60 
MESSRS. H. E. STAPLETON AND R. E. AZO ON 
it towards the end of Muharram of the year 682 Hijrce at Siwas l - — -May God guard 
it ! And to God be praise and thanks ! ” 
II. Treatise entitled Fi-s-San‘ ati-sk- Sharif ah wa-khawdssiha (On the Noble Art 
and its Principles), ascribed to Khalid ibn YazidJ (Folio 7 v.,l. 13, to f. 12 v., 1 . 4). 
Begins after the Basmalah : 
"Khalid ibn Yazid says: To proceed. God the Most High and Exalted has 
created everything in due proportion, and formed everything in pairs, lovely and 
varicoloured, some green, some black, some white, and some red, etc.” 
The treatise is written with the same extravagant phraseology of the Greek 
alchemists previously referred to, e.g., “ if the Moon, Saturn and Jupiter be placed 
on the tincture of the red chrysolite, the Jews will- flee from that town ; and were a 
Jew to enter he would swell up, his belly would burst and he would die. 3 ” 
The treatise, however, is a forgery, as the writer makes a statement that by a 
certain remedy “I treated Talhah ibn ‘Ubaidi-llah.” Talhah. however was killed at 
the Battle of the Camel in 656, Eg., probably before Khalid was born, as the latter 
was only a youth at the time that his kinsman Marwan usurped the throne in 
A.D. 683. 
Other names mentioned in the treatise are Asmas, the maternal uncle of the son 
that Khalid is addressing ; Ptolemy, who killed enemies at the distance of a 
parasang by means of a mirror 4 ; Hermes the alchemist; and one Budhail ibn Warqa’, 
whom the author states he also treated successfully. 
Ends: “Understand that Saturn is the Ashes, and the Earth, and the Black 
Bile, and in it the philosophers have concealed the Secret. Hence for him who does 
not work thoroughly with it, everything that he takes up will be spoilt, while its 
rectification can only be brought about by (alchemical) operations. The Moon is 
Mercury, and Water, and Spirit. Jupiter is the Red Sulphur, and it is the Air, and 
the Soul. 6 In it are all the various ingredients, so that he who does not employ it in 
the work, fire will consume him. The Sun is the Salt of Sal-Ammoniac, and it 
is Fire and Yellow Bile. 
p.255; Hail Khalifa’s Kashfu-dh-Dhunun — Pliigel’s trails., V, p. 27). For other books by him, vide Brockelmann — 
Geschichte — Vol. I, p. 248. From the fact that in the present collection of treatises (which was made 167 years after 
At-T ugh ra'i’s death) two out of the three references to his name are associated with Persian books, it is probable that 
he chiefly derived his alchemical beliefs from Persian authorities. 
1 The ancient Sebasteia, a town in Armenia, 170 miles S.W. of Trebizond. For Siwas being a literary centre at the 
time this collection was made, cf. the note in the Brit. Museum Addl. No. 7697, Al-Birunl’s Tafhim, a treatise on 
astronomy, which states that a former owner purchased it at Siwas in 732 A.H. 
2 Vide for his life, Fihrist, ed. cit., pp. 224 and 354, and Ibn Khallikan , tvans. cit., I, p. 481 ; also Mem. A.S.B., 
I, 4, p. 52, note (4). 
6 i3 Ej u 7 /0 bj-iEl k-jyi- ( j 1 j cKy? £-7) ub 
'* ol'Cj <Ak 
4 A variation of the story of Archimedes and the Roman ships at Syracuse. For an account of other variations, 
cj. Bcrthelot, Afchcsologie el Histoire des Sciences , pp. 236 and 257. 
6 The passage is not very explicit, but in the list of metals at the beginning of the Mafatihu-l-' Ulurn Saturn is stated 
to ignify lead, while the alchemical principle is certainly the same as that indicated in the ‘ Ainu- s- San‘ ah, viz., the com- 
bination of ‘ Body ‘ Soul ’ and ‘ Spirit ’ (cf. Mem., Asiatic Soc. Bengal, I, 4, pp. 34 and 55). 
