Medieval Islamic chemists like the authors writing under the name of Jabir ibn Hayyan (died c. 806 – c. 816 AD, known in Latin as Geber), Abu Bakr al-Razi (865 – 925 AD, known in Latin as Rhazes), Ibn Sina (980 – 1037 AD, known in Latin as Avicenna), and Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Watwat (1234 – 1318 AD) included vitriol in their mineral classification lists.
The Jabirian authors and al-Razi experimented extensively with the distillation of various substances, including vitriols. In one recipe recorded in his  (Book of Secrets), al-Razi may have created sulfuric acid without being aware of it:
In an anonymous Latin work variously attributed to Aristotle (under the title , Book of Aristotle), to al-Razi (under the title , Great Light of Lights), or to Ibn Sina, the author speaks of an oil () obtained through the distillation of iron(II) sulfate (green vitriol), which was likely oil of vitriol or sulfuric acid. The work refers multiple times to Jabir ibn Hayyans Book of Seventy' (), one of the few Arabic Jabir works that were translated into Latin. The author of the version attributed to al-Razi also refers to the  as his own work, showing that he erroneously believed the  to be a work by al-Razi. There are several indications that the anonymous work was an original composition in Latin, although according to one manuscript it was translated by a certain Raymond of Marseilles, meaning that it may also have been a translation from the Arabic.
According to Ahmad Y. al-Hassan, three recipes for sulfuric acid occur in an anonymous Karshuni manuscript containing a compilation taken from several authors and dating from before . One of them runs as follows:
A recipe for the preparation of sulfuric acid is mentioned in , an Arabic treatise falsely attributed to the Shii Imam Jafar al-Sadiq (died 765). Julius Ruska dated this treatise to the 13th century, but according to Ahmad Y. al-Hassan it likely dates from an earlier period: