Caliphal adviser, military commander, poet, purportedalchemist and patron of the sciences
Khālid ibn Yazīd (full nameAbū Hāshim Khālid ibn Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān,Arabic:أبو هاشم خالد بن يزيد بن معاوية بن أبي سفيان),c. 668–704 or 709, was anUmayyad prince and purportedalchemist.
As a son of the Umayyad caliphYazid I, Khalid was supposed to become caliph after his elder brotherMu'awiya II died in 684. However,Marwan I, a senior Umayyad from another branch of the clan, was chosen over the much younger Khalid. Despite having lost the caliphate to Marwan, Khalid forged close ties with Marwan's son and successor, the caliphAbd al-Malik, who appointed him to successive administrative and military roles. He participated in a number of successful military campaigns in 691, but then chose to retire to hisHoms estate, where he lived out the rest of his life. He may have engaged in some level ofpoetry andhadith scholarship.
A large number of alchemical writings were attributed to Khalid, including also many alchemical poems. Khalid's purported alchemical activity was probably part of a legend that evolved in 9th-centuryArabic literary circles, which also falsely credited him with sponsoring the firsttranslations of Greek philosophical and scientific works into Arabic (in reality, caliphal sponsorship of translations started during the reign ofal-Mansur, 754–775).
Genealogical tree of the Sufyanids, the ruling family of theUmayyad Caliphate to which Khalid belonged
Khalid was likely born around 668. He was the son of theUmayyad caliphYazid I (r. 680–683) andFakhitah bint Abi Hisham ibn Utba ibn Rabi'a.[1] When his older half-brotherMu'awiya ibn Yazid died after a very short reign as caliph in 684, Khalid was still a minor.[2] A struggle for succession broke out between the supporters of the young Khalid and those who favoredMarwan ibn al-Hakam (623 or 626–685), who was not part of the ruling branch of theUmayyad family (the Sufyanids), but was much older and more experienced.[3] Eventually Marwan was elected by the UmayyadSyrian elites on the condition that Khalid would directly succeed him. Marwan also married Khalid's mother Fakhita to seal the bond between him and his would-be successor Khalid.[4]
However, seeing that Khalid was politically weak, Marwan removed both him and his younger brotherAbd Allah ibn Yazid from the line of succession in favor of his own sonsAbd al-Malik andAbd al-Aziz.[5] When Khalid reminded Marwan of the promise he made at his ascension, Marwan publicly insulted his mother Fakhita. According to what is probably a later legend, Fakhita killed Marwan in revenge.[6] Despite this, close ties developed between Khalid and Marwan's son Abd al-Malik, and when the latter became caliph Khalid became his adviser and married his daughter A'isha.[7]
After this short spell as a military commander, Khalid appears to have spent the rest of his life inHoms,[10] which had been appointed to him as anemirate already by Marwan.[11] He may have engaged in some level ofpoetry andhadith scholarship.[12] He died in 704 or 709.[13]
A number of Arabic treatises onalchemy and alchemical poems have been attributed to Khalid.[14] These writings are generally regarded aspseudepigraphs (false attributions) dating from the 8th or 9th centuries at the very earliest.[15] It is not clear why these works were attributed to Khalid specifically.
According to one theory advanced by the German scholarManfred Ullmann, the idea that Khalid had been interested in alchemy originated in the 9th-century historianal-Baladhuri, who quoted his teacheral-Mada'ini's description of Khalid as "pursuing that which is impossible, that is, alchemy". According to Ullmann's theory, al-Mada'ini's lost work would have read "pursuing that which is impossible" (referring to Khalid's failure to ascend to the caliphate), while the words "that is, alchemy" would have been added as an interpretative gloss by al-Baladhuri, who thus sparked the legend of Khalid as an alchemist.[16] According to another theory proposed by the French scholarPierre Lory, the writings attributed to Khalid were originally written in a much humbler environment than the courtly milieus in which most 8th- and 9th-century philosophers and scientists worked, and were purposefully attributed to an Umayyad prince to lend them an aura of nobility.[17]
The great majority of alchemical works attributed to Khalid have not yet been studied.[22] A relatively large amount of Arabic works are still extant.[23] There are also some works which have been preserved in Latin, either with or without corresponding Arabic original.
Dīwān al-nujūm wa-firdaws al-ḥikma ("The Diwan of the Stars and the Paradise of Wisdom", a collection (dīwān) of alchemical poems and treatises compiled at a relatively late date)[24]
Kitāb Waṣiyyatihi ilā ibnihi fī al-ṣanʿa ("The Book of his Testament to his Son on the Art")[26]
Masāʾil Khālid li-Maryānus al-rāhib ("Khalid's Questions to the Monk Maryanos"), also known asRisālat Maryānus al-rāhib al-ḥakīm li-l-amīr Khālid ibn Yazīd ("Epistle of the Wise Monk Maryanos to the Prince Khalid ibn Yazid") or in its Latin translation asLiber de compositione alchemiae ("Book on the Composition of Alchemy") orTestamentum Morieni ("Testament of Morienus"),[27] perhaps dating to the late 10th century[28][a]
al-Qawl al-mufīd fī al-ṣanʿa al-ilāhiyya ("The Instructive Word on the Divine Art")[29]
Risāla fī al-ṣanʿa al-sharīfa wa-khawāṣṣihā ("Epistle on the Noble Art and its Properties")[30]
Various unnamed alchemical treatises, poems and epistles[31]
A number of Arabic works listed byIbn al-Nadim in hisFihrist (written 987) are now presumably lost:[32]
There also exist a number of Latin alchemical writings attributed to Khalid, whose name wasLatinized in these works asCalid filius Jazidi.[33] It is doubtful whether some of these are actual translations from the Arabic,[34] but at least two Latin treatises have been found to closely correspond with an existing Arabic original. One of these is theLiber de compositione alchemiae ("Book on the Composition of Alchemy", translation of theMasāʾil Khālid li-Maryānus al-rāhib mentioned above), which contains a dialogue between Khalid and the semi-legendaryByzantine monk Morienus (Arabic:مريانس,Maryānus, perhaps fromGreekΜαριανός,Marianos).[35] It was the first full-length Arabic alchemical work to be translated into Latin, a task which was completed on 11 February 1144 by the EnglishArabistRobert of Chester.[36][a] Another work which is extant both in Arabic and in Latin is an untitledRisāla ("Epistle"), whose Latin translator is unknown.[37]
Other Latin texts attributed to Khalid include:
Liber secretorum alchemiae ("The Book of the Secrets of Alchemy")[38]
Liber trium verborum ("The Book of the Three Words")[39]
^abPartial edition of the Arabic text and English translation inAl-Hassan 2004; full critical edition of the Arabic text and French translation inDapsens 2021a. The Latin translation was edited byStavenhagen 1974, but this edition is now superseded by the critical edition of two Latin versions with French translation in Dapsens 2021a.
^Ullmann 1960–2007. 704 is the more likely date (cf.Forster 2021). In the early 10th century, a third-generation descendant of Khalid, Sa'id ibn Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, was recorded as living in Syria (seeAhmed 2010, p. 112).
^Halleux 1996, pp. 889–890. There is some doubt about whether the attribution of the preface of the work to Robert of Chester is authentic, but the dating of the translation does not depend on this (seeDapsens 2016, p. 133; cf.Moureau 2020, p. 116).
Anawati, Georges C. (1996). "Arabic Alchemy". InRashed, Roshdi (ed.).Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science. Vol. 3. London: Routledge. pp. 853–885.ISBN9780415020633.
Bacchi, Eleonora; Martelli, Matteo (2009). "Il Principe Halid b. Yazid e le origini dell'alchimia araba". In Cevenini, Daniele; D'Onofrio, Svevo (eds.).Conflitti e Dissensi Nell'Islam. Bologna: Il Ponte Editrice. pp. 85–119.ISBN9788889465332.
Dapsens, Marion (2021a).«Arabice appellatur Elixir» : les Masā'il Khālid li-Maryānus al-rāhib dans leurs versions arabe et latine (PhD dissertation).Université catholique de Louvain.hdl:2078.1/252488.
Dapsens, Marion (2021b). "The Alchemical Work of Khālid b. Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya (d. c. 85/704)".Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques.75 (2):327–427.doi:10.1515/asia-2020-0039.S2CID237586859.
Dapsens, Marion; Moureau, Sébastien (2021). "The Four Signs of the Art: Edition and Translation of an Alchemical Epistle Attributed to Ḫālid b. Yazīd and its Latin Translation".Arabica.68 (5–6):557–627.doi:10.1163/15700585-059000000.hdl:2078.1/225051.S2CID245603634.
Forster, Regula (2017).Wissensvermittlung im Gespräch: Eine Studie zu klassisch-arabischen Dialogen. Islamic History and Civilization. Vol. 149. Leiden and Boston: Brill.doi:10.1163/9789004326729.ISBN978-90-04-32670-5.
Forster, Regula (2021). "Khālid b. Yazīd". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.).Encyclopaedia of Islam, Three.doi:10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_35436.
Gutas, Dimitri (1998).Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early 'Abbāsid Society (2nd-4th/8th-10th Centuries). London: Routledge.ISBN9780415061339.
Halleux, Robert (1996). "The Reception of Arabic Alchemy in the West". InRashed, Roshdi (ed.).Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science. Vol. 3. London: Routledge. pp. 886–902.ISBN9780415020633.
Ruska, Julius (1924).Arabische Alchemisten I. Chālid ibn Jazīd ibn Muʿāwija. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.OCLC928821937.
Sezgin, Fuat (1971).Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, Band IV: Alchimie, Chemie, Botanik, Agrikultur bis ca. 430 H. Leiden: Brill. pp. 120–126.ISBN9789004020092.
Stavenhagen, Lee (1974).A Testament of Alchemy. Being the Revelations of Morienus to Khālid ibn Yazīd. Hanover: Brandeis University Press.ISBN9780874510959.
Ullmann, Manfred (1960–2007). "Khālid b. Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.).Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition.doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_4151.
