Arabic Text

Sherwood-Taylor, Alchemists (1976), 61, 78. The concept of solidified pneuma seems to originate in the Emerald Table which may date from the second to third century AD, hut is known only in early Arabic texts, not in Greek. 

Abu al-Kasim Muhammad ibn Ahmad al Iraki.Kitab al- ilm al-muktasab fi zira at adh-dhahab = Book of knowledge acquired concerning the cultivation of gold / by Abu 1- Qasim Muhammad ibn Ahmad al- Iraqi. The Arabic text edited with a translation and introduction by E.J. Holmyard. Edited by Eric John Holmyard. Paris Geuthner, 1923. 62, 53 p. 

Avicenna.De congelatione et conglutinatione lapidum being sections of the Kitab al- Shifa the Latin and Arabic texts edited with an English translation of the latter and with critical notes by E. J. Holmyard and D. C. Mandeville. Edited by Eric John Holmyard and D. C. Mandeville. Paris Geuthner, 1927. 86p. 

Hassan, Ahmad Y. al-. The Arabic origin of Liber de compositione alchimiae [Arabic text] The Epistle of Maryanus, the Hermit and Philosopher, to Prince Khalid ibn Yazid. rhttp //www.gabarin.com/avh/ Articles/articles%201. html. 

Includes parallel English-Arabic text, as well as a study of the manuscripts... 

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Emope, Greek and Arab texts were translated from Arabic into Latin, the literary language of Emope. The first translation of an alchemical book from Arabic, The Book of the Composition of Alchemy, was prepared by Robert of Chester in 1144 CE in Spain (31). To the Four Elements, air, water, fire, and earth, Arab alchemists added mercury and sulfur. Paracelsus considered mercury and strlfirr as principles along with salt... 

Above Arab symboBc figures and diagrams of stills (on the right) from a 12th-century Arab text on alchemy. In gener the Arab alchemists were less secretive about their discoveries, and the Arab manuscripts are less shrouded in complicated symbolism than the later European chemical works. 

William R. Newman, The Summaperfectionis"of Pseudo-Geber Leiden Brill, 1991), 49—50. For the Arabic text and a translation therefrom, see Avicenna, Avicennae de congelatione et conglutinatione lapidum, ed. and tr. E.J. Holmyard and D. C. Mandeville (Paris PaulGeuthner, 1927), 85—86,41—42. 

Gibb, H.A.R. Travels ofibn Battuta, A.D. 1325—1354-, translated with revisions and notes from the Arabic text (C. Defremery, B.R. Sanquinetti, Eds.) R.M. McBride and Co. New York, 1958.. 

Thus theories, though numerous in the ancient world, were tested little the lack of instruments admittedly provided little opportunity but there was even less interest. Nor were theories generally related to the known crafts Aristotle (384-322 BC) mentioned that pure water can be made by evaporating sea water, but provided no theory of this. Pliny (in the 1st century AD) described a primitive method of condensation in which the oil obtained by heating rosin is collected on wool placed in the upper part of the apparatus. Typical stills of the 1st and 4th centuries are shown in Figures 1 and 2 simple stills are described also in Arab texts of the 7th and 8th centuries AD. 

In a sense, alchemy has come full circle since translation of the great Arabic texts into Latin in the tenth century CE. Alchemy was the precursor to chemistry and pharmaceuticals. Now the sciences of chemistry, physics and information are on the threshold of making the hidden benefits of alchemy widely available. 

The History has been divided here into 39 volumes, each of which covers about two hundred pages of the original Arabic text in the Leiden edition. An attempt has been made to draw the dividing lines between the individual volumes in such a way that each is to snne degree independent and can be read as such. The page numbers of the Leiden edition appear on the margins of the translated vcdumes. 

I have added dots and hamzas, where appropriate, to the Arabic texts reproduced in this section. No other changes or corrections have been made. 

The ASC of any object will depend on the context chosen. Any object can be made to have high ASC by using a specifically chosen context. But this appears to be the way that information works. If the authors, who do not understand Arabic, look at Arabic text, it appears to be no better then scribbling. The problem is not that Arabic lacks information content, but that the reader is unable to identify it without the necessary context. As a result, this subjectivity appears to capture something about the way information works in the human experience. 

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