or proportion, or both, result in the formation of silver, lead, tin, iron or copper, but since these metals are essentially composed of the same constituents as gold, the accidents of combination may be removed by suitable treatment. Such treatment is the object of alchemy.
The idea that the transmutation of the metals was possible had the excellent merit of provoking incessant experiment, but unfortunately the alchemists were always prone to theorize to an inordinate extent. Moreover, at Alexandria, the mystical beliefs of the Gnostics and the Neo-Platonists - however admirable and attractive in themselves - had a very detrimental effect upon experimental science. Alchemy thus became less and less a matter for experimental research and more and more the subject of ineffable speculation and superstitious practice, not to say fraudulent deception.
The practical applications of chemistry were not neglected. Jabir describes processes for the preparation of steel and the refinement of other metals, for dyeing cloth and leather, for making varnishes to waterproof cloth and to protect iron, for the preparation of hair-dyes and so on. He gives a recipe for making an illuminating ink for manuscripts from 'golden' marcasite, to replace the much more expensive one made from gold itself, and he mentions the use of manganese dioxide in glass-making. He knew how to concentrate acetic acid by the distillation of vinegar, and was also acquainted with citric acid and other organic substances.
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Razi (866-925)
After the death of Jabir, nearly a century elapsed before Islam produced a worthy successor. History records a few alchemists in the interval, but it is only with the Persian chemist and physician Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Razi (known to the West as Rhazes) that Jabir's great example is successfully followed.
According to one of his biographers, Razi was born in A.D. 866 at Ray, an ancient town on the southern slopes of the Elburz Range that skirts the south of the Caspian Sea. In his early youth he devoted himself to the study of music, literature, philosophy, manichaeism, magic and alchemy.
After his first visit to Baghdad, when he was at least 30 years of age, that he seriously took up the study of medicine under the well-known doctor Ali ibn Sahl (a Jewish convert to Islam, belonging to the famous medical school of Tabaristan or Hyrcania). Razi showed such skill in the subject that he quickly surpassed his master, and wrote no fewer than a hundred medical books. He also composed 33 treatises on natural science (exclusive of alchemy), on mathematics and astronomy, and more than 45 on philosophy, logic and theology. On alchemy, in addition to his Compendium of Tweltne Treatises and Book of Secrets, he wrote about a dozen other books, two of which were refutations of works by other authors in which the possibility of alchemy had been attacked.
As to the man himself, one of the inhabitants of Ray who recollected Razi described him as a man with a large square head. He used to take his seat in the lecture room, with his own pupils next him, and the pupils of these men behind them, and, behind these again, other pupils. Whenever any one came with a question, he used first to ask the back row. If they could answer, he went away; but, if not, he used to pass on to the others, and they, in their turn, if they could give a correct answer, tried to satisfy him; otherwise Razi would speak on the subject himself. He was a liberal and generous man, and so compassionate to the poor and sick that he used to distribute alms to them freely and even nurse them himself. He was always reading or copying, and "I never visited him" (said the narrator) "without finding him at work on either a rough or a fair copy". His eyes were always watering 'on account of his excessive consumption of beans', and he became blind towards the end of his life. He died in his native town on 26 October, A.D, 925, at the age of 60 years and 2 months.
Razi is of exceptional importance in the history of chemistry, since in his books we find for the first time a systematic classification of carefully observed and verified facts regarding chemical substances, reactions and apparatus, described in language almost entirely free from mysticism and ambiguity.
Razi's scheme of classification of the substances used in chemistry shows such a sound, it is the first time that we find such a systematic classification. The list of these products as mentioned in Sirr al-asrar book is as follows:
A. The earthly substances (al-'aqaqtr al-turabiyya) Mineral substances
1. The SPIRITS (al-arwah)
Mercury, sat ammoniac, arsenic sulphate (orpiment and realgar), sulphur
2. The BODIES (al-ajsad)
Gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, tin, Kharsind
3. The STONES (al-ahjar)
Pyrites (marqashita), iron oxide (daws), Zinc oxide (tutiya), azurite, malachite, turquoise, haematite, arsenic oxide, lead sulphate (kohl), mica and asbestos, gypsum, glass
4. The VITRIOLS (al-zajat)
Black, alums (al-shubub), white (qalqadzs), green (qalqand), yellow (qulqutar), red
5. BORAX (al-bawariq)
6. The SALTS (al-amlah)
B. Vegetable substances
Rarely used, they are mainly employed by physicians.
C. Animal substances
Hair, scalp, brain, bile, blood, milk, urine, eggs, horn, shell
To these 'natural substances' we need to add a certain number of artificially obtained substances; al-Razl mentions litharge, lead oxide, verdigris, copper oxide, zinc oxide, cinnabar, caustic soda, a solution of polysulphur of calcium and other alloys.
The insistence of al-Razl in promoting research work in the laboratory brought its fruits in pharmacy.
Razi gives also a list of the apparatus used in chemistry. This consists of two classes: (i) instruments used for melting metals, and (ii) those used for the manipulation of substances generally. In the first class were included the following:
Blacksmith's hearth
Bellows
Crucible
Descensory
Ladle
Tongs
Shears
Hammer or Pestle
File
Semi-cylindrical iron mould
The second class included:
Crucible Flasks
Alembic Phials
Receiving flask Cars
Aludel Cauldron
Beakers Sand-bath
Glass cups Water-bath
Shallow iron pan Large oven
Sieve Hair-cloth
Heating-lamps Filter of linen
Cylindrical stove Potter's Kiln
Chafing-dish Mortar
Flat stone mortar Stone roller
Round mold Glass funnel
It will be observed that the list was comprehensive, but Razi completes the subject by giving details of making composite pieces of apparatus, and in general provides the same kind of information as is to be found nowadays in manuals of laboratory arts.
Like Jabir, Razi was a firm believer in the possibility of transmutation, and Stapleton describes his scheme of procedure approximately as follows:
The first stage: consisted in the cleansing and purification of the substances employed, by means of distillation, calcination, amalgamation, sublimation and other processes. Having freed the crude materials from their impurities,
The next stage: was to reduce them to an easily fusible condition. This was done by an operation known as aeration, that resulted in a product which readily melted, without any evolution of fumes, when dropped upon a heated metal plate.
The third stage: was to bring the 'berated' products to a further state of disintegration by the process of solution. The solutions of different substances, suitably chosen in proportion to the amount of 'bodies', 'spirits', &c., they were supposed to possess, were brought together by the process of combination.
Finally: the combined solutions underwent the process of coagulation or solidification, the product which it was hoped would result, being the Elixir. This, as previously explained, was a substance of which a small quantity, when projected upon a larger quantity of baser metal, would convert the latter into silver or gold.
From a general study of his chemical works, Stapleton says that hence forward Razi must be accepted as one of the most remarkable seekers after knowledge that the world has ever seen - not only 'unique in his age and unequaled in his time', but without a peer until modern science began to dawn in Europe with Galileo and Robert Boyle. The evidence of his passion for objective truth that is furnished by his chemical writings, as well as the genius shown by the wide range of books he wrote on other subjects, force us to the conclusion that - with the possible exception of his acknowledged master, Jabir - Razi was the most noteworthy intellectual follower of the Greek philosophers of the seventh to fourth centuries B.C. that mankind produced for 1900 years after the death of Aristotle. His supreme merit lay in his rejection of magical and astrological practices, and adherence to nothing that could not be proved, by experiment and test, to be actual fact.
Later Arab Alchemists
No account of chemistry in Islam would be even approximately complete which omitted to mention four of Arab Alchemists: Abu'l-Qasim of Iraq, Aidamir al-Jildaki, Al-Tughra�i and Al-Majriti.
The first of these men lived in the thirteenth century, probably at Cairo, and has left us several books which, apart from their intrinsic interest, serve to indicate the trend of alchemical thought and practice in Islam after the process of transmission to Europe had been in action for some considerable time. It is very obvious that in Abu'l-Qasim's time the reaction of European scientific thought upon Islam had not yet begun, and the contrast between the two intellectual worlds could not be better exemplified than in the persons of Abu'l-Qasim and his contemporary Roger Bacon. The driving force of Islam was beginning to grow weak, while the new stimulus that Arabic learning had given to Europe had resulted in a scientific renaissance which was to reach its full development not long afterwards. Abu'l-Qasim's outlook is that of his predecessors of three or four centuries earlier, and although there was unquestionably some advance in empirical practical chemistry, the theoretical views expressed are supported by quotations not merely from Jabir but from the still earlier alchemists of the Alexandrian school. Abu'l-Qasim himself seems to have been a good experimentalist and a comparatively logical thinker, but his general views often represent a retrograde movement upon those of Jabir.
Aidamir al-Jildaki (?-1342)
Who also lived for part of his life at Cairo, is of importance chiefly on account of his extensive and deep knowledge of Muslim chemical literature. He apparently spent the major portion of his existence in collecting and explaining all the books upon alchemy that he could discover, and labours are now beginning to receive their reward; for writings form an indispensable source of a great deal of our knowledge of chemistry and chemists in Islam. In a few instances it is possible to observe that he must have carried out experimental work himself, but for the most part his books are commentaries upon the works of earlier writers. Thus his great End of the Search is a commentary upon Abu'l-Qasim's book Knowledge acquired concerning the Cultivation of Gold, and although his explanations are not seldom more obscure than the passages they are designed to illuminate, he had the admirable habit of making innumerable and lengthy quotations from Khalid, Jabir, Razi and many other authors, and his books are thus a rich storehouse of information upon Muslim chemistry. It is therefore necessary to inquire into the question whether his quotations and historical facts are authentic, and whether his reliability is to be accepted or doubted. Fortunately, it often happens that a book from which he quotes is extant, and his quotations in such cases can of course be checked. A test conducted on these lines has shown that Jildaki was conscientious and although he does not always come through unscathed, his general trustworthiness can be safely assumed. He thus deserves the warmest thanks of all who are interested in the history of chemistry.
Al-Tughra'i (1063-1120)
This alchemist, who was a civil servant under the Seljuks Malik-shah and Muhammad, has great importance as a poet and a writer. His Lamiyyat al'ajam is very famous. He was executed in 1121.
In his Nihaya, Jaldakl tries to appraise the scientific value of al-Tughra'l: he was the most important alchemist since Jabir; his style has become perfect but his books can only be read by those who are already advanced in the great art. In his Kitab al-Masabt,h wa-l-maf tech (The Lamps and the Keys), he reports the teaching of the Ancients; he is more theoretical than practical. He declares in his poem that he has inherited his alchemy knowledge from Hermes. According to Jaldakl, his most important book on alchemy is MafAti,h al-rahma wa masabl,h al-,hikma.
Al-Majriti ( -1007)
In Andalusia, under the Caliphat of al-Hakam II (961-76) flourished scholars in all the domains, including alchemy. One of these was Maslama b. Ahmad, from Cordoba, better known under the name al-Majriti because he lived for a long time in Madrid. He assimilated Muslim sciences in the Arab Orient where he seems to have had close contacts with the originators of the famous Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa'. He brought to Spain a new edition of this encyclopaedia. He is known in particular for his astronomical work: a revision of the Persian astronomical tables in Arabic chronology, a commentary on the Planispherium of Ptolemy and a treatise on the astrolabe. The last two were translated quite early into Latin and were very successful .
An important alchemy work, Rutbat' al-Hakzm wa mudkhal al-tathm (Rank of the Wise Man and Isagoge oh! Teaching), is attributed to him, and an astrological work called Chayat al-Haklm. The last was translated into Spanish in 1256 by order of Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile and Leon (from 1252 to 1284), and later it became popular in Latin under the name of Picatrix. Rabelais in Pantagruel mentions it when he speaks of the "Reverend Father of Devil Picatrix, rector of the diabolic faculty in Toledo". The attribution of the book to al-Majriti was considered false as the internal critique shows that this work could only have been written after 1009, while al-Majriti died in 1007.
Holmyard redeveloped an interest in Rutbat al-Haklm. The author first expresses his views on the way an aspiring alchemist should be educated: by study mathematics, books from Euclid and Ptolemy, natural sciences with Aristotle or Apollonius of Tyana; then he needs to acquire a manual ability and practice precise observation, reasoning about chemical substances and their reactions; in his research he needs to follow the laws of nature, like a physician: a physician diagnoses the disease and administers the medicine, but it is Nature who acts.
General Review of Muslim Chemistry
Until the time of Jabir, chemistry was 'without form and void'. The solid technical knowledge of the craftsmen was lost in the vapourings of occultists, and if there were any men with a more reasonable view of chemical science, its aims, its objects and its methods, we find no record of them. By the efforts of Jabir and Razi, the two Muslim chemical geniuses, much of the vast accretion of unbridled speculation was cleared away, and chemistry first began to take shape as a true science. Experimental fact was at last informed with the beginnings of reasonable theory, while on the practical side a workmanlike scheme of classification was evolved and a divide range of substances was carefully investigated and systematically characterized. The common laboratory methods of distillation, sublimation, calcination, reduction, solution and crystallization were improved and their general purposes well understood. The refinement of metals, by cupellation and in other ways, was brought to a high degree of perfection, and the careful assay of gold and silver was accompanied by extraordinary accuracy in methods of weighing and in the determination of specific gravity.
On the theoretical side, the idea that 'base' metals could be transmuted into gold or silver overshadowed every other. The generally accepted belief was that elixirs could be prepared which, by an action we should now describe as catalytic, would convert practically unlimited amounts of lead, mercury, tin, copper, or even iron into silver first and then into gold. There were alternative theories as to the means whereby transmutation could be effected, but as we may more conveniently study these in their later developments a mere reference to them in passing may be sufficient at the moment. The philosophical justification for the almost universal credence in the possibility of transmutation is to be found ultimately in the Aristotelian conception of the Four Elements and proximately in Jabir's theory that all metals are composed of sulphur and mercury. Its practical justification lay in the elegant manner in which it explained numerous phenomena and stimulated unceasing research.
Chemistry, in the work of the great chemists from Jabir to the time of Avicenna, was concerned chiefly not so much with alchemy but with concrete technical matters such as the development of apparatus, the preparations of, and the study of their reactions. The development of chemistry in the period, although almost entirely empirical, was of great importance in that a new high level was attained in the accumulation of chemical data. The previous period of such great growth had taken place long before 3000-500 B.C., in Mesopotamia. In many ways, Muslim chemistry grew in the same manner as it did in Mesopotamia with the difference that the Arabs were more careful in their larger number of experiments, made careful notations of their laboratory results, and developed their laboratory apparatus to a high point of perfection. This was the real beginning of scientific method in the science of chemistry. Not only did the Muslims organize their scientific knowledge as did ancient Mesopotamians before them, but they used experiments to gain scientific data. Because of this accent on experiment in later times, there is much more practical discussion of the categories of matter in the Muslim literature than may be found in the Mesopotamian literature where appearances were of prime consideration.
Alongside experiment, logical speculation took its place in chemical science as an important adjunct. Although Muslim theorizing was grossly inadequate, it was, however, carried out by important chemists in an effort to explain results of laboratory work and not necessarily to add to the so-called 'natures'. This was a distinct Muslim advancement over their Greek, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian predecessors.
sursa.. http://www.alchemywebsite.com/index.html
Ophthalmology and Surgery
For ophthalmology there developed an extensive specialist literature. Islamic physicians displayed particular concern and skill in the diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases, perhaps because blindness was the major cause of disability throughout the Islamic lands. Nearly every medical compendium had chapters on eye diseases, but the most comprehensive coverage was to be found in the large number of monographs devoted solely to the subject.
In the 9th century the physician-translator Hunayn ibn Ishaq wrote monographs on ophthalmology, including the influential Ten Treatises on the Eye that showed considerable advancement in knowledge over that in the Greco-Roman treatises preserved today. One of the most highly regarded of ophthalmological manuals was that covering 130 eye ailments written by `Ali ibn `Isa al-Kahhal (d. 1010/400 H) who practiced in Baghdad. A contemporary of his was `Ammar ibn `Ali al-Mawsili, who was originally from Iraq but moved to Egypt where he dedicated his only writing, a treatise on eye diseases, to the Fatimid ruler al-Hakim, who ruled from 966 to 1020 (386-411 H). The latter work only discussed 48 diseases but contains some clinical cases and adaptations of surgical instruments, including a hollow cataract needle which he asserted could be used to remove a cataract from the eye by suction. This hollow tube is mentioned by later ophthalmologists, and the removal of a cataract by suction using a hollow needle was said to have been observed by the oculist and historian Ibn Abi Usaybi`ah about 1230 (628 H) in the Nuri hospital in Damascus. The 14th-century Egyptian oculist Sadaqah ibn Ibrahim al-Shadhili, however, said he had not seen it used and questioned its validity.
In treating cataracts, the technique commonly employed was couching. This method consisted of pushing the lens of the eye out of the way by inserting into the eye a needle or probe through the edge of the cornea. Infection and glaucoma were the major causes for failure. Considering that an untreated cataract results in blindness and the success rate for couching is about 4 in 10, it is not unreasonable that couching found widespread acceptance.
Impressive surgical and diagnostic skill was displayed in the treatment of trachoma, the major cause of blindness, and its sequelae trichiasis, entropion, and pannus. Trachoma itself was treated by everting the eyelid and scraping the interior with a selection of scrapers. Intricate surgical procedures were used for dealing with trichiasis and entropion (superfluous and ingrown eyelashes and rolled in eyelids). Trachomatous pannus, a vascularization which invades the cornea, was not apparently known to Greek physicians, but it was clearly described and treated by peritomy by the earliest of the Islamic doctors and was recognized to be a sequela of trachoma. The excision of pannus employed an instrument for keeping the eye open during surgery, a number of small hooks for lifting, and a very thin scalpel or couching needle. Similar instruments were used in excising pterygium, a triangular-shaped encroachment of the bulbar conjunctiva onto the cornea. Such surgical procedures are intricate and painstaking and cause considerable pain to the patient. Yet they appear to have been occasionally, if not routinely, performed.
For reasons as yet unknown, there was during the 12th and 13th centuries unprecedented interest in composing Arabic treatises on ophthalmology. In Spain Muhammad ibn Qassum ibn Aslam al-Ghafiqi, of whom essentially nothing is known, wrote a Guide to Ophthalmology that was illustrated with instruments. In Cairo the oculist Fath al-Din al-Qaysi, who died in 1259 (657 H) wrote The Result of Thinking about the Cure of Eye Diseases (Natijat al-fikar fi `ilaj amrad al-basar). Al-Qaysi was one of a three-generation family of court physicians in Cairo and was himself `Chief of Physicians' in Egypt and physician to two Ayyubid rulers, including Saladin. The treatise consists of 17 chapters dealing with the anatomy and physiology of the eye and the causes, symptoms and treatment of 124 eye conditions, some apparently described here for the first time. About a decade later, another comprehensive ocular manual was composed in Syria by Khalifah ibn Abi al-Mahasin al-Halabi, who included elaborate charts of instruments. Other ophthalmological manuals were written in Egypt and Syria in the 13th and 14th centuries, including a comprehensive survey of ophthalmology by the Syrian epitomizer of Ibn Sina's Canon, Ibn al-Nafis who practiced in both Damascus and Cairo.
Surgery in general tended to be viewed as distinct from the rest of general medical care, and at least one specialized treatise was written on it. Of major importance in the history of general surgery was the lengthy surgical chapter from the 10th-century medical encyclopedia composed in Spain by al-Zahrawi. This illustrated surgical section circulated by itself and later was influential in Europe through the Latin translation made two centuries later in Toledo by Gerard of Cremona.
Al-Zahrawi divided his discourse on surgery into three parts: on cautery, on incisions and bloodletting, and on bonesetting. He included in it copious illustrations and descriptions of instruments, which made the treatise particularly valuable even though scribes often misunderstood the illustrations when copying the treatise. He combined the surgical ideas derived from Greco-Roman sources with his own observations and experiences, and modified many of the earlier instruments as well as designing some new ones. For example, he described a bevel-ended cannula, instead of the earlier straight one, for use in drawing off liquid when treating abdominal dropsy. He introduced a technique using a fine drill inserted through the urinary passage for treating a calculus impacted in the urethra, and he designed a concealed knife for opening abcesses in a manner that would not alarm the nervous patient. Variations in the design of a vaginal speculum or dilator were introduced, and forceps described, though not for use in live births.
In the 13th century, a Syrian physician, Ibn al-Quff, composed a specialized surgical manual, in which he omitted all ophthalmological procedures because he considered these the province of a specialist. Nearly all the other general discussions of surgery did include some ophthalmological practices, though not with the detail and thoroughness evident in the monographs devoted solely to ophthalmology. The 16th and 17th-century surgical practices in the Ottoman empire and in Safavid Iran and Mughal India are largely derivative from these earlier Arabic ones, but some new techniques emerged including the treating of gunshot wounds.
The lack of antisepsis and anaesthesia were significant limitations on the surgery of the day. The precise extent to which sepsis was a factor in the success, or failure, of an operation is difficult to determine. With the exception of ophthalmological surgery, the vast majority of operations were following accidents or battle wounds, in which case infection may have already set in. Throughout the surgical writings, the Islamic physicians display a sensible and humane reluctance to undertake the riskiest and most painful operations.
sursa..islamic culture.
In the 9th century the physician-translator Hunayn ibn Ishaq wrote monographs on ophthalmology, including the influential Ten Treatises on the Eye that showed considerable advancement in knowledge over that in the Greco-Roman treatises preserved today. One of the most highly regarded of ophthalmological manuals was that covering 130 eye ailments written by `Ali ibn `Isa al-Kahhal (d. 1010/400 H) who practiced in Baghdad. A contemporary of his was `Ammar ibn `Ali al-Mawsili, who was originally from Iraq but moved to Egypt where he dedicated his only writing, a treatise on eye diseases, to the Fatimid ruler al-Hakim, who ruled from 966 to 1020 (386-411 H). The latter work only discussed 48 diseases but contains some clinical cases and adaptations of surgical instruments, including a hollow cataract needle which he asserted could be used to remove a cataract from the eye by suction. This hollow tube is mentioned by later ophthalmologists, and the removal of a cataract by suction using a hollow needle was said to have been observed by the oculist and historian Ibn Abi Usaybi`ah about 1230 (628 H) in the Nuri hospital in Damascus. The 14th-century Egyptian oculist Sadaqah ibn Ibrahim al-Shadhili, however, said he had not seen it used and questioned its validity.
In treating cataracts, the technique commonly employed was couching. This method consisted of pushing the lens of the eye out of the way by inserting into the eye a needle or probe through the edge of the cornea. Infection and glaucoma were the major causes for failure. Considering that an untreated cataract results in blindness and the success rate for couching is about 4 in 10, it is not unreasonable that couching found widespread acceptance.
Impressive surgical and diagnostic skill was displayed in the treatment of trachoma, the major cause of blindness, and its sequelae trichiasis, entropion, and pannus. Trachoma itself was treated by everting the eyelid and scraping the interior with a selection of scrapers. Intricate surgical procedures were used for dealing with trichiasis and entropion (superfluous and ingrown eyelashes and rolled in eyelids). Trachomatous pannus, a vascularization which invades the cornea, was not apparently known to Greek physicians, but it was clearly described and treated by peritomy by the earliest of the Islamic doctors and was recognized to be a sequela of trachoma. The excision of pannus employed an instrument for keeping the eye open during surgery, a number of small hooks for lifting, and a very thin scalpel or couching needle. Similar instruments were used in excising pterygium, a triangular-shaped encroachment of the bulbar conjunctiva onto the cornea. Such surgical procedures are intricate and painstaking and cause considerable pain to the patient. Yet they appear to have been occasionally, if not routinely, performed.
For reasons as yet unknown, there was during the 12th and 13th centuries unprecedented interest in composing Arabic treatises on ophthalmology. In Spain Muhammad ibn Qassum ibn Aslam al-Ghafiqi, of whom essentially nothing is known, wrote a Guide to Ophthalmology that was illustrated with instruments. In Cairo the oculist Fath al-Din al-Qaysi, who died in 1259 (657 H) wrote The Result of Thinking about the Cure of Eye Diseases (Natijat al-fikar fi `ilaj amrad al-basar). Al-Qaysi was one of a three-generation family of court physicians in Cairo and was himself `Chief of Physicians' in Egypt and physician to two Ayyubid rulers, including Saladin. The treatise consists of 17 chapters dealing with the anatomy and physiology of the eye and the causes, symptoms and treatment of 124 eye conditions, some apparently described here for the first time. About a decade later, another comprehensive ocular manual was composed in Syria by Khalifah ibn Abi al-Mahasin al-Halabi, who included elaborate charts of instruments. Other ophthalmological manuals were written in Egypt and Syria in the 13th and 14th centuries, including a comprehensive survey of ophthalmology by the Syrian epitomizer of Ibn Sina's Canon, Ibn al-Nafis who practiced in both Damascus and Cairo.
Surgery in general tended to be viewed as distinct from the rest of general medical care, and at least one specialized treatise was written on it. Of major importance in the history of general surgery was the lengthy surgical chapter from the 10th-century medical encyclopedia composed in Spain by al-Zahrawi. This illustrated surgical section circulated by itself and later was influential in Europe through the Latin translation made two centuries later in Toledo by Gerard of Cremona.
Al-Zahrawi divided his discourse on surgery into three parts: on cautery, on incisions and bloodletting, and on bonesetting. He included in it copious illustrations and descriptions of instruments, which made the treatise particularly valuable even though scribes often misunderstood the illustrations when copying the treatise. He combined the surgical ideas derived from Greco-Roman sources with his own observations and experiences, and modified many of the earlier instruments as well as designing some new ones. For example, he described a bevel-ended cannula, instead of the earlier straight one, for use in drawing off liquid when treating abdominal dropsy. He introduced a technique using a fine drill inserted through the urinary passage for treating a calculus impacted in the urethra, and he designed a concealed knife for opening abcesses in a manner that would not alarm the nervous patient. Variations in the design of a vaginal speculum or dilator were introduced, and forceps described, though not for use in live births.
In the 13th century, a Syrian physician, Ibn al-Quff, composed a specialized surgical manual, in which he omitted all ophthalmological procedures because he considered these the province of a specialist. Nearly all the other general discussions of surgery did include some ophthalmological practices, though not with the detail and thoroughness evident in the monographs devoted solely to ophthalmology. The 16th and 17th-century surgical practices in the Ottoman empire and in Safavid Iran and Mughal India are largely derivative from these earlier Arabic ones, but some new techniques emerged including the treating of gunshot wounds.
The lack of antisepsis and anaesthesia were significant limitations on the surgery of the day. The precise extent to which sepsis was a factor in the success, or failure, of an operation is difficult to determine. With the exception of ophthalmological surgery, the vast majority of operations were following accidents or battle wounds, in which case infection may have already set in. Throughout the surgical writings, the Islamic physicians display a sensible and humane reluctance to undertake the riskiest and most painful operations.
sursa..islamic culture.
Arab contributions to mathematics and the introduction of the Zero
Starting around 750 AD, science flourished under the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad, gradually spreading its influence as far west as Spain and eastwards into Central Asia, over a period of more than 600 years.
By drawing on a variety of texts - Greek, Indian and Persian - and translating them into Arabic, the early scholars accumulated the greatest body of scientific knowledge in the world … and built on it through their own discoveries.
Often, there was a practical Islamic relevance. Astronomy could be used to work out the direction of prayer. Mathematics was needed for dividing property according to the Islamic law of inheritance.
Although science flourished under Arab-Islamic patronage, by no means all the important figures in science were Muslims, or even Arabs.
The common factor, however, was the Arabic language, which for a time became the international language of science. It was only later, in the 12th and 13th centuries, when the Arabic works began to be translated into Latin, that such knowledge passed to the west.
http://www.al-bab.com/arab/science
By drawing on a variety of texts - Greek, Indian and Persian - and translating them into Arabic, the early scholars accumulated the greatest body of scientific knowledge in the world … and built on it through their own discoveries.
Often, there was a practical Islamic relevance. Astronomy could be used to work out the direction of prayer. Mathematics was needed for dividing property according to the Islamic law of inheritance.
Although science flourished under Arab-Islamic patronage, by no means all the important figures in science were Muslims, or even Arabs.
The common factor, however, was the Arabic language, which for a time became the international language of science. It was only later, in the 12th and 13th centuries, when the Arabic works began to be translated into Latin, that such knowledge passed to the west.
http://www.al-bab.com/arab/science
Fatwa
Definition: A fatwa is an Islamic religious ruling, a scholarly opinion on a matter of Islamic law.
A fatwa is issued by a recognized religious authority in Islam. But since there is no hierarchical priesthood or anything of the sort in Islam, a fatwa is not necessarily "binding" on the faithful. The people who pronounce these rulings are supposed to be knowledgable, and base their rulings in knowledge and wisdom. They need to supply the evidence from Islamic sources for their opinions, and it is not uncommon for scholars to come to different conclusions regarding the same issue.
As Muslims, we look at the opinion, the reputation of the person giving it, the evidence given to support it, and then decide whether to follow it or not. When there are conflicting opinions issued by different scholars, we compare the evidence and then choose the opinion to which our God-given conscience guides us.
Pronunciation: fa-twa
Alternate Spellings: fatwah, fetwa, fetwah
Examples:
Some scholars have issued a fatwa that smoking cigarettes is forbidden in Islam.
http://www.about.com/
A fatwa is issued by a recognized religious authority in Islam. But since there is no hierarchical priesthood or anything of the sort in Islam, a fatwa is not necessarily "binding" on the faithful. The people who pronounce these rulings are supposed to be knowledgable, and base their rulings in knowledge and wisdom. They need to supply the evidence from Islamic sources for their opinions, and it is not uncommon for scholars to come to different conclusions regarding the same issue.
As Muslims, we look at the opinion, the reputation of the person giving it, the evidence given to support it, and then decide whether to follow it or not. When there are conflicting opinions issued by different scholars, we compare the evidence and then choose the opinion to which our God-given conscience guides us.
Pronunciation: fa-twa
Alternate Spellings: fatwah, fetwa, fetwah
Examples:
Some scholars have issued a fatwa that smoking cigarettes is forbidden in Islam.
http://www.about.com/
Monday, October 4, 2010
muslims like brothers...
"Nu vã urâti unul pe altul, nici nu vã pizmuiti ori vã dusmãniti, ci fiti ca fratii
si slujitori ai lui Allah. Nu este îngãduit ca un musulman sã rupã legãturile
cu fratele sãu mai mult de trei zile."
"Do not you hate each other, nor will you covet or enemies, but be like brothers and servants of Allah. It is not lawful for a Muslim to break ties with his brother more than three days."
"Nu este legiuit ca un musulman sã întrerupã legãturile cu fratele sãu mai
mult de trei nopti, unul sã-si întoarcã fata într-o parte, iar altul în cealaltã
când se întâlnesc; cel mai bun dintre cei doi este cel care salutã primul."
"It is not lawful for a Muslim to break the connection with his brother more than three nights, one to turn to one side and the other in the other when they meet, the best of the two is one that welcomes first. "
ONU a trecut sub tăcere un raport privind încălcarea drepturilor omului în Afganistan
Presa occidentală a titrat că ONU a trecut în mod voluntar sub tăcere un raport privind încălcări masive ale drepturilor omului în Afganistan, între aprilie 1978 şi decembrie 2001, care îi acuza pe sovietici, facţiuni islamiste şi forţe americane că au luat parte la aceste atrocităţi. Aceste informaţii apar după publicarea foarte aşteptată, vineri, a unui raport controversat la ONU, evocând posibilitatea unui genocid comis de armata rwandeză în Republica Democratică Congo, la sfârşitul anilor '90. Un alt raport, comandat de Înaltul Comisariat al ONU pentru Drepturile Omului asupra crimelor comise între 1978 şi 2001, în Afganistan, a fost în mod deliberat trecut sub tăcere din motive politice, scrie cotidianul elveţian „Le Temps”, care şi-a procurat o copie după acest document de 300 de pagini, într-o anchetă publicată sâmbătă. Purtătorul de cuvânt al Înaltului Comisariat al ONU pentru Drepturile Omului, pe care AFP a încercat să îl contacteze, nu a fost disponibil.
Acest raport, finalizat în decembrie 2004, după un an de lucru, trebuia să fie publicat în ianuarie 2005. Nu a fost publicat, iar din amânare în amânare a sfârşit prin a fi pus deoparte, arată cotidianul elveţian. Raportul inventariază ororile comise în lunile care au urmat loviturii de stat militare, în aprilie 1978, dar şi ulterior, în perioada invaziei şi ocupaţiei sovietice (1979-1989), în timpul războiului dintre Partidul Democratic al Poporului din Afganistan şi rezistenţa mujahedină, şi până la regimul Taliban şi îndepărtarea sa de la putere, la sfârşitul lui 2001, de către o coaliţie condusă de trupele americane. Acesta îi acuză pe sovietici, şefii comunişti, mujahedini, facţiunile islamiste şi chiar forţele americane că au luat parte, în grade diferite, la atrocităţile (torturi, jafuri, execuţii sumare, deţineri arbitrare, masacre de civili, violuri în serie, înrolarea în armată a copiilor la care au fost supuşi afganii în aceşti 23 de ani,. Americanul Barnett Rubin, unul dintre cei trei redactori ai raportului, a declarat pentru cotidianul „Le Temps” că ONU a hotărât să nu publice documentul la cererea preşedintelui Hamid Karzai, care se află la conducerea Afganistanului din decembrie 2001, pentru că acesta menţiona numele unor persoane care continuau să facă parte din Guvernul afgan. Între personalităţile vizate în raport figurează Mohammad Fahim, suspectat de implicarea în numeroase masacre. În prezent, acesta este vicepreşedintele Afganistanului, iar anterior a fost ministru al Apărării.
Preşedintele Karzai nu este la prima acţiune reprobabilă. Acersta a reproşat NATO că nu luptă cu adevărat împotriva terorismului. Hamid Karzai a făcut declaraţia în cursul unei întâlniri cu premierul australian Julia Gillard, la Kabul. „Militarii străini din Afganistan nu sunt motivaţi să lupte împotriva centrelor de terorism, aşa că situaţia în domeniul securităţii nu este deloc mulţumitoare”, a afirmat liderul de la Kabul, care a adăugat că situaţia negativă din acest domeniu este în primul rând legată de faptul că forţele internaţionale nu au reuşit să elimine centrele de antrenament terorist din regiune. Pe de altă parte, preşedinţia afgană a anunţat interzicerea pe teritoriul ţării a activităţilor principalelor opt societăţi private de securitate, printre care şi fosta Blackwater, conform ordinului preşedintelui Karzai de a le interzice pe toate până la sfârşitul anului. Fosta companie Blackwater, redenumită Xe, şi White Eagle Security Services, care se ocupă de securitatea oficialilor guvernamentali afgani şi a organizaţiilor neguvernamentale, se numără printre primele societăţi interzise. În total 52 de societăţi, afgane şi internaţionale, sunt înregistrate, un sector înfloritor care are oficial 26.000 de angajaţi, dar care ar putea beneficia de serviciile a 40.000 de persoane.
sursa http://www.telegrafonline.ro
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