Islamic Civilization

Distorted Modern History, and the True Islamic Role in the Rise of Modern Science and Chemical Industries:

 Two matters can be brought into focus in the following to highlight historians’ distortions of the role of Muslim chemistry: experimentation and the place of Islamic chemistry in the rise of modern chemical industries.

Experimentation:

Crucial in the advance of chemistry and the rise of modern science, in general, was the advent of experimentation. Modern historians, following Crombie, in their overwhelming majority, cite Grosseteste (1175-1253) as the precursor of experimentation.[1]  Crombie says:

‘I have argued at length elsewhere that the contribution of Grosseteste and Roger Bacon and their successors to the scientific tradition of their time was to formulate, from the theoretical empiricism of the twelfth century and the deductive form of scientific explanation learnt from Euclid and from Aristotle's logic, a conception of science that was experimental, mathematical and deductive. From one point of view we can see their work as an attempt to combine the form of scientific thought imposed by Greek geometry and expounded by Plato with the empirical requirements insisted upon by the other great tradition of Greek methodology, that of medicine and of Aristotle.’[2]

Likewise, Beaujouan says:

‘Robert Grosseteste, for instance, did not break with the Platonic and Augustinian tradition: his cosmology of light led him to give first place among the natural sciences to geometrical optics and to the mathematical concepts connected with it. His conception of experimental science owed much to Aristotle, but retained its independence. He was thus in the forefront of a scientific revival[3] of which the most illustrious exponent was Roger Bacon and of which the most brilliant success was the more or less accurate explanation of the rainbow by Dietrich of Freiberg.’[4]

These generally held views are fallacies, however. As noted in the preceding chapter devoted to scholarship, experimentation became not just a necessity, but was generalised in the Islamic world from the 8^th century onwards. Muslim chemistry, as soon as it emerged, Singer points out, had as its principal features its positive and experimental side, partly the products of the men of genius who expounded it; whilst any of its philosophical and mystical elements was drawn mainly from Greek sources.[5] Jabir Ibn Hayyan, for instance, Holmyard notes, was not just acquainted with the operations of crystallization, calcination etc, but also, and above all, he describes them.[6] He seeks to understand the changes that take place during the processes, stating clearly his aims from the operation, how, for instance, calcination aims at removing impurities from metals, and how such metals are calcinated in different ways.[7] Jabir, who in the words of Sherwood Taylor deserves honour as one of the few medieval writers who soiled his hands in a laboratory.[8] In Jabir’s own words:

‘The first essential in chemistry is that thou shouldest perform practical work and conduct experiments, for he who performs not practical work nor makes experiments will never attain to the least degree of mastery. But thou, O my son, do thou experiment so that thou mayest acquire knowledge. Scientists delight not in abundance of material; they rejoice only in the excellence of their experimental methods.’[9]

The ingenious use of unit operations like evaporation, sublimation, filtration, crystallisation, distillation, etc, was an essential and significant aspect of Jabir’s experimental advancement.[10] Amongst his experimental accomplishments are basic lead carbonate, ammonium chloride, preparation of nitric acid and sulphuric acid (the basic ingredients of the first aqua regia used to dissolve gold), etc.[11]   

Around a century after Jabir, Al-Razi  (b. 866) went further not just in ridding the science of every mystical aspect inherited from the Greeks, but above all in relying solely on experimental evidence or technical experience.[12]          In his Secret of Secrets,[13] Al-Razi catalogues and describes his experiments, his methodology, the materials he made use of, the apparatus, and the conditions of his experiments.[14] He insists on the systematic recording and classification of carefully observed and verified facts regarding chemical substances and their reactions, and their apparatus, in very clear language.[15] In his Secret of secrets, he makes the earliest known suggestions of a chemical laboratory. He divides the equipment into a) apparatus for melting metal; b) instruments for manipulating substances. In the list are included blacksmith’s hearth, bellows, crucible, refractory stills, ladles, tongs, shears, pestle and mortar, moulds, curcubites, alembics, receiving flasks, aludels, beakers, glass cups, iron pans, sieves, flasks, phials, cauldrons, sand-baths, water baths, ovens, hair cloth, linen filters, stoves, a kiln, funnels and dishes.[16] A laboratory stocked in the manner of that of al-Razi, Singer insists, cannot have looked very much different from that of an English laboratory of a thousand years later; and certainly ‘was not one of those witches’ kitchens usually portrayed as abodes of alchemists.’[17] In fact, Al-Razi gives details of making composite pieces of apparatus, and provides the sort of information that can be found in manuals of laboratory practice today.[18]

The same eagerness for experiment was shown by other Muslim chemists such as Maslama al-Majriti of Madrid (d.1007), whose experience with mercury, which he describes in precise detail, indicates that he carried out his own exhortation to be assiduous in practical work.[19] Maslama’s early, accurate observation of the oxidation of mercury, was an experiment which, Holmyard insists, was, in the hands of Lavoisier (late 18^th century), behind epoch making developments. [20]

The Place of Islamic Chemistry in Modern Industry:

Many accounts by historians of chemistry  (Stillman, Von Lipmann, Berthelot, etc) cited in the first heading have condemned Islamic chemistry to the status of an occult practice with no relevance, nor positive impact on modern science, life, society, or economy. The following brief assessment of historical reality proves the complete reverse.

Under the Muslims, chemical technology developed considerably.[21] Such developments included dyeing, metallurgy of silver, gold, copper, iron, lead, tin and others, tanning, manufacture of inks, paper, and many other products.[22] Islamic chemistry also bequeathed to modern industry a vast array of products and processes: nitric and sulphuric acids, silver nitrate and potassium, alcohol; tinctures and their applications in tanning and textiles; distillation of plants, of flowers, the making of perfumes and therapeutic pharmacy etc.[23] Citing De aluminibus,[24] which was composed in Muslim Spain (anonymous,)[25] Multhauf refers to processes for obtaining chloride of mercury, corrosive sublimate (Hg Cl2), thus marking the beginnings of synthetic chemistry.[26] Usage of corrosive sublimate in chlorination of materials, Multhauf notes, also marks the beginning of mineral acids.[27] Heavy chemicals developed through the medieval era via the manufacture of alum out of ‘aluminous’ rocks (through artificial weathering of alumite), and through crystallization of ‘ammonia alum’ (ammonium aluminium sulphate).[28] The most comprehensive study on alum, its extraction, applications, trade, technology associated with, etc, can be found detailed by Singer.[29] Incidentally, Multhauf is also guilty of the contradictory approach found amongst Western historians, on one hand saying so much on the Islamic contribution to modern chemical industries, and on the other saying that it was European Renaissance which gave chemistry a secure and significant place in science, instead of the Islamic ‘alchemy.’[30]

A number of Muslim chemical, or chemical based, industries and crafts had a dramatic impact on the rise of modern society, culture, and economy. Beginning with the oil industry, naphta, for instance, deriving from the Arabic naft. The oil industry, which was under state monopoly, was widely spread over East-Central Asia (around Baku, and modern day oil fields in Khuzistan), and also in parts of what is now Iraq  and the Arab peninsula. A variety of substances were extracted from it: nafta itself, pitch, tar etc, whose usage was for lighting, household energy, sealing of vessels, used as a sealant in house construction, military purposes, and even to cure particular diseases.[31] 

The paper industry also blossomed thanks to its links with chemical industries. The Chinese used the bark of mulberry trees as basic material, the Muslims used linen instead,[32] which demanded chemical applications and techniques to deliver the same final product, thus opening the way to the concept of substitution. Also according to Ibn Badis, author of The Book of the Staff of the Scribes and Implements of the Discerning, paper was dyed after it was manufactured, rather than being coloured before the pulp was put into moulds.[33]

The glass industry relies on chemical applications (colouring, calcination, etc), and materials (soda, magnesium…). Egyptian glass vessels, for instance, were decorated with lustre, a shiny, sometimes metallic effect achieved by painting copper or silver oxide on the surface of the object, which then was fired at a temperature of about 600°C (1112°F.) in reducing conditions.[34] In his Secret of Secrets, already referred to, Al-Razi , other than classifying natural substances, also adds a number of artificially obtained ones such as lead oxide, caustic soda, and various alloys.

It is worth adding here this practical instance of how to make hard soap according to al-Antaki:

‘Take one part of al-qali, and half a part of lime. Grind them well and place them in a tank. Pour five times water and stir for two hours. The tank is provided with a plug-hole. When the stirring is stopped and the liquid becomes clear, the hole is opened. When the water is emptied plug the hole again and pour water and stir, then empty, and so on until no taste is left in the water. This being done while keeping each water separate from the other.

Then take from the pure oil ten times the quantity of the first water and place on a fire. When it boils feed it with the last water little by little. Then the water before the last until at last you feed it with the first water. Then it becomes like dough. Here it is ladled out [and spread] on mats until it is partially dry. Then it is cut and placed on nura [slaked lime]. This is the finished product and there is no need to cool it or wash it with cold water while cooking. Some add salt to the al-qali and lime in half the quantity of lime. Others add some starch just before cooking is over. The oil can be replaced by other oils and fats such as the oil of carthamus.’[35]

The discovery of inorganic acids has had a great impact on the development of modern chemistry. These were the products of the distillation of alum, sal ammoniac (chloride of ammonia), saltpetre (potassium nitrate) and common salt in various proportions, as well as vitriol.[36] Vitriol was a term used in early times for hydrated sulphate crystals, in later times,  it became synonymous with sulphuric acid.[37] These various acids produced during chemical experiments became valuable agents in a number of industrial processes. [38] Jabir’s  Sanduk al-Hikma (The Chest of Wisdom) de inventione veritalis (in Latin ), contains the first clear account of the preparation of nitric acid and aqua regia:

‘Take of vitriol of copper one pound, of Saltpeter ½ a pound, of Yemen  alum ¼ pound. Extract the water (that is distil) with an alembic at dull red heat. The distillate becomes much more active if you add a quarter pound of sal ammoniacum, for the liquid then dissolves gold, sulphur and silver.’[39]

The distillation will yield nitric acid. When sal ammoniac is added to this, hydrochloric acid is formed and the mixture becomes the solvent used by the goldsmiths and chemists.[40]

Sulphuric acid was first described in Islamic writing in the Jabirian corpus, and it can be made by distilling vitriol or alum, or by the combustion of sulphur.[41] Al-Razi , too, in one of his recipes called it ‘water of distilled alum,’ and he used it as one of the reagents which he prepared beforehand and kept for use in his chemical work.[42]

Hydrochloric acid was known as spirit of salt. Al-Razi  gives the following recipe:

‘Take equal parts of sweet salt, bitter salt, Tabarzad salt, Indian salt, salt of al-qali and salt of urine. After adding an equal weight of good crystallised sal ammoniac, dissolve by moisture and distil the mixture. This will distil over to give a strong water which will clave stone instantly.’[43]

In other Islamic manuscripts, there are recipes in which sal ammoniac and vitriol are distilled together.[44]

Islamic industrial chemistry extended to many other applications, processes, and products, some of which are succinctly outlined here. Again, back to Jabir who gives a description of a furnace for melting metals, and mentions the vessels in which such processes were conducted.[45] He was acquainted with crucibles, and even describes the mode of making cupels, nearly similar to those used at present.[46] The process of cupellating gold and silver, and purifying them by means of lead, is given by him minutely and accurately: he calls it cineritium, or at least that is the term used by the Latin  translator.[47] His noteworthy applications also include refinement of metals, preparation of steel, dyeing of cloth and leather, varnishes to waterproof cloth, and protect iron from rust and corrosion, using manganese dioxide in glass making, using of iron pyrites for writing in gold, distillation of vinegar to concentrate acetic acid, etc.[48]

Al-Razi , too, describes several industrial applications, including the use of alum, notably on mercury in the amalgamation of gold and silver, in the calcination and amalgamation of copper and lead etc.[49]

Al-Majriti, in his Rutbat Al-Hakim (The Rank of the Wise), amongst other things gives formulae and instructions for the purification of precious metals.[50]

In the relationship between chemistry and pharmacy, the Muslims constantly developed their material medica.[51] These improvements, as Thomson points out, were made by Muslim scholars, for no notice is taken of these processes by any of the Greek or Roman writers that have come down to us.[52] We find them minutely described by the earliest chemical writers among the Muslims.[53] Al-Razi , for instance, used chemical compounds for medical purposes, and following a scrupulous methodology.[54] For internal use, al-Razi recommends several substances related to the so called ‘mineral kingdom,’ such as camphor, lapis lazuli (composed of silica, alumina, carbonate and sulphate of lime and other minerals), concretion of bamboo (calcinated ivory composed of silica potash and lime salts together with organic material), vitriols (recommended in small quantities) etc…[55] Al-Zahrawi (d.1013) in his Liber servitoris informs the reader how to prepare ‘simples’ from which were compounded the complex drugs then generally used.[56] He devotes one third of the treatise to the preparation of chemical compounds and the purification, calcinations or washing of raw material of mineral origin, all of which are primarily intended for medicinal use.[57] Al-Zahrawi gives methods of preparing litharge, white lead, lead sulphide (burnt lead), burnt copper, cadmia, marcasite, yellow arsenic and lime, vitriols, salts, natron etc; whilst his distillation as a means of preparing drugs, was the most significant aspect of all in the view of Sherwood Taylor.[58] Al-Muwaffaq (fl. 10^th century) wrote The Foundations of the True Properties of Remedies, which amongst others describes properties of arsenious oxide and silicic acid. He made distinctions between sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate, and drew attention to the poisonous nature of copper compounds, especially copper vitriol, and lead compounds. He also mentions the distillation of sea-water for drinking.[59]