Sezgin, Fuat [Alchemy] [Hermeticism]Biblio.com
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1971507666Brill 1971. Hardcover. VERY GOOD. xi 398. 8vo first printing with sewn binding in burgundy leatherette over boards gilt stamped lettering. Spine sunned and foxing to top page edge clean and sharp otherwise with tight square binding. Brill hardcover
1979508629Institute for the History of Arabic Science 1979. Paperback. VERY GOOD. Critical text of Pseudo-Apollonios in Arabic with German introduction. 702pp. 4to sewn binding in publisher's printed wraps. Hinges reinforced with scotch tape tips a bit worn sound and unmarked otherwise. Quite a scarce volume. 'Here for the first time in the history of orientalist scholarship is a complete critical edition of the Kitäb sirr al-khaliqa The Book of the Secret of Creation in its Arabic text; it is also titled Kitab al-'ilal The Book of the Causes. A separate study of the tradition of the text together with a German abstract is planned to be published in the series Ars Medica. Together with the Tabula Smaragdina which originally had its place at the end of this treatise the Kitäb sirr al-khaliqa was one of the best known and most influential treatises in Arabic and Latin medieval alchemy and cosmology. Long ago this book was correctly identified as a spurious work of Apollonius of Tyana. No Greek predecessor is known and the Arabic text in the present form was probably composed around the time of the caliph Ma'mun A.D. 813-833. In many respects the Kitab sirr al-khaliqa resembles the Book of Treasures by Job of Edessa: like it the Kitäb sirr al-khaliga sheds a good deal of light on the broad spectrum of often rather crude explanations of the natural phenomena human physiology and pyschology and philosophical problems that provide the fertile soil for the growing scientific movement in the Islamic culture of the early ninth century. More specifically this Arabic text is of enormous interest for the study of the development of a scientific terminology in that language. The edition is mainly based on four manuscripts representing the most archaic recension and chosen from among seventeen that were examined out of some forty known to be extant. Even the critical edition of the Latin version prepared by M. T. D'Alverny and F. Hudry was consulted in a first draft. When we further consider that the editor had to write the 702-page Arabic text with all the variants diligently by hand the reader cannot fail to feel grateful for an amazingly well-executed contribution to the carly history of Arabic science.' Anton Heinen Review in History of Science Society. Institute for the History of Arabic Science paperback
