Abstract

This paper explores the context of a Hermetic frame story in the pseudepigraphical alchemical treatise The Book of the Ziziphus Tree of the Furthest Boundary. The treatise is attributed to a prominent figure in the Arabic occult sciences, Abū Bakr b. Waḥshīya. It was written in the form of a dialogue between the protagonist, Ibn Waḥshīya, and an alchemist from the Islamic West, al-Maghribī al-Qamarī. The last section of the introductory dialogue between these two characters consists of a frame story on the origins of alchemy and a legend of discovery that introduces a cosmogony and an allegorical depiction of the process of transmutation. Both the frame story and the legend of discovery abound in Hermetic motifs and topoi known from other Greek and Arabic alchemical treatises. The exposition of the different prevailing theories on the beginnings of alchemy reflects, moreover, historical phenomena, such as the Graeco-Arabic translation movement and the shu‘ūbīya controversy. Consistent with the literary tradition of the Arabic Hermetica, Ancient Egypt emerges in this treatise as the cradle of alchemy; however, I suggest that more than merely literary convention, such evocations express a genuine fascination with Ancient Egypt and its surviving material culture. In this respect, the littleknown genre of Arabic books on hidden treasure might shed new light on common Hermetic narratives and their circulation in Arabic occult literature.