2020/02/01 by Leonardo Capezzone · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Archaeology and Historical Studies #Islamic Studies and History #Historical and Linguistic Studies #Ninth #Politics #Alchemy #Literature #Poetry #Classics #History #Philosophy #Art #Law #Political science
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0041977x20000014
openalex publication_date 2020/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Abstract The community of Shiite alchemists gathered under the pen name of Ǧābir b. Ḥayyān produced an important corpus first studied by Paul Kraus, who dated it between the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries. The religious, doctrinal and political issues of the corpus – especially in the last two collections – show that the Ǧābireans were a real sectarian trend unknown to heresiographers. Kraus, along with some scholars after him, understood the Ǧābirean community to be an expression of Ismaili thought. This paper aims to reconsider: a) the religious and political affiliation of Ǧābir's alchemical community in the light of textual comparisons that show a close connection between the Ǧābireans and the esoteric tenets characterizing the Shiite ġuluww as mirrored in the heresiographic sources of the late third/ninth and early fourth/tenth centuries, and in the Ġulāt literary sources; and b) the last collection of the Ǧābirean corpus as a polemical outcome specific to the Shiite milieu between the lesser and the greater Occultation of the twelfth Imam.