Quotes:Geber or Jâbir

Zirkoff, Boris

Geber or Jâbir (more fully Abû Mûsâ Jâbir ibn Hayyân). Most celebrated alchemist of mediaeval times, bom at Tus (near the present 576 Meshed) in 721 or 722 a.d. After the execution of his father for political reasons, he was sent to Arabia where he studied under Harbi at Himayari, and attached himself to the sixth Shi‘ite Imam, Ja‘Far al-Sâdiq, from whom he probably obtained his first knowledge of occultism, and allied sciences. He later joined the Sufi Order. Having become a friend of Hârûk-al-Rashîd’s powerful ministers the Marmakids, he shared their banishment from Baghdad, a.d. 803. Retiring to Kûfa, he spent the rest of his fife in obscurity, and is alleged to have been alive yet in 813 a.d.

Jâbir was a voluminous writer, and fortunately made a list of his works, which was reproduced in part by Ibn al-Nadîm (d. 385 a.d.) in his Kitâb al-Fihrist, a Muslim encyclopaedia of the 10th century A.D. Many of his works are still extant, nearly 100 having been reported as existing in MS. on native lithographs in various European, Indian and North African libraries. The reputation he acquired has never since been equalled in the history of chemistry. When, in the 12th and 13th centuries Islamic science was transmitted to Latin Christianity, the fame of Jâbir went with it, and some of his works were translated into Latin.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 11, pp. 575-576