S. NOMANUL HAQ – Hybrid Learning

ASTRONOMY

Batoota — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 07:55:52 +0000

ASTRONOMY. One of the greatest astronomers of Islam, al-Battani (the Albatenius, Albategni, or Albategnius of the Latin West, d. c.929 CE), declares that astronomy is the most noble of the sciences, elevated in dignity, and second only to the science of religious law (Sayili, 1960, p. IS). This praise of the discipline is not merely a practitioner’s claim; embodies a historical truth.
Indeed, astronomy is the only natural science that escaped the censure of the medieval Muslim opponents of secular sciences (`ulum al-awd’il) and found a home in mosques, receiving the blessing of mainstream religious circles; and it is virtually the only Islamic hard science that lasted well into the modern period, continuing vigorously and fruitfully long after the Mongol sack of Baghdad, when much of Islamic scientific activity began to decline. Moreover, because of its traditional link with astrology and its utility in matters such as calendar reform, the determination of the direction of Ka’bah, and the calculation of the times of daily prayers, Islamic astronomy enjoyed throughout its history the enthusiastic and undiminished patronage of rulers and nobles. In the internal perspective of the science, astronomy is owed credit for the birth of trigonometry, a remarkable creation of Islam; due to astronomy too are numerous other important developments in mathematics, particularly in quantitative techniques and geometry, for all these mathematical disciplines were for a long time subservient to the needs of astronomers. Finally, it should be noted that astronomy was a truly international enterprise of Islam, a collaborative effort involving people from all over the Islamic world, including experts from China and India. It is evident, then, that al-Battani’s claim is hardly exaggerated.
Origins to Ptolemaicization. The origins of Islamic astronomy are intricately eclectic. The earliest Arabic treatises on this subject, sets of astronomical tables known as the zij (Pers., zik), were written in the first half of the eighth century CE in Sind and Qandahar. These treatises were based on Sanskrit sources, but they have been found to incorporate some Pahlavi material as well. Such derivations from Indian and Iranian works, which constitute the first phase of Islamic astronomy, introduced to the Arabic world many concepts of Greek mathematical astronomy-concepts that were largely non-Ptolemaic, having already reached India and Iran through circuitous routes and having been modified by local traditions. A further infusion of Indian and Iranian material marks the second phase of Islamic astronomy, but this was also the time when the works of the famous Greek astronomer Ptolemy (second century CE) and the Pahlavi Zik-i Shahrydran (Ar., Zij al-Shah) were translated into Arabic. This activity took place during the reigns of ‛Abbāsid caliphs al-Mansur (r. 754-775 CE) and Harun al-Rash! (r. 786-809), a period that also saw the emergence of a sustained Sindhind Arabic tradition growing out of the translation of a Sanskrit astronomical text, presumably entitled Mahasiddhanta.
During the early ‛Abbāsid period, thus, three astronomical systems were pursued concurrently: the Indian (Sindhind); the Iranian (Zij al-Shah); and the Ptolemaic. These systems were at many points in conflict, and the Islamic astronomical activity of this period is characterized by perpetual efforts to reconcile them. Astronomers soon concluded that the Ptolemaic system was superior to all others known to them. Thus-with al-Battani marking the turning point-by the beginning of the tenth century Islamic astronomy had undergone a complete ptolemaicization: available now was a newer and better Arabic translation of Ptolemy’s Almagest made by the Nestorian Christian Ishaq ibn Hunayn (d. 910/11) and the “pagan” Thabit ibn Qurrah (d. 901); Ptolemy’s Planetary Hypothesis too was now rendered into Arabic by Thabit; and the Sindhind and Shah traditions were finally relegated to history. The story of Islamic astronomy from this point is characterized by what Thomas Kuhn would describe as “puzzle-solving” within a Ptolemaic paradigm.
Theoretical Innovations. Let us now, following the lead of contemporary historians, set up the theoretical problem to which these different systems had offered different solutions. Consider two rotating wheels. A larger wheel (the deferent, al-hdmil) has a stationary center E and a point S on its rim. Let S, namely the point rotating on the circumference of the deferent, be the center of a smaller wheel (the epicycle, al-tadwir). Let P be a point on the rim of the smaller rotating wheel. Then, if P’s rate of rotation is properly adjusted, it will appear to an observer at E, the center of the deferent, as periodically advancing and receding as the wheels spin, now coming forward, now sliding back. If in this arrangement S represents the sun, E the earth, and P a planet, then this ancient geocentric model of wheels upon wheels provides a valid if simplified explanation of the looped paths of the planets as seen from the earth.
In practice, however, this mechanism needs adjustments to bring it in accord with the observed planetary motions. Indeed, Ptolemy managed to make a drastic improvement in the correspondence between theory and observation by introducing into the arrangement a geometric device known as the equant (mu’addal al-mash). What Ptolemy did was to shift the earth a small distance from the center of the deferent E to, say, Eg thereby making the deferent eccentric with respect to the earth. Furthermore, from E he displaced the center of the uniform motion of S to a rigorously calculated point O. Thus the motion of S was uniform with respect neither to E nor to Eg, but with respect to an imaginary point O, and this O was Ptolemy’s fateful equant.
Ibn al-Haytham (Latin, Alhazen, d. 1039), the scientific giant of Islam, wrote an attack on Ptolemy’s planetary theory: if Ptolemy’s system was not merely an abstract geometrical model but represented the real configuration of the heavens-as Ptolemy had claimed it did-then it violated the accepted classical principle of uniform velocity for all celestial bodies, a principle the Greek astronomer had himself espoused. Indeed, in his Planetary Hypothesis Ptolemy had conceived of the observed motions of the planets as produced by the combined motions of corporeal spherical shells in which the planets were embedded. The idea of an eccentric celestial shell was unacceptable to Ibn al-Haytham, as it was to many astronomers who shared his views.
The subsequent history of Islamic mathematical astronomy is a chronicle of attempts to modify the Ptolemaic system so that it would accord more accurately with observations while at the same time preserving the principle of uniform circular motion. It was more than two centuries after Ibn al-Haytham that Nasir al-Din alTusi, the head of the celebrated Maraghah observatory built by Hulegu in 1259, inaugurated outstandingly successful efforts along these lines. Tusi appears to have been the first to recognize that if one circle CI with a diameter D rolls inside another circle C2 with a diameter 2D, then any point on the circumference of C1 describes the diameter of CZ. In modern terminology this device can be considered a linkage of two equal and constantlength vectors with constant angular velocity (one moving twice as fast as the other); this is the famous “Tusi couple.” By means of this device the observed phenomena were explained by Maraghah astronomers solely in terms of a combination of uniform circular motions. The apex of these Maraghah techniques is embodied in the work of Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi (d. 1311), who, eliminating the Ptolemaic equant, constructed a highly accurate geometrical model for Mercury, by far the most irregular planet visible to the naked eye. In the middle of the fourteenth century the astronomer Ibn al-Shatir, a muwagqit (timekeeper) at a mosque in Damascus, further refined the Tusi innovations and managed to develop for the Moon and Mercury new models that were far superior in accuracy to those of Ptolemy.
Historians have pointed out that the mathematical devices created by the Maraghah, scientists and the planetary models constructed by the muwagqit reappear two centuries later in the work of Copernicus. In particular, Copernicus’s models of the Moon and Mercury have been found to be identical with those of Ibn al-Shatir; moreover, both astronomers employ the Tusi couple, and both eliminate the equant in essentially the same manner. Here the possibility of historical transmission has not been ruled out.
Observational Astronomy. A characteristic feature of the Islamic astronomical tradition is the separation of theoretical exercises from observational activity. Thus observational astronomy took its own independent course, guided by the Ptolemaic concept of testing (mihnah or Nibdr), which requires constantly renewed corrections of the observational data collected by preceding generations. Thus from the early ‘Abbasid period, astronomical observation remained an intensely pursued activity in Islam, with numerous observatories built over the centuries throughout the Islamic world from Baghdad to Samarra and Damascus, and from Egypt to Persia and Central Asia. Lunar and solar eclipses, meridian transits of the sun, transits of fixed stars, planetary positions and conjunctions-these were all part of the observational repertoire of Islamic astronomy.
Among the observatories that at Maraghah stands out. Indeed, it is regarded as the first observatory in the full sense of the word. It employed a staff of about twenty astronomers, including one from China; it was supported by a library; and it had a workshop for storing, constructing, and repairing astronomical instruments. These instruments included a mural quadrant and an armillary astrolabe, as well as solistical and equinoctal armillaries; also included in the holdings was a new instrument constructed by the Damascene al-`Urdi, which had two quadrants for simultaneous measurement of the horizon coordinates of two stars. Historians have noticed striking similarities between al-`Urdi’s observational devices and those of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (d. 16o1), even though the results of the latter are unprecedentedly precise.
Long after the Copernican Revolution, Islamic observational astronomy continued in the geocentric Ptolemaic tradition. In the 1570s a major observatory was built in Istanbul. Then, in imitation of the Samarkand observatory founded by Ulugh Beg in 1420, the Indian Maharaja of Amber (1693-1743) built as many as five different observatories-at Jayapura, Ujjayini, Delhi, Mathura, and Varanasi-with the purpose of harmonizing Indian astronomy with the Islamic Ptolemaic tradition. Nonetheless, the alter Islamic observatories were not altogether fruitless exercises, for they contributed to European astronomy many of their observational techniques instruments, and organizational features. Even though Islamic astronomy did not take the daring philosophical step of breaking out of the geocentric Ptolemaic system, it has to its credit numerous impressive achievements: it gave to the world of science the astronomical observatory; it created trigonometry; at Maraghah it developed new instruments and powerful mathematical techniques; and it perpetually improved and corrected astronomical parameters. By consensus of historians, Islamic astronomers were the best of their age.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
David Pingree’s “`Ilm al-Hay’a,” in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, new
ed., vol. 3, pp. 1135-1138 (Leiden, 1960-), is a lucid and comprehensive survey of Islamic astronomical tradition. The early history of the field is covered in Pingree’s highly scholarly essay, “The Greek Influence on Early Islamic Mathematical Astronomy,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 93 (1973) 32-43, which includes an extensive survey of literature. A very useful account of an early astronomer is Pingree’s “Masha’allah,” in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie, vol. 9, pp. 159-162 (New York, 1970-). E. S. Kennedy provides much technical information in readable articles such as “The Arabic Heritage in the Exact Sciences,” AlAbhdth 23 (1970): 327-344; “The Exact Sciences,” in The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 4, The Period from the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs, edited by Richard N. Frye, pp. 378-395 (Cambridge, 1975); and “The Exact Sciences in Iran under the Saljuqs and Mongols,” in The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 5, The Saljuq and Mongol Periods, edited by J. A. Boyle, pp. 659-679 (Cambridge, 1968). For the question of the transmission of Islamic astronomical theories to the West, see Kennedy’s classic paper, “Late Mediaeval Planetary Theory,” Isis 57 (1966): 365-378. A fuller account of the history of trigonometry may be found in Kennedy, “The History of Trigonometry,” Yearbook of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 31 (1969). Aydin Sayili’s The Observatory in Islam (Ankara, 1960) is a comprehensive social and intellectual history of the subject. A. I. Sabra’s “The Andalusian Revolt against Ptolemaic Astronomy,” in Transformation and Tradition in the Sciences: Essays in Honor of I. Bernard Cohen, edited by Everett Mendelsohn, pp. 133-153 (Cambridge, 1984), is an important work on the attempts of Spanish Muslim astronomers to improve upon the Ptolemaic system. A brief but rigorous account of Islamic astronomy is Sabra’s “The Scientific Enterprise,” in The World of Islam, edited by Bernard Lewis, pp. 181-199 (London, 1976). D. A. King’s “The Astronomy of the Mamluks,” Isis 74 (1983) 531-555, is a rich and very useful work on the state of the subject during the period under consideration.
S. NOMANUL HAQ

ASTROLOGY

Batoota — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 07:53:47 +0000

ASTROLOGY. To say that a belief in astrology is a feature of the popular culture of the modern Islamic world is to make a trivial statement, for this is true of practically all world cultures. It is a nontrivial exercise, however, to study the distinguishing features of the Islamic astrological tradition, the role it has played in blending and modifying and then transmitting outward all the various elements in drew from a host of classical foreign cultures, and the attitudes Islam displayed toward astrological doctrines and practices. A study of this kind suffers from an inherent limitation-a large number of primary Arabic astrological sources are no longer extant; moreover, a large number of those that are preserved still await scholarly examination. Many of our present views and conclusions must thus remain tentative, and this discussion is no exception.
By the eighth century CE, astrology had emerged as a distinct discipline in Islam-a discipline born out of a creative blending of the Hellenistic traditions of Iran, India, Mesopotamia, and the eastern Mediterranean. All these traditions share certain fundamental features. They all presuppose a geocentric finite universe in which celestial bodies exercise an influence on the terrestrial world. They all accept some version of Aristotelian physics, believing variously that astral influences determine all motions of the four sublunar elementsEarth, Water, Air, and Fire-and that these influences signify trends that may be altered by future influences, or by supernatural or human intervention, or that these influences simply manifest divine will.
Eastern Emphases. With these characteristic tures, astrology is evidently a Hellenistic invention, a system based on Greek astronomy and physics mixed with elements drawn from Babylonian celestial omens and Egyptian demigods. This Hellenistic astrology reached India in the second century CE, and here it received local treatments and was then transmitted as a transformed entity to Sassanian Iran in the following century. Through an assimilative process in Iran the Greco-Indian astrological tradition underwent further modifications, now integrated with both indigenous Iranian as well as additional Greek elements. Thus developed a Greco-Indo-Iranian astrological tradition that finally became part of the cultural booty of conquering Islam.
In Islamic civilization this complex phenomenon of transmission becomes even more intricate: texts were translated into Arabic not only from Pahlavi and Sanskrit, but also from Syriac and directly from Greek. Thus the Islamic astrological tradition displays not only certain characteristically Hellenistic features but also elements contributed locally by India and Iran. Unlike what occurred in many other sciences, Eastern elements remained strong in Islamic astrology. Thus despite their intimate relationship and similar routes of transmission, the science of astronomy underwent in Islam a thorough Hellenization, whereas astrology continued to show a dominance of characteristically Indo-Iranian features, with emphases on interrogational, military, and political astrology.
Categories. Experts recognize four broad categories of astrological practice: genethlialogy, which relates all aspects of an individual’s life to the situation of the heavens at the moment of his nativity; catarchic astrology, which consists in determining on the basis of the celestial configurations whether a given moment is auspicious (sa’d) or inauspicious (nahs) for a particular activity; general astrology, which is concerned with periodic heavenly situations (eclipses, planetary conjunctions, equinoxes, etc.), relating them to events affecting large numbers of people, nations, or the whole world; and interrogational astrology, which answers specific questions on the basis of the heavenly configuration at the time of the query.
Genethialogy (mawalid) had already reached its high point in the work of Dorotheus of Sidon, written in about 75 CE. In this work we find a number of historic innovations in the techniques of horoscope casting, horoscopes being diagrams of the signs of the zodiac based on the aspects of celestial bodies at a given moment. One of the Dorothean innovations is the system of lots (AT., sihdm, sg. sahm)-points whose distance from some specified points in the horoscopic diagram equals the distance between two planets. Another is the introduction of the prorogator (Ar., al-hayldj, whence Lat. alhyleg), a point on the ecliptic that determines the life of the native. Dorotheus had spoken also of continuous horoscopy; this assumes that even though an individual’s basic natal horoscope is generally valid, new horoscopes must be cast at periodic intervals and compared with the base horoscope to generate specific predictions for the next period.
All these Dorothean features are found in Islamic astrology; but here they are further fortified by the Harranian version of the Neoplatonic doctrine of astral influences cast in terms of Aristotelian physics, and creatively blended with Indian and Iranian elements. An outstanding example of this blending is found in the writings of Abu Ma’shar (d. 886), Islam’s most influential astrologer. For example, as compared to the two principal lots of the Greeks-the Lot of Fortune and the Lot of the Demon-Abu Ma’shar could enumerate well over a hundred lots. Similarly, the complicated rules governing the prorogator are here made even more elaborate. A variation on or adjunct to the prorogator was the Lord of the Year, the strongest planet in the horoscope. Again, the techniques of determining this planet are further refined by Arabic astrologers.
It is interesting to note the grafting of Iranian political and continuous astrology onto the Hellenistic base of the Islamic tradition. For example, among the thirteen lots employed by the astrologer Masha’allah (d. c.815) in his Kitdb al-mawdlid al-kabir (Great Book of Nativities), one finds also the Lot of Political Power (sahm alsultan), taken from the Sassanian tradition. Similarly, Arabic horoscopes frequently include the Lot of Warfare (or Soldiering}–a lot that had received a distinct emphasis and development in India, growing into a whole field of military astrology (ydtrd) and reaching Islam through circuitous routes. Indian as well as Harranian features of Islamic astrology are evident also in the elaborate rituals Arabic writers devised to avert or alter the influences of the planets; these rituals include mysterious invocations, prayers, and animal sacrifices.
Islamic catarchic astrology is likewise a combination of the Dorothean and Indian systems. Treated under the general classification of ahkam al-nujum (“judgments of the stars,” hence the term “judicial astrology”), a whole genre of ikhtiyardt (“choices”) literature exists in the Arabic astrological tradition. Indeed, “choices” is a happy title for this activity, since it presupposes free will on the part of the subject: he is free to choose the best time for commencing on activity, with the time being judged from the horoscope. This may be one reason why catarchic astrology enjoyed a relatively wider acceptance in Islam. In one notable instance, the ‛Abbāsid caliph al-Mansur consulted as many as four astrologers-Nawbakht, Masha’allah, al-Fazari, and `Umar ibn al-Farrukhan-to determine an auspicious moment for the founding of his new capital Baghdad; they chose 30 July 762.
The credit of developing techniques of applying horoscopy to general astrology, the third broad category of astrology, belongs to Sassanian Iran. It arose out of the blending of Hellenistic continuous astrology with the Zoroastrian belief in the twelve-thousand-year cycle of the creation and destruction of the material world, thereby becoming a potent device for all kinds of chiliastic propaganda. Indeed, many an Arabic astrological history culminates in an absolute future victory for the author’s chosen party. Given the millennial aspects of general astrology, it carried a particular appeal for the Isma’ilis, who predicted the emergence of the hidden imam at the moment of certain planetary conjunctions, and even the revelation of a new shari `ah and the beginning a new cycle of seven imams. The chiliastic writings attributed to the alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan (probably eighth century) constitute a tantalizing example of this kind of astrology.
Interrogations (masd’il), the final category of astrology, saw its greatest development in Islam. This astrological practice determines the answer to the question from the horoscope of the moment when the query is formally presented to the astrologer. Experts believe that interrogational astrology first appeared in India, where it developed as an extension of divination, and then reached Islam via Sassanian versions. An outstanding Arabic work in this field is that of Abu Ma’shar’s pupil Shadan, a collection of examples called Mudha-karat (Studies), which constitutes a rich sample of the highly developed interrogational activities of Islamic astrologers.
Recently a few interrogational texts of Masha’allah have been subjected to a critical analysis which throws into relief the eclectic nature of the astrologer’s enterprise. Their topics include the intention of the querist, finding buried treasure, travel, marriage, debts, clipping nails and hair, cutting out new clothes, manumission of slaves, childbirth, political power, and many more. Here all topics, except political power, are derived from the catarchic aspect of the Greek astrological tradition. Thus one notes that, following the Indians, a Greek technique is appropriated for a different purpose and mixed with Sassanian elements.
From the 10th century Arabic innovations in all four categories of astrology began to travel outward to other cultural areas: first to Byzantium, then to the Latin West, and finally to India. A great many Arabic astrological texts were translated into Latin: the Europeans knew Abu Ma’shar as Albumasar, `Al! al-`Imrani as Haly Imrani, Abu `Ali al-Khayydt as Albohali, Sahl ibn Bishr as Zahel, and Abu Bakr al-Khasibi as Abubather. Indeed, Islamic astrology has profoundly influenced the astrological traditions of both India and the West.
Attitudes toward Astrological Practices. According to a hadith in al-Bukhari, the Prophet had denounced the astral cults of the pre-Islamic Arabs; this must have created in Islam an ethos unfavorable to the growth of an astrological tradition. But a tradition did grow, and it came under heavy fire from religious circles. Genethlialogy and general astrology in particular were the targets of opposition, primarily because they were considered to offend the idea of free will and human responsibility on the one hand, and God’s infinite power on the other. Although these astrological practices received strong support from the ShNs, especially those of the Isma`ili persuasion, they were eventually abandoned by sober thinkers and now survive only in the popular culture. Catarchic and interrogational astrology do leave room for free will; therefore, these enjoyed a longer and flourishing career in the Islamic world.
Nonetheless, general attacks on all things astrological have never ceased in the Islamic world. The great sage Ibn Sina wrote a whole work against astrology in the eleventh century; some nine hundred years later, the modern poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal elegantly mocked the very enterprise of the astrologer:
How can it transmit my fate? A star!
Humiliated, helpless
In the infinite vastness of the heavens!
[See also Astronomy; Divination; Geomancy; Magic and Sorcery; Numerology.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
David Pingree is a leading contemporary scholar of Islamic astrology. The present entry draws heavily on some of his works, which are strongly recommended to the serious reader. A general and lucid account is to be found in his “Astrology,” in Dictionary of the History of Ideas, edited by Philip P. Wiener, vol. 1, pp. 118-126 (New York, 1968). His articles on Abu Ma’shar and Masha’allah in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillespie, vol. 1, pp. 32-39 and vol. 9, pp. 159-162 (New York, 1970-), constitute important studies and deserve particular attention. The Astrological History of Masha’allah (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), coauthored by Pingree and E. S. Kennedy, is another valuable work based on primary material. An article by Pingree, “Masha’allah: Greek, Pahlavi, and Latin Astrology,” will be published in Arabic Science and Philosophy and presents many original reflections on the fortunes of the Hellenistic astrological tradition in the Islamic world.
C. Nallino’s “Astrologic e astronomia presso i Musulmani. i. Astrologia,” Raccolta di scritta editi e inediti 5 (1944): I-41, is still the best standard source for the history of Islamic astrology. The reader should also consult relevant articles in the new edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden, 1960-) including “Ikhtiyarat” (vol. 3, pp. 1063-1064), “Kihana” (vol. 5, pp. 99-101), and “Nudjum” (vol. 8, pp. 105-108), all by Toulic Fahd, as well as D. B. Macdonald’s “Sihr,” in E.J. Brill’s First Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 7, pp. 409417 (Leiden, 1987). Numerous references to Arabic astrological sources are given in volume 7 of Fuat Sezgin’s Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (Leiden, 1979). For sources, see as well Manfred Ullmann’s Die Natur- and Geheimwissenschaften in Islam (Leiden, 1972).
S. NOMANUL HAQ

ALCHEMY

Batoota — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 06:51:38 +0000

Viewed from the perspective of the history of science, alchemy can legitimately be considered an Islamic creation. Indeed, notwithstanding some development in ancient China, it was in the Islamic world that alchemy developed from a dark craft with its mysterious recipes into a systematic discipline founded on well-defined cosmological and metaphysical principles; and it was here that we find for the first time a body of alchemical literature largely (though not invariably) written in a clear scientific language unobscured by the veils of esoteric figurative terminology. Muslim alchemists deserve yet further credit: while they themselves had drawn on various foreign and indigenous sources, including Indian and possibly Chinese sources, it was their ideas and doctrines that served as the point of departure for the alchemists of the medieval West. Thus Islamic alchemy should be recognized as the springboard of that complex process that led to the birth of the modern science of chemistry.
As for the philosophical matrix of Islamic alchemy, it is possible to glean from a vast body of largely unstudied Arabic alchemical literature two of its fundamental aspects: a cosmology, and a theory of elements. The cosmology of Muslim alchemists is thoroughly nonAristotelian. In a highly enigmatic but equally influential Arabic text available to Islam from the earliest phases of its alchemical tradition, one finds unmistakable indications of the belief that there is an immutable cosmic correspondence between “what is above” and “what is below,” and between the inner world of the soul and the outer world of phenomena, and that the manifold forms in which matter occurs have a single and unique origin. This doctrine of an essential unity in diversity discards Aristotle’s fateful distinction between the terrestrial and celestial worlds; furthermore, it implies a naturalistic possibility of transmutation and accommodates astrology. In addition, it renders the process of purifying matter inseparable from that of the purification of the soul. The text in question, the celebrated Al-lawh al-zumurrud, is an apocryphal collection of aphorisms; in its Latin translation, Tabula smaragdina, it was an avidly studied document throughout the later European Middle Ages.
As for the Islamic alchemical theory of elements, it seems to have been derived from the standard Greek sources. All Muslim alchemists accept, as Aristotle does, the Empedoclean doctrine of four primary bodies-earth, water, air and fire-and all of them recognize Aristotle’s four primary qualities-hot, cold, moist and dry. Yet some of them profoundly violate the familiar Aristotelian doctrine of elements that claims that all material things are ultimately composed of the Empedoclean primary bodies, which are distinguished from one another by their qualities, but that these qualities do not exist independently of the bodies in which they inhere; qualities were forms-that is, conceptual rather than real entities. In contrast, for example, Jabir ibn Hayyan believed that the four qualities, called natures (tabai), were indeed independently existing real entities; it was these natures-and not the Empedoclean bodies-that were the true material elements of things. Nonetheless, many alchemists of Islam appear here to follow Aristotle faithfully.
This appears to be the theoretical framework of Islamic alchemy. Fundamental themes of this enterprise include not only the transmutation of base metals into gold, but also the artificial generation of living beings, even of new forms of life not existing in nature. Believing that all varieties (anwa`) of metals belong to the same genus (jins), the alchemists differentiated them only in terms of “accidents” (a`rad). Accidents were changeable; therefore, one metal could be changed into another. This transmutation could be carried out in many ways, but the best method was that of the elixir (al-iksir). Likewise, given the universal relationship between the macrocosm (ab’alam al-kabir) and the microcosm (al-`alam al-saghir), all grand biological processes occurring in nature could be replicated, and in principle improved upon, in the alchemical laboratory. Thus all kinds of monsters and strange birds, and all kinds of novel human beings, could be generated artificially. Another fundamental theme of Islamic alchemy is the prolongation of human life by means of the elixir; here alchemy is directly related to medicine.
It seems ironic that despite their fantastic claims and tantalizing discourses, it was the Muslim al-chemists and not the sober, hellenized sages of Islam-who made lasting theoretical and material contributions to the science of chemistry. For example, the Islamic alchemical theory that all metals (in some cases all substances) were composed of sulphur and mercury proved fateful, leading to the celebrated phlogiston theory of early modern chemistry. Likewise, sal ammoniac (nushadir), a substance that played a highly productive role in the development of chemistry, was introduced into the repertoire of alchemy by Muslims. Two varieties of this substance were known to them, natural (al-hajar) and derived (mustanbat)-ammonium chloride and ammonium carbonate. The latter was obtained by the dry distillation of hair and other animal substances. Again, the use of organic materials in chemical procedures, in addition to the inorganic, was a historic contribution of the alchemists of Islam.
By far the most luminous name in the history of Islamic alchemy is Jabir ibn Hayyan, but this giant figure remains wrapped in mystery, with historians since an early period doubting his very historical existence. The large encyclopedic corpus attributed to him indicates that he was a disciple of the sixth Shi`i imam Ja’far alSadiq, and this would place him in the eighth century. If Jabir was the first historical alchemist of Islam, a possibility we cannot rule out definitively, then he is the pioneer of all that is important and characteristic of Islamic alchemy: the sulphur-mercury theory, the use of organic substances, the introduction of sal ammoniac, the production (though not recognition) of mineral acids, the quantification of qualities, and the conceptual distinction between heat and temperature. Jabirian ideas were known to the European alchemists, and at least three of his treatises were translated into Latin. The great physician of Islam, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (known also by his Latin name Rhazes, d. 925) used to refer to Jabir as “our Master.”
Razi himself is another outstanding alchemical figure. In his works we find for the first time a systematic classification of carefully observed facts regarding chemical substances, reactions, and apparatus described in an unambiguous language. He too managed to produce mineral acids, although it is again doubtful if he recognized them as isolated substances. Razi’s clear language stands in sharp contrast to the obscure alchemical discourses of his younger contemporary Ibn Umayl (c. 900-960), a favorite of medieval European writers who read his Al-Ma’ al-waragi wa-al-ard al-nujumiyah (Silvery Water and Starry Earth) as Tabula chemica, just as they read in Latin translation his Risalat al-shams ila al-hildl (Epistle of the Sun to the New Moon). The Islamic West too contributed some celebrated alchemists: a familiar name is Maslamah ibn Ahmad al-Majrati (tenth century), from whose original writings were developed the Rutbat al-hakam (The Sage’s Step), containing precise instructions for the preparation of gold and silver by cupellation, and the Ghayat al-hakam (The Aim of the Wise), known in Latin as Picatrix. Finally, among the last prominent figures of Islamic alchemy are Abu al-Qasim ofIraq, a contemporary of Roger Bacon, and Ibn Aydamir al-Jildaki, living inEgyptin the fourteenth century. The latter, a great admirer of Jabir, was both an alchemist and a historian of alchemy; but by his time the hub of scientific activity had already begun to shift from the Islamic world to the Latin West.
In the contemporary Islamic world there exists no institutional or organized practice of alchemy. Still, a traditional belief in the alchemical transmutation of base metals into gold continues in the popular culture, and individuals are still searching for the ever-elusive elixir.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
By far the best English-language survey of Islamic alchemy is still that of Joseph Needham, “Arabic Alchemy in Rise and Decline,” in his Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 5, part 4 (Cambridge, 1980). My short article, “Chemistry and Alchemy,” in Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Middle East, edited by T. Mostyn and Albert Hourani, pages 389491 (Cambridge, 1988), covers the same ground as the present essay and is useful for the nonexpert. Eric J. Holmyard wrote prolifically, though sometimes uncritically, on the subject. His many articles are nevertheless worthy of serious consideration (see a bibliography of his work in my Names, Natures, and Things, cited below); see, in particular, Alchemy (Harmondsworth, 1957). H. E. Stapleton made an important contribution to the history of Islamic alchemy in several studies published with his colleagues in the Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (MASB). Of special interest is his “Three Arabic Treatises by Muhammad ibn Umail (Tenth Century AD),” written in collaboration with M. T. ‘Ali and M. H. Husain in MASB 12.1 (1933): I-127. Stapleton, Husain, and R. F. Azo also completed a rigorous textual study of Razi in “Chemistry inIraqandPersiain the Tenth Century AD,” MASB 8 (1927): 315-417. For Jabir, see Paul Kraus’s monumental, unparalleled study, “Jabir ibn Hayyan: Contributions a I’histoire des idees scientifiques dans I’Islam,” Mimoires de I’Institut d’E’gypte 44 (1942) and 45 (1943) The only full-scale English-language study of Jabir is my Names, Natures, and Things (Boston, 1994) which contains as well an annotated selected text and translation of a Jabirian treatise. Scholarly readers will find my extensive bibliographic references highly useful.
S. NOMANUL HAQ