Islamic alchemy gives a glimpse of a world where science and mysticism intertwine and the pursuit of knowledge transcends boundaries. In the Islamic Golden Age the alchemical quest for transformation mirrors the spiritual journey towards enlightenment.
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Following the decline of the Western Roman Empire and the Islamic conquest of Roman Egypt, the epicenter of alchemical advancements moves from Alexandria and Greece to the vibrant Caliphate and the hum of Islamic civilization.
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In the 7th-8th centuries, a significant intellectual exchange takes place where works of Plato and Aristotle are carefully translated into Syriac. This plays crucial role in bridging the gap between ancient Greek philosophy traditions and emerging Muslim intellectual environment.
Influence of the Greeks & Alexandria
The last Alexandrian academic is Stephanus, who departs this world a year before the Islamic conquest of Greco-Roman Egypt in 641 AD. Apart from alchemical writings he's credited with a poem, De Chrysopoeia, the subject of which is making gold.
The translation of Plato and Aristotle's works into Syriac not only facilitate access to these important texts but also fosters a rich intellectual dialogue between different cultural and philosophical traditions.
During the prior Golden Age of Alexandria the Greeks see no need to differentiate alchemy from other natural sciences. It's also seamlessly intertwined with Islamic philosophical and religious convictions.
Aristotle's profound influence including definition of the natural elements continues to leave an indelible mark on the evolution of chemistry. Islamic scholars treasure and enrich the wisdom of the Alexandrians and Byzantine alchemists, bringing to it unique insights.
By infusing ideas of ancient Greeks into the Muslim intellectual milieu, scholars broaden the horizons of alchemy and chemistry. Assimilation of Greek philosophical concepts lays groundwork for the development of innovative philosophical perspectives.
Alchemy in the medieval Islamic world covers traditional alchemy and the nascent stages of practical chemistry. This era marks a shift in how nature is studied and perceived. Muslim scholars delve into medicine, spirituality, and the elusive quest of chrysopoeia.
Several operations, including calcination, solution, filtration, crystallization, sublimation and distillation, first appear among the pre-Islamic Alexandrian alchemists. Zosimos of Panopolis provides most knowledge of that productive and vigorous time.
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Islamic alchemy is known for meticulous documentation, surpassing that of the West. A wealth of knowledge is largely preserved in Arabic translations, revealing the practices and insights of alchemists seeking not only clinical facts but spiritual transcendence as well.
Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (d. c. 806 - 816 AD) and Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (c. 865 - 925 AD) are prominent figures in the history of Islamic alchemy. Both significantly influence the world-wide development of chemistry.
Jābir analyzes each Greek element in terms of Aristotle's four basic qualities of hotness, coldness, dryness, and moistness. For example, fire is a substance with hot and dry characteristics, as indicated in the elementary table.
Also known as father of chemistry, Jābir promotes the concept of each metal having two interior and two exterior qualities. For instance, lead exhibits external coldness and dryness, while internally it's hot and moist; gold is externally hot and moist but internally cold and dry.
He asserts metals are created in the Earth through the fusion of sulfur (providing hot and dry qualities) with mercury (providing cold and moist qualities). These substances, mercury and sulfur, are not to be seen as ordinary elements but as ideal, theoretical entities.
The formation of a specific metal is determined by the purity of mercury and sulfur and the ratio at which they combine. Later alchemist al-Rāzī builds upon Jābir's mercury-sulfur theory by introducing a third component, salt.
Therefore, Jābir postulates that altering the qualities of one metal can lead to the creation of a different metal. This concept gives rise to the quest for the Philosopher's Stone in Western alchemy. In the later tria prima of Paracelsus, salt is the body.
Jābir intricately develops a system of numerology. In his model the root letters of a substance's Arabic name, through various transformations, correspond to the physical properties of the element.
Jābir ibn Ḥayyān is the presumed author of an enormous number and variety of works in Arabic often called the Jabirian corpus. Jabir's works contain the oldest known systematic classification of chemical substances.
He is credited with pioneering the earliest documented procedures for extracting an inorganic compound from organic sources. Ammonium chloride for example can be removed from organic sources such as plants, blood, and hair through chemical processes.
Several Arabic Jabirian texts are subsequently translated into Latin under the name Geber. During the 13th century in Europe, an unidentified author known as pseudo-Geber authors alchemical and metallurgical texts using this pseudonym.
Abū Bakr ibn Zakariyā’ al-Rāzī writes several works on alchemy, including the Sirr al-asrār (Latin: Secretum secretorum; English: Secret of Secrets.) Al-Rāzī continues the classification work of Jābir ibn Ḥayyān.
Meticulous in his documentation, he defines the Earthly Substances:
The Spirits: mercury, sulfur, arsenic sulphate, ammonia
The Bodies: gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, tin
The Stones: iron pyrites, iron oxide, arsenic oxide, zinc oxide, turquoise, malachite, lead sulphate, glass and gypsum
The Vitriols: black, alum, green, red, yellow, white
Borax
The Salts
also listing
Vegetable Substances
Animal Substances (hair, bone, blood etc)
He mentions chemical processes of distillation, calcination, solution, evaporation, crystallization, sublimation, filtration, amalgamation, and ceration (a process for making solids pasty or fusible).
Al-Rāzī, in his Secretum secretorum, lists the equipment required for these processes:
Tools for melting substances (li-tadhwīb):
Including 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 preparation of drugs (li-tadbīr al-ʿaqāqīr)
Including 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, more.
As the European Renaissance emerges, the dominance of the Islamic Age diminishes and shifts from the East to the West. The Golden Age of Islamic Alchemy is a prolific time of records, translation, interpretation and evolution of a steady stream of ideas.
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