Jabir ibn Hayyan

For the 12th century astronomer, see Jabir ibn Aflah. For the anonymous 14th century Spanish alchemist, see Pseudo-Geber. For the crater, see Geber (crater).

Jabir ibn Hayyan
Title	Geber
Personal
Era	Islamic Golden Age
Jurisprudence	Shia Jafari
Main interest(s)	Alchemy and Chemistry, Astronomy, Astrology, Medicine and Pharmacy, Philosophy, Physics
Notable work(s)	Kitab al-Kimya, Kitab al-Sab'een, Book of the Kingdom, Book of the Balances , Book of Eastern Mercury, etc...
Senior posting
Influenced by Alchemy, Harbi al-Himyari, Ja'far al-Sadiq
Influenced Alchemy, Chemistry

Abu Musa Jābir ibn Hayyān (Arabic: جابر ابن حيان) (c. 721–c. 815), known also by his Latinised name Geber, was a prominent Muslim polymath: a chemist and alchemist, astronomer and astrologer, engineer, geologist, philosopher, physicist, and pharmacist and physician. He is "considered by many to be the father of chemistry". His ethnic background is not clear; although some sources state that he was an Arab, other sources introduce him as Persian.

Jabir Ibn Hayyan is widely credited with the introduction of the experimental method in alchemy, and with the invention of numerous important processes still used in modern chemistry today, such as the syntheses of hydrochloric and nitric acids, distillation, and crystallisation. His original works are highly esoteric and probably coded, though nobody today knows what the code is. On the surface, his alchemical career revolved around an elaborate chemical numerology based on consonants in the Arabic names of substances and the concept of takwin, the artificial creation of life in the alchemical laboratory. Research has also established that oldest text of Jabiran corpus must have originated in the scientific culture of northeastern Persia. This thesis is supported by the Persian language and Middle Persian terms used in the technical vocabulary.

Biography

An artistic depiction of Geber

Jabir was born in Tus, Khorasan, in Iran , then ruled by the Umayyad Caliphate; the date of his birth is disputed, but most sources give 721 or 722. The information on his life and background is sketchy. In some sources, he is reported to have been the son of Hayyan al-Azdi, a pharmacist of the Arabian Azd tribe who emigrated from Yemen to Kufa (in present-day Iraq) during the Umayyad Caliphate. Hayyan had supported the Abbasid revolt against the Umayyads, and was sent by them to the province of Khorasan (in present Iran) to gather support for their cause. He was eventually caught by the Ummayads and executed. His family fled back to Yemen, where Jabir grew up and studied the Koran, mathematics and other subjects under a scholar named Harbi al-Himyari. After the Abbasids took power, Jabir went back to Kufa, where he spent most of his career.

Jabir's father's profession may have contributed greatly to his interest in alchemy. In Kufa he became a student of the celebrated Islamic teacher and sixth Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq. He began his career practising medicine, under the patronage of the Barmakid Vizir of Caliph Haroun al-Rashid. It is known that in 776 he was engaged in alchemy in Kufa.

His connections to the Barmakid cost him dearly in the end. When that family fell from grace in 803, Jabir was placed under house arrest in Kufa, where he remained until his death. The date of his death is given as c.815 by the Encyclopædia Britannica, but as 808 by other sources.

Contributions to chemistry

Jabir is mostly renowned for his contributions to chemistry. He emphasised systematic experimentation, and did much to free alchemy from superstition and turn it into a science. He is credited with the invention of over twenty types of now-basic chemical laboratory equipment, such as the alembic and retort, and with the discovery and description of many now-commonplace chemical substances and processes – such as the hydrochloric and nitric acids, distillation, and crystallisation – that have become the foundation of today's chemistry and chemical engineering.

He also paved the way for most of the later Islamic alchemists, including al-Kindi, al-Razi, al-Tughrai and al-Iraqi, who lived in the 9th-13th centuries. His books strongly influenced the medieval European alchemists and justified their search for the philosopher's stone.

He clearly recognized and proclaimed the importance of experimentation. "The first essential in chemistry", he declared, "is that you should perform practical work and conduct experiments, for he who performs not practical work nor makes experiments will never attain the least degree of mastery."

Jabir is also credited with the invention and development of a number of chemical substances and instruments that are still used today. He discovered sulfuric acid, and by distilling it together with various salts, Jabir discovered hydrochloric acid (from salt) and nitric acid (from saltpeter). By combining the two, he invented aqua regia, one of the few substances that can dissolve gold. Besides its obvious applications to gold extraction and purification, this discovery would fuel the dreams and despair of alchemists for the next thousand years. He is also credited with the discovery of citric acid (the sour component of lemons and other unripe fruits), acetic acid (from vinegar), and tartaric acid (from wine-making residues). Jabir also discovered and isolated several chemical elements, such as arsenic, antimony and bismuth. He was also the first to classify sulfur (‘the stone which burns’ that characterized the principle of combustibility) and mercury (which contained the idealized principle of metallic properties) as 'elements'.

Jabir applied his chemical knowledge to the improvement of many manufacturing processes, such as making steel and other metals, preventing rust, engraving gold, dyeing and waterproofing cloth, tanning leather, and the chemical analysis of pigments and other substances. He developed the use of manganese dioxide in glassmaking, to counteract the green tinge produced by iron — a process that is still used today. He noted that boiling wine released a flammable vapor, thus paving the way for the discovery of ethanol (alcohol) by Al-Kindi and Al-Razi.

The seeds of the modern classification of elements into metals and non-metals could be seen in his chemical nomenclature. He proposed three categories:

• "Spirits" which vaporise on heating, like arsenic (realgar, orpiment), camphor, mercury, sulfur, sal ammoniac, and ammonium chloride.
• "Metals", like gold, silver, lead, tin, copper, iron, and khar-sini;
• Non-malleable substances, that can be converted into powders, such as stones.

The origins of the idea of chemical equivalents can also be traced back to Jabir, who was the first to recognize that "a certain quantity of acid is necessary in order to neutralize a given amount of base." According to Jabir, the metals differ because of "different proportions of sulfur and mercury in them."

In the Middle Ages, Jabir's treatises on alchemy were translated into Latin and became standard texts for European alchemists. These include the Kitab al-Kimya (titled Book of the Composition of Alchemy in Europe), translated by Robert of Chester (1144); and the Kitab al-Sab'een by Gerard of Cremona (before 1187). Marcelin Berthelot translated some of his books under the fanciful titles Book of the Kingdom, Book of the Balances, and Book of Eastern Mercury. Several technical Arabic terms introduced by Jabir, such as alkali, have found their way into various European languages and have become part of scientific vocabulary.

The historian Paul Kraus, who had studied most of Jabir's extant works in both Arabic and Latin, summarized the importance of Jabir ibn Hayyan to the history of chemistry by comparing his experimental and systematic works in chemistry with that of the allegorical and unintelligble works of the ancient Greek alchemists:

“To form an idea of the historical place of Jabir’s alchemy and to tackle the problem of its sources, it is advisable to compare it with what remains to us of the alchemical literature in the Greek language. One knows in which miserable state this literature reached us. Collected by Byzantine scientists from the tenth century, the corpus of the Greek alchemists is a cluster of incoherent fragments, going back to all the times since the third century until the end of the Middle Ages.”

“The efforts of Berthelot and Ruelle to put a little order in this mass of literature led only to poor results, and the later researchers, among them in particular Mrs. Hammer-Jensen, Tannery, Lagercrantz , von Lippmann, Reitzenstein, Ruska, Bidez, Festugiere and others, could make clear only few points of detail…

The study of the Greek alchemists is not very encouraging. An even surface examination of the Greek texts shows that a very small part only was organized according to true experiments of laboratory: even the supposedly technical writings, in the state where we find them today, are unintelligible nonsense which refuses any interpretation.

It is different with Jabir’s alchemy. The relatively clear description of the processes and the alchemical apparatuses, the methodical classification of the substances, mark an experimental spirit which is extremely far away from the weird and odd esotericism of the Greek texts. The theory on which Jabir supports his operations is one of clearness and of an impressive unity. More than with the other Arab authors, one notes with him a balance between theoretical teaching and practical teaching, between the `ilm and the `amal. In vain one would seek in the Greek texts a work as systematic as that which is presented for example in the Book of Seventy.”

Contributions to alchemy

Jabir became an alchemist at the court of Caliph Harun al-Rashid, for whom he wrote the Kitab al-Zuhra ("The Book of Venus", on "the noble art of alchemy").

Jabir states in his Book of Stones (4:12) that "The purpose is to baffle and lead into error everyone except those whom God loves and provides for". His works seem to have been deliberately written in highly esoteric code (see steganography), so that only those who had been initiated into his alchemical school could understand them. It is therefore difficult at best for the modern reader to discern which aspects of Jabir's work are to be read as symbols (and what those symbols mean), and what is to be taken literally. Because his works rarely made overt sense, the term gibberish is believed to have originally referred to his writings (Hauck, p. 19).

Jabir's alchemical investigations ostensibly revolved around the ultimate goal of takwin — the artificial creation of life. The Book of Stones includes several recipes for creating creatures such as scorpions, snakes, and even humans in a laboratory environment, which are subject to the control of their creator. What Jabir meant by these recipes is today unknown.

Jabir's interest in alchemy was probably inspired by his teacher Ja'far al-Sadiq. Rumours of him being a Sufi is mostly fabricated for the main reason that no such school (i.e., Sufism) existed during that era of Islamic history. Ibn Hayyan was deeply religious, and repeatedly emphasizes in his works that alchemy is possible only by subjugating oneself completely to the will of Allah and becoming a literal instrument of Allah on Earth, since the manipulation of reality is possible only for Allah. The Book of Stones prescribes long and elaborate sequences of specific prayers that must be performed without error alone in the desert before one can even consider alchemical experimentation.

In his writings, Jabir pays tribute to Egyptian and Greek alchemists Hermes Trismegistus, Agathodaimon, Pythagoras, and Socrates. He emphasises the long history of alchemy, "whose origin is Arius ... the first man who applied the first experiment on the [philosopher's] stone... and he declares that man possesses the ability to imitate the workings of Nature" (Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, Science and Civilization of Islam).

Jabir's alchemical investigations were theoretically grounded in an elaborate numerology related to Pythagorean and Neoplatonic systems. The nature and properties of elements was defined through numeric values assigned the Arabic consonants present in their name, ultimately culminating in the number 17.

To Aristotelian physics, Jabir added the four properties of hotness, coldness, dryness, and moistness (Burkhardt, p. 29). Each Aristotelian element was characterised by these qualities: Fire was both hot and dry, earth cold and dry, water cold and moist, and air hot and moist. This came from the elementary qualities which are theoretical in nature plus substance. In metals two of these qualities were interior and two were exterior. For example, lead was cold and dry and gold was hot and moist. Thus, Jabir theorised, by rearranging the qualities of one metal, based on their sulfur/mercury content, a different metal would result. (Burckhardt, p. 29) This theory appears to have originated the search for al-iksir, the elusive elixir that would make this transformation possible — which in European alchemy became known as the philosopher's stone.

The elemental system used in medieval alchemy was developed by Jabir. His original system consisted of seven elements, which included the five classical elements found in the ancient Greek and Indian traditions (aether, air, earth, fire and water), in addition to two chemical elements representing the metals: sulphur, ‘the stone which burns’, which characterized the principle of combustibility, and mercury, which contained the idealized principle of metallic properties. Shortly thereafter, this evolved into eight elements, with the Arabic concept of the three metallic principles: sulphur giving flammability or combustion, mercury giving volatility and stability, and salt giving solidity.

Jabir also made important contributions to medicine, astronomy/astrology, and other sciences. Only a few of his books have been edited and published, and fewer still are available in translation. The Geber crater, located on the Moon, is named after him.

Popular culture

• The word gibberish is sometimes theorized to be derived from his name,[1] though sources such as the Oxford English Dictionary suggest it stems from gibber: However, the first known recorded use of the term "gibberish" was before the first known recorded use of the word "gibber". (See Gibberish)
• Geber is mentioned in Paulo Coelho's 1993 bestseller, The Alchemist.
• There is a villain in the manga Bio-Booster Armor Guyver by the name of Jearvill bun Hiyern (translated in various ways), who is most likely named for ibn Hayyan.

Quote

• "My wealth let sons and brethren part. Some things they cannot share: my work well done, my noble heart — these are mine own to wear."

What others have said about Jabir

• Max Meyerhoff: "His influence may be traced throughout the whole historic course of European alchemy and chemistry."

Writings by Jabir

The writings of Jabir Ibn Hayyan can be divided into four categories:

• The 112 Books dedicated to the Barmakids, viziers of Caliph Harun al-Rashid. This group includes the Arabic version of the Emerald Tablet, an ancient work that proved a recurring foundation of and source for alchemical operations. In the Middle Ages it was translated into Latin (Tabula Smaragdina) and widely diffused among European alchemists.
• The Seventy Books, most of which were translated into Latin during the Middle Ages. This group includes the Kitab al-Zuhra ("Book of Venus") and the Kitab Al-Ahjar ("Book of Stones").
• The Ten Books on Rectification, containing descriptions of "alchemists" such as Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
• The Books on Balance; this group includes his most famous 'Theory of the balance in Nature'.

Following the pioneering work of Paul Kraus, who demonstrated that the corpus of some several hundred works ascribed to Jabir were in fact a medley from different hands, mostly dating to the late ninth and early tenth centuries, most scholars believe that most of these works consist of commentaries and additions by his followers, particularly of a Shiite persuasion.

Translations of Jabir

• E. J. Holmyard (ed.) The Arabic Works of Jabir ibn Hayyan, translated by Richard Russel in 1678. New York, E. P. Dutton (1928); Also Paris, P. Geuther.
• Syed Nomanul Haq, Names, Natures and Things: The Alchemists Jabir ibn Hayyan and his Kitab al-Ahjar (Book of Stones), [Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science p. 158] (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994).
• Donald R. Hill, 'The Literature of Arabic Alchemy' in Religion: Learning and Science in the Abbasid Period, ed. by M.J.L. Young, J.D. Latham and R.B. Serjeant (Cambridge University Press, 1990) pp. 328-341, esp. pp 333-5.
• William Newman, New Light on the Identity of Geber, Sudhoffs Archiv, 1985, Vol.69, pp. 76-90.

See also

• Islamic science
• Alchemy
• Chemistry
• Al-Razi
• Al-Kindi
• List of Arab scientists and scholars
• List of Iranian scientists and scholars

External links

• Britannica
• Encarta Encyclopedia
• Columbia Encyclopedia
• Chemical Heritage
• Article at Islam Online
• Article at Famous Muslims
• Article at Islam Online
• Article at Al Shindagah (includes an extract of Jabir's The Discovery of secrets)
• The Time of Jabir ibn Haiyan section from "History of Islamic Science"