Jabir ibn Hayyan

Jabir ibn Hayyan was a prominent Iranian alchemist and philosopher who is credited with the authorship of a vast corpus of works in Arabic, often called the Jabirian corpus. He is regarded as the father of chemistry for his systematic classification of chemical substances, his use of organic materials in chemistry, and his development of the sulfur-mercury theory of metals. He also introduced a philosophical theory known as the science of the balance, which aimed at reducing all phenomena to a system of measures and quantitative proportions. He was a follower of the Shi'ite Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq, from whom he claimed to have received esoteric teachings and secrets of alchemy. He also wrote about cosmology, astronomy, astrology, medicine, pharmacology, zoology, botany, metaphysics, logic, and grammar. His works influenced many later alchemists and philosophers in both the Islamic world and Europe.[4][5][6][7][8][9]