gems, Arabic mineralogy, al-Biruni, early lapidaries

Haschmi examines the Greek sources underlying al-Bīrūnī’s Kitāb al-Jamāhir fī maʿrifat al-jawāhir (“Book of the Collection of Knowledge of Precious Stones”), investigating the classical traditions from which al-Bīrūnī drew his information on stones, minerals, and related natural substances. By comparing passages in al-Bīrūnī’s work with Greek mineralogical and lapidary literature, particularly works associated with Aristotle, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and other ancient authorities transmitted through Arabic translations and compilations, Haschmi traces both direct and indirect borrowings and considers the routes by which Greek mineralogical knowledge entered the Islamic scholarly tradition. The study shows that al-Bīrūnī did not simply reproduce his predecessors: he critically assessed inherited accounts, compared them with information from Arabic, Persian, and Indian sources and with his own observations, and at times rejected traditional claims that he considered unreliable. Haschmi thus places al-Bīrūnī’s mineralogical writings within the broader transmission of Greek science into the Islamic world while emphasizing his independent and critical treatment of the material he inherited.