CHAPTER VIII

THE ARABIAN ALCHEMISTS

WITH the conquest of Egypt, Syria, and Persia by the
Arabs and the rise of Islam the centre of scientific learn¬
ing changed. The Arabians were eager seekers after knowledge,
and became the most cultivated people in the world. The first
impulse given to the desire for knowledge of the wisdom of the
Greeks came from the Umayyad Prince Khalid, who had a
passion for alchemy. According to the Fihrist , the oldest and
best existing source of our knowledge on the subject, this prince
assembled the Greek philosophers in Egypt about the eighth
century a.d., and commanded them to translate Greek and
Egyptian books on this subject into Arabic. These, he says,
“were the first translations made in Islam from one language
to another.” The Arabs thus rekindled the ancient lamp of
science that had grown dim in Europe. They established uni¬
versities, like that at Baghdad, which became great centres of
learning and later had so important an influence on the spread of
scientific knowledge.

Many of their students became celebrated as physicians and
alchemists, and foremost among these pioneers was Jabir-ibn-
Hayyan, who became famous in medieval Europe under the
name of Geber. He flourished in the eighth century, a period
when the great stream of Greek and other ancient learning began
to pour into the Mohammedan world and to reclothe itself in
Arabian dress.

Jabir is said to have been born about a.d. 702 and to have
been either a native of Mesopotamia or a Greek who afterward
embraced Mohammedanism. Little is known of his life be¬
yond the fact that he was associated with Prince Khalid and

59

LURE & ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

that he devoted himself enthusiastically to the study of alchemy.
According to one historian, he practised medicine at the Court
of Haroun-al-Raschid and lived for some time at Kufa, where,
many years after his death, the remains of his laboratory were
discovered when some houses in that city were being de¬
molished. He was the reputed author of a great number of
works, but many of those which have come down to us in Latin
are said to be spurious, being the work of medieval alchemists
who sought, by taking advantage of the prestige attaching to his
name, to give authority and currency to their own writings.

The Arabic originals of Jabir’s works are rare, and the
British Museum possesses but two manuscripts, said to be the
only copies in existence, of his book called The Great Book of
Properties. Other works attributed to him are The Book of the
Divine Science , The Book of Definitions , and the One Hundred
and Twelve.1 His works show that he preferred the practical
work of the laboratory to theorizing, and they express his views
that chemistry is that branch of natural science which in¬
vestigates the properties and generation of minerals and sub¬
stances obtained from plants and animals. He advises that the
alchemist should know the reason for performing each opera¬
tion, and that those which are profitless should be avoided.
He should choose trusty friends and select a secluded place to
carry on his work. He also urges the taking of time in carrying
out experiments, together with patience, reticence, and perse¬
verance on the part of the operator, whom he finally adjures
not to be deceived by appearances and not to bring his experi¬
ments to too hasty a conclusion. He advocated careful ob¬
servation and the rejection of any assertion that could not be
supported by proofs.

He considered that all metals were compounds of sulphur,
mercury, and arsenic, the differences between them depending
on the preparation and degree of purity of each body. Gold

1 Recent historians assign some of the books attributed to him to a period
between the ninth and tenth centuries.

6o

THE ARABIAN ALCHEMISTS

in particular he believed to be composed of purified mercury
mixed with a small quantity of pure sulphur. He thought that
metals having common constituents could be transmuted one
to another, and that in the performance of this operation the
alchemist was only doing what Nature herself had performed.
He contended that, as the metals were but different mixtures
of sulphur and mercury, the precious metals being richer in
mercury than in sulphur, the transmutation of lead or copper
into gold or silver meant the withdrawal of sulphur from and the
addition of mercury to them.

Jabir was apparently familiar with the seven metals, and knew
that some of them could be converted into earthy powders by
burning them in air as well as by other processes. It was by
the prolonged oxidation and calcination of a metal, the reducing
of it to a natural state, and the repetition of these operations, that
its active properties could be discovered — an idea also held by
alchemists in the Far East.

Jabir knew of the oxides of copper, iron, and mercury, and also
of the yellow and red oxides of lead. He is credited with the
discovery of arsenious oxide (white arsenic), and refers to its
power of whitening copper. He describes three varieties of
alum, green vitriol, sal ammoniac, borax, saltpetre, and a method
of making common salt. He is also associated with the intro¬
duction of corrosive sublimate, silver nitrate, red oxide of
mercury, and terchloride of gold in solution. He refers to sul¬
phuric and nitric acids, and made acetic acid from the distilla¬
tion of vinegar, while he also knew of the alkaline carbonates,
such as those of potassium and sodium.

The chief operations and processes he employed were sub¬
limation, solution, filtration, and crystallization, and he also
describes digestion at various degrees of heat, together with the
construction of furnaces. He observes respecting sublimation :

Mercury, sal ammoniac, sulphur, and arsenic are substances that
are capable of sublimation, but marcasite and pyrites on being
heated in an earthen distilling apparatus give sulphur which leaves

61

LURE & ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

a residuum, which sediment oxidizes little by little under the in¬
fluence of air in the apparatus, and part of the product sublimates
at a higher temperature, furnishing white or coloured metallic
oxides.

He describes the operation of cupellation, or of assaying or
purifying gold, by heating it with lead in a porous crucible made
of pounded bone-ash, an operation which is probably the earliest
known in metallurgical chemistry and which is carried on at the
present day. He further emphasizes the importance of distilla¬
tion to the alchemist, and describes the ordinary methods by
ascent and by descent.

Jabir did not neglect the practical application of science to
other arts, and refers to a method of preparing steel and refin¬
ing other metals, while he also mentions the use of manganese
dioxide in glass-making. He gives recipes for making an il¬
luminating ink from golden marcasite to be used in place of
real gold for dyeing cloth and leather, and for varnishes for pro¬
tecting iron.

These are but a few of the achievements attributed to J&bir-
ibn-Hayyan, that remarkable pioneer in science who may be said
to have laid the foundations of chemistry in the eighth century.

In the century following another great figure arose in the
person of Abu-Bakr-Muhammad-ibn-Zakariyya-al-Razi, who
became commonly known as Rhazes. The date of his birth is
unknown, but he is said to have died between the years 903 and
923. He is believed to have been born at Ray, near Tehran, in
Persia, and as a youth was a musician and skilful player on the
lute. Later he became a student of medicine, and was so
successful that he was made chief physician at the hospital at
Ray and afterward physician-in-chief to the great hospital at
Baghdad. It is said that when he was consulted about the build¬
ing of this institution and asked to suggest a suitable site for it,
in order to select a healthy locality, he caused pieces of meat to
be hung in different quarters of the city, and chose the place
where they were slowest in showing signs of decomposition.

62

THE ARABIAN ALCHEMISTS

His works on medicine were many, but the one by which he
will always be remembered is his treatise on smallpox and
measles, two diseases which he was the first to describe. This
work ranks in the history of epidemiology as the earliest mono¬
graph upon these diseases.

He was the first also to make an attempt to classify drugs and
chemical substances, and to group them as animal, vegetable,
and mineral. The last-named he again divided into six classes
— spirits, bodies, stones, vitriols, boraces, and salts. He re¬
garded sulphur, arsenic sulphide, sal ammoniac, and mercury
as the spirits; tin, lead, and iron as metals or metallic bodies;
magnesia, marcasite, tuttia (impure oxide of zinc), lapis lazuli,
alum, antimony sulphide, talc, gypsum, and glass as stones.
The vitriols he classified according to their colour — black, white,
red, green, and yellow. The boraces included borax, natron,
bone-ash, and tinkar, and the salts comprised cooking salt,
sweet salt, bitter salt, bituminous salt, calcined salt, quali (crude
soda carbonate from ashes of maritime plants), and salt of ashes
(crude potassium carbonate from ashes of land plants).

Judging from his works on alchemy, Rhazes did not regard
the transmutation of metals as its chief aim, but he emphasizes
the value of a knowledge of chemical substances as applied to
medicine. He throws a light on the antiquity of certain pieces
of apparatus in a list he gives of appliances he employed in
his laboratory. This includes furnaces, crucibles, a descensory,
tongs, ladle, shears, pestles, cauldrons, retorts, receivers, aludels,
alembics, ovens, glass flasks, basins, and a flat stone for pound¬
ing or for use with a roller for pulverization.

Rhazes is said to have become blind owing to cataract during
the latter period of his life. His loss of sight is, however, said
by some to have been due to close application to his alchemical
work. Others advance the following explanation. An offer of a
large reward was made to him by a great personage if he would
apply his knowledge of alchemy to the actual reproduction of
gold. Rhazes declined the offer, whereupon the great man lost

63

LURE S? ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

his temper, accused him of fraud, and struck him so heavily on the
head that his eyes were affected, and eventually he lost his sight.

He left several works on alchemy, in one of which he mentions
aqua vitce , which was probably a variety of wine.

Many of the Arabian physicians practised alchemy, and
among them was Avicenna, who became famous in the eleventh
century. He considered that each of the seven metals was a
distinct species of one genus, just as the plant genus includes
different species, but that it was not possible to convert one into
another.

Much of the learning and literature of the Alexandrian schools
was preserved by Syrian scholars who took refuge in Persia and
there translated into Syriac a number of Greek works on
alchemy. Some of these were again translated into Arabic,
while the Arabs themselves translated some of the chief works
of the Greek philosophers into their own language. It is
evident that they also gathered something from India and the
Orient, probably through the medium of Baghdad, and so be¬
came acquainted with Chinese alchemy.

About the end of the tenth century Abu Mansur Muwaffah,
a Persian alchemist, distinguished between sodium carbonate
(natron) and potassium carbonate, stating that the latter is
obtained from the ashes of certain plants and is a white solid
which deliquesces with a caustic taste. He accurately describes
antimony, and refers to arsenious oxide as a powerful white
powder and to copper oxide as having poisonous properties.
He also mentions that gypsum when heated becomes a kind of
lime which, when mixed with the white of egg, forms a plaster
useful in the treatment of fractures of bones, thus alluding for
the first time to the use of plaster of Paris as an aid to surgery.

About the eighth century the Arabs carried a knowledge of
alchemy into the southern part of Western Europe, and a little
group of philosophers arose in Spain. Cordova was their centre
of learning, and later, in the tenth century, it became famous
and attracted many students. Among them was Maslaman-al-
64

THE ARABIAN ALCHEMISTS

Majriti, who was born at Cordova and who, after obtaining
further knowledge of alchemy in Arabia, returned to the land
of his birth. He is said to have been the author of a book en¬
titled Rutbatu ’l-Hakim. ( The Sage’s Step ), supposed to have been
written about the middle of the eleventh century, in which he

SYMBOLIC FIGURES STILLS

From a twelfth-century Arab manuscript on alchemy

mentions the training necessary for the student who would suc¬
ceed as an alchemist, and first recommends a thorough mathe¬
matical training in natural science, to be followed by practical
experience in the laboratory. He states that “Alchemists must
try to follow Nature, whose servants indeed they are. Like the
physician, they must diagnose the disease and administer the
remedy, but it is Nature who acts.”

E

65

LURE & ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

He gives the first clear description of mercuric oxide and how
it should be prepared :

I took quivering mercury free from impurity and placed it in
a glass vessel like an egg. This I put inside another vessel like a
cooking pot, and set the whole apparatus over a gentle fire at such
a degree of heat that I could bear the hand upon it. Then I would
heat it for forty days, after which I opened it. I found the mercury
absolutely converted into a red powder, soft to the touch, the weight
remaining the same as it was originally.

Among the Syriac manuscripts still extant is one entitled The
Doctrine of Democritus , which was translated from the Greek

between the seventh and eighth centuries. It
contains recipes for the preparation of gold
and the Philosopher’s Stone, while it also
mentions sulphur, antimony, and arsenic, and
gives a key to the symbols used in the work.
It is of particular interest on account of the
drawings it contains of various pieces of appar¬
atus employed at the time.

The Moors acquired some knowledge of
alchemy from Arabia as early as the twelfth
century, and a treatise on the art entitled The
Keys of Providence and the Secrets of Science
was written by Ismail ibn Lhocine Toughrai,
who was head vizier to the Emir Messaoud ibn
Mohammed about that period. This work
is also interesting on account of the drawings
which it contains representing some of the
apparatus employed.

Before leaving the Arabian alchemists men¬
tion should be made of Abu’l-Quasin Mu¬
hammad ibn Ahmad-al-Iraqi, who settled in
Mesopotamia toward the end of the thirteenth century. He
was the author of a work entitled Knowledge acquired con¬
cerning the Cultivation of Gold , in which he claims that fire alone
66

A GRADUATED
RECIPIENT

From a twelfth-
century Arab manu¬
script on alchemy

THE ARABIAN ALCHEMISTS

is not sufficient to effect transmutation of a metal, and that it is
necessary to add some substance such as white or red elixir to
accomplish the desired effect. This shows that the conception
of the Philosopher’s Stone had penetrated to the Near East and
was becoming general.

To the Arabs we owe the introduction of alchemy into West¬
ern Europe, and that they contributed largely to the body of
scientific doctrine they inherited from the Greeks is generally
recognized. They freed it from a good deal of the mystery with
which it was surrounded, and by their labours discovered many
mineral as well as vegetable substances which have proved of the
greatest value.

67