Alchemy in the medieval Islamic world facts for kids
Alchemy in the medieval Islamic world refers to both traditional alchemy and early practical chemistry (the early chemical investigation of nature in general) by Muslim scholars in the medieval Islamic world. The word alchemy was derived from the Arabic word كيمياء or kīmiyāʾ and may ultimately derive from the ancient Egyptian word kemi, meaning black.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Islamic conquest of Roman Egypt, the focus of alchemical development moved to the Caliphate and the Islamic civilization.
Contributions of Islamic alchemists to mystical alchemy
Marie-Louise von Franz describes in her introduction to Ibn Umail's "Book of the Explanation of the Symbols — Kitāb Ḥall ar-Rumūz" the contributions of Islamic alchemy as follows: In the 7th to 8th century, Islamic scholars were mainly concerned with translating ancient Hermetic-Gnostic texts without changing them. Gradually they began "'confronting' their content with the Islamic religion" and began "to think independently and experiment themselves in the realm of alchemy". Thus they added "an emphasis on the monotheistic outlook" (tawḥīd) and more and more creating a synopsis of the diverse antique traditions. Thus unifying their meaning, the Islamic scholars arrived at the idea, that the secret and aim of alchemy were the achievement of "one inner psychic experience, namely the God-image" and that stone, water, prima materia etc. were "all aspects of the inner mystery through which the alchemist unites with the transcendent God". Secondly, they added "a passionate feeling tone" by using much more a poetic language than the antique Hermetists did, also giving "a greater emphasis on the coniunctio motif", i.e. images of the union of male and female, sun and moon, king and queen etc. "The mystical masters of Islam understood alchemy as a transformative process of the alchemist's psyche. The fire which promoted this transformation was the love of God."
Alchemists and works
Khālid ibn Yazīd
According to the bibliographer Ibn al-Nadīm, the first Muslim alchemist was Khālid ibn Yazīd, who is said to have studied alchemy under the Christian Marianos of Alexandria. The historicity of this story is not clear; according to M. Ullmann, it is a legend. According to Ibn al-Nadīm and Ḥajjī Khalīfa, he is the author of the alchemical works Kitāb al-kharazāt (The Book of Pearls), Kitāb al-ṣaḥīfa al-kabīr (The Big Book of the Roll), Kitāb al-ṣaḥīfa al-saghīr (The Small Book of the Roll), Kitāb Waṣīyatihi ilā bnihi fī-ṣ-ṣanʿa (The Book of his Testament to his Son about the Craft), and Firdaws al-ḥikma (The Paradise of Wisdom), but again, these works may be pseudepigraphical.
Jābir ibn Ḥayyān
Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (Arabic/Persian: جابر بن حیان, died c. 806−816), is the supposed author of an enormous number and variety of works in Arabic often called the Jabirian corpus. Popularly known as the father of chemistry, Jabir's works 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. Some Arabic Jabirian works (e.g., the "Book of Mercy", and the "Book of Seventy") were later translated into Latin under the Latinized name "Geber". In 13th-century Europe an anonymous writer, usually referred to as pseudo-Geber, started to produce alchemical and metallurgical writings under this name.
Abū Bakr al-Rāzī
Abū Bakr ibn Zakariyā’ al-Rāzī (Latin: Rhazes), born around 865 in Rayy, was mainly known as a Persian physician. He wrote a number of alchemical works, including the Sirr al-asrār (Latin: Secretum secretorum; English: Secret of Secrets.)
Ibn Umayl
Muḥammad ibn Umayl al-Tamīmī was a 10th-century Egyptian alchemist of the symbolic-mystical branch. One of his surviving works is Kitāb al-māʿ al-waraqī wa-l-arḍ al-najmiyya (The Book on Silvery Water and Starry Earth). This work is a commentary on his poem, the Risālat al-shams ilā al-hilāl (The Epistle of the Sun to the Crescent Moon) and contains numerous quotations from ancient authors. Ibn Umayl had important influence on medieval Western (Latin) alchemy, where his work is found under different names, mainly as Senior or as Zadith. His "Silvery Water" e.g. was reprinted as "The Chemical Tables of Senior Zadith" in the collection of alchemical texts: Theatrum Chemicum, and commented upon by Pseudo Aquinas in Aurora Consurgens. They both also give his (modified) image of the sage holding a chemical table (see image above).
Al-Tughrai
Al-Tughrai was an 11th–12th century Persian physician. whose work the Masabih al-hikma wa-mafatih al-rahma (The Lanterns of Wisdom and the Keys of Mercy) is one of the earliest works of material sciences.
Al-Jildaki
Al-Jildaki was an Egyptian alchemist who urged in his book the need for experimental chemistry and mentioned many experiments Kanz al-ikhtisas fi ma'rifat al-khawas by Abu 'l-Qasim Aydamir al-Jildaki.
Alchemical and chemical theory
| Hot | Cold | |
| Dry | Fire | Earth |
| Moist | Air | Water |
Jābir analyzed each Aristotelian element in terms of Aristotle's four basic qualities of hotness, coldness, dryness, and moistness. For example, fire is a substance that is hot and dry, as shown in the table. According to Jābir, in each metal two of these qualities were interior and two were exterior. For example, lead was externally cold and dry but internally hot and moist; gold, on the other hand, was externally hot and moist but internally cold and dry. He believed that metals were formed in the Earth by fusion of sulfur (giving the hot and dry qualities) with mercury (giving the cold and moist.) These elements, mercury and sulfur, should be thought of as not the ordinary elements but ideal, hypothetical substances. Which metal is formed depends on the purity of the mercury and sulfur and the proportion in which they come together. The later alchemist al-Rāzī (c. 865–925) followed Jābir's mercury-sulfur theory, but added a third, salty, component.
Thus, Jābir theorized, by rearranging the qualities of one metal, a different metal would result. By this reasoning, the search for the philosopher's stone was introduced to Western alchemy. Jābir developed an elaborate numerology whereby the root letters of a substance's name in Arabic, when treated with various transformations, held correspondences to the element's physical properties.
Processes and equipment
Al-Rāzī mentions the following chemical processes: distillation, calcination, solution, evaporation, crystallization, sublimation, filtration, amalgamation, and ceration (a process for making solids pasty or fusible.) Some of these operations (calcination, solution, filtration, crystallization, sublimation and distillation) are also known to have been practiced by pre-Islamic Alexandrian alchemists.
In his Secretum secretorum, Al-Rāzī mentions the following equipment:
- Tools for melting substances (li-tadhwīb): hearth (kūr), bellows (minfākh or ziqq), crucible (bawtaqa), the būt bar būt (in Arabic, from Persian) or botus barbatus (in Latin), ladle (mighrafa or milʿaqa), tongs (māsik or kalbatān), scissors (miqṭaʿ), hammer (mukassir), file (mibrad).
- Tools for the preparation of drugs (li-tadbīr al-ʿaqāqīr): cucurbit and still with evacuation tube (qarʿ or anbīq dhū khatm), receiving matras (qābila), blind still (without evacuation tube) (al-anbīq al-aʿmā), aludel (al-uthāl), goblets (qadaḥ), flasks (qārūra, plural quwārīr), rosewater flasks (mā’ wardiyya), cauldron (marjal or tanjīr), earthenware pots varnished on the inside with their lids (qudūr and makabbāt), water bath or sand bath (qidr), oven (al-tannūr in Arabic, athanor in Latin), small cylindirical oven for heating aludel (mustawqid), funnels, sieves, filters, etc.
See also
In Spanish: Alquimia en el mundo islámico medieval para niños
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