Qur'anic Sciences
Chemistry
The very name alchemy as
well as its derivative chemistry comes from the Arabic al-kimiya. The Muslims
mastered Alexandrian and even certain elements of Chinese alchemy and very
early in their history, produced their greatest alchemist, Jabir ibn Hayyan
(the Latin Geber) who lived in the 8th century. Putting the cosmological
and symbolic aspects of alchemy aside, one can assert that this art led to
much experimentation with various materials and in the hands of Muhammad
ibn Zakariyya al-Razi was converted into the science of chemistry.
To this day certain chemical
instruments such as the alembic (al-anbiq) still bears their original names
and the mercury-sulphur theory of Islamic alchemy remains as the foundation
of the acid-base theory of chemistry. Al-Razi's division of materials into
animal, vegetable and mineral is still prevalent and a vast body of knowledge
of materials accumulated by Islamic alchemists and chemists has survived
over centuries in both East and West. He used alcohol as an antiseptic in
the 10th century. For example the use of dyes in objects of Islamic art ranging
from carpets to miniatures or the making of glass have much to do with this
branch of learning which the West learned completely from Islamic sources
since alchemy was not studied and practiced in the West before the translation
of Arabic texts into Latin in the 11th century.
The Islamic Bulletin
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