Jabirian Alchemy

In 1927 Holmyard formulated the hypothesis that the Abbasid activist Ḥayyān al-ʿAṭṭār (“Ḥayyān the Perfumer”, fl. 98/717) was the father of the second/eighth century alchemist Jābir b. Ḥayyān. It will be shown here that this hypothesis is contradicted by two sources that have since been published (the third book of al-Balādhurī’s Ansāb al-ashrāf and the anonymous Akhbār al-ʿAbbās wa-wuldihi). The implications of this finding for the question of Jābir’s historicity will also be explored. Although the references to Jābir in later sources (including a number of new ones that will be listed here) strongly suggest that he is not a historical figure, his historicity is still often accepted, or at least left open as a possibility. It will be argued that Holmyard’s hypothesis has been a crucial factor in this continued acceptance, and that its rejection probably also entails the rejection of a historical Jābir.

In the Islamic period, Apollonius of Tyana (c. 15-100 CE) was well known both as “Lord of the Talismans” (ṣāḥib al-ṭilasmāt) and as a Neo-Pythagorean-Hermetic philosopher. In his Kitāb al-Aḥjār, Jābir b. Ḥayyān cites “the Muslim advocates of Apollonius” (aṣḥāb Balīnās al-Islāmīyūn). The reference shows that Apollonius’ most prominent work, Sirr alkhalīqa, was already famous in the Arabicspeaking world from very early on. This article gives an overview of citations of Apollonius in Islamic sources from different fields and of the works generally attributed to him. Furthermore, I review Sirr al-khalīqa, its influences on the Jābirian works and its reception in the Ismā‘īlī tradition. This article additionally discusses an Arabic commentary of Sirr al-khalīqa by ‘Awn b. al-Mundhir (4th/10th century), which is extant in a unique manuscript, and its hitherto unknown Persian translation. This Persian translation covers parts of Ibn al-Mundhir’s work not available in the Arabic excerpt and is therefore an important source for the history of Islamic alchemy. An edition of the Persian translation is given as an appendix.

This document is a transcription and a preliminary analysis of a version of Aristotle's categories discovered in Jabir's corpus. It is shared here in case it furthers the study of the origins and content Jabir's corpus. At this stage it is suspected that the text is related to abū Bakr al-Rāzī’s logical work.

Câbir b. Hayyân tarafından ortaya konulan bilimsel bakış açısı, tecrübî sahayı kuşatıcı derinliği olan bilgilere sahip olması, en önemlisi de Kimya ilminin kurucusu olarak kabul edilmesi, filozofun eserlerine yeterli ehemmiyeti göstermediğimizin nişaneleridir. Bu noktada yapılması gereken en önemli şey, filozofun elimizde olan risalelerinin tercümesinin en kısa zamanda Türkçemize bütünüyle aktarılması; ikincil olarak da, filozofla ilgili yapılacak çalışmaların teşvik edilerek felsefe ve bilim anlayışının bizler tarafından çok yönlü bir şekilde incelenmesini sağlamaktır.

The purpose of this study is to sample a number of disparate texts from the early Islamic cultural field to explore the shared grounds or themes that bind them together.  The focus of the sampled texts and their analysis is the different relations between God and the real things of this world.