AN ALCHEMICAL COMPILATION OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY, A.D. 
65 
Abu- 1 -Ma‘all ; 1 * 
Mihyar the Magian ; * 
Kamal Al-JudhanI (?) who quotes Husam 
the Jurist 3 4 (Persian). 
This Kamal Al-JudhanI seems to have been a contemporary of the compiler. 
(k) vShort quotations of a few lines from a work of Heraclius, and the 
Kitabu-i-‘ Ain (Book of the Eye) of Jabir.* In the latter Socrates is 
referred to. 
X. The Book of RIsamus Al-Hakim (Zosimus)/ Folio 55 r., 1 . 17, to f. 76 r., 
1 . 17 ). 
Begins: “I have called these Sections ‘the Sulphurs " 5 6 * 8 because the precious 
secret is attained through them, since there is nothing in the world more potent 
than Red Sulphur.’’ 1 
The following is an index of the entire treatise : — 
Books I and II. 
1. Introductory remarks. 
2 . Section on the Tin (Rasas) from Kuhl? which is produced from the Kuhloi 
1 Abu’l Ma ‘Mi, Imamu- 1 -Haramaiu, the celebrated Shafi'i professor of the Nifjhamiyya College of Naisabur, who lived 
from 419 to 478 A.H. (=A.D. 1028-1085)— vide Ibn Khallikan, trcins. cit., II, pp. 120-123. Ibn Khallikan says nothing 
about his being an alchemist, but the fact is mentioned by Haji Khalifa (tvans. cit., V, p. 27) on the authority of 
SafadI, a biographer who died in A.D. 1363. 
I The celebrated Shl'ite poet of whom a long account will be found in Ibn Khallikan, III, pp. 317-320. He was a native 
of Dailam, a district on the S.-E. of the Caspian Sea, and in early life was a Zoroastrian. He died in A.D. 1037, the 
same year as Ibn Sina. 
S Husamu-d-Din ‘Umar ibn ‘Abdi-l-‘ Aziz As-Sadr Ash-Shahid Al-Buldiari, a distinguished jurist who was born in 
483 (1090) and died in 536 (1141) ; cf. Brockelmann, I, p. 374. 
4 This is catalogued in the Fihvist as one of the 4 books written by Jabir on the Finding of Hidden Treasure by 
Divination ( Matalib ) ; ed. cit., p. 357, 1 . 25. 
5 According to Berthelot, the alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis (the modern Ikhmlm, a town 60 miles N.-W. of 
Thebes in Upper Egypt) probably flourished about the end of the 3rd Century A.D. The Fihvist ( ed . cit., p. 353) gives the 
following account of him : ' ‘ Another alchemist was Dhisimus who pursued similar methods to Ostanes. Among his 
books is one which he termed ‘ The Keys of the Art.’ This treatise contains a number of books and essays arranged 
in numerical order, e.g., 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. The book is known as ‘ The Seventy Treatises. ’ ’ ’ 
The treatise now brought to light is probably ‘ The Book of Dusimus (Zosimus) to all wise men, on the Art,’ cata- 
logued on p. 354 of the Fihvist, as among the books still extant in An-Nadim’s time. It appears very similar in character 
to the original Greek treatises ascribed to Zosimus and published by Berthelot in Vol. II of his Coll, des anciens Alchimistes 
gvecs as well as to the Syriac treatise of Zosimus (in 12 books) described by Berthelot (La Chimie au moyen Age, II, pp. 
210—266), but is not addressed, as the latter are, to a woman (Theosebia). An intimate connexion can also be traced 
between the contents of the new treatise now brought to light and the Greek and Syriac treatises ascribed to Democritos 
and published by Berthelot in Vol. I of his Collection and Vol. II of his La Chimie respectively (vide notes below). 
6 A chapter entitled ' The Sulphurs ’ is also found in the Greek text of Zosimus (B., Coll., trans., p. 173). 
1 Cf. the fabulous stories regarding Red Sulphur quoted by Ibnu-l-Baitar (Declerc’s trans. , III, p. 139) : “ Ibn Samjun 
(JA.D. 1001) — On dit que le soufre rouge est une pierre precieuse, qui se trouve derriere la montagne, dans la vallee des 
fourmis oil a passe Salomon, fils de David, que ces fourmis creusent profondement le roc et en font sortir le soufre rouge. 
AriSTOTBE : — De soufre rouge quand il est dans la mine, donne, la nuit, une lueur de feu, qui se voit a la distance d’une 
parasange. Enleve de la mine il perd cette propriety. On le fait entrer frequemment les ouvrages d'or, dout il modifie la 
couleur rouge en la temperant de blanc.” Muhammad ibn ‘ Abdi-l-Malik in the 2nd Chap, of the ‘Ainn-s-San' ah also 
refers to Red Sulphur being used in the making of Gold (cf. Stapleton and Azo in Mem. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, I, 4, p. 56). 
8 Ar-RazI in the Madkhalu-t-Ta'limi (cf. later in MS.) states that Kuhl differs from other stones in being metallic 
in appearance and that it is the stone from which lead is extracted. Hence it was either lead sulphide or, in this case 
more probably, autimouy sulphide. 
