Who is speaking? Weighing a source

This lesson asks you to analyse what you gather from research sources for logic, accuracy, reliability, adequacy and bias. The museum offers two examples from the history of chemistry that show how a report is weighed before it is relied on. ¹

Ask of each report: who relays it? Does the source tell what it saw or what it heard? Notice when the source itself says the matter is disputed.

Tell a claim passed on from its holders apart from what another source could confirm. Write down what a reader would need before accepting each claim.

Read one disagreement as the source gives it. People have differed about Jabir, as Ibn al-Nadim sets out ². Ibn al-Nadim relates that others said Jabir has no real existence, and that people wrote the works and ascribed them to him ². He replies that for a learned man to write a book of two thousand folios and then ascribe it to another is a form of ignorance, and that the man was real ². He adds that al-Razi, in his books, says: "Our teacher Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan said" ².

The records hold no passage in which Jabir says why he worked at the craft, and they supply none for him. What they report is what others said of him: people of the craft of gold and silver claim that leadership in the craft came to him, that his affair was kept secret, and that he moved about the cities out of fear of the sultan ². Ibn al-Nadim relates from some trustworthy persons that he lodged in the Bab al-Sham street, in the Lane of Gold, and that most of his stay was in Kufa, where he directed the work of the elixir ². These are reports of where and what, not of why.

Did Jabir exist as the author of the works? People have differed about him, as Ibn al-Nadim sets out ². The Shi'a say he was among their great men and one of the Gates, and claim he was a companion of Ja'far al-Sadiq and from Kufa. Some philosophers claim he was one of them, and he has works on logic and philosophy. It is said that he was among the Barmakids, attached to Ja'far ibn Yahya ². Others said that he has no real existence and that people wrote the works and ascribed them to him; Ibn al-Nadim replies that the man was real ². Each is reported as the claim of the group that holds it ².

Ask of each report: who relays it, and from whom? Ibn al-Nadim relates where Jabir lodged from some trustworthy persons, and the record does not name them ². It is mentioned that a site was found in which there was a gold mortar of about a hundred pounds, which had been Jabir's house in the days of Izz al-Dawla; the wording "it is mentioned" does not say who mentioned it ². In the record on the alchemical art, Ibn al-Nadim transmits what practitioners claimed about the origin of their science ³, and the record says these are claims transmitted from their adherents and need a further source ⁴.

To those who said Jabir had no real existence, Ibn al-Nadim answers that a learned man who wrote a book of two thousand folios and ascribed it to another would be showing ignorance. The others said that people wrote the works and ascribed them to him. Which of the two reports deserves more of your trust, and what would you need to check before accepting either? Answer the strongest objection to your choice, and do not just copy a sentence from the page: why does your choice still stand?

• Jabir ibn Hayyan: what people differed about, and Ibn al-Nadim's reply.
• The alchemical art: what Ibn al-Nadim transmits about the origin of the craft, and al-Razi's saying about the philosopher.
• Ibn al-Nadim: the author of the Fihrist, from which these reports come.

Read the records on Jabir ibn Hayyan and the alchemical art. Make a table of three columns: the claim, who relays it, and what would be needed to check it.