Chalid ibn Yazid

Chalid ibn Yazid (* around 655, † 704 ) was the son of Yazid I , the caliph of Damascus. He had a reputation as an alchemist .

The Latin translation from the Arabic Liber de compositione alchimiae from the 12th century takes the form of a dialogue between Chalid ibn Yazid and the hermit Morienus . Ruska considers the attribution to the son of caliph to be apocryphal. With the Arabs, however, the first occupation with alchemy is ascribed to him and the impetus for translations of corresponding ancient writings (as in the Kitab-al-Fihrist of Ibn an-Nadīm ), including the book of Krates . According to Ruska, however, the Arabic translation from the Greek can be from the end of the 8th century at the earliest. There are no known writings that can be safely attributed to him, but various writings that have appeared under his name: Liber secretorum alchemiae and Liber trium verborum, which deal with the production of the Philosopher's Stone without being specific. He compares the alchemists' opus magnum with pregnancy and childbirth and, according to him, calls for astrological influences. According to Joachim Tanckius (1610) they were by a Jewish author and originally in Hebrew. They are printed in the Theatrum Chemicum . In the Rosarium Philosophorum (1550) he is quoted as Hali.

literature

• Julius Ruska : Arabian Alchemists I: Khalid ibn Yazid ibn Muawiya, Heidelberg files of the von Portheim Foundation, volume 6, Heidelberg: Winter 1924
• Chalid ibn Jazid in Winfried Pötsch, Annelore Fischer, Wolfgang Müller: Lexicon of important chemists , Harri Deutsch 1989
• Karin Ryding, Alchemy in Islam, in Helaine Selin (Hrsg.), Encyclopedia of the history of science, technology and medicine in non-western cultures, Springer / Kluwer 2008
• Heike Hild, Khalid ibn Yazid, in: Claus Priesner , Karin Figala : Alchemie. Lexicon of a Hermetic Science, Beck 1998, pp. 193-194