c. 721-c. 815

Arab Alchemist and Physician

Jabir ibn Hayyan, often known as Geber, is sometimes confused with a fourteenth-century Spanish mystic who also called himself Geber. In fact the latter deliberately took on the name of his distinguished predecessor, and thus is typically known as "the false Geber." As for the true Jabir, he is widely credited as the Father of Chemistry, the first alchemist to take his studies beyond superstition and into the realm of pure science. Among his many practical discoveries were arsenic, sulphur, and mercury.

Born Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan, Jabir practiced alchemy and medicine professionally in the town of Kufa, now in Iraq, beginning around 776. Little else is known of his biography, except the fact that at one point he worked under the patronage of a vizier from the Barmakid dynasty, and that he was in Kufa...