EARLY POTENTIAL TRACES OF ALGEBRA IN JĀBIR IBN ḤAYYĀN’S WRITINGS

Authors : Ebrahim Al-khaffaf

Pages : 452-467

Doi:10.48070/erciyesakademi.1573483

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Publication Date : 2025-06-30

Article Type : Review Paper

Abstract :“Do not be angry, O my brother, if you find a discourse concerning religion in the middle of a discourse on alchemy without the latter having been completed; or if you find a discourse on alchemy after a discourse on religion before the principles of the latter have been fully established!” (Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān, qtd. in Haq, 1994, p. xxii). This paper sheds light on the possibility that Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān (721-813), the famous alchemist, might have been the first intellectual in the Islamic world to practice algebra, long time before the foundations of this discipline were officially founded by al-Khwārizmī (780-850). It is reasonable to think that the early development of algebra might have sprung while early Muslims were studying the Arabic letters, the way Jābir did. Jābir believed in the perfection of the Arabic language, as a vehicle that would lead its practitioner to truth, after all, it is the unique language of the Qur’ān. And language, in the full sense of the word, was given by Allāh to Adam while he was in Paradise, as we are told in the Qur’ān. Consequently, the development of this field simultaneously with the flourish of religion is not a coincidence, for instance, Boyer and Merkelbach (2011) stated that both religion and mathematics developed at the same time, Pythagoras lived at the time of Buddha and Lao Tzu.
Keywords : Câbir bin Hayyân, Cebir, Simya, El-Hârizmî, İslam’ın Altın Çağı

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