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Although Jildakī was one of the most prolific Muslim writers on alchemy, practically nothing is known of his life save that he flourished during the eighth century A.H., wrote at Cairo and Damascus, and was alive in Jumāda II, A.H. 743 (A.D. 1342). There is even some doubt about his name, for while Ḥājjī Ḫalīfa gives it as ‘Izz ad-Dīn Aidamir ibn ‘Alī ibn Aidamir al-Jildakī, a book ascribed to Jildakī and lithographed at Bombay in 1891 prefers the form ‘Alī ibn Muhammad Aidamir al-Jildakī, and the catalogue of the Khedivial (now Royal) Library at Cairo has ‘Alī ibn Aidamir ibn ‘Alī al-Jildakī. The last variation is almost certainly incorrect and probably arose through a confusion of Jildakī with an ‘All ibn Aidamir who died at Damascus in A.H. 762. E. Wiedemann, who included a section on Jildakī in his Zur Alchemie bet den Arabern, follows Brockelmann in adopting this erroneous form.
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- Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1937
References
Notes
1. Ed. Fluegel, no. 10874.
2. Kanz al-Iḫtiṣīṣ; see above, p. 49.
3. Vol. V, p. 396.
4. Rieu, C., Supplement to the Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the British Museum, 1894, Po 535 Google Scholar.
5. Erlangen, 1922.
6. Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, ii. 138 Google Scholar.
7. Nihāmacr;yat aṭ-Ṭalab. See above, item C, p. 48.
8. Loc. cit.
9. Ibid.
10. Loc. cit.
11. The Kitāb al-Ilm al-Muktasab fī Zirā'at adh-Dhahab was written by Abu'l-Qāsim al-'Irāqī in the thirteenth century, and was edited with an English translation by the present writer in 1923 (Paris, Geuthner).
12. Dhū'n-Nūn was a celebrated Egyptian alchemist and mystic who died about A.D. 860. Some account of his life is to be found in Ibn šallikān (trans. De Slane, 1. 291).
13. The Dīwan Šudhūr adh-Dhahab, or poem entitled 'Particles of Gold’, is the most famous of all Arabic alchemical verse. It was written by the Spanish Moor Abu'l-Ḥasan ‘Alī ibn Mūsā ibn Arfa' Ra's (said to have died in A.D. 1197).
14. Ibn Tammām wrote several alchemical works. He lived at Maiyafāriqīn and according to Brockelmann (I. 524) flourished in the eleventh century A.D., though Muḥammad ibn Tamīm, a commentator on one of his books, incorrectly says that he died in A.H. 762 (A.D. 1360-61).
15. Possibly a commentary on the Emerald Table.
16. Nothing is known of this Indian alchemist, Biyūn (or Biwan) the Brahmin, though at least one of his books is extant. See p. 50.
17. This is a commentary upon the Risālat aš-šams ila'l-Hilāl (Epistle of the Sun to the Crescent Moon) of the tenth-century alchemist Muḥammad ibn Umail. See Stapleton, H. E. and Ḥusain, M. Hidāyat, Mem. Adat. Soc. Bengal, XII, no. 1 (1933)Google Scholar.
18. A title conferred upon him by the Indian Government.
19. Otherwise known as Al-Jauhar al-Manẓūm (The Threaded Jewel).
20. See footnote 11.
21. See the present writer's article on Manṣūr al-Kāmily in Archeion, XIII. 187 (1931)Google Scholar.
22. Cf. Isis, VI. 293 (1924)Google Scholar.
23. ‘Many-columned Iram.’ Cf. Qur'ān, LXXXIX. 6.
24. The proverbial ‘rich man’ among the Arabs.