ISLAMIC ALCHEMY
Similarities between Chinese and Indian alchemy
have long led to
speculations regarding the possible
transmission of common concepts. To
date, however,
few facts have come to light to substantiate these
speculations. The origins of Islamic alchemy are some-
what easier to discern. Here there is
little question
about the importance of Greek sources. Traditionally
Prince Khalid ibn Yazid (d. 704) was the first Muslim
convert to alchemy
and it is significant that his teacher
was said to be one Morienos, a pupil
of the legendary
Stephanos of Alexandria. Although there is little likeli-
hood of truth in this story, the strong
Greek influence
on Islamic alchemy may be further confirmed by fre-
quent references to Alexandrian authors and
the gen-
eral use of Greek philosophical
concepts. Translations
were made into Arabic at learned centers
throughout
the Near East not only of the works of such major
figures
as Aristotle, Galen, and Ptolemy, but also of
Zosimos, Bolos Democritos,
and Stephanos. Among
these centers the old Sassanian academy at Jundi-
Shapur played a role. Similarly a
group of Sabians at
Harran were influential in transmitting Indian alchemi-
cal and astrological thought into the
Islamic tradition.
The ascription of alchemical works to earlier authors
was as common to
Islamic authors as it had been to
their Greek predecessors. The short
alchemical classic,
the “Emerald Table,” was said to
have been written
by Hermes Trismegistus, but the earliest surviving
version is in an early ninth-century Arabic text ascribed
to the
first-century (A.D.) magician, Apollonios of
Tyana. A similar problem
exists in regard to the Turba
philosophorum.
This exists only in Latin, but it has been
shown by E. J. Holmyard and J.
Ruska to have been
composed originally in Arabic early in the tenth cen-
tury. The dialogue form is used in the Turba and the
speakers are supposedly the Greek
philosophers of an-
tiquity. Islamic alchemy
did not confine itself to Greek
sages and gods alone in this regard. The
eighth-century
scholar, Jabir-ibn-Hayyan, probably authored only a
few
works on alchemy. However, some two thousand
titles are ascribed to him.
The great bulk of these seem
to derive from members of the Isma'ilya sect,
the
Brotherhood of Purity, and they date from the ninth
and the tenth
centuries.
Islamic alchemy is characterized by both the practi-
cal and the mystical elements seen in the earlier Greek
texts.
There are frequent warnings that the information
being revealed is for the
initiated alone and there is
a continued use of the allegorical approach
which had
become common in late Greek works. The religious
nature of
the art is emphasized and the predominant
vitalism favored by alchemical
authors may be seen
in discussions of the generation of metals, and in
the
sexual interpretation of fundamental stages of the great
work. As
in the Alexandrian texts the progress of the
operator may be followed
through the now standard
sequence of color changes. The concept of the
philoso-
pher's stone is also well
developed in the Arabic litera-
ture. This stone allegedly provided a substance which
brought
about the rapid transmutation of base metals
to gold. It derived from the
earlier concept of special
elixirs which might cure illnesses in man and
which
in an analogous fashion might perfect—or
cure—
imperfect metals in inanimate nature.
Aristotelian element theory is commonly employed
in the Arabic texts, but in
addition the Jabirian works
employed the Sulphur-Mercury theory of the
metals.
This concept suggests that all metals are composed of
different proportions of a sophic sulphur and a sophic
mercury. While there
was general agreement that these
two substances have a resemblance to
common sulphur
and mercury, it was asserted that they were much
purer
than anything that could be produced in the
laboratory. A quantitative
relationship between the
two was implied, but the mathematical
relationship
expressed in these texts may be most easily related to
the number mysticism favored by the Neo-Pythago-
reans and Eastern mystics. Although the Sulphur-
Mercury theory appears first in
this literature, it seems
to be a modification of the concept of the two
exhala-
tions within the earth that lead
to the formation of
minerals and metals. This concept is discussed in
the
fourth book of Aristotle's Meteorologica.
In the Arabic literature the reader finds an emphasis
on medical chemistry
for the first time outside of the
Far East and India. The work of the
physician al-Razi
(Rhazes, 860-925) is decidedly practical in nature.
Although he accepted the truth of transmutation and
discussed elixirs of
varying powers, in the Book of the
Secret of Secrets
Razi spoke at length of chemical
equipment and he described in detail the
laboratory
operations requisite for the chemist. In addition he
described a large number of laboratory reagents and
classified them into
the categories of “animal,” “min-
eral,”
“vegetable,” and “derivative.”
Chemical texts
continued to employ the first three of these as a basic
scheme for arrangement until well into the eighteenth
century. Razi's
interest in medicine and practical
chemistry influenced later Islamic work
in medical
chemistry. The work of ibn-Sina (Avicenna, 980-1037)
and
Abu Mansur Muwaffak (late tenth century) indi-
cates a special interest in chemically prepared sub-
stances of pharmaceutical value.
