السيمياء العربية _ اضمحلال الدولة الإسلامية .. من روما الى بغداد

Arab Semiotics _ The Decline of the Islamic State .. From Rome to Baghdad

Arab Semiotics

Despite dealing with Greek fire, the Arabs prevailed and began to absorb and store the knowledge of the nations that had become their subjects. Baghdad became the advanced intellectual center of Europe, Asia and Africa, and it hosted scholars from all over to teach at the Arab courts. Among these were Hindu scholars, doctors and scribes, and because India had some exchange with China (the Tantrics revere 18 magicians - alchemists, at least two of whom were Chinese), contact with Indian knowledge meant contact with some Chinese knowledge as well. One piece of information in particular was transmitted to the Arabs and finally, as we shall see, to the West, namely the formula for an explosive mixture that became known as gunpowder. This mixture of potassium nitrate (nitre), sulfur and carbon exploded because the solids reacted when ignited to form gases (carbon dioxide, nitrogen and sulfur dioxide), which occupied a much larger volume than the solids at the beginning, and the expansion occurred very quickly.

The Muslim rulers supported the scholars who fled Alexandria, and they obtained Arabic translations of the works of Plato, Aristotle, Galen, Pseudo-Democritus, Zosimus and others. In this way, the Arabs came into contact with the practical experience of alchemy and made it an Arab science in a short time. The main contribution of the Arabs to alchemy was to mitigate the mystical tendency and to deal in a way that was closer to the practical approach of the early Alexandrian alchemists. The Arabs may have felt that they were not obliged to use magic to reach results because they were interested in the process as much as in the goals themselves. Whatever the reasons, the alchemy that Europe eventually inherited from the Arabs used completely realistic methods.

The Arab alchemists assumed, perhaps relying on Aristotelian properties For the elements, all substances have natures - such as heat, cold and dryness - and the task of the semiotician was to prepare the pure natures and determine the proportions in which they enter into the composition of the substances, then recombine them in the appropriate quantities to give the desired results. For example, some organic substances give gases, flammable substances, liquids and ash when heated. These were taken as corresponding to air, fire, water and earth, the elements that must be present in the original substance. Each of these components was distilled separately to isolate the pure nature of the element: heat, cold, moisture and dryness. "Coldness" was isolated with great effort and effort, by evaporating water until dry with distillation dozens to hundreds of times. The result was a pure white substance which, when it came into contact with the slightest degree of moisture, dissolved and turned back into water (7), which was - without a doubt - the remains of the salts that were dissolved in the original impure water. These dissolved salts are responsible for the water spots that form on dishes that are left to dry in the air). But these remains were taken by semioticians as proof of the validity of the theory.

The characteristics of Arab semiotics are evident in the works of the following figures by which they are known. Although the real existence of some of these figures as individuals is questionable, they were historically influential as authors: their records, written with sufficient clarity, were the foundation upon which European semiotics was built.

Jabir ibn Hayyan

Jabir, who was remembered by Aristotle, postulated that there were two airs: “earthly smoke” (small particles of earth on their way to becoming fire) and “water vapor” (small particles of water on their way to becoming air). These two airs, he believed, mixed to become metals. Jabir, however, modified Aristotle’s method by postulating that air undergoes intermediate transformations into sulfur and mercury before becoming metals. He believed that the reason for the existence of different types of metals was that sulfur and mercury were not always pure. He postulated that if the exact proportions of sulfur and mercury were taken to the proper degree of purity, gold could be produced.

As an Arab alchemist, Jabir trusted in the value of experimentation, but he could not completely rid himself of the mystical (Sufi) influences that were dominant in those days. The body of writings attributed to Jabir are written in a very Sufi style, but the standard methods of crystallization, calcification, dissolution, sublimation, and reduction were The various processes of preparing steel and dyeing hair are clearly discussed. Although Jabir himself may have written some of the works, all the works attributed to him cannot have been the work of a single person, and may be the collected works of a secret society called the Brethren of Purity. Furthermore, the writings seem to have been completed around 1000 AD, while the person known to Jabir died in the ninth century, and the different parts of the works are written in different styles, as happens with different authors. Some Latin books were later attributed to Jabir, the Latin form of Jabir, and these books have no Arabic equivalents, and were probably written after 1100.

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (Rhazes)

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi, the most materialistic figure, must have come from a wealthy family, for he was able to study music, literature, philosophy, magic, and alchemy. He also studied medicine under a Jewish convert to Islam. He wrote prolifically on medicine, natural sciences, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, logic, theology, and alchemy. He was said to have a large, square head. When he sat down to teach, he would seat his students directly in front of him, then seat their students behind them, and then seat the other students at the back of the class, as far away from him as possible. If one of them asked a question, he would direct it to the farthest row. If he did not receive an answer, he would move the question to the nearest row, and so on until he reached Al-Razi. Given the vastness of the Islamic empire, the Arabs knew and used chemical substances found in nature, far more than the Alexandrian chemists did. In his important semiotic book, The Secret of Secrets, Al-Razi records information and classifies chemicals according to their origin (animal, vegetable, mineral or derived from other chemicals, and divides minerals into six classes, extending a previous division by Zosimus), there are bodies - metals, which are fusible and can be hammered, spirits - sulfur, arsenic, mercury and ammonium chloride, which are materials that evaporate in fire), stones - marcasite and magnesia (materials that crack or shatter if hammered), vitriol - sulfates (a water-soluble compound composed of metal, sulfur and oxygen, borate, sodium salt with boron found in nature, and nitrate, sodium carbonate found in nature), plant ash, and salts - common salt, sodium chloride, table salt and potash (potassium carbonate from wood ash), and nitrate, potassium and sodium nitrate). Al-Razi, as a logical person, relied on the facts that he observed or could verify, and almost completely avoided esoteric Sufism. For example, the following recipe for aqueous caustic soda solution is straightforward and can be done in any public chemistry laboratory today.

Take equal parts of calcined alkali (sodium carbonate) and unslaked lime (calcium oxide), pour four times as much water and leave for 3 days. Filter the mixture, then add alkali and lime to about a quarter of the filtered solution. Repeat 7 times.

Pour this into half [the volume of dissolved ammonium chloride. Save it afterwards; it is indeed the strongest aqueous caustic]. This will dissolve talc (mica) instantly (8).

Interestingly, al-Razi chose a logical source for his ethical principles. He rejected divine intervention entirely based on his religious philosophy and his professionalism in alchemy.

He saw no value in traditional religious beliefs, and he said that these beliefs were the main cause of war, and because he had this conviction, and still worked freely in Islamic society, Islamic culture was tolerant.

Ali al-Husayn ibn Sina (Avicenna)

Avicenna was one of the most prolific and influential Muslim authors of his time. He was a Persian physician, who lived around 1000 AD, and prepared his own medicines and also researched the manufacture of alchemical gold. There were three reasons for this range of achievements: his own natural energy, his early training, and his vast experience, although the latter unfortunately came at his own expense.

As a child, he was precocious, had a strong memory for literary works, and his science-loving father pushed him into philosophy and science. Ibn Sina studied Islamic law, medicine, and metaphysics. He gained a reputation as a capable physician in his youth, and was admitted to the royal library of the ruling family because he had successfully treated a sick prince. The ruling family was eventually deposed, and Ibn Sina became an outcast, but he

finally found a court that accepted him as a physician and appointed him as a minister twice. But this job was ill-fated for him, as it exposed him to political intrigues. Ibn Sina had to hide from time to time, and was even imprisoned on one occasion. Despite the political turmoil around him, Ibn Sina managed to continue his work. It was said that he performed his duties as a physician and administrator during the day and then engaged in heated discussions with his students at night.

Even in prison, Ibn Sina continued to write. When his patron was deposed, Ibn Sina was imprisoned, and finally forced to flee. He and a small group of followers eventually found another court where he could continue his work. Unfortunately, part of Ibn Sina’s duties at the new court was to accompany his patron on the battlefield. Ibn Sina fell ill on one of these trips, and died despite his own efforts to recover.

Avicenna produced an impressive amount of work during his lifetime. His 200 treatises on the contagious nature of tuberculosis, described pleurisy, and various forms of nervous diseases, and suggested that the disease could be spread by contamination of water and soil. As a chemist, Ibn Sina divided metals into stones, fusible materials, sulfur, and salts. He rejected the theory that a metal could be treated with elixirs to become gold. He believed that if transformation were possible in any way, the metal could be broken down into its components and reassembled. His major achievement, the Canon of Medicine, is a systematic encyclopedia based on his reading of Greek physicians from the Roman Empire, other Arabic works, and to a lesser extent his own clinical knowledge (his notes were lost during his travels). The Canon of Medicine was a medical reference for Arabs and then for European medicine for the next 500 years. When his fame and fame, like Galen, faded, he returned to Europe in the sixteenth century, an event that reshaped the history of chemistry once again. Decline of the Islamic State

The Arabs found their unity and inspiration in Islam, and built an empire based on the power of Islam. The Islamic Empire combined Greek, Latin, Indian, and Chinese knowledge, and imported alchemy and chemical technology from its own regions. In their thirst for knowledge and science, the Arabs expanded the basics of these fields and made alchemy a reality again. But eventually the Islamic Empire began to succumb to forces reminiscent of those responsible for the decline of the Roman Empire. There was a gradual break in 700, when an Arab prince declared Spain independent from the Caliphate, and then the Egyptian Arabs broke away as well. The Mongols and Huns invaded the Islamic Empire, coinciding with the disturbing and mysterious bite of another mosquito: the Crusaders. Although the Arabs continued to contribute to chemistry over the following centuries (in fact, until modern times, for example, the 1990 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner is an Arab-American), the banner of excellence had passed from their hands.