Editing Alchemy (section)

=== Islamic world ===
{{Main|Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam}}
[[File:Al-Jaahith - African Arab Naturalist - Basra - al jahiz.jpg|thumb|upright|15th-century artistic impression of [[Jābir ibn Hayyān|Jabir ibn Hayyan]] (Geber), Codici Ashburnhamiani 1166, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence]]

After [[the Fall of the Roman Empire|the fall of the Roman Empire]], the focus of alchemical development moved to the Islamic World. Much more is known about [[Islam]]ic alchemy because it was better documented: indeed, most of the earlier writings that have come down through the years were preserved as Arabic translations.<ref>{{cite book |first=Titus |last=Burckhardt | author-link=Titus Burckhardt |title=Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul |location=Baltimore |publisher=Penguin |year=1967 |page=46 |others=Trans. William Stoddart |isbn=978-0-906540-96-1}}</ref> The word ''alchemy'' itself was derived from the Arabic word ''al-kīmiyā'' (الكيمياء). The early Islamic world was a melting pot for alchemy. [[Plato]]nic and [[Aristotle|Aristotelian]] thought, which had already been somewhat appropriated into hermetical science, continued to be assimilated during the late 7th and early 8th centuries through [[Syriac language|Syriac]] translations and scholarship.

In the late ninth and early tenth centuries, the Arabic works attributed to [[Jābir ibn Hayyān]] (Latinized as "Geber" or "Geberus") introduced a new approach to alchemy. [[Paul Kraus (Arabist)|Paul Kraus]], who wrote the standard reference work on Jabir, put it as follows:

{{blockquote|To form an idea of the historical place of Jabir's alchemy and to tackle the problem of its sources, it is advisable to compare it with what remains to us of the alchemical literature in the [[Greek language]]. One knows in which miserable state this literature reached us. Collected by [[Byzantine science|Byzantine scientists]] from the tenth century, the corpus of the Greek alchemists is a cluster of incoherent fragments, going back to all the times since the third century until the end of the Middle Ages.

The efforts of Berthelot and Ruelle to put a little order in this mass of literature led only to poor results, and the later researchers, among them in particular Mrs. Hammer-Jensen, Tannery, Lagercrantz, von Lippmann, Reitzenstein, Ruska, Bidez, Festugière and others, could make clear only few points of detail ....

The study of the Greek alchemists is not very encouraging. An even surface examination of the Greek texts shows that a very small part only was organized according to true experiments of laboratory: even the supposedly technical writings, in the state where we find them today, are unintelligible nonsense which refuses any interpretation.

It is different with Jabir's alchemy. The relatively clear description of the processes and the alchemical apparati, the methodical classification of the substances, mark an experimental spirit which is extremely far away from the weird and odd esotericism of the Greek texts. The theory on which Jabir supports his operations is one of clearness and of an impressive unity. More than with the other Arab authors, one notes with him a balance between theoretical teaching and practical teaching, between the ''[[Ilm (Arabic)|'ilm]]'' and the ''amal''. In vain one would seek in the Greek texts a work as systematic as that which is presented, for example, in the ''Book of Seventy''.<ref name=Kraus>Kraus, Paul, Jâbir ibn Hayyân, ''Contribution à l'histoire des idées scientifiques dans l'Islam. I. Le corpus des écrits jâbiriens. II. Jâbir et la science grecque,''. Cairo (1942–1943). Repr. By Fuat Sezgin, (Natural Sciences in Islam. 67–68), Frankfurt. 2002:
(cf. {{cite web |author=Ahmad Y Hassan |title=A Critical Reassessment of the Geber Problem: Part Three |url=http://www.history-science-technology.com/geber/geber%2003.html|access-date=16 September 2014|author-link=Ahmad Y Hassan|archive-date=28 May 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140528120216/http://www.history-science-technology.com/geber/geber%2003.html|url-status=live}})</ref>}}

Islamic philosophers also made great contributions to alchemical hermeticism. The most influential author in this regard was arguably Jabir. Jabir's ultimate goal was ''[[Takwin]]'', the artificial creation of life in the alchemical laboratory, up to, and including, human life. He analysed each Aristotelian element in terms of four basic qualities of ''hotness'', ''coldness'', ''dryness'', and ''moistness''.<ref name=burckhardt29 /> According to Jabir, in each metal two of these qualities were interior and two were exterior. For example, lead was externally cold and dry, while gold was hot and moist. Thus, Jabir theorized, by rearranging the qualities of one metal, a different metal would result.<ref name=burckhardt29>{{cite book |first=Titus |last=Burckhardt | author-link=Titus Burckhardt |title=Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul |location=Baltimore |publisher=Penguin |year=1967 |page=29 |others=Trans. William Stoddart |isbn=978-0-906540-96-1}}</ref> By this reasoning, the search for the [[philosopher's stone]] was introduced to Western alchemy. Jabir developed an elaborate [[numerology]] whereby the root letters of a substance's name in Arabic, when treated with various transformations, held correspondences to the element's physical properties.

The elemental system used in medieval alchemy also originated with Jabir. His original system consisted of seven elements, which included the five [[classical element]]s ([[aether (classical element)|aether]], [[Air (classical element)|air]], [[Earth (classical element)|earth]], [[Fire (classical element)|fire]], and [[Water (classical element)|water]]) in addition to two [[chemical element]]s representing the metals: [[Sulfur|sulphur]], "the stone which burns", which characterized the principle of combustibility, and [[Mercury (element)|mercury]], which contained the idealized principle of metallic properties.{{Citation needed|date=January 2021}} Shortly thereafter, this evolved into eight elements, with the Arabic concept of the three metallic principles: sulphur giving flammability or combustion, mercury giving volatility and stability, and [[Salt (chemistry)|salt]] giving solidity.<ref name="r8">Strathern, Paul. (2000), ''Mendeleyev's Dream – the Quest for the Elements'', New York: [[Berkley Books]]</ref>{{Verify source|date=January 2021}}{{Better source needed|date=January 2021}} The [[atomic theory]] of [[corpuscularianism]], where all physical bodies possess an inner and outer layer of minute particles or corpuscles, also has its origins in the work of Jabir.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Distilling knowledge: alchemy, chemistry, and the scientific revolution |first=Bruce T. |last=Moran |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-674-01495-4 |page=146 |quote=a corpuscularian tradition in alchemy stemming from the speculations of the medieval author Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan)}}</ref>

From the 9th to 14th centuries, alchemical theories faced criticism from a variety of practical Muslim chemists, including [[Al-Kindi|Alkindus]],<ref>Felix Klein-Frank (2001), "Al-Kindi", in [[Oliver Leaman]] & [[Hossein Nasr]], ''History of Islamic Philosophy'', p. 174. London: [[Routledge]].</ref> [[Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Marmura |first1=Michael E. |name-list-style=vanc |year=1965 |title=''An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines: Conceptions of Nature and Methods Used for Its Study by the Ikhwan Al-Safa'an, Al-Biruni, and Ibn Sina'' by Seyyed Hossein Nasr |journal=Speculum |volume=40 |issue=4 |pages=744–746 |doi=10.2307/2851429 |jstor=2851429}}</ref> [[Avicenna]]<ref>[[Robert Briffault]] (1938). ''The Making of Humanity'', pp. 196–197.</ref> and [[Ibn Khaldun]]. In particular, they wrote refutations against the idea of the [[Philosopher's stone|transmutation of metals]].

From the 14th century onwards, many materials and practices originally belonging to Indian alchemy ([[Rasayana]]) were assimilated in the Persian texts written by Muslim scholars.<ref>{{harvnb|Speziale|2019}}</ref>