Jabir ibn Hayyan (721 - 815) - Iranian chemist, scientist, alchemist, polymath
Jabir ibn Hayyan (also known by the Latinized version of his name, Geber, 721–815 AD, 103–200 AH) was a Muslim polymath, philosopher, and alchemist. He was probably born in Tus, Khorasan, in present-day Iran, although some sources claim that he was born and grew up in Kufa, Iraq. Some aspects of the life of Jabir ibn Hayyan as well as the authenticity of tens, if not hundreds, of the titles of his vast body of work have been questioned.
More than 3,000 treatises or books are attributed to him in one way or another, covering fields that include cosmology, music, medicine, magic, biology (including the artificial generation of living beings), chemical technology, geometry, grammar, metaphysics, and logic. This work is a biography of Jabir ibn Hayyan by Zaki Naguib Mahmoud (1905–93), who was an Egyptian writer, academic, and philosophy professor. He was an encyclopedic writer who was known for his ability to simplify complex ideas, and for taking philosophy out of its “ivory tower” and into the public domain.