ARABIC CHEMISTRY 255 



those who practised alchemy, and this mental attitude makes 

 his criticism of rather less value than it would have been if 

 he had preserved an entirely open mind. 



Our last authority is Hajji Khalifa, a Turkish writer of 

 the seventeenth century. In his great work, Kashfu'l-Zunun, 

 he gives a list of all the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish authors 

 and books known to him, and from it we can glean much 

 valuable information on alchemy. We find that while the old 

 names of power, Khalid and Jabir, are still honoured, they have 

 become almost legendary, and that new masters of the Art 

 have arisen. Hajji Khalifa gives a list of the principal Arabian 

 alchemists and their chief works, and is, indeed, for our purpose, 

 the most useful of the three authorities, as he is the latest 

 and fullest, and gives us a bird's-eye view of the whole range 

 of Arabian alchemy. At least two-thirds of the alchemical 

 books mentioned by him are still extant, although very few 

 have yet been studied by European scholars. 



The greatest Arabian alchemist of the early period was 

 Jabir ibn Hayyan, who lived in the eighth century a.d., and 

 was reputed to have been a pupil of Khalid ibn Yazid. His 

 fame increased, rather than diminished, with time, and reached 

 the ears of mediaeval European scholars, who spelled the name 

 Geber. " Geber " was for long considered to have been wonder- 

 fully in advance of his age in chemical knowledge, an opinion 

 based upon certain Latin works ascribed to him and alleged 

 to have been translated from the Arabic. But towards the 

 end of the nineteenth century Berthelot had a few Arabic 

 works, supposed to have been written by Jabir ibn Hayyan, 

 translated for him into French, and from a study of these 

 translations he came to the conclusion that the Latin works 

 of " Geber " were thirteenth or fourteenth century European 

 forgeries, and that they were not translated from the Arabic 

 at all. Although Berthelot was possibly right, the question 

 can by no means be considered settled, and we must await 

 the results of future research. Of one thing, however, we can 

 be certain : that anyone who is acquainted with the Arabic 

 manuscripts on alchemy cannot fail to recognise in " Geber 's " 

 works the same ideas, expressed in almost the same words, 

 as are found in the Arabian alchemists. 



The principal alchemists of the later period (a.d. i 100-1400) 

 were lAbu'l-IJasan 'AH al-Andalusi, known as Ibn Arfa* Ras 

 (died a.d. 1197), Abu'l-Qasim Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-* Iraqi 

 (thirteenth century), and *Izz ad-Din Aidamir ibn 'All ibn 

 Aidamir al-jildaki (died about a.d. 1360). 



The fundamental conception in Greek and consequently in 

 Arabian alchemy is that of the unity of matter. This idea was, 

 however, developed in very many different ways, and subsidiary 



