Jabir Ibn Hayyan

Abu Abdallah Jabir ibn Hayyan ibn Abdallah al-Kufi, known as al-Sufi. 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 they claim he was a companion of Ja'far al-Sadiq and was from Kufa. Some philosophers claim he was one of them, and he has works on logic and philosophy. 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. It is said that he was among the Barmakids, attached to Ja'far ibn Yahya. 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. 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. 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 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. Al-Razi, in his books, says: "Our teacher Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan said". ²