Abū Mūsā Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (Arabic: , variously called al-Ṣūfī, al-Azdī, al-Kūfī, or al-Ṭūsī), died 806−816, is the purported author of a large number of works in Arabic, often called the Jabirian corpus. The treatises that survive today mainly deal with alchemy and chemistry, magic, and Shi'ite religious philosophy. However, the original scope of the corpus was vast, covering a wide range of topics ranging from cosmology, astronomy and astrology, over medicine, pharmacology, zoology and botany, to metaphysics, logic, and grammar.
The works attributed to Jabir, which are tentatively dated to , contain the oldest known systematic classification of chemical substances, and the oldest known instructions for deriving an inorganic compound (sal ammoniac or ammonium chloride) from organic substances (such as plants, blood, and hair) by chemical means. (referring to ; ; ). See also . His works also contain one of the earliest known versions of the sulfur-mercury theory of metals, a mineralogical theory that would remain dominant until the 18th century..
A significant part of Jabir's writings deal with a philosophical theory known as "the science of the balance" (Arabic: ʿilm al-mīzān), which was aimed at reducing all phenomena (including material substances and their elements) to a system of measures and quantitative proportions. The Jabirian works also contain some of the earliest preserved Shi'ite imamological doctrines, which Jabir presented as deriving from his purported master, the Shi'ite Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (died 765).
As early as the 10th century, the identity and exact corpus of works of Jabir was in dispute in Islamic scholarly circles. The authorship of all these works by a single figure, and even the existence of a historical Jabir, are also doubted by modern scholars. Instead, Jabir ibn Hayyan is generally thought to have been a pseudonym used by an anonymous school of Shi'ite alchemists writing in the late 9th and early 10th centuries.
Some Arabic Jabirian works (e.g., The Great Book of Mercy, and The Book of Seventy) were translated into Latin under the Latinized name Geber, and in 13th-century Europe an anonymous writer, usually referred to as pseudo-Geber, started to produce alchemical and metallurgical writings under this name.; . It has been argued by Ahmad Y. Al-Hassan that the pseudo-Geber works were actually translated into Latin from the Arabic (see Al-Hassan, Ahmad Y. "The Arabic Origin of the Summa and Geber Latin Works: A Refutation of Berthelot, Ruska, and Newman Based on Arabic Sources", in: ; also available online).
Biography
Historicity It is not clear whether Jabir ibn Hayyan ever existed as a historical person. He is purported to have lived in the 8th century, and to have been a disciple of the Shi'ite Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (died 765).References to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq occur throughout the Jabirian corpus (see ). See also below. However, he is not mentioned in any historical source before c. 900, and the first known author to write about Jabir from a biographical point of view was the Baghdadi bibliographer Ibn al-Nadīm (c. 932–995).; . In his Fihrist ("The Book Catalogue", written in 987), Ibn al-Nadīm compiled a list of Jabir's works, adding a short notice on the various claims that were then circulating about Jabir.; . An annotated English translation of this notice and the list of Jabir's works may be found in . Already in Ibn al-Nadīm's time, there were some people who explicitly asserted that Jabir had never existed, although Ibn al-Nadīm himself disagreed with this claim.. Jabir was often ignored by later medieval Islamic biographers and historians, but even early Shi'ite biographers such as Aḥmad al-Barqī (died c. 893), Abū ʿAmr al-Kashshī (first half of the 10th century), Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Najāshī (983–1058), and Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭūsī (995–1067), who wrote long volumes on the companions of the Shi'ite Imams (including the many companions of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq), did not mention Jabir at all.. However, as also noted by Delva 2017, pp. 39–40, note 19, Jabir does occur in two possibly early Shi'ite hadith collections, which are in need of further investigation.
Dating of the Jabirian corpus Apart from outright denying his existence, there were also some who, already in Ibn al-Nadīm's time, questioned whether the writings attributed to Jabir were really written by him.. The authenticity of these writings was expressly denied by the Baghdadi philosopher Abū Sulaymān al-Sijistānī (c. 912–985) and his pupil Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (c. 932–1023), though this may have been related to the hostility of both these thinkers to alchemy in general.; . Modern scholarly analysis has tended to confirm the inauthenticity of the writings attributed to Jabir. Much of the philosophical terminology used in the Jabirian treatises was only coined around the middle of the 9th century,See already and . This was denied by . and some of the Greek philosophical texts cited in the Jabirian writings are known to have been translated into Arabic towards the end of the 9th century. has argued that one of these translations of Greek philosophical texts cited by Jabir actually dates to the 8th century, but this was contradicted by (cf. ). Moreover, an important part of the corpus deals with early Shi'ite religious philosophy that is elsewhere only attested in late 9th-century and early 10th-century sources.Kraus regarded Jabirian Shi'ism as an early form of Isma'ilism (see , ; see also ), but it has since been shown that it significantly differs from Isma'ilism (see ; ), and may have been an independent sectarian Shi'ite current related to the late 9th-century ghulāt (see ). As a result, the dating of the Jabirian corpus to c. 850–950 has been widely accepted in modern scholarship.This is the dating put forward by . For its acceptance by other scholars, see the references in . Notable critics of Kraus' dating are and (cf. ). However, it has also been noted that many Jabirian treatises show clear signs of having been redacted multiple times, and the writings as we now have them may well have been based on an earlier 8th-century core.. For other observations of the existence of different editorial layers in Jabirian treatises, see ; . Despite the obscurity involved, it is not impossible that some of these writings, in their earliest form, were written by a real Jabir ibn Hayyan.. In any case, it is clear that Jabir's name was used as a pseudonym by one or more anonymous Shi'ite alchemists writing in the late 9th and early 10th centuries, who also redacted the corpus as we now know it.; cf. .
Biographical clues and legend Jabir was generally known by the kunya Abū Mūsā ("Father of Mūsā"), or sometimes Abū ʿAbd Allāh ("Father of ʿAbd Allāh"), and by the nisbas (attributive names) al-Ṣūfī, al-Azdī, al-Kūfī, or al-Ṭūsī.. The kunya Abū ʿAbd Allāh only occurs in Ibn al-Nadīm (see ). Ibn Khallikān (1211–1282) gives Jabir's nisba as al-Ṭarsūsī, or in some manuscripts as al-Tarṭūsī, but these are most likely scribal errors for al-Ṭūsī (see Kraus 1942–1943, vol. I, p. xli, note 3). His grandfather's name is mentioned by Ibn al-Nadim as ʿAbd Allāh.. Kraus adds that ʿAbd Allāh as the name of Jabir's grandfather is also mentioned in Jabir's Kitāb al-Najīb (Kr. no. 977). If the attribution of the name al-Azdī to Jabir is authentic, still thought the attribution to Jabir of the name al-Azdī to be false. Later sources assume its authenticity. this would point to his affiliation with the Southern-Arabian (Yemenite) tribe of the Azd. However, it is not clear whether Jabir was an Arab belonging to the Azd tribe, or a non-Arab Muslim client (mawlā) of the Azd.; . In the 8th century, it was still necessary for non-Arabs to secure an affiliation with an Arab tribe in order to be allowed to convert to Islam. If he was a non-Arab Muslim client of the Azd, he is most likely to have been Persian, given his ties with eastern Iran (his nisba al-Ṭūsī also points to Tus, a city in Khurasan).. According to a copyist of one of the manuscripts containing Jabir's works, he also died in Tus (see Delva 2017, p. 36, note 6). Jabir was held to be an Arab by , a view still taken by . He was regarded as Persian by (cf. ), who was echoed by such scholars as and . According to Ibn al-Nadīm, Jabir hailed from Khurasan (eastern Iran), but spent most of his life in Kufa (Iraq),. both regions where the Azd tribe was well-settled.; . Various late reports put his date of death between 806 (190 AH) and 816 (200 AH)..
Given the lack of independent biographical sources, most of the biographical information about Jabir can be traced back to the Jabirian writings themselves.This even holds for most of what was written by Ibn al-Nadīm; see . There are references throughout the Jabirian corpus to the Shi'ite Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (died 765), whom Jabir generally calls "my master" (Arabic: sayyidī), and whom he represents as the original source of all his knowledge.. That the references are indeed to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq is made clear by the Shi'ite context in which they occur, and by the fact that Jaʿfar's patronymic "ibn Muḥammad" is sometimes included (see ; ). Ibn al-Nadīm's isolated statement that some claimed "my master" to refer to Jaʿfar ibn Yaḥyā al-Barmakī was called "arbitrary" by Kraus 1942–1943, vol. I, p. xliv, note 2. In one work, Jabir is also represented as an associate of the Bactrian vizier family of the Barmakids, whereas Ibn al-Nadīm reports that some claimed Jabir to have been especially devoted to Jaʿfar ibn Yaḥyā al-Barmakī (767–803), the Abbasid vizier of One Thousand and One Nights fame.; cf. . Kraus expressly compared the seemingly legendary tales about Jabir and the Barmakids with those of the One Thousand and One Nights. Jabir's links with the Abbasids were stressed even more by later tradition, which turned him into a favorite of the Abbasid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (c. 763–809, also appearing in One Thousand and One Nights), for whom Jabir would have composed a treatise on alchemy, and who is supposed to have commanded the translation of Greek works into Arabic on Jabir's instigation.This is first related by the 14th century alchemist al-Jildakī (see ; cf. ).
Given Jabir's purported ties with both the Shi'ite Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and the Barmakid family (who served the Abbasids as viziers), or with the Abbasid caliphs themselves, it has sometimes been thought plausible that Ḥayyān al-ʿAṭṭār ("Hayyan the Druggist"), a proto-Shi'ite activist who was fighting for the Abbasid cause in the early 8th century, may have been Jabir's father (Jabir's name "Ibn Hayyan" literally means "The Son of Hayyan").. Although there is no direct evidence supporting this hypothesis, it fits very well in the historical context, and it allows one to think of Jabir, however obscure, as a historical figure.. Because Ḥayyān al-ʿAṭṭār was supposedly executed not long after 721, the hypothesis even made it possible to estimate Jabir's date of birth at .; cf. . However, it has recently been argued that Ḥayyān al-ʿAṭṭār probably lived at least until ,. and that as a client (mawlā) of the Nakhaʿ tribe he is highly unlikely to have been the father of Jabir (who is supposed to have been a client/member of the Azd)..
The Jabirian corpus