Jabir ibn Hayyan

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Depiction of "Gebers" in a Latin alchemical composite manuscript from the 15th century, Ashb. 1166, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence

Jabir ibn Hayyān ( Arabic جابر بن حيان, DMG Ǧābir b. Hayyān , Latin for giver ; also Jeber and Yeber ) was an author of scientific writings who wrote in Arabic and who is said to have worked in the second half of the 8th century. As a student of the sixth Imam Jafar as-Sādiq , Jābir is said to have headed a hermetic school and left behind an extensive work of natural-philosophical, alchemical and medical writings.

He is first mentioned in the records of the head of a group of scholars in Baghdad Abu Sulayman al-Mantiqi as-Sidschistani (died around 981). At that time an extensive corpus of his writings was known and Abu Sulayman denied his authorship and instead attributed them to a certain al-Hasan ibn al-Nakad from Mosul . Shortly after the death of Abu Sulayman, the Shiite scholar Ibn an-Nadīm contradicted the doubts about the existence of Jabir in his Fihrist of 987 and identified Jafar, whom Jabir referred to as his teacher, with the sixth Shiite imam Jaʿfar as-Sādiq and contradicted him Identification with the vizier of Harun ar-Raschid from the family of the Barmakid Jafar ibn Yahya (died 803). Depending on which of the two Jafar you take, the lifetime of Jabir falls in the 8th or the beginning of the 9th century. According to Eric John Holmyard , who edited Jabir's writings in 1928, his father was a pharmacist named Hayyan in Kufa and Jabir was sent to Khorasan as a Shiite agent in the early 8th century . The extent of the surviving writings, however, led Paul Kraus to the conclusion that they were the product of a whole school of scientists. According to Kraus, they reveal knowledge of the translations from the Greek of the school of Hunain ibn Ishāq from the 9th century and contain references to the Muʿtazila movement, so that they did not emerge until the 10th century. According to Kraus, the writings are first mentioned by Ibn Wahschiyya and Ibn Umail in the 10th century and show similar Ismaili influences as the Brothers of Purity , which further supports the classification into the 10th century.

The "Corpus Gabirianum" and the "Pseudo-Giver"

The rediscovery of Ǧābir for the history of science in chemistry and alchemy was initiated in the 19th century by Hermann Kopp , who, however, did not have his own access to the Arabic Ǧābir texts and despite his own doubts about the authenticity of some of the Latin writings he examined, no critical distinction was made made. As a result of the corrections in particular by Marcellin Berthelot , Paul Kraus and William R. Newman , a distinction is made in research today between the Corpus Gabirianum (also Ǧābir-Corpus , in English-language literature Corpus Jabirianum ) of the Arabic scripts (" Geber arabicus "), to which at least three Latin translations can be assigned ( Liber de septuaginta , Liber misericordiae , Liber triginta verborum ), and the late medieval Latin Corpus Geberi ( pseudo-Geber ), which was published in the 13th and 14th centuries. It probably originated in Italy in the 19th century and has no closer substantive relationship to the Corpus Ǧābirianum , but because of the erroneous attribution to Ǧābir ibn Ḥayyān, it has disrupted the history of the natural sciences and their technical instruments.

Among the Latin writings, the most important historically, the Summa perfectionis magisterii , probably written by a Paulus de Tarento ("Geber latinus"), and the writings De investigatione perfectionis , De inventione veritatis and Liber fornacum as well as based on it, but by various other authors for the Testamentum Geberi regis Indiae, based on Newman's research, the assignment to the late medieval corpus pseudo-giver are considered certain. For the rest of the Latin tradition, the relationship to possible models in the Arabic Corpus Gabirianum is still partly in need of clarification, and the history of European vernacular translations from Latin is still largely unexplored.

The genesis and attribution of the Arabic Corpus Gabirianum for which Paul Kraus 3,000 Arabic writings and Miszellen proof is, in contrast, remained controversial. According to the findings of Kraus, who found approval in large parts of the research, the Arabic corpus as a whole is also to be regarded as a pseudepigraphic one and did not emerge until the end of the 9th century in an Ismaili -influenced milieu. As the author of some (around 500) of these writings, Kraus suspected al-Ḥasan ibn an-Naikd, since his friend Abū Sulaimān as-Siǧistāni († after 981) reports that he published his own books as the writings of Ǧābir ibn Ḥayyāns and thus among alchemy enthusiasts Readers "made a decent amount of money".

This view, published by Paul Kraus in 1942, has since been contradicted by Eric John Holmyard and particularly emphatically by Fuat Sezgin , who continues to attribute the Arabic scripts to a single author, the Ǧābir ibn Ḥayyān of Arabic tradition, who was born before 725 and around 812 died. A mediating position is taken by Hossein Nasr , who sticks to the historicity of Ǧābir and its dating to the 8th century (according to Nasr approx. 721 - approx. 815) and, within the Corpus Gabirianum, a distinction between authentic writings by this author and later pseudepigraphic products advocated an Ismaili brotherhood.

In terms of content, the Corpus Gabirianum (of which only one work, the Book of Grace , Kitab al-rahma, possibly dates back to the time of Jabir ibn Hayyan) is partly very speculative and develops a complicated doctrine of the balance of “natures “Hot-cold-moist-dry with harmonious proportions of the parts that come from Pythagorean ideas. The emphasis on fractional distillation had an influence in the Latin Middle Ages in order to separate the substances according to their nature ( Pseudo-Lull , Johannes de Rupescissa ). The Kitab al-Sab'in ( translated by Gerhard von Cremona as Liber de septuaginta ) from the Corpus also exerted an influence on the pseudo-giver .

The book of poisons , which was written after 900 and which contains the oldest Arabic texts on theoretical medicine, anatomy and ophthalmology, is cited in the "70 books" . In the Kitāb al-iḫrāg , Jābir explains and supplements the humoral pathology and physiologist of Galenus.

Geber is occasionally confused with the mathematician Jabir ibn Aflah .

Medical work

Jabir is also credited with around 500 medical treatises, although he is otherwise unknown as a doctor. The book of poisons , written under his name after 900, contains the oldest known Arabic records on theoretical medicine (separation theory-practice), ophthalmology and anatomy. He takes over the humoral pathology from Galenos and quotes from his pulse theory. In addition to the main organs of Galen's liver, brain and heart, it supplements the testicles. In part it seems to follow Hunain ibn Ishāq , which would speak against the authenticity if one assumes an origin before Hunain ibn Ishaq.

literature

  • Marcellin Berthelot: La chimie au moyen âge . Impr. Nationale, Paris 1893.
  • Syed Nomanul Haq: Names, Natures and Things: The Alchemist Jābir ibn Ḥayyān and his Kitāb al-Aḥjār. Kluwer, Dordrecht [and a.] 1994 (= Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 158), ISBN 0-7923-2587-7 .
  • Ernst Darmstaedter : The alchemy of the donor. Translated and explained, Berlin 1922 (based on the Geber edition by Johannes Petreius , Nuremberg 1541).
  • Friedrun R. Hau: Ğābir ibn Ḥaiyān. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 445.
  • Guido Jüttner: Art. Ǧābir-Corpus (Geber) and Ps. Geber (Latinus) , in: Lexikon des Mittelalters, Volume IV (1988), Col. 1071f. and 1154.
  • Hermann Kopp: History of Chemistry. First part Vieweg and Son, Braunschweig 1843.
  • Hermann Kopp: Contributions to the history of chemistry. Third piece: Views on the task of chemistry and on the basic components of the body among the more important chemists from Geber to GE Stahl. Vieweg and Son, Braunschweig 1875.
  • Paul Kraus: Jābir ibn Ḥayyān. Contribution à l'histoire des idées scientifiques dans l'Islam. Cairo 1942–1943 (= Mémoires présentés à l'Institut d'Égypte, 44–45)
  • Seyyed Hossein Nasr: Science and Civilization in Islam. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 1968, ISBN 0-946621-11-X .
  • William R. Newman: The Summa Perfectionis of Pseudo-Geber: A Critical Edition, Translation, and Study. Brill, Leiden [u. a.] 1991 (= Collection des travaux de l'Académie Internationale d'Histoire des Sciences, 35), ISBN 90-04-09464-4 .
  • Martin Plessner: Ǧābir ibn Ḥayyān and the time when the Arabic Ǧābir writings were created. In: Journal of the German Oriental Society 115 (1965), pp. 23–65.
  • Martin Plessner: Jābir ibn Hayyān . In: Charles Coulston Gillispie (Ed.): Dictionary of Scientific Biography . tape 7 : Iamblichus - Karl Landsteiner . Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1973, p. 39-43 .
  • Fuad Sezgin: The problem of Ǧābir ibn Ḥayyān in the light of newly found manuscripts. In: Journal of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft 114 (1964), pp. 255–268.
  • Fuad Sezgin: History of Arabic Literature. Brill, Leiden et al .; Volume 3 (1970), pp. 211-223; Volume 4 (1976).
  • Manfred Ullmann: The natural and secret sciences in Islam. Brill, Leiden [u. a.] 1972, pp. 198-208.

Web links

Digital copies:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Plessner, Dict. Scientific Biography, Volume 7, p. 39
  2. ^ Holmyard, The works of Geber, Englished by Richard Russell, 1678, a new edition , London, New York 1928
  3. ↑ Joachim Telle : Donors. In: Burghart Wachinger et al. (Hrsg.): The German literature of the Middle Ages. Author Lexicon . 2nd, completely revised edition, Volume 2. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1980, ISBN 3-11-007264-5 , Sp. 1105-1109; here: col. 1105 f.
  4. ↑ Cf. Robert Halleux: Les textes alchimiques , Brepols, Turnhout 1979 (= Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, 32), pp. 25-26.
  5. ↑ Bernhard Dietrich Haage: The corpuscular theory in Geber latinus. Würzburg medical history reports 12 (1994), pp. 19–24; P. 19 f.
  6. ↑ Quoted from Manfred Ullmann: The natural and secret sciences in Islam. Brill, Leiden [u. a.] 1972, pp. 203f.
  7. ↑ Eric John Holmyard: Alchemy. Hammondsworth 1968, pp. 72-81
  8. ↑ Claus Priesner, Karin Figala: Alchemy. Lexicon of a Hermetic Science , Beck 1998, p. 26.
  9. ↑ Julius Ruska: The seventy books of Ǵābir ibn Hajjān. In: Julius Ruska (ed.): Studies on the history of chemistry. Festgabe. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 1927.
  10. ↑ Friedemann Rex : On the theory of natural processes in early Arabic science Das 'Kitab al-Ihrag', translated and explained. A contribution to the alchemical world view of the Gabir writings (8th / 10th century AD) Steiner, Wiesbaden 1975, ISBN 3-515-02067-5 , also habilitation thesis Tübingen.
  11. ↑ Friedrun H. Hau: Jabir ibn Haiyan. 2005, p. 445.
  12. ↑ Friedrun R. Hau: Jabir ibn Haiyan. In: Werner E. Gerabek u. a. (Ed.): Encyclopedia of medical history. De Gruyter, 2005, p. 445
personal data
SURNAME Jabir ibn Hayyan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Giver; Jeber; Yeber; Abū Mūsā; Abu Musa; Jabir ibn Haiyan; Gabir ibn Haiyan; Abū Mūsā Jābir ibn Hayyān; Abū Mūsā Ǧābir ibn Ḥayyān; Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hajjan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Persian alchemist, historicity doubtful
DATE OF BIRTH uncertain: 8th century
DATE OF DEATH uncertain: 9th century