| ʿAlī ibn Mūsa ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs | |
|---|---|
 Title page ofShudhūr al-dhahab in 17th-century manuscript (Berlin, MS Sprenger 1969) | |
| Region | Maghreb |
| Period | Almohad, fl. most likelyc. 1150–1200 |
| Known for | Alchemy,Arabic poetry |
| Major writings |
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| Influence | Commentaries on his work were written by al-Irbilī,al-Sīmāwī,al-Jildakī. |
Ibn Arfa' Ra's (Arabic:ابن أرفع رأس –full name:Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Mūsa al-Anṣārī al-Andalusī ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs), flourished second half of the twelfth century, was aMaghrebi poet andalchemist. He is the author of an Arabic collection (dīwān) of alchemical poems called theShudhūr al-dhahab ('Shards of Gold').[a]
Traditionally he was identified with a certain Ibn al-Naqirāt, a religious scholar living inFez (Morocco) who diedc. 1197. However, this identification is probably spurious. If so, virtually nothing is known about Ibn Arfa' Ra's's life. Probably born inAl-Andalus, perhaps inGranada, it is likely that he spent most of his life inAlmohad Morocco. At some point he likely traveled to theIslamic East, where he may also have settled.
Ibn Arfa' Ra's wrote a commentary on his own workShudhūr al-dhahab under the nameḤall mushkilāt al-Shudhūr ('Solution to the Problems of theShudhūr').[b] He also wrote some alchemical poems in themuwashshaḥ genre (strophic verse) and a number of short prose works on alchemy. Two works on magic have also been attributed to him, but these are probably spurious.
Most traditional authors of Arabicbiographical dictionaries identify Ibn Arfa' Ra's with a religious scholar called Ibn al-Naqirāt,[c] whose fuller name wasAbū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Mūsa ibn ʿAlī ibn Mūsa ibn Muḥammad ibn Khalaf al-Anṣārī al-Sālimī al-Jayyānī.[1] The fullest version of Ibn Arfa' Ra's's name, as may be reconstructed from the earliest manuscripts, isBurhān al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Mūsa ibn Abī al-Qāsim al-Anṣārī al-Andalusī.[2] Since both names share the major part Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Mūsa al-Anṣārī, they are close enough to raise the possibility that the two figures were indeed identical. However, neither Ibn al-Naqirāt's longernasab (the part of his name indicating lineage) "son of Ali son of Musa son of Muhammad son of Khalaf", nor hisnisbas (names referring to a place of origin) al-Sālimī (Medinaceli) or al-Jayyānī (Jaén) ever occur in the alchemical manuscripts. The biographical dictionaries in their entries on Ibn al-Naqirāt never actually mention the nickname (laqab) Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs, nor the honorific Burhān al-Dīn, both of which often feature prominently in the alchemical manuscripts.[3]
If Ibn Arfa' Ra's is identical with Ibn al-Naqirāt, some basic facts of his life are known.Ibn al-Abbar (died 1260) in his biographical dictionaryKitāb al-Takmila li-Kitāb al-Ṣila mentions that Ibn al-Naqirāt was born in 1121 or1122 CE (515AH) and that he died after 1196 or1197 CE (593 AH), and that he was born inAl-Andalus but later moved toFez (Morocco) where he became akhaṭīb (Islamic preacher).[4] According to the broader biographical tradition, Ibn al-Naqirāt was an expert inqirāʾāt (variant readings of the Quran) as well as in thejurisprudence andhadith of theMaliki school, preaching in the renownedQarawiyyin mosque.[5]
However, the divergence between the names in the biographical dictionaries and those given in the manuscripts of the alchemical works attributed to Ibn Arfa' Ra's, as well as certain details in reports relating to the two figures given byIbn Khaldun (1332–1406) andLeo Africanus (c. 1494 – c. 1554), suggest that Ibn al-Abbar may have conflated the alchemist Ibn Arfa' Ra's with the religious scholar Ibn al-Naqirāt.[6] In this case, very little remains that can be said about the life of Ibn Arfa' Ra's. Like Ibn al-Naqirāt, he originated in Al-Andalus, perhaps inGranada, and later settled elsewhere. Although the fact that he was sometimes called al-Maghribī indicates that he may also have settled in Morocco, the alchemical manuscripts make no mention of Fez or any other specific place. Alternatively, thenisba al-Maghribī may indicate that he left theMaghreb (the Islamic West, the region west of Egypt) and settled in theMashreq (the Islamic East). In any case, it is clear that he spent a major part of his life in the West, most likely inMorocco.[7]
If the identification of Ibn Arfa' Ra's with Ibn al-Naqirāt is given up, the period in which he lived becomes very uncertain. Since Ibn al-Abbar knew of his works in the middle of the thirteenth century and some of the earliest commentaries on his work date from that period, Ibn Arfa' Ra's must have lived beforec. 1250, but aterminus post quem is much harder to establish. The fact that Ibn Arfa' Ra's citesal-Mas'udi (died 957) may provide the earliest date for which there is hard evidence, although the lack of any mention of him by the alchemist poetal-Tughra'i (died 1121) makes it most likely that Ibn Arfa' Ra's lived in the twelfth century.[8]
Ibn Arfa' Ra's's most enduring work is adīwān ofalchemical poems called theShudhūr al-dhahab ('Shards of Gold').[a] These poems, which all together comprise about 1400 lines, are arranged by the letter they use to rhyme, thus covering the entire Arabic alphabet. A large number of commentaries on the work were written by otherIslamo-Arabic alchemists, among them commentaries by al-Irbilī (died 1257) andal-Sīmāwī (fl. 1250), as well as five commentaries byal-Jildakī (writtenc. 1337 – c. 1342) alone.[9]
TheShudhūr al-dhahab ranks among the first works to feature exegesis of the Quran (tafsīr) in an alchemical context.[10]
Ibn Arfa' Ra's wrote a commentary on his own alchemicaldīwān, called theḤall mushkilāt al-Shudhūr ('Solution to the Problems of theShudhūr').[11][b]
There are also some alchemical poems by Ibn Arfa' Ra's which are written inmuwashshaḥ, a genre ofArabic poetry that uses strophic verse. These were not included in theShudhūr al-dhahab because poems of themuwashshaḥ genre are usually excluded fromdīwān collections.[12]
A number of short prose works have been attributed to Ibn Arfa' Ra's, but these have not yet been investigated:[13]
A work on magic calledal-Ṭibb al-ruḥānī bi-al-Qurʾān al-raḥmānī ('Spiritual Medicine through the Merciful Quran') has been attributed to Ibn Arfa' Ra's, but this attribution is clearly spurious since the work heavily borrows from thirteenth–fourteenth century works on magic like those written by pseudo-al-Būnī andIbn Sabʿīn.[14] The case ofal-Jihāt fī ʿilm at-tawajjuhāt, another work onletter magic attributed to Ibn Arfa' Ra's, is less certain, but the fact that its author holds magic in higher regard than alchemy suggests that it was not written by a devoted alchemist like Ibn Arfa' Ra's.[15]
There is also a commentary onIbn al-Fāriḍ's (1181–1235) wine poem which may have been authored by Ibn Arfa' Ra's, although this would necessitate placing Ibn Arfa' Ra's's lifetime in the thirteenth century rather than the twelfth, which is not very likely.[16]
Forster & Müller 2020, p. 375 andMüller 2022, p. 28 reported that Svetlana Dolgusheva is working on a critical edition, German translation, and commentary of theShudhūr al-dhahab.
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