ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn ʿUmar ibn Abī Bakr Jamāl al-Dīn al-Dimashqī, commonly known as al-Jawbarī (; fl. 619/1222), was a medieval

Syrian Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

author and

scholar A scholar is a person who is a researcher or has expertise in an academic discipline. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher at a university. An academic usually holds an advanced degree or a termina ...

known for his denunciation of

alchemy Alchemy (from the Arabic word , ) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first ...

Life and work

Born in Jawbar,

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

, Al-Jawbari traveled extensively throughout the Islamic Empire, including visits as far as India. Among other locations, the scholar lived in Harrân and Kôniya. Al-Jawbari wrote his ''Kitāb al-mukhtār fī kashf al-asrār'' (''Book of Selected Disclosure of Secrets''), exposing the

fraud In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrato ...

ulence he had seen practiced by alchemists and money changers. Among others, he wrote of "the people of ''al-Kimya'' (alchemists) who know three hundred ways of making dupes". The book also describes the preparation of

rose water Rose water, or rosewater, is a flavoured water created by steeping rose petals in water. It is typically made as a by-product during the distillation of rose petals to create rose oil for perfumes. Rose water is widely utilized to flavour cu ...

. In November 2020, a bilingual Arabic-English edition was published as ''The'' ''Book of Charlatans'' by

New York University Press New York University Press (or NYU Press) is a university press that is part of New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 ...

This edition was edited by Manuela Dengler and translated by Humphrey Davis.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Al-Jawbari Alchemists of the medieval Islamic world Deception Alchemy and chemistry in the medieval Islamic world 13th-century deaths Syrian Muslim scholars of Islam Year of birth unknown Syrian writers 13th-century Arab people