Jabir ibn Hayyan explained

Death Date: 806−816
Era:Islamic Golden Age
Jābir ibn Ḥayyān
Honorific Suffix:Islamic alchemist
Language:Arabic
Main Interests:Alchemy and chemistry, magic, Shi'ite religious philosophy
Notable Ideas:Use of organic substances in chemistry, sulfur-mercury theory of metals, science of the balance, science of artificial generation

Abū Mūsā Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (Arabic: Arabic: أَبو موسى جابِر بِن حَيّان, variously called al-Ṣūfī, al-Azdī, al-Kūfī, or al-Ṭūsī), died 806−816, is the purported author of a large number of works in Arabic, often called the Jabirian corpus. The treatises that survive today mainly deal with alchemy and chemistry, magic, and Shi'ite religious philosophy. However, the original scope of the corpus was vast, covering a wide range of topics ranging from cosmology, astronomy and astrology, over medicine, pharmacology, zoology and botany, to metaphysics, logic, and grammar.

The works attributed to Jabir, which are tentatively dated to, contain the oldest known systematic classification of chemical substances, and the oldest known instructions for deriving an inorganic compound (sal ammoniac or ammonium chloride) from organic substances (such as plants, blood, and hair) by chemical means.[1] His works also contain one of the earliest known versions of the sulfur-mercury theory of metals, a mineralogical theory that would remain dominant until the 18th century.[2]

A significant part of Jabir's writings deal with a philosophical theory known as "the science of the balance" (Arabic: ʿilm al-mīzān), which was aimed at reducing all phenomena (including material substances and their elements) to a system of measures and quantitative proportions. The Jabirian works also contain some of the earliest preserved Shi'ite imamological doctrines, which Jabir presented as deriving from his purported master, the Shi'ite Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (died 765).

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

Some Arabic Jabirian works (e.g., The Great Book of Mercy, and The Book of Seventy) were translated into Latin under the Latinized name Geber, and in 13th-century Europe an anonymous writer, usually referred to as pseudo-Geber, started to produce alchemical and metallurgical writings under this name.[3]

Biography

Historicity

It is not clear whether Jabir ibn Hayyan ever existed as a historical person. He is purported to have lived in the 8th century, and to have been a disciple of the Shi'ite Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (died 765).[4] However, he is not mentioned in any historical source before c. 900, and the first known author to write about Jabir from a biographical point of view was the Baghdadi bibliographer Ibn al-Nadīm (c. 932–995).[5] In his Fihrist ("The Book Catalogue", written in 987), Ibn al-Nadīm compiled a list of Jabir's works, adding a short notice on the various claims that were then circulating about Jabir.[6] Already in Ibn al-Nadīm's time, there were some people who explicitly asserted that Jabir had never existed, although Ibn al-Nadīm himself disagreed with this claim.[7] Jabir was often ignored by later medieval Islamic biographers and historians, but even early Shi'ite biographers such as Aḥmad al-Barqī (died c. 893), Abū ʿAmr al-Kashshī (first half of the 10th century), Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Najāshī (983–1058), and Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭūsī (995–1067), who wrote long volumes on the companions of the Shi'ite Imams (including the many companions of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq), did not mention Jabir at all.[8]

Dating of the Jabirian corpus

Apart from outright denying his existence, there were also some who, already in Ibn al-Nadīm's time, questioned whether the writings attributed to Jabir were really written by him.[9] The authenticity of these writings was expressly denied by the Baghdadi philosopher Abū Sulaymān al-Sijistānī (c. 912–985) and his pupil Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (c. 932–1023), though this may have been related to the hostility of both these thinkers to alchemy in general.[10] Modern scholarly analysis has tended to confirm the inauthenticity of the writings attributed to Jabir. Much of the philosophical terminology used in the Jabirian treatises was only coined around the middle of the 9th century,[11] and some of the Greek philosophical texts cited in the Jabirian writings are known to have been translated into Arabic towards the end of the 9th century.[12] Moreover, an important part of the corpus deals with early Shi'ite religious philosophy that is elsewhere only attested in late 9th-century and early 10th-century sources.[13] As a result, the dating of the Jabirian corpus to c. 850–950 has been widely accepted in modern scholarship.[14] However, it has also been noted that many Jabirian treatises show clear signs of having been redacted multiple times, and the writings as we now have them may well have been based on an earlier 8th-century core.[15] Despite the obscurity involved, it is not impossible that some of these writings, in their earliest form, were written by a real Jabir ibn Hayyan.[16] In any case, it is clear that Jabir's name was used as a pseudonym by one or more anonymous Shi'ite alchemists writing in the late 9th and early 10th centuries, who also redacted the corpus as we now know it.[17]

Biographical clues and legend

Jabir was generally known by the kunya Abū Mūsā ("Father of Mūsā"), or sometimes Abū ʿAbd Allāh ("Father of ʿAbd Allāh"), and by the nisbas (attributive names) al-Ṣūfī, al-Azdī, al-Kūfī, or al-Ṭūsī.[18] His grandfather's name is mentioned by Ibn al-Nadim as ʿAbd Allāh.[19] If the attribution of the name al-Azdī to Jabir is authentic,[20] this would point to his affiliation with the Southern-Arabian (Yemenite) tribe of the Azd. However, it is not clear whether Jabir was an Arab belonging to the Azd tribe, or a non-Arab Muslim client (mawlā) of the Azd.[21] If he was a non-Arab Muslim client of the Azd, he is most likely to have been Persian, given his ties with eastern Iran (his nisba al-Ṭūsī also points to Tus, a city in Khurasan).[22] According to Ibn al-Nadīm, Jabir hailed from Khurasan (eastern Iran), but spent most of his life in Kufa (Iraq),[23] both regions where the Azd tribe was well-settled.[24] Various late reports put his date of death between 806 (190 AH) and 816 (200 AH).[25]

Given the lack of independent biographical sources, most of the biographical information about Jabir can be traced back to the Jabirian writings themselves.[26] There are references throughout the Jabirian corpus to the Shi'ite Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (died 765), whom Jabir generally calls "my master" (Arabic: sayyidī), and whom he represents as the original source of all his knowledge.[27] In one work, Jabir is also represented as an associate of the Bactrian vizier family of the Barmakids, whereas Ibn al-Nadīm reports that some claimed Jabir to have been especially devoted to Jaʿfar ibn Yaḥyā al-Barmakī (767–803), the Abbasid vizier of One Thousand and One Nights fame.[28] Jabir's links with the Abbasids were stressed even more by later tradition, which turned him into a favorite of the Abbasid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (c. 763–809, also appearing in One Thousand and One Nights), for whom Jabir would have composed a treatise on alchemy, and who is supposed to have commanded the translation of Greek works into Arabic on Jabir's instigation.[29]

Given Jabir's purported ties with both the Shi'ite Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and the Barmakid family (who served the Abbasids as viziers), or with the Abbasid caliphs themselves, it has sometimes been thought plausible that Ḥayyān al-ʿAṭṭār ("Hayyan the Druggist"), a proto-Shi'ite activist who was fighting for the Abbasid cause in the early 8th century, may have been Jabir's father (Jabir's name "Ibn Hayyan" literally means "The Son of Hayyan").[30] Although there is no direct evidence supporting this hypothesis, it fits very well in the historical context, and it allows one to think of Jabir, however obscure, as a historical figure.[31] Because Ḥayyān al-ʿAṭṭār was supposedly executed not long after 721, the hypothesis even made it possible to estimate Jabir's date of birth at .[32] However, it has recently been argued that Ḥayyān al-ʿAṭṭār probably lived at least until,[33] and that as a client (mawlā) of the Nakhaʿ tribe he is highly unlikely to have been the father of Jabir (who is supposed to have been a client/member of the Azd).[34]

The Jabirian corpus

There are about 600 Arabic works attributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan that are known by name,[35] approximately 215 of which are still extant today.[36] Though some of these are full-length works (e.g., The Great Book on Specific Properties),[37] most of them are relatively short treatises and belong to larger collections (The One Hundred and Twelve Books, The Five Hundred Books, etc.) in which they function rather more like chapters.[38] When the individual chapters of some full-length works are counted as separate treatises too,[39] the total length of the corpus may be estimated at 3000 treatises/chapters.[40]

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

Alchemical writings

Note that Paul Kraus, who first catalogued the Jabirian writings and whose numbering is followed here, conceived of his division of Jabir's alchemical writings (Kr. nos. 5–1149) as roughly chronological in order.[44]

Writings on magic (talismans, specific properties)

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

Other extant writings

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

Lost writings

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

Historical background

Greco-Egyptian, Byzantine and Persian alchemy

The Jabirian writings contain a number of references to Greco-Egyptian alchemists such as pseudo-Democritus (fl. c. 60), Mary the Jewess (fl. c. 0–300), Agathodaemon (fl. c. 300), and Zosimos of Panopolis (fl. c. 300), as well as to legendary figures such as Hermes Trismegistus and Ostanes, and to scriptural figures such as Moses and Jesus (to whom a number of alchemical writings were also ascribed).[84] However, these references may have been meant as an appeal to ancient authority rather than as an acknowledgement of any intellectual borrowing,[85] and in any case Jabirian alchemy was very different from what is found in the extant Greek alchemical treatises: it was much more systematic and coherent,[86] it made much less use of allegory and symbols,[87] and a much more important place was occupied by philosophical speculations and their application to laboratory experiments.[88] Furthermore, whereas Greek alchemical texts had been almost exclusively focused on the use of mineral substances (i.e., on 'inorganic chemistry'), Jabirian alchemy pioneered the use of vegetable and animal substances, and so represented an innovative shift towards 'organic chemistry'.[89]

Nevertheless, there are some important theoretical similarities between Jabirian alchemy and contemporary Byzantine alchemy,[90] and even though the Jabirian authors do not seem to have known Byzantine works that are extant today such as the alchemical works attributed to the Neoplatonic philosophers Olympiodorus (c. 495–570) and Stephanus of Alexandria (fl. c. 580–640),[91] it seems that they were at least partly drawing on a parallel tradition of theoretical and philosophical alchemy.[92] In any case, the writings actually used by the Jabirian authors appear to have mainly consisted of alchemical works falsely attributed to ancient philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Apollonius of Tyana,[89] only some of which are still extant today, and whose philosophical content still needs to be determined.[93]

One of the innovations in Jabirian alchemy was the addition of sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) to the category of chemical substances known as 'spirits' (i.e., strongly volatile substances). This included both naturally occurring sal ammoniac and synthetic ammonium chloride as produced from organic substances, and so the addition of sal ammoniac to the list of 'spirits' is likely a product of the new focus on organic chemistry. Since the word for sal ammoniac used in the Jabirian corpus (nošāder) is Iranian in origin, it has been suggested that the direct precursors of Jabirian alchemy may have been active in the Hellenizing and Syriacizing schools of the Sassanid Empire.[94]

Chemical philosophy

Elements and natures

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

The sulfur-mercury theory of metals

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

See also

Bibliography

Tertiary sources

Secondary sources

Primary sources

Editions of Arabic Jabirian texts

Modern translations of Arabic Jabirian texts

Medieval translations of Arabic Jabirian texts (Latin)

Note that some other Latin works attributed to Jabir/Geber (Summa perfectionis, De inventione veritatis, De investigatione perfectionis, Liber fornacum, Testamentum Geberi, and Alchemia Geberi) are widely considered to be pseudepigraphs which, though largely drawing on Arabic sources, were originally written by Latin authors in the 13th–14th centuries (see pseudo-Geber); see ; cf. .

Notes and References

  1. (referring to ; ;). See also .
  2. .
  3. . It has been argued by Ahmad Y. Al-Hassan that the pseudo-Geber works were actually translated into Latin from the Arabic (see Al-Hassan, Ahmad Y. "The Arabic Origin of the Summa and Geber Latin Works: A Refutation of Berthelot, Ruska, and Newman Based on Arabic Sources", in: ; also available online).
  4. References to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq occur throughout the Jabirian corpus (see). See also below.
  5. .
  6. . An annotated English translation of this notice and the list of Jabir's works may be found in .
  7. .
  8. . However, as also noted by Delva 2017, pp. 39–40, note 19, Jabir does occur in two possibly early Shi'ite hadith collections, which are in need of further investigation.
  9. .
  10. .
  11. See already and . This was denied by .
  12. has argued that one of these translations of Greek philosophical texts cited by Jabir actually dates to the 8th century, but this was contradicted by (cf.).
  13. Kraus regarded Jabirian Shi'ism as an early form of Isma'ilism (see, ; see also), but it has since been shown that it significantly differs from Isma'ilism (see ;), and may have been an independent sectarian Shi'ite current related to the late 9th-century ghulāt (see).
  14. This is the dating put forward by . For its acceptance by other scholars, see the references in . Notable critics of Kraus' dating are and (cf.).
  15. . For other observations of the existence of different editorial layers in Jabirian treatises, see ; .
  16. .
  17. cf. .
  18. . The kunya Abū ʿAbd Allāh only occurs in Ibn al-Nadīm (see). Ibn Khallikān (1211–1282) gives Jabir's nisba as al-Ṭarsūsī, or in some manuscripts as al-Tarṭūsī, but these are most likely scribal errors for al-Ṭūsī (see Kraus 1942–1943, vol. I, p. xli, note 3).
  19. . Kraus adds that ʿAbd Allāh as the name of Jabir's grandfather is also mentioned in Jabir's Kitāb al-Najīb (Kr. no. 977).
  20. still thought the attribution to Jabir of the name al-Azdī to be false. Later sources assume its authenticity.
  21. . In the 8th century, it was still necessary for non-Arabs to secure an affiliation with an Arab tribe in order to be allowed to convert to Islam.
  22. . According to a copyist of one of the manuscripts containing Jabir's works, he also died in Tus (see Delva 2017, p. 36, note 6). Jabir was held to be an Arab by, a view still taken by . He was regarded as Persian by (cf.), who was echoed by such scholars as and .
  23. .
  24. .
  25. .
  26. This even holds for most of what was written by Ibn al-Nadīm; see .
  27. . That the references are indeed to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq is made clear by the Shi'ite context in which they occur, and by the fact that Jaʿfar's patronymic "ibn Muḥammad" is sometimes included (see ;). Ibn al-Nadīm's isolated statement that some claimed "my master" to refer to Jaʿfar ibn Yaḥyā al-Barmakī was called "arbitrary" by Kraus 1942–1943, vol. I, p. xliv, note 2.
  28. cf. . Kraus expressly compared the seemingly legendary tales about Jabir and the Barmakids with those of the One Thousand and One Nights.
  29. This is first related by the 14th century alchemist al-Jildakī (see ; cf.).
  30. .
  31. .
  32. cf. .
  33. .
  34. .
  35. These are listed in .
  36. .
  37. (counted as one of the c. 600 works there).
  38. .
  39. See, e.g., The Great Book on Specific Properties, whose 71 chapters are counted by as nos. 1900–1970. Note, however, that this procedure is not always followed: e.g., even though The Book of the Rectifications of Plato consists of 90 chapters, it is still counted as only one treatise (Kr. no. 205, see).
  40. This is the number arrived at by . Kraus' method of counting has been criticized by, who warns that "we should view with a great deal of suspicion any arguments for a plurality of authors which is based on Kraus' inflated estimate of the volume of the Jabirian corpus".
  41. See the section 'Alchemical writings' below. Religious speculations occur throughout the corpus (see, e.g.,), but are especially prominent in The Five Hundred Books (see below). The Books of the Balances deal with alchemy from a philosophical and theoretical point of view, and contain treatises devoted to a wide range of topics (see below).
  42. See the section 'Writings on magic (talismans, specific properties)' below. Kraus refers to ʿilm al-ṭilasmāt as "théurgie" (theurgy) throughout; see, e.g., On "the science of specific properties" (ʿilm al-khawāṣṣ), see .
  43. Only one full work (The Book on Poisons and on the Repelling of their Harmful Effects, Kitāb al-Sumūm wa-dafʿ maḍārrihā, Kr. no. 2145, medical/pharmacological) and a long extract of another one (The Book of Comprehensiveness, Kitāb al-Ishtimāl, Kr. no. 2715, philosophical) are still extant today; see the section 'Other writings' below, with . also lists 30 extant works which were not known to Kraus, and whose subject matter and place in the corpus has not yet been determined.
  44. . Kraus based this order on an extensive analysis of the many internal references to other treatises in the corpus. A slightly different chronological order is postulated by (who places The Books of the Balances after The Five Hundred Books, see pp. 252–253).
  45. All of the preceding in .
  46. .
  47. Edited by .
  48. All of the preceding in .
  49. . Jabir explicitly notes that the version of the Emerald Tablet quoted by him is taken from "Balīnās the Sage" (i.e., pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana), although it differs slightly from the (probably even earlier) version preserved in pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana's Sirr al-khalīqa (The Secret of Creation): see .
  50. . On some Shi'ite aspects of The Book of the Element of the Foundation, see .
  51. .
  52. .
  53. Edited by ; the Latin translation of one of the seventy treatises (The Book of the Thirty Words, Kitāb al-Thalāthīn kalima, Kr. no. 125, translated as Liber XXX verborum) was separately edited by . In the ms. used by Berthelot, the name of the translator appears as a certain Renaldus Cremonensis (cf.). However, a medieval list of the works translated by Gerard of Cremona (Latin: Gerardus Cremonensis) mentions the Liber de Septuaginta as one of the three alchemical works translated by the magister (see, cf.).
  54. .
  55. Ḥarbī al-Ḥimyarī occurs several times in the Jabirian writings as one of Jabir's teachers. He supposedly was 463 years old when Jabir met him (see). According to, the fact that Jabir dedicated a book to Ḥarbī's contributions to alchemy points to the existence in Jabir's time of a written work attributed to him.
  56. All of the preceding in . On the meaning here of muṣaḥḥaḥāt, see esp. p. 64 n. 1 and the accompanying text. See also .
  57. .
  58. . On "the science of specific properties" (ʿilm al-khawāṣṣ, i.e., the science dealing with the hidden powers of mineral, vegetable and animal substances, and with their practical applications in medical and various other pursuits), see .
  59. .
  60. All of the preceding in . The theory of the balance is extensively discussed by ; see also .
  61. .
  62. .
  63. .
  64. .
  65. Edited and translated by .
  66. . On khārṣīnī, see . Excerpts from the first six Books on the Seven Metals (the Book of Gold, the Book of Silver, the Book of Copper, the Book of Iron, the Book of Tin, and the Book of Lead) and the full Arabic text of the seventh book (the Book of Khārṣīnī) have been edited by .
  67. .
  68. A number of non-extant treatises (Kr. nos. 1750, 1778, 1795, 1981, 1987, 1992, 1994) are also discussed by . Kraus refers to ʿilm al-ṭilasmāt as "théurgie" (theurgy) throughout; see, e.g., On "the science of specific properties" (ʿilm al-khawāṣṣ), see .
  69. .
  70. .
  71. On "the science of specific properties" (ʿilm al-khawāṣṣ), see .
  72. . The theory of the balance, which is mainly expounded in The Books of the Balances (Kr. nos. 303–446, see above), is extensively discussed by ; see also .
  73. .
  74. .
  75. facsimile in .
  76. .
  77. All of the preceding in .
  78. .
  79. .
  80. All of the preceding in .
  81. All of the preceding in .
  82. All of the preceding in .
  83. All of the preceding in .
  84. .
  85. .
  86. .
  87. .
  88. .
  89. .
  90. .
  91. . Kraus also notes that this is rather remarkable given the existence of works attributed to Stephanus of Alexandria in the Arabic tradition.
  92. .
  93. Manuscripts of extant works are listed by and .
  94. All of the preceding in ; cf. . On the etymology of the word nošāder, see (arguing that it is a Persian word derived from Sogdian); (arguing for a Persian origin).
  95. .
  96. . On the dating and historical background of the Sirr al-khalīqa, see ; .
  97. .
  98. .

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