Islamicate Occultism New Perspectives

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Arabica 64 (2017) 287-295
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Introduction: De-orienting the Study of Islamicate

Occultism
Matthew Melvin-Koushki
University of South Carolina
[email protected]
While few scholars would dispute the fact that premodern writings on and
artifacts relating to the occult sciences—astrology, alchemy and various forms
of magic and divination—thickly populate manuscript archives and museum
collections from India to England, there are sharp differences in how this oc-
cultist legacy has been received in modern scholarship. On the one side of
the great, if mythical, Eurasian divide, Europeanists have in the last decades
thoroughly rehabilitated the occult sciences as a fundamental component of
Western intellectual and cultural history from antiquity to the present, and in-
deed as a primary load-bearing structure in the edifice of modernity. In the pro-
cess, the thought of key medieval thinkers, such as Bacon and Llull, and many
of the humanistic heroes of the Renaissance and the “Scientific Revolution,”
from Pico to Bruno and Kepler to Newton, has been shown to be profoundly
occultist in orientation and methodology—and profoundly dependent on
Arabic sources in the same vein. On the other side, despite a small but potent
body of scholarship on the subject, most Islamicists continue to reflexively re-
gard the ubiquity of occultism in premodern and modern Islamicate societies
either as the detritus of an immature philhellenism or, in later periods, as proof
of cultural decadence and degeneracy.1 The more occult strands of feted think-
ers’ oeuvres are quietly ignored, and dedicated occult scientists simply disap-
peared as intellectually barren, wild-eyed, oriental mystics.
This is not to say that great scholarly strides have not been made in the direc-
tion of deconstructing declinist-orientalist narratives of Islamic history and re-
habilitating “postclassical” Islamicate cultures as sites of new, synthetic forms
of creativity and expansiveness, from poetry and painting to philosophy and
1 Its mid-19th-century European flavor notwithstanding, I here use “occultism” simply to mean
a scholarly preoccupation with one or more of the occult sciences, usually designated as such
in Arabo-Persian classifications of the sciences, biographical dictionaries, chronicles, etc.
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288 Melvin-Koushki
law. But all these welcome deconstructions and rehabilitations notwithstand

ing, orientalist declinism thrives in the double standard to which occultism
as a category is still subject; it is here that Islam is most blatantly decoupled
from modernity and rendered un-West. A contagion under strict quarantine,
Islamicate occultism thus remains largely suspect and grossly understudied,
while Christianate occultism—its heir and twin, and similarly long suppressed
in the academy—now enjoys wide legitimacy as an object of scholarly inves-
tigation. Indeed, Western esotericism studies have emerged in recent decades
as a burgeoning field in its own right, featuring dedicated academic units in
Europe and professional societies and journals on both sides of the Atlantic.
The same has yet to be dreamt of with respect to things Islamic—for all that
Islam is equally the West.
That the Islamicate occult sciences are still considered suspect reflects a
certain ensorcellment of Islamicists by the specter of Enlightenment Science.
Reacting to the depredations of European colonialism, orientalism’s wellspring,
the well-intentioned scholarly compulsion has been to exorcize Islamicate his-
tory and culture of “superstition” and “magic” in an effort to banish orientalist
stereotypes of cultural and scientific stagnation. This otherwise laudable im-
pulse has resulted in an invasive scientistic pruning of Islamicate intellectual
history: we are presented with an approved canon of Muslim thinkers whose
contributions to Science can be universally appreciated. Recent scholarship
has even postponed the death of science in Islam from the 5th/11th to the
10th/16th century; only then did it finally succumb, so the implicit narrative
goes, to the cancerous irrationality epitomized by the Unscience that is occul
tism. Such Whig histories of science, of course, are no longer defensible among
Europeanists. The history of science in the premodern Islamicate world must
therefore be similarly decolonized and re-enchanted.
Taking Islamicate occult science on its own terms requires, in the first place,
an acknowledgement of its pervasive cultural influence in premodern and
modern Muslim societies, such that any approach to imperial politics, intel-
lectual history or material culture that fails to account for occult-scientific
elements must be considered inadequate, even abortive. The scholarly assump-
tion still ubiquitous among Islamicists that occultism belongs to the realm of
folklore and superstition and is hence best left to anthropologists is similarly
unfounded: as theorized and practiced throughout the Islamicate world, the
occult sciences were considered to be an elite pursuit more often than a popu-
lar one. This cultural attitude is encoded in the standard Arabic term for the
occult sciences, al-ʿulūm al-ġarība, meaning those disciplines that are unusu-
al or difficult; that is to say, as advanced mathematical and natural sciences
presupposing mastery of a number of other such sciences, competence in the
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Introduction 289
occult sciences was rare and usually exclusive to the scholarly-spiritual elite.
The equally common descriptor for these sciences, ḫafī (hidden), directly cor-
responding to the Latin occultus, refers to their epistemological purview rather
than their sociological status; and that purview is no less exclusive. The classic
example here is the encyclopedic Epistles of the 4th/10th-century Brethren of
Purity, conceived of as an ideal curriculum for every educated Muslim that
begins with arithmetic, proceeds through the mathematical, natural, psycho-
logical, nomic and metaphysical sciences, and only then culminates in sci-
ences like alchemy, astrology, medicine and magic. High occultist practices
always coexisted with low, to be sure; but the latter, while prevalent, were
routinely scorned in scholarly circles as mere charlatanry, legerdemain or
devilry—which is to say, unscience. For all its popular vitality, then, premodern
Islamicate occultism is best approached as a fundamentally elitist phenome-
non boasting rigorous, well-policed epistemological standards; it was certainly
frequently prized by scholars and heavily patronized by sovereigns as such.
This is especially the case for the post-Mongol Persian cosmopolis, span-
ning from southeastern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean to Central and
South Asia, which vast territory witnessed a veritable renaissance of high oc-
cultism from the 8th/14th century onward as earlier philosophical-scientific
currents and newly hegemonic, expressly neoplatonic sufi theory (especially
that of Ibn ʿArabī via his persophone disciples) were synthesized in the monist
quest for epistemological universalism. These new and unprecedentedly am-
bitious forms of occult philosophy-science were recruited, in turn, as crucial
props to the universalist-monist ideologies that drove early modern Turko-
Mongol Perso-Islamic imperialism—Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal, together
with a host of lesser states east and west. While certain occult sciences (espe-
cially astrology and alchemy) had their share of detractors up to that point,
including most famously Ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037) and Ibn Rušd (d. 595/1198) on
the one hand and Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) and Ibn Ḫaldūn (d. 808/1406)
on the other, anti-occultist sentiments became definitively outmoded as phi-
losophers, astronomers, inventors, physicians, jurists, historians, poets and
calligraphers increasingly declared themselves occult scientists in service of
truth and empire. Preceding, paralleling, then outpacing similar developments
in Renaissance Europe, this great occultist florescence can hardly be construed
as evidence of cultural decline: its exponents include some of the most influ-
ential thinkers and doers of the 8th/14th to 11th/17th centuries, from sovereigns
like Amīr Tīmūr (r. 771/1370-807/1405), Uzun Ḥasan (r. 861/1457-882/1478), Šāh
ʿAbbās (r. 995/1587-1038/1629), Emperor Akbar (r. 963/1556-1014/1605) and
Sulṭān Süleymān (r. 926/1520-974/1566); to sultan-scientists like Iskandar Sulṭān
(r. 812/1409-817/1414) and Uluġ Beg (r. 811/1409-853/1449); to philosophers like
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290 Melvin-Koushki
Ibn Turka (d. 835/1432), ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī (d. 858/1454), Ǧalāl al-Dīn
Dawānī (d. 908/1502-1503), Mīr Findiriskī (d. 1050/1640-1641) and Mīr Dāmād
(d. 1040/1630); to sufis like Faḍl Allāh Astarābādī (d. 796/1394), Niʿmat Allāh
Walī (d. 834/1430-1431), Muḥammad Nūrbaḫš (d. 869/1464) and Ḥusayn Wāʿiẓ
Kāšifī (d. 910/1504-1505); to historians like Šaraf al-Dīn Yazdī (d. 858/1454),
Taqī l-Dīn al-Maqrīzī (d. 845/1442) and Ǧalāl al-Dīn Munaǧǧim Yazdī; to as-
tronomer-mathematicians like Qāḍīzāda Rūmī (d. ca 835/1432), Mīrim Čelebī
(d. 931/1525), Šams al-Dīn Ḫafrī (d. 942/1535), Mīr Fatḥ Allāh Šīrāzī (d. 997/1589)
and Šayḫ Bahāʾī (d. 1030/1621); to religious revolutionaries like Šayḫ Badr al-
Dīn (d. 823/1420), Āḏar Kaywān (d. 1027/1618) and the Nuqṭawīs. The story of
Western early modernity, in short, is just as profoundly an Islamicate and
occultist one; it must be so told.
Such is the objective of this special issue of Arabica. It is based in the main
on contributions to the international workshop entitled The Occult Sciences
in Islamicate Cultures (13th-17th Centuries), organized by Matthew Melvin-
Koushki and hosted by the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton
University on 14-15 February 2014. The guest editors would like to thank the
Princeton workshop sponsors for making such a stimulating and timely event
possible, including the Department of Near Eastern Studies, the Near Eastern
Studies Program, the Iranian Studies Program and the History of Science
Program at Princeton; the Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia; and
the Department of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania. We would
also like to thank Arabica’s editor-in-chief, Heidi Toelle, for generously agree-
ing to publish this volume of proceedings, and Jean-Charles Coulon for his as-
sistance with the process.
This volume is conceived as a modest contribution toward the repair of the
deep structural imbalance in scholarship on Western intellectual and cultur-
al history as briefly sketched above. To this end, it brings together primarily
junior scholars committed to the study of the occult sciences in Islamicate
societies and sensitive to the continuities of cultural patterning across Islamo-
Christian (or Islamo-Judeo-Christian) Afro-Eurasia as a whole. Their contribu-
tions represent the state of the art in research on the theory and practice of
specific occult sciences in various late medieval and early modern Islamicate
societies. More—they signal a new turn in the intellectual historiography of
the Islamicate world: eschewing both positivism and the equally ideologically
pernicious religionist reaction thereto, both of which have dominated the his-
toriography throughout the 20th century and to the present, they investigate
their subject with evenhanded philological empiricism. Which is to say, they
simply ignore the science-magic-religion triad as the 19th-century colonialist-
orientalist-vivisectionist construct it is—for all that that triad still structures
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Introduction 291
history of Islamicate science in particular as an academic field, rendering it

painfully, even cartoonishly, occultophobic.
So deeply is this scholarly occultophobia entrenched, however, and so im-
plicated in the violently otherizing discourse of colonialist modernity, that its
dislodgement will require sustained attack on multiple fronts simultaneously.
That in 2016, egregiously, it was still possible to facilely dismiss occult science
as pseudoscience in specialist surveys of the field means that many decades
of focused de- and reconstructive work are ahead of us.2 The present volume
launches just such a multipronged offensive: covering a full nine centuries
(3th/9th-11th/17th), its five thematic sections together address intellectual his-
tory, political history and material culture studies, and its ten articles take both
macro and micro approaches to the same.
The first section, consisting of two macro intellectual-historical studies,
investigates competing theories of Islamicate occultism and their evolution
from the medieval to the early modern period, particularly as sites of both
contestation and synthesis. Liana Saif first demonstrates that Islamicate oc-
cultist theory during its first phase (3th/9th-6th/12th centuries) was largely
natural-philosophical, and thus Hellenistic, in orientation, but underwent a
definitive suficization or sanctification in North Africa in the 7th/13th century,
whereby its distinct earlier currents were fused and wholly islamicized. This
process is enshrined in the considerable epistemological distance separating
the two most influential Arabic grimoires ever produced: Maslama l-Qurṭubī’s
(d. 353/964) Ġāyat al-ḥakīm (aka the Picatrix), on the one hand, which is
thoroughgoingly aristotelian-neoplatonic; and the Šams al-maʿārif al-kubrā, on
the other, a largely pseudepigraphical compilation associated with the Ifrīqiyan
sufi-mage Aḥmad al‑Būnī (d. ca 622/1225 or 630/1233) but more reflective of
8th/14th-11th/17th-century developments, which propounds a new brand of
sufi magic simultaneously metaphysically daring and theologically legitimate.
It is this epochal sanctification, then de-esotericization, of occultism that led
to its florescence first in Mamluk Cairo and thence the Persianate world as
a whole from the late 8th/14th century onward; freshly neopythagoreanized
and newly hegemonic, occult science then served until at least the 11th/17th
century as a primary basis for the most successful early modern Islamicate cos-
mologies and theories of history and empire.
2 For references see Matthew Melvin-Koushki, “Conjuncting Astrology and Lettrism, Islam and
Judaism,” Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, 12/1 (2017), p. 89-97; see also my review essay im-
mediately following in the same volume, “(De)colonizing Early Modern Occult Philosophy,”
p. 98-112.
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292 Melvin-Koushki
My own article addresses this pivotal time and place (late 8th/14th-
century Cairo) by pitting Ibn Ḫaldūn’s lengthy anti-occultist polemic in
the Muqaddima—often cited as proof of the historian’s Enlightened proto
modernity despite its confused, fideist, strictly Augustinian tenor—
against the pro-occultist camp to whose sociopolitical ascendancy he was
patently reacting: the New Brethren of Purity. To this end, I take as the
Brethren’s representative Ibn Ḫaldūn’s younger colleague Šaraf al-Dīn Yazdī
(d. 858/1454), the Timurid dynastic historian, who was transformed into
an occultist precisely in Mamluk Cairo; his astrological-lettrist theory of
history stands as a scientific challenge to the Ibn Ḫaldūnian doctrine of
perpetual dynastic cycling, and he penned a tract in defense of geomancy
(ʿilm al-raml) that appears to directly refute the senior historian’s argu-
ments in the Muqaddima. What modern scholars have persistently failed
to recognize is the fact that Ibn Ḫaldūn lost this debate, and lost it conclu-
sively: his is the last significant anti-occultist polemic in Arabic letters, and
his dualistic doctrine—flatly antithetical to the forms of millennial sove
reignty and occult-philosopher-kingship that would define the post-Mongol
era—was ignored for centuries after. But anti-occultism is not tantamount
to protomodernity, colonialist-orientalist orthodoxy all notwithstanding, or
pro-occultism to unmodernity. Here the bizarre function of the Muqaddima
as colonialist weapon of choice—indeed an imperial talisman—is of the
highest salience; few “native” texts have been used so successfully in the
project to divide and conquer Islamdom, to turn it against itself, to render
it historically unrecognizable. This includes in the first place the matter of
occult science qua science. To decolonize our narrative of Islamicate history,
we must therefore no longer take Ibn Ḫaldūn’s anxious, puritanical ravings
as evidence for occultism’s decline or philosophical worthlessness, as they
consistently have been to date, but rather as index of its remarkable bur-
geoning in contemporary Cairo, whence it became a prominent part of the
Islamicate and especially Persianate intellectual and cultural mainstream up
to and through the colonial period.
This first section thus sets the broader intellectual-historical stage for the
more focused studies that follow. Al-Būnī, as noted, stands as a crucial pivot
in the new narrative adumbrated above; the second section, featuring three
studies, is accordingly devoted to the hugely influential corpus of texts associ-
ated with this sufi mage, in whose name (together with that of Ibn ʿArabī) oc-
cultism was sanctified. As Noah Gardiner’s groundbreaking 2014 dissertation
demonstrated, al-Būnī’s authentic works—more sufi than occultist—circu-
lated during the 7th/13th and 8th/14th centuries in Cairene esotericist reading
communities, who jealously guarded these texts by means of distinctive textual
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Introduction 293
practices designed to render them inaccessible to noninitiates; in the mid-

8th/14th century, however, Būnian lettrism (ʿilm al-ḥurūf wa-l-asmāʾ) boomed
in popularity among Mamluk ruling and scholarly elites, much to the alarm
of conservative scholars like Ibn Ḫaldūn—which is to say, it was effectively
de-esotericized. Here Gardiner continues his investigation of this two-century
process, offering a typology of such esotericizing techniques; in an important
methodological intervention, he submits that they are most profitably to be
analyzed as a representative subset of that brand of esotericism peculiar to the
6th/12th-7th/13th-century Mediterranean zone as a whole, also exemplified by
Jewish kabbalah’s concurrent, and far more feted, burgeoning in Iberia. Jean-
Charles Coulon, whose 2013 dissertation has likewise inaugurated a new era
of al-Būnī studies, examines the specifically political applications of Būnian
letter magic as put forward in the Šams al-maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif, 7th/13th-
8th/or 14th-century kernel to the later Šams al-maʿārif al-kubrā, that most in-
fluential of Arabic grimoires. Crucially, he argues against the modern scholarly
perception of this suficized magic as representative of popular, as opposed to
elite, culture by demonstrating the adabization of the Šams within a courtly
ethico-political literary context. Again, that occult sciences like lettrism be-
came intrinsic to Islamicate imperialism in the post-Mongol period cannot
be overemphasized; and this process was inaugurated by the eager Mamluk
patronage of this pseudo-Būnian work in particular. Moving beyond these
earlier developments, Daniel Martin Varisco then turns to the Šams al-maʿārif
al-kubrā itself to examine its deployment of the 28 lunar mansions as mainstay
of astronomical-astrological theory and practice generally and foundation of
later astral-letter magic specifically; he also provides a translation of the rele
vant passage in the Šams to this end.
The volume’s third section treats of Arabic alchemy (ʿilm al-kīmiyāʾ),
with a focus on the most prolific and important Muslim alchemist after
(pseudo-)Ǧābir b. Ḥayyān, the supremely secretive ʿIzz al-Dīn Aydamir
al‑Ǧildakī, who worked and wrote in 8th/14th-century Mamluk Egypt.
Exceptionally, that such a major figure in the history of science—all subse-
quent Arabic alchemy is Ǧildakian—has been left almost entirely unstudied is
thus due not simply to orientalist occultophobia, but was also ensured by the
disappearing act of the man himself; it is a remarkable fact that biographies of
Muslim alchemists, in sharp contrast to those of other occult scientists, are ex-
ceedingly rare, and Arabic alchemical works are pseudepigraphal as a rule. Yet
our Mamluk alchemist broke this rule: while no less slippery than his co-prac-
titioners of the supreme Art, he left an oeuvre that is both well-preserved and
massive—and wholly unpublished. Nicholas Harris, who is currently writing
the first monograph on al-Ǧildakī, accordingly establishes here the necessarily
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294 Melvin-Koushki
meager biography of this shadowy figure as a basis for further and long-over-
due study; most notably, he shows him to be not a Khurasani émigré to Cairo
(à la Corbin) but rather a native son of Mamluk Egypt, perhaps even a scion of
Mamluk amirs, who was active into the second half of the 8th/14th century—
and hence a key representative of the Cairene occult-scientific renaissance.
Section four turns to an examination of the role of occult science as a prime
shaper and driver of early modern Islamicate imperial ideologies, including in
the first place those of the Mughals, Safavids and Ottomans. The two articles
here focus on the 9th/15th- and 10th/16th-century Ottoman context as represen-
tative of post-Mongol Persianate imperial millenarianism as a whole, showing
how it was generated and sustained by the formal patronage of prestige sci-
ences like astrology, geomancy and physiognomy. Ahmet Tunç Şen, whose 2016
dissertation was the first study to closely investigate Ottoman imperial astrol-
ogy (ʿilm al-nuǧūm), here presents Bāyezīd II (r. 886/1481-918/1512) as a case in
point; arguing against the standard historiographical portrayal of this Ottoman
sultan as conservative, diffident and reactionary, he documents the unprec-
edented nature of Bāyezīd’s patronage of astrologers and astrological texts,
which patronage was in turn responsible for the unparalleled institutiona
lization of astronomy-astrology at the Ottoman court. It was also a primary
component of Bāyezīd’s performance of philosopher-kingship more generally,
such that many scholars beyond the Ottoman realm—including Leonardo da
Vinci—were drawn like moths to his high-culture flame. Emin Lelić adds to
astrology the science of physiognomy (ʿilm al-firāsa), one of the least studied
of the occult sciences despite its historical ubiquity, which enjoyed a boom
in Ottoman royal patronage under Murād III (r. 982/1574-1003/1595). As a
standard natural-scientific technique of reading from appearance (ẓāhir) to
essence (bāṭin), physiognomy was of obvious political utility: by allowing for
the rigorous vetting of courtly elites, the science enables sovereigns to com-
bat moral and hence imperial decline, to preserve intact the Circle of Justice.
Just as importantly, it was also considered sine qua non to any serious pursuit
of self-divinization (ta‌ʾalluh)—a quest central to early modern philosophical
praxis and empire-building alike.
For to think is to do; to do is to body forth. Section five, finally, featuring two
studies, therefore adds an equally vital material-cultural approach to the same
post-Mongol Islamicate context to show what the above occult-scientific theo-
ries looked, felt and even smelled like in embodied practice. Complementing
Lelić’s study in particular, Özgen Felek takes up the example of the gorgeous
talismanic shirts produced by various sufi masters for Murād III, who was
himself a devoted Ḫalwatī sufi obsessed with oneiromancy (ʿilm al-taʿbīr).
Arabica 64 (2017) 287-295

Introduction 295
She argues that the motifs, symbols and letter-magical texts on these shirts,
heavily intertextual by design, can only be adequately read in reference to the
Ottoman sovereign’s sufi commitments in general and his remarkable mystico-
political diary in particular, the 1592 Kitāb al-Manāmāt (published and studied
elsewhere by Felek), which records Murād’s bouts with anxiety and depres-
sion as frequently provoked by unsettling dreams—against which psychologi-
cal challenges his sufi-made talismanic shirts were designed to arm him. Rose
Muravchick, whose 2014 dissertation likewise treated of Islamicate talismanic
shirts, here performs a close reading of an unstudied pre-Mughal South Asian
shirt likely produced in the 9th/15th or 10th/16th century; one of the some
17 such that survive, it features a hundred divine Names, these in distinctive
bihārī script, as well various quranic passages, among other lettrist elements.
Contra the standard—and perniciously homogenizing—curatorial practice of
assuming any garment thus inscribed to be automatically talismanic, she de
monstrates the need to interrogate each textile both physically and conceptu-
ally. In the case of her chosen shirt, Muravchick finds it to indeed be talismanic,
though not as straightforwardly as has been supposed, and more properly to
be analyzed in the context of Persianate book arts on the one hand and armor
design on the other.
One salvo rarely wins a battle, of course, or one battle a war. The editors
of this special issue of Arabica therefore offer it as but a preliminary working
model for those intellectual and cultural historians who would do justice to the
massive surviving corpus of Islamicate occult-scientific texts and objects—
itself but a small fraction of what was originally produced. In this the volume
serves as prologue to a second, forthcoming volume of greater historical and
geographical scope. Entitled Islamic Occultism in Theory and Practice and edit
ed by Liana Saif, Francesca Leoni, Matthew Melvin-Koushki and Yahya Farouk,
the latter is based on the titular January 2017 international conference at the
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, organized by the same editors, and
features some 20 articles; unlike the present volume, it gives equal space to
intellectual-historical and material-cultural studies. To be sure, several more
decades of scholarship will be necessary to establish the basic contours of
Islamicate occultism studies as a field; indeed, the intellectual and cultural his-
tory of the various Islamicate occult sciences remains almost wholly unwrit-
ten, and the many hundreds of thousands of relevant surviving manuscripts
and artifacts mostly unread. But these two volumes herald its emergence as
a major new interdisciplinary front in Western esotericism studies, material
culture studies and history of science—and an especially efficient means of
de-orientalizing and de-othering Islam.
Arabica 64 (2017) 287-295

Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345
brill.com/arab
From Ġāyat al-ḥakīm to Šams al-maʿārif: Ways of

Knowing and Paths of Power in Medieval Islam
Liana Saif
Université catholique de Louvain/University of Oxford
[email protected]
Abstract
In recent years, we have witnessed an efflorescence of research on Islamic esoteric

traditions and occult thought. Such scholarly activity has established that the occult
sciences are part of Islamic intellectual history that cannot be overlooked; rather, they
constituted a primary mode by which people thought about the hidden, the extra
ordinary, and their potential for partaking in the divine and wondrous. Occult beliefs
and practices are thus inextricably embedded in philosophical, scientific, and religious
discourses. This article focuses on occult thought in medieval Islam (second-seventh/
eighth-thirteenth centuries), particularly in its relation to the ways in which nature
and the divine were perceived and experienced. I argue that medieval Islamic occult
sciences distinguished themselves from forbidden siḥr or sorcery by identifying legiti-
mate conditions of acquiring power on the basis of two differing paradigms: by asso-
ciation with natural philosophy on the one hand, and by association with Sufism on
the other. A shift of emphasis occurred in the medieval period: from the second/eighth
to the fifth/eleventh centuries, legitimisation of occult practices derived mainly from
natural philosophy, stressing causation and knowledge of signs as the core principles
of magical efficacy. By the seventh/thirteenth century, however, occult practices were
increasingly justified on the basis of mystical and Sufi doctrines. During the first phase,
magic was generally deemed natural, inasmuch as it functioned according to a causa
lity proven empirically and understood rationally; during the second phase, the power
of extraordinary acts, including magic, became the prerogative of a select group who
has achieved non-rationalised revelation and theophany, which undermined natural
causality and transformed signs from indicators of natural links into tokens of God and
the spiritual agents mediating between Him and the gnostic. Scholars such as Pierre
Lory, Constant Hamès, and Toufic Fahd have noted the difference between the magic of
early Islam and that of the later Middle Period; however, this article elaborates on the
epistemological transformations in this period and their implications for cosmological
and ontological structures that had a direct impact on magical theory and practice.

298 Saif
Keywords
Magic, astrology, occultism, natural philosophy, Neoplatonism, Sufism, Abū Maʿšar,

al-Kindī, Ibn Masarra, Ġāyat al-ḥakīm/Picatrix, Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Sirr al-asrār,
Šams al-maʿārif, al-Būnī, Ibn al-ʿArabī
Résumé
Ces dernières années, nous avons assisté à une effervescence de la recherche sur les
traditions ésotériques islamiques et la pensée occulte. Une telle activité académique a
établi que l’occultisme fait partie intégrante de l’histoire intellectuelle islamique et ne
saurait être négligée. Au contraire, l’occultisme est un des modes d’appréhension par
lequel les individus pensent l’occulte, l’extraordinaire et leur potentiel pour participer
au divin et au merveilleux. Les croyances occultes sont donc inextricablement inté-
grées aux discours philosophiques, scientifiques et religieux. Cet article se concentre
sur l’occultisme dans l’Islam médiéval (IIe/VIIe-VIIIe/XIIIe siècles), en particulier dans
sa relation avec les façons dont la nature et le divin ont été perçus et expérimentés. Je
soutiens que l’occultisme islamique médiéval distingue les pratiques qu’il admet, du
siḥr ou de la sorcellerie, tous deux interdits, en déterminant les conditions légitimes
pour acquérir du pouvoir en se fondant sur deux paradigmes différents : par association
avec la philosophie naturelle, d’une part, et par association avec le soufisme, d’autre
part. Un glissement s’est opéré dans la période médiévale. En outre, du IIe/VIIIe au Ve/
XIe siècle, la légitimation des pratiques occultes dérivent principalement de la philoso-
phie naturelle, soulignant la causalité et la connaissance des signes comme principes
fondamentaux de l’efficacité magique. Au VIIe/XIIIe siècle, cependant, les pratiques
occultes étaient de plus en plus justifiées en s’appuyant sur les doctrines mystiques
et soufies. Au cours de la première phase, la magie était généralement considérée
comme naturelle, dans la mesure où elle fonctionnait selon une causalité démontrée
de manière empirique et rationnelle. Dans la deuxième phase, le pouvoir des actes
extraordinaires, y compris la magie, est devenu la prérogative d’un groupe restreint qui
parachevait la révélation et une théophanie non rationalisée, ce qui fit reculer la cau-
salité naturelle et transforma les signes d’indicateurs de liens naturels en marqueurs de
Dieu et des agents spirituels intercédant entre Lui et le gnostique. Des chercheurs tels
que Pierre Lory, Constant Hamès et Toufic Fahd relevèrent la différence entre la magie
des débuts de l’islam et celle du Moyen Âge tardif. Cependant, cet article développe
les transformations épistémologiques de cette période et leurs implications pour les
structures cosmologiques et ontologiques qui eurent un impact direct sur la théorie et
la pratique magiques.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

From Ġāyat al-ḥakīm to Šams al-maʿārif 299
Mots clefs
Magie, astrologie, occultisme, philosophie naturelle, néoplatonisme, soufisme, Abū

Maʿšar, al-Kindī, Ibn Masarra, Ġāyat al-ḥakīm/Picatrix, Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Sirr al-
asrār, Šams al-maʿārif, al-Būnī, Ibn ʿArabī
1 Astral and Natural Magic
The compendium known as Ġāyat al-ḥakīm (The Goal of the Sage, aka Picatrix),
among the most influential of premodern grimoires, epitomizes the earliest
tradition of natural magic in Islam. Usually associated with the astronomer
and mathematician Maslama l-Maǧrīṭī (d. ca 398/1008), this erroneous attribu-
tion was made by Ibn Ḫaldūn (d. 808/1406) and others.1 Maribel Fierro convin
cingly identifies the author as the traditionist and occultist Maslama l-Qurṭubī
(d. 353/964).2 In the Ġāyat al-ḥakīm, magic is an intrinsic part of wisdom which
is the knowledge of “the distant causes—through which existing things exist—
and of the existence of proximate causes of things […] which advance gradually
toward The One […] He is the First in reality […] God the Exalted is the cause
(ʿilla) of the world and the world is His effect.”3 Magic is thus “a divine power
advanced by causes.”4 The intelligibility of causes underlies the magical theory
of the Ġāya. Mediating between the First Cause (God) and terrestrial effects
are the celestial bodies which act as instruments of generation and corruption;
everything is composed by them and from them forms and life are received.5
1 Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, ed. Darwīš Ǧuwaydī, Beirut, al-Maktaba l-ʿasriyya, 2000, p. 483, 507;
see Mushegh Asatrian, “Ibn Khaldūn on Magic and the Occult,” Iran and the Caucasus, 7/1
(2003), p. 97-99; David Pingree, “Some Sources of the Ġāyat al-ḥakīm,” Journal of the Warburg
and Courtauld Institutes, 43 (1980), p. 1; Godefroid de Callataÿ and Sébastien Moureau, “Again
on Maslama Ibn Qāsim al-Qurṭubī, the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ and Ibn Khaldūn: New Evidence from
Two Manuscripts of Rutbat al-ḥakīm,” Al-Qanṭara, 37/2 (2016), p. 329-372.
2 Maribel Fierro, “Bāṭinism in al-Andalus. Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (d. 353/964), Author of
the Rutbat al-Ḥakīm and the Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm (Picatrix),” Studia Islamica, 84/2 (1996), p. 87-
112. Confirming the attribution of the Ġāya to al-Qurṭubī and the transmission of the Rasāʾil
by him, see Godefroid de Callataÿ, “Magia en al-Andalus: Rasāʾil Ijwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rutbat al-
Ḥakīm y Gāyat al-Ḥakīm (Picatrix),” Al-Qanṭara, 34/2 (2013), p. 297-344.
3 Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī, Picatrix: Das Ziel des Weisen, ed. Hellmut Ritter, Leipzig,
B.G. Teubner, 1933, p. 3-4. All translations herein are my own unless otherwise stated.
4 Ibid., p. 7-6.
5 Ibid., p. 81, 9, 284.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

300 Saif
The motion of the celestial bodies affects generated minerals, plants, and
animals,6 influences the activity of all elementary bodies,7 and causes “the
tying of the higher nature to the lower natures.”8 They do so by means of their
rays which fall upon the bodies of generated things.9
As a result of this connection between the world above and the world below,
between causes and effects, it is necessary for occultists to be aware of astro-
logical correspondences. Lists of correspondences are provided in the Ġāya
such as those between colours, body parts, flavours, locations, animals, pla
nets, minerals, stones, constellations, and planets.10 Everything is inherently
astral; occult properties (ḫawāṣṣ) are determined by the astral forms in gene
rated things. Magicians, the author tells us, need to know and understand
the properties “that issued from the moving planets, and these are known as
ḫawāṣṣ.”11 They are active naturally or induced to efficacy magically: “Ḫawāṣṣ
can do wondrous things on their own, such as the ruby’s action as a repellent
of plagues and others. And this can be done by a talisman […] through that
which is deposited [in it as a result] of celestial proportions.”12 The term ṭillasm
(talisman) is musallaṭ reversed which means “that to which power over some-
thing is conferred.”13 This power is the result of placing “celestial secrets” in its
body;14 it cannot be achieved without the astrological knowledge necessary to
determine when and where to harness the forces of the planets and stars from
which they receive their efficacy.15 The author stresses that the “knowledge of
celestial proportions is the foundation of talisman-making, as they [celestial
bodies] diffuse their [talismans’] actions.”16
These ideas of astral causation and the connection between all terrestrial
things and the celestial world was articulated by the Arabic philosopher Yaʿqūb
b. Isḥāq al-Kindī (d. 259/873) and the Persian astrologer Abū Maʿšar al-Balḫī
(d. 272/886), his protégé, one of the most influential authors on astral influen
ces in the Middle Ages and the early modern period in both the Islamic world
6 Ibid., p. 89.
7 Ibid., p. 13.
8 Ibid., p. 99-100.
9 Ibid., p. 81, 97, 294.
10 Ibid., p. 150-156, 157-160.
11 Ibid., p. 9.
12 Ibid., p. 85.
13 Ibid., p. 7-8.
14 Ibid., p. 7.
15 Ibid., p. 8-11.
16 Ibid., p. 14.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

and Europe.17 To begin with al-Kindī, his letter entitled al-Ibāna ʿan suǧūd al-
ǧirm al-aqṣā (Explaining the Prostration of the Outermost Body), was written as
a response to the son of the Abbasid caliph al-Muʿtaṣim (r. 218/833-227/842)
who asked the philosopher to explain the meaning behind the Qurʾānic verse
“the stars and the trees bow down” (Kor 55, 6).18 Al-Kindī explains that the
act of prostration here is not literal but indicates the stars’ casting down in
fluences to earth and being the efficient causes of the generation of all terres-
trial things.19 In another letter entitled al-Ibāna ʿan al-ʿilla l-fāʿila (Explaining
the Proximate Cause), al-Kindī explains that the planets and their motions are
the origin of everything that exists in the sublunar world.20 However, it is the
astrologer Abū Maʿšar who fully propounded the notion of the stars as effi-
cient causes of generation and corruption. According to him, planets are the
astrological signs of things to come because they are their efficient causes. In
his Kitāb al-Madḫal al-kabīr ilā ʿilm aḥkām al-nuǧūm (The Great Introduction
to Astrology), he writes: “The terrestrial world is connected with the celestial
world and its motions by necessity. Due to the power of the celestial world
and celestial motions, then, terrestrial things, generated and corruptible, are
affected.”21 They are affected specifically by the heat from the motions of the
celestial spheres and bodies, causing transformation—including corruption—
among generated things.22 This is a development of an Aristotelian concept
found in On Generation and Corruption where the coming to be and passing
17 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Science and Civilization in Islam, Cambridge, Islamic Texts Society,
1987, p. 196. The dates of Abū Maʿšar’s birth and death are not certain due to discrepancies
in several primary sources; see Charles Burnett, “Abū Maʿšar,” EI3.
18 The Qurʾān, transl. Ṭarif Khalidi, London, Penguin, 2008, p. 441.
19 Yaʿqūb b. Isḥāq al-Kindī, al-Ibāna ʿan suǧūd al-ǧirm al-aqṣā, in Rasāʾil al-Kindī al-falsafiyya,
ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Hādī, Cairo, Dār al-fikr al-ʿarabī, 1950-1953, I, p. 245-247; al-Kindī,
“The Prostration of the Outermost Body,” in The Philosophical Works of al-Kindī, ed. Peter
Adamson and Peter Pormann, Karachi, Oxford University Press (“Studies in Islamic phi-
losophy”), 2012, p. 175-176.
20 Al-Kindī, al-Ibāna ʿan al-ʿilla l-fāʿila, in Rasāʾil al-Kindī al-falsafiyya, I, p. 224-226; al-Kindī,
“On the Proximate Agent Cause of Generation and Corruption,” in The Philosophical
Works of al-Kindī, p. 164, 170.
21 Abū Maʿšar al-Balḫī, Kitāb al-Madḫal al-kabīr ilā ʿilm aḥkām al-nuǧūm, ed. Richard Lemay,
Naples, Instituto Universitario Orientale, 1995-1996, II, p. 19.
22 Ibid., II, p. 19-20; Adamson, “Abū Maʿshar, al-Kindī and the Philosophical Defense of As-
trology,” Recherches de philosophie et théologie médiévales, 69 (2002), p. 253-255. Al-Kindī
also mentions that heat resulting from planetary motions is the agent (ʿāmil) of astral
influences (al-Kindī, al-Ibāna ʿan al-ʿilla l-fāʿila, p. 224-226; al-Kindī, al-Ibāna ʿan suǧūd al-
ǧirm al-aqṣā, p. 248-249; al-Kindī, “On the Proximate Agent Cause,” p. 158; al-Kindī, “The
Prostration,” p. 177; Adamson, “Abū Maʿshar,” p. 255).
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

302 Saif
away of things are attributed to the circular motions of the heavens.23 In his
Meteorology, Aristotle also conceives of elementary transformations as effects
of the heat emitted by the celestial world.24
As a result of the existence of three co-principles of generation—matter,
forms, and stars—Abū Maʿšar distinguishes between three types of natural
properties (ḫawāṣṣ): material, formal, and astral.25 Material properties are
manifest in the various elemental composites and their qualities. The forms,
united with matter through astral causation, provide the properties that are
common to all members of the species. Astral forces provide the occult proper-
ties of species and determine the specific traits of each member.26
The author of the Ġāya probably knew Abū Maʿšar’s Kitāb al-Madḫal al-
kabīr, the likely source for his decan images.27 The naturalization of magic in
the Ġāya was supported by conceiving an astral origin to occult properties and
the attribution of causality and efficacy to the stars. Another text that exempli-
fies this is Kitāb al-Siyāsa fī tadbīr al-riʾāsa, which purports to be an epistle from
Aristotle to Alexander the Great offering political, moral, and dietary advice.
The final part of the text, entitled Sirr al-asrār, is concerned with astral magic.
The work itself claims in the proem to be a translation from Greek into Syriac
then into Arabic by the translator Yaḥyā b. al-Biṭrīq, who flourished in Baghdad
in the third/ninth century. But not enough evidence remains to indicate the
existence of a Greek original.28 The author echoes the theories concerning the
23 Aristotle, “On Generation and Corruption,” in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jona-
than Barnes, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1984, p. 554, 338a 19- 338b 1; Aristotle,
“Physics,” in ibid., p. 342, 200b 12.
24 Aristotle, “Meteorology,” p. 556-557, 339a 15-24, 340a 20-1.
25 Abū Maʿšar, al-Madḫal, II, p. 26-7.
26 Adamson, “Abū Maʿshar,” p. 257-258.
27 Al-Qurṭubī, Picatrix, p. 58-59, 126-132; Abū Maʿšar, al-Madḫal, III, p. 372-389; Pingree,
“Some Sources,” p. 7; Živa Vesel, “Le Sirr al-Maktūm de Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī face à la Ghāyat
al-Ḥakīm,” in Images et magie: Picatrix entre Orient et Occident, eds Jean-Patrice Boudet,
Anna Caiozzo and Nicolas Weill-Parot, Paris, Honoré Champion Éditeur, 2011, p. 81-85.
28 Pseudo-Aristotle, al-Uṣūl al-yūnāniyya li-l-naẓariyyāt al-siyāsiyya fī l-islām, ed. ʿAbd al-
Raḥmān Badawī, Cairo, Maktabat al-nahḍa l-miṣriyya, 1954, p. 69. On the influence, cir-
culation, and structure of this text, see Mario Grignaschi, “L’origine et les métamorphoses
du Sirr al-asrâr,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge, 43 (1976), p. 7-112;
id., “La diffusion du Secretum Secretorum dans l’Europe occidentale,” Archives d’histoire
doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge, 48 (1980), p. 7-70; id., “Remarques sur la formation
et l’interprétation du Sirr al-asrâr,” in Pseudo-Aristotle’s The Secret of Secrets : Sources and
Influences, eds W.F. Ryan and C.B. Schmitt, London, The Warburg Institute, 1982, p. 3-33;
Steven J. Williams, “The Early Circulation of the Pseudo-Aristotelian ‘Secret of Secrets’
in the West,” in Le scienze alla corte di Federico II, Turnhout-Florence, Brepols-SISMEL
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

role of the stars in generation and corruption that we encounter in Abū Maʿšar
and al-Kindī. He begins the chapter on magic with this assertion: “All the varia-
tion you see in the corporeal world […] and what is generated in it of minerals,
plants, and animals is produced by means of the surrounding world […] that is
its cause and governor. This means that all the terrestrial forms are ruled by the
celestial, higher, and spiritual forms.”29 The stars and planets are “partners” in
the composition of every mineral, plant, animal, and their occult properties.30
This theory, according to the author, “is the foundation of the workings of ta
lismans. The forms of the fixed stars and the seven planets […] are transferred
into lower things, leading minerals, plants, and animals to accept their powers
constantly.”31 He then adds that magical sigils or engraved forms correspond to
celestial forms and establish the “connection with the celestial bodies and the
reception of their rays which enable you to achieve or destroy what you wish.”32
Later the author explains that if one wishes to create a talisman, one needs to
select the right material to correspond with the planet or configuration whose
influence is desired, to choose the opportune time when the influence of that
planet or configuration is most powerful, making sure Saturn is benign and
ensuring that the rays are falling into the location of the operation. Sigils and
symbols must be inscribed in order to channel astral influences into the body
of the talisman.33 This theoretical exposition is then followed by instructions
for making various talismans, such as those for repelling snakes and scorpions
and for pacifying a storm.34 The Sirr al-asrār is mentioned twice in the Ġāya in
reference to the importance of astrological elections in talisman-making and
life generally.35
Celestial mediation is also discussed by Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ (Brethren of Purity),
a tenth-century coterie of underground philosophers. They produced an en-
cyclopaedic corpus on natural and occult philosophy and sciences called
Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafa‌ʾ (Epistles of the Brethren of Purity).36 Their treatment of
(“Micrologus”, 2), 1994, p. 127-144; Mahmoud Manzalaoui, “The Pseudo-Aristotelian Kitāb

Sirr al-Asrār: Facts and Problems,” Oriens, 23-24 (1974), p. 147-257.
29 Pseudo-Aristotle, al-Uṣūl al-yūnāniyya, p. 156.
30 Ibid., p. 158.
31 Ibid., p. 156.
32 Ibid., p. 156-157.
33 Ibid., p. 159.
34 Ibid., p. 164.
35 Al-Qurṭubī, Picatrix, p. 38, 78 (from Pseudo-Aristotle, al-Uṣūl al-yūnāniyya, p. 85).
36 Fierro, “Bāṭinism in al-Andalus,” p. 109.
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304 Saif
celestial mediation greatly influenced the Ġāya.37 In their Rasāʾil, the Iḫwān
al-Ṣafāʾ adopt the peripatetic notion of celestial causation and reconcile it
with Neoplatonic emanationism. They explain that the celestial bodies are
the causes for the stability of the forms of species and genera in their bodies.
They experience change and transformation due to the motion of the planets
and stars. The celestial bodies are defined as “the instruments” (adawāt) of the
Universal Soul which animates the world, propels the spheres, and produces
the forms themselves.38
Astrology, the study of astral signs and causes according to the Iḫwān al-
Ṣafāʾ, “is known by inference,” which fact constitutes the major difference
between it and ʿilm al-ġayb (knowledge of the unseen) that only God is privy
to and cannot be known by any act of intellectual prowess or deduction of
causes.39 In addition, astrology is foundational to magic, defined in the Rasāʾil
as “the outcome of the philosophical sciences.”40 According to Abū Maʿšar,
mentioned by the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ in the Rasāʾil, knowledge of astral causa-
tion and generation is obtainable in a discursive manner, by syllogism (qiyās),
deduction (istinbāṭ), and verification by experience (taǧrīb). He writes:
37 In an alchemical work written by Maslama l-Qurṭubī entitled Rutbat al-ḥakīm, he claims
to have contributed to the composition of the Rasāʾil, and we find therein numerous bor-
rowings from them. Holmyard considers these references to be later interpolations in his
refutation of the ascription of the Ġāya to al-Maǧrīṭī and his acceptance of the date of its
composition to be 1047-1051. David Pingree echoes Holmyard’s conclusions. See E.J. Holm
yard, “Maslama l-Majrīṭī and the Rutbatu ’l-ḥakīm,” Isis, 6 (1924), p. 299; Pingree, “Some
Sources,” p. 2; Fierro, “Bāṭinism in al-Andalus,” p. 106. It was accepted that the Rasāʾil were
probably brought to al-Andalus by Abū l-Ḥakam b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Kirmānī (d. ca
1075), but Fierro rather identifies al-Qurṭubī, author of the Ġāyat al-ḥakīm, as the one
responsible for their introduction. See Abū l-ʿAlāʾ ʿAfīfī, “The Sources of Muḥyī l-Dīn b.
ʿArabī’s Sufi Philosophy,” Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts, University of Cairo, 1 (1933), p. 7;
Michael Ebstein, Mysticism and Philosophy in al-Andalus: Ibn Masarra, Ibn al-ʿArabī and
the Ismaʿili Tradition, Leiden, Brill, 2014, p. 29-30. Furthermore, the author of the Ġāya
copies sections from the Rasāʾil almost verbatim; for example, compare the definition of
magic in al-Qurṭubī, Picatrix, p. 7-6 with Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Beirut, Dār
Ṣādir, 2008, IV, p. 314; also compare the significance of the moon in al-Qurṭubī, Picatrix, p.
67-70 with Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, IV, p. 335.
38 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, On the Natural Sciences: An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation
of Epistle 15-21, ed. and transl. Carmela Baffioni, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013,
p. 192, 356-357, 359-360.
39 Ibid., p. 144, 153.
40 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, IV, p. 284; Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, On Magic: An Arabic Critical Edition and
English Translation of Epistle 52a, ed. and transl. Godefroid de Callataÿ and Bruno Half-
lants, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 15-18.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

Many people thought that astrology is something stumbled upon by

intuition and guesswork without having a sound origin with which to
work or from which syllogisms can be made […] and so we composed our
present book to establish the judgements [of astrology] with convincing
arguments and evidence […] and whatever that is not there can be de-
duced by those who know the foundations of this practice.41
Here, Abū Maʿšar is establishing the epistemological principles of astrology

based on Aristotelian paradigms of natural investigation.42 He asserts that as-
trological knowledge begins with empirical evidence: “Most of the science of
the judgements [of the stars] is manifest, visible, and clear, and that part not
manifest is inferred by clear syllogism from the science of the nature of things
and from the powers of the planetary motions manifest in this world.”43 The
author of the Ġāya posits that magic must be understood in the same way. At
the opening of the work, he asserts that it belongs to philosophy and the study
of its secrets,44 adding that “the outcome that we seek to unveil [viz. magic]
could not have existed if it were not for the existence of wisdom […] the fruit
of syllogisms […]. Understand this, for I have thus shown you a secret.”45
Between the second/eighth and fourth/tenth centuries, then, occult phi-
losophy pivoted on the intermediary function of the celestial world between
God and the terrestrial world. Despite talking of stars as causes and signs, we
must not understand the celestial dynamics to be mechanical. Vital and voli-
tional agents transmit astral influences to the world below, which are called
rūḥāniyyāt, spiritual powers. Abū Maʿšar explains that the stars and planets act
“through their rational souls, by virtue of being alive, and through their natural
movement […] by God’s leave.”46 This psychological element of Abū Maʿšar’s
astrological theory combines the Neoplatonic anima with the Stoic view that
the cosmos is a network of causal channels through which the vivifying power
41 Abū Maʿšar, al-Madḫal, II, p. 4.

42 Richard Lemay, Abu Maʿshar and Latin Aristotelianism in the Twelfth Century: The Recovery
of Aristotle’s Natural Philosophy through Arabic Astrology, Beirut, American University of
Beirut (“Silsilat al-ʿulūm al-šarqiyya”, 38), 1962, p. 45.
43 Abū Maʿšar, al-Madḫal, II, p. 7. For Aristotelian parallels see Aristotle, “Physics,” p. 315,
184a 10-13; Adamson, “Abū Maʿshar,” p. 249.
44 Al-Qurṭubī, Picatrix, p. 1.
45 Ibid., p. 6.
46 Abū Maʿšar, al-Madḫal, II, 36.
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306 Saif
of the pneuma flows.47 These do not resemble intelligent entities traditionally

understood as supernatural, such as jinn or demons.
In the Neoplatonic context, these souls are manifestations and multiplica-
tions of the power of the Universal Soul. In their Rasāʾil, the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ
explain that “the first power that flows from the Universal Soul towards the
world is in the noble luminous entities that are the fixed planets and then after
them [into] the moving planets.”48 They use the term rūḥāniyyāt to describe
the localizations of this power in the planets, being the agency whereby pla
nets influence the world below.49 They write, “in the world there are spirits
that are concealed to sensation. Their actions are apparent, whereas their es-
sences are concealed; they are called spiritual beings (rūḥāniyyīn).”50 These are
linked to and interact with the terrestrial world according to two categories of
behaviour; firstly, “by way of the natures of bodies [to which they are linked],
as is reported in the books of astrology”; and secondly, by way of their souls
and volition.51
According to the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, magic cannot be practiced without the as-
trological knowledge necessary for determining when the planets and their
rūḥāniyyāt are in beneficial states. The author of the Ġāya likewise explains
that the knowledge of natural-astral correspondences is essential for inviting
the rūḥāniyyāt to invest a talisman or ritual with their powers.52 He adds that
we must prepare our spirits by means of theurgic rituals in order to commu-
nicate our will to the stars and their rūḥāniyyāt.53 The powers of the celestial
rūḥāniyyāt are infused in terrestrial things; consequently, incenses and other
magical concoctions contain within them spiritual or rūḥānī powers.54 It is
notable that in magic these rūḥāniyyāt tend to be endowed with individuality
and tangibility, appearing as persons and conversing with the operative mage,
in contrast with the rūḥāniyyāt we encounter in the context of natural philoso-
phy and astrology.55 In the Ġāya we read:
47 Peter Struck, “A World Full of Signs: Understanding Divination in Ancient Stoicism,” in
Seeing with Different Eyes: Essays in Astrology and Divination, ed. Patrick Curry and Angela
Voss, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Cambridge Scholars, 2007, p. 7-8; Lemay, Abu Maʿshar, p. 44,
106; Adamson, “Abū Maʿshar, al-Kindī, and the Philosophical Defense of Astrology,” p. 247.
48 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, On Magic, p. 12-13.
49 Id., Rasāʾil, IV, p. 339.
50 Id., On Magic, p. 91.
51 Ibid., p. 120-121.
52 Al-Qurṭubī, Picatrix, p. 7, 10.
53 Ibid., p. 38 -39, 49-50, 85-86, 171-179, 186, 286-291, 326-328, 344-347.
54 Ibid., p. 215, 267.
55 Ibid., p. 85.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

The rūḥāniyya may appear in the spiritual world [of the magus] as a per-
son who converses and teaches him what he desires, it may endear him
to kings and sultans, tie and unravel any matter he wills […] and respond
to the caller with whatever he wants […]. Talismans are the most power-
ful choice.56
Elsewhere, the author claims that the “wise man” receives his power from the
rūḥāniyya that “strengthens, inspires him, and opens the gates of wisdom being
connected to him by his high star […]. Wise men and kings entered into cove-
nants with this rūḥāniyya by means of prayer and [invocation of their] names.”
He follows this with a series of invocations using the names of such spirits or
rūḥāniyyāt.57 Nevertheless, the author largely adheres to the Neoplatonic on-
tology of these rūḥāniyyāt and insists that they are astral volitional forces that
work by means of astral emanations. They constitute the first level of cosmic
individuation of the Universal Soul.58
The Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ’s elaboration on the rūḥāniyyāt and that of the Ġāya are
directly derived from the pseudo-Aristotelian hermetic corpus. The pseudo-
Aristotelian Hermetica comprise a group of texts that take the form of epistles
and conversations between Alexander the Great and Aristotle in which the
philosopher discourses to his royal pupil on the workings of the universe, the
forces within in, the hidden powers of nature, and magic. Aristotle bases his
instructions on knowledge he has received from Hermes.59 In the text called
56 Ibid., p. 85.

57 Ibid., p. 233.
58 Ibid., p. 47, 287-291.
59 Most of the texts that constitute the pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica are given strange
Greek-sounding titles: Isṭimāḫīs, Isṭimāṭīs, Išnūṭās, Istūṭās, Hadiṭūs, and Madīṭis. The
pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica includes a text with a more comprehensible title, Kitāb
Manāzil al-qamar (Book of the Lunar Mansions), and another text containing instructions
on attracting animals through four magical concoctions. The Isṭimāḫīs, the Isṭimāṭīs, the
Išnūṭās, the text on attracting animals, and the Hadiṭūs all seem to have been grouped
together in the manuscript tradition, as we see in London, British Library, Delhi Arabic
MS 1946, most likely produced in the nineteenth century, and Oxford, Bodleian, MS Arab.
221, estimated by Beeston to be a fourteenth-century production (though according to its
colophon, which he deems a corruption, it is an eleventh-century production); see A.F.L.
Beeston, “An Arabic Hermetic Manuscript,” The Bodleian Library Record, 7/1 (June 1962),
p. 20-23. They both do include, however, Ǧirnīs, Kitāb Hirmis fī manāfiʿ al-aḥǧār (Hermes’
Book on the Benefits of Stones), and Kitāb ʿUṭārid b. Muḥammad al-Ḥāsib fī manāfiʿ al-aḥǧār
(The Book of the Arithmetician ʿUṭārid b. Muḥammad on the Benefits of Stones) which can
be read in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Arabe 2775. The Ǧirnīs is attributed
to Hermes but does not feature Aristotle; it is concerned with the natural and occult
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

308 Saif
al-Istimāṭīs, the planetary rūḥāniyyāt are given names which also appear in the
Ġāya as shown in the table below.60
Planet Name Top Rūḥ. Bottom Right Left Front Back Genus
Saturn Bdīmās Ṭūs Ḥrūs Qbūs Donos/ Ṭāmlis/ Drūs Ṭāhīṭrūs

Dryūs Ṭāmis
Jupiter Dmāhūs Drmās Dmṭus/ Mʿs/ Drīs Ṭmīs Qdūs/ Ḏndās
Mṭīs Mġīs Frūs
Mars Dʿdyūs Hāʿindīs/ ʿʿndūs/ Bmqrās/ Ardʿūs/ Hndʿndīs/ Mhndās Ḏndġās/
Hāġīdīs Ġīdyūs Mġrās Ardġūs Hndġyūs Ḏīdmās
Despite the personal names and prescribed invocations found in the texts
mentioned so far, the rūḥāniyyāt must be perceived as tools that impel vo-
litional forces to facilitate natural processes for the benefit of the operator.
The rūḥāniyyāt are vital agents of the celestial world as multiplications of the
Universal Soul. These must remain distinct from those (supernatural) beings,
referred to as jinn and devils, who belong “to a mysterious world that cannot
be seen, [and who] breed and die”; the author adds that Islamic law sanctions
belief in these “fiery” creatures.61
properties of natural things alphabetically organized. It has been edited and studied by
Isabel Toral-Niehoff, Kitab Giranis: Die arabische Übersetzung der ersten Kyranis des Hermes
Trismegistos und die griechischen Parallelen, Munich, Herbert Utz Verlag (“Quellen und
Forschungen zur antiken Welt”, 43), 2004. ʿUṭārid b. Muḥammad is noted by Ibn al-Nadīm
as an astrologer and astronomer; see Abū l-Faraǧ Muḥammad b. Isḥāq al-Nadīm, The
Fihrist of al-Nadim: A Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture, ed. and transl. Bayard
Dodge, New York, Columbia University Press (“Records of civilization, sources and stu
dies”), 1998, p. 658-659. In Paris, BnF, MS Arabe 2775, we read that ʿUṭārid was inspired to
write his text on stones by a certain book of stones by Hermes. The Isṭimāḫīs appears with
another text known as Madīṭis in Oxford, Bodleian, MS Marsh 556. The Istūṭās appears
to have had an independent manuscript career as found in Paris, BnF, MS Arabe 2577
and a manuscript from Turkey, Manisa National Library, MS 1461 (copied 771/1369). Kitāb
Manāzil al-qamar can be found in London, British Library, MS Or. 5591 (copied in 876/1462).
60 London, British Library, MS Delhi Arabic 1946, ff. 33r-53r (ff. 40r-42v); al-Qurṭubī, Picatrix,
p. 223-235.
61 Ibid., p. 178, 181. Jinn are supernatural beings created from fire and mentioned in the
Qurʾān. They are described as being morally accountable, and, like humans, created to
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

Surprisingly, the Ġāya lacks any instructions for receiving aid from subju-
gating jinn and devils. The Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ too explicitly differentiate between
them and celestial souls. They explain that there are two kinds of spirits. First,
those not attached to bodies; if they are good they are angels, if they are bad
they are devils and jinn. Second, those “attached to the bodies of the planets
[…] having an influence on the world in two types of influence, one of which
is through the elements of their bodies as delineated in the book on astrology,
and the other through their souls.”62
The foundations of al-Qurṭubī’s and the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ’s astral magic are
firmly founded on precepts borrowed from natural philosophy (subsuming
astrology), and specifically a Neoplatonised form of Aristotelianism that
reconciles semiological, causal, and volitional modes of knowledge. Magic in
the abovementioned works is the understanding of causes—physical, astral,
pneumatic—and their utilisation to direct desired effects. This belongs to an
epistemological stance which regards the development of knowledge about
the terrestrial and celestial worlds to be achieved by reasoning and intellec-
tion, processes that observe effects and deduce their causes, which can lead to
knowledge about the First Cause, God.
2 Intersections
Natural philosophers and ascetics both aimed to know God: the first group
through His created world (effects), and the second group through the renun-
ciation thereof. At the time when al-Kindī and Abū Maʿšar wrote their works,
Sufism as a consolidated and institutionalised way of knowing, thinking,
and living did not exist. Extreme pietistic and ascetic practice was pursued
by certain isolated individuals who renounced the world and its pleasures
and adopted a strict sense of self-scrutiny and observance of obligatory and
worship God (Kor 51, 56). The evil amongst them are devils and Iblīs (Lucifer) himself was
a jinn (Kor 18, 50). In regionally diverse folklore, jinn are considered shape-shifters who
often interfer in human affairs. See Joseph Henninger, “Beliefs in Spirits among the Pre-
Islamic Arabs,” in Magic and Divination in Early Islam, ed. Emilie Savage-Smith, Aldershot,
Ashgate, 2004, p. 1-53; Amira El-Zein, Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn,
Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 2009; Robert Lebling, Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn
and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar, London, I.B. Tauris, 2010; Pierre Lory, “Anges, djinns et
démons dans les pratiques magiques musulmanes,” in Religion et pratiques de puissance,
ed. Albert de Surgy, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1997.
62 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, IV, p. 244-245.
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310 Saif
supererogatory worship.63 Most famous among them is al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī

(d. 109/728) who promoted preaching, exhibiting penance and mortification
of the flesh to a small group. To this group belonged ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd
(d. ca 132/750), who believed that God imparted esoteric knowledge (ʿilm bāṭin)
to those who dedicated their lives to Him.64 No intersection can be discerned
between the worldview of such individuals and the philosophically oriented
milieu to which al-Kindī and Abū Maʿšar belonged.
A classical form of Sufism began to emerge in the third/ninth century in
Basra, Baghdad, Syria, and Egypt.65 Affiliated to the Baghdadi school of asceti-
cism was Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896), whose contemplation of the esoteric
significance of Qurʾānic letters and words was influential, as we shall see
below.66 From Egypt hailed Ḏū l-Nūn al-Miṣrī (d. 245/860), who advocated as-
ceticism and the search for divine knowledge through occupying oneself with
God and renouncing the material world.67 He was associated with Ǧābir b.
63 Alexander Knysh, Islamic Mysticism: A Short History, Leiden, Brill (“Themes in Islamic
studies”, 1), 2000, p. 6-7; Christopher Melchert, “Origins and Early Sufism,” in The Cam-
bridge Companion to Sufism, ed. Lloyd Ridgeon, New York, Cambridge University Press
(“Cambridge companions to religion”), 2015, p. 12-13.
64 Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, p. 10, 16-18; Melchert, “Origins,” p. 13-14.
65 Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, p. 14, 35, 48; Melchert, “Origins,” p. 13.
66 Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, p. 86. A non-Sufi lettrist tradition existed before the third/
ninth century, especially in the esoteric Shīʿī context. Exponents of this early formula-
tion include al-Muġīra b. Saʿīd (d. 119/737) and Abū l-Ḫaṭṭāb (d. ca 137/755). A lettrist
tradition may have first emerged among second- and third-/eighth- and ninth-century
Shīʿī ġulāt (extremists) which developed into a mystical science during the sixth/twelfth
and seventh/thirteenth centuries due to the systematisation of Sufism. Many Sufi texts
containing mystical and metaphysical speculations on letters were produced from the
third/ninth century onwards, including those of Ḥusayn b. Manṣūr al-Ḥallāǧ (d. 309/922),
but it is beyond the scope of this chapter to summarize the history of the lettrist tra-
dition. See Farhad Daftary, The Ismāʿīlīs: Their History and Doctrines, Cambridge, Cam-
bridge University Press, 1992, p. 69-71; William Tucker, “The Kūfan Ghūlāt and Millenarian
(Mahdist) Movements,” in Unity in Diversity: Mysticism, Messianism, and the Construc-
tion of Religious Authority in Islam, ed. Orkhan Mir-Kasimov, Leiden, Brill (“Islamic his-
tory and civilization”, 105), 2014, p. 188-189; Mushegh Asatrian, “An Early Shīʿi Cosmology:
Kitāb al-ashbāḥ wa l-aẓilla and Its Milieu,” Studia Islamica, 110 (2015), p. 8, 67; Pierre Lory,
“Soufisme et sciences occultes,” in Les voies d’Allah: les ordres mystiques dans l’islam des
origines à aujourd’hui, eds Alexandre Popovic and Gilles Veinstein, Paris, Fayard, 1996,
p. 186-189.
67 Michael Ebstein, “Ḏū l-Nūn al-Miṣrī and Early Islamic Mysticism,” Arabica, 61 (2014),
p. 559-612.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

Ḥayyān and reputed to have dabbled in astrology, alchemy, and magic.68 This
reputation, however, is merely anecdotal.69 As we have seen, the Sirr al-asrār
was produced during this period, but it betrays nothing of the Sufi world-
view, while, on the other hand, the Risālat al-ḥurūf falsely attributed to Sahl
al-Tustarī contains small but significant “magical” elements subsumed under
an Islamic mystical and cosmological framework, into which rudimentary
notions of emanationism are reworked.70
Pseudo-Tustarī explains that the letters in God’s speech are the primor
dial foundations of all created things. They constitute the spiritual forms that
emerge from God’s engendering fiat, “Be!” As such, they are “the true essence
of the thing that comes into being.”71 This is the first dimension of God’s power
of creation achieved “by speech”; the other dimension is “by action,” which
causes bodies to emerge from water. In combination, a thing—body and form/
soul—comes into existence.72 God encompasses all beings through his Divine
Names, or “the attributes with which the Creator, exalted be He, described
Himself.” The power of speech is called a “book” as it delineates the nature of
all created beings and as such becomes the Book of Creation, the macrocosmic
counterpart to the book of divine revelation, the Qurʾān.73 From the light of
the nine noblest letters (Ā, L, Q, Ḥ, N, M, Ṭ, R, Ṣ) the nine spheres emerged:
68 Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, p. 41; Michael Ebstein and Sara Sviri, “The So-Called Risālat al-
ḥurūf (Epistle on Letters) Ascribed to Sahl al-Tustarī and Letter Mysticism in al-Andalus,”
Journal Asiatique, 299/1 (2011), p. 227; Fierro, “Bāṭinism in al-Andalus,” p. 92, 97.
69 Ebstein, “Ḏū l-Nūn al-Miṣrī,” p. 592-594.
70 The authenticity of this text has been questioned. Pilar Garrido Clemente views it as a
compilation and edition possibly created by al-Tustarī’s disciples, while asserting that it
does contain elements reflected in al-Tustarī’s authentic works; Pilar Garrido Clemente,
“Estudio y edición de la Risālat al ḥurūf del sufí Sahl al-Tustarī (con traducción de la sec-
ción sobre Yāʾ-sīn y de los pasajes de su Tafsīr que tratan de las letras),” Anaquel de Es-
tudios Árabes, 19 (2008), p. 72-73. Ebstein and Sviri consider the attribution to al-Tustarī
“highly questionable” seeing that “such [an] esoteric-occult and mythical philosophical
orientation” is clearly at odds with al-Tustarī’s known teachings; Ebstein and Sviri, “The
So-Called Risālat al-ḥurūf,” p. 215. Despite these reservations, the text remains an impor-
tant work, particularly for this article, as its doctrines are clearly reflected in the works
of Aḥmad al-Būnī (d. ca 622/1225) discussed at length here as a key representative and
even formulator of an “Islamicized” magic in the seventh/thirteenth century. See Clem-
ente, “Estudio y dición,” p. 74; Ebstein and Sviri, “The So-Called Risālat al-ḥurūf,” p. 234;
Jean-Charles Coulon, La magie islamique et le corpus bunianum au Moyen Âge, PhD thesis,
Université Paris IV—Sorbonne, 2013.
71 Ebstein and Sviri, “The So-Called Risālat al-ḥurūf,” p. 253.
72 Ibid., p. 236.
73 Ibid., p. 235-236.
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312 Saif
the seven heavens, the Pedestal (al-kursī) and the Throne (al- ʿarš). Together
with the letters K, H, Y, ʿ, S—“invested with beauty and splendour” by the no-
blest letters—they make up the fourteen mysterious letters known as fawātiḥ
found at the beginning of 29 suras of the Qurʾān.74 The Pedestal is referred
to in the Qurʾān: “His Pedestal extends over the heavens and earth” (Kor 2,
225). God’s Throne is also described in the Qurʾān as being carried by angels
(Kor 20, 5; 69, 17).
Here we have an Islamic cosmological narrative that differs from the
Peripatatic theories of generation and corruption adopted by Abū Maʿšar, al-
Kindī, the Iḫwān al-Ṣafa‌ʾ, the Ġāya, and the Sirr al-asrār. However, while the
Risālat al-ḥurūf is not magical in orientation, one passage alludes to an opera-
tive, even talismanic, application: “When a human being wishes to bring out
a secret contained within his hiddenness, he may do this either by choosing
letters whose substance is air, and then it will become a saying or speech; or,
if the substance is ink, it will become a book with physical and observable
form.”75 By speech or by writing, a human being is capable of generating an
effect according to a purpose determined by the soul; perhaps the first implies
invocations and the second sigils and symbols that we encounter in the works
of Aḥmad al-Bunī (d. ca 622/1225 or 630/1232-1233), discussed below, whose
theoretical underpinnings are largely derived from Sufi sources, including the
Risālat al-ḥurūf.
The Ġāyat al-ḥakīm and the Rasāʾil of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ were produced
during a time when Sufism was undergoing a consolidation due to the in-
creased production of texts on Sufi doctrines, exemplified by the works of
al-Qušayrī (d. 465/1072) and al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021), as well as biographical
dictionaries that document the edifying and inspiring lives of Sufi masters, as
we find in the works of Abū Saʿīd b. al-Aʿrābī (d. 341/952) and Ǧaʿfar al-Ḫuldī
(d. 348/960). Crucially, Sufism also spread to al-Andalus during this period.76
The Ġāya and the Rasāʾil can be described as propounding mystically-fla-
voured philosophy. The mystical aspects, however, are essentially non-Islamic;
they rather derive from the Neoplatonic esoteric conceptions found in the
Theology of Aristotle, an Arabic adaptation of Porphyry’s edition of Plotinus’s
Enneads IV-VI made by al-Kindī’s translation circle in Baghdad.77 The Iḫwān
al-Ṣafāʾ subscribe to the Neoplatonic cosmic hierarchy, though they do refer
74 Ibid., p. 237-238.

75 Ibid., p. 237.
76 Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, p. 121-123, 125-128, 130-132; Melchert, “Origins,” p. 19-21.
77 Peter Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus: A Philosophical Study of the Theology of Aristotle,
London, Duckworth, 2002, p. 6-8.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

to the eighth sphere of the fixed stars as God’s Throne and the totality of the
spheres as God’s Pedestal.78 The path of ascension to the divine in these two
texts is a vertical and gradual one. It requires directing the rational soul away
from the physical world towards the emanative hypostases (the Universal Soul
and the Universal Intellect), thus imbuing it with radiance from the higher
worlds; this process ultimately exposes the primordial ideas in the Universal
Intellect, allowing the seeker to achieve a state of cosmic awareness.79 The di-
vinisation of the soul is achieved through knowledge (ʿilm) of causes and rea-
sons (al-asbāb wa-l-ʿilal), which is the essence of alchemy, magic, medicine,
astrology, and “the science of emancipation” (ʿilm al-taǧrīd) by which the soul
knows its essence. As a result, the soul’s eye or insight is opened and it knows
the truths and verities of all beings.80 However, it must be stressed that the
soul’s exaltation is star-centric rather than God-focused.81 In a chapter entitled
“On the emancipation of the soul and its longing for the celestial world,” using
a language that is firmly Neoplatonic, the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ write:
If the person of intellect and understanding looks into the science of the
stars and contemplates the breadth of these spheres, the speed of their
revolutions, the greatness of these planets, the wonders of their motions,
and the parts of the Zodiac and their strange descriptions, as we have
described before, his soul longs to ascend to the spheres and to observe
what is there with scrutiny; but it is not possible [for the soul] to ascend
to what is there with this heavy and gross body. Indeed, when the soul
departs from this body and is not hindered by base actions, corrupt opi
nions, the accumulation of ignorance, or the degradation of its morals,
it is [able to be] there in the blink of an eye, timelessly, because it is
[already] there, [the place] where its resolve and beloved [are], in the
same way the soul of the lover [resides] where the beloved is.82
The same conception of the divinisation of the soul is expressed in the Ġāya.83
The soul of the seeker connects with the celestial spheres and from there
78 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, On the Natural Sciences, p. 75, 78.

79 ʿAbd al-Raḥman Badāwī, Aflāṭūn ʿind al-ʿarab, Cairo, Maktabat al-nahḍa l-miṣriyya, 1955,
p. 22, 62-64.
80 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, On Magic, p. 13-17.
81 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, III, p. 269-275.
82 Ibid., I, p. 137.
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314 Saif
launches into the higher hypostases.84 This is achieved by the powers of the
rational soul—described as light instilled by God—honed through empirical
understanding, moral awareness, and suppression of desire.85 In addition to
knowledge of astrology and the sympathies among natural things, this eleva-
tion of the soul is one of the preconditions of magical practice.86
The intersection of Ġāyat al-ḥakīm with a bāṭinī (esoteric) tradition has been
discussed in relation to the attribution of its authorship to Maslama l-Qurṭubī.
According to Fierro and Sviri, al-Qurṭubī’s travels to the east, particularly his
studies with Sahl al-Tustarī’s pupil Ibn Salīm al-Tustarī in Basra, and the pos-
sibility of an encounter with Abū ʿAbd Allāh b. Masarra (d. 319/931), exposed
him to both Andalusian and eastern Sufi traditions.87 Concerning Ibn Masarra,
Addas sees in him a precursor “of an Andalusi mysticism which was to reach
its high point with Ibn ʿArabī two-and-a-half centuries later,” although Knysh
contends that Ibn Masarra is “outside the mainstream Sufi pale.”88 What needs
to be noted is that his works demonstrate an affinity with Neoplatonic thought
connected with the philosophy of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ and the Ġāyat al-ḥakīm,
as Stroumsa and Sviri stress.89 According to Ebstein and Sviri, Ibn Masarra and
Ibn ʿArabī are both affiliated to the “Andalusian Sahl” stream which is more
esoteric, symbolic, and Neoplatonic than mainstream eastern Sufism, a dis-
tinction which leads them to question the attribution of the aforementioned
treatise on letters to the real Sahl al-Tustarī whose other works are less e soteric.90
However, when we consider the content of the Ġāyat al-ḥakīm, it appears to
have very little that can be considered esoteric/bāṭinī/symbolic in a Sahlian or
Masarran (lettrist) way despite the permeation of Neoplatonic ideas. In one
place, the Qurʾān is described as containing both exoteric and esoteric aspects.
The author mentions the fawātiḥ whose meaning is esoteric and represents
84 Ibid., p. 37-38, 333.

85 Ibid., p. 289-294.
86 Ibid., p. 326.
87 Fierro, “Bāṭinism in al-Andalus,” p. 99, 104-105; Godefroid de Callataÿ, “Philosophy and
Bāṭinism in al-Andalus: Ibn Masarra’s Risālat al-iʿtibār and the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ,”
Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 41 (2014), p. 263, 299-300.
88 Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, p. 114; Claude Addas, “Andalusi Mysticism and the Rise of Ibn al-
ʿArabī,” in The Legacy of Muslim Spain, ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Leiden-New York-Köln,
Brill (“Handbuch der Orientalistik. 1. Abt., Der Nahe und der Mittlere Osten”, 12), 1992,
p. 918.
89 Sarah Stroumsa, “Ibn Masarra and the Beginnings of Mystical Thought in al-Andalus,” in
Mystical Approaches to God: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, ed. Peter Schaefer, Munich,
Oldenbourg (“Schriften des Historischen Kollegs”, 65), 2006, p. 97-112: p. 101-2, 107-11.
90 Ebstein and Sviri, “The So-Called Risālat al-ḥurūf,” p. 214, 227.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

the soul; the rest of the letters are exoteric, representing the body.91 This is
followed by a list of the suras of the Qurʾān and their planetary associations,
which the author claims were drawn from the Kitāb al-Maḫzūn of a certain
Ǧaʿfar al-Baṣrī. We are told that this schema belongs to the category of secrets
“God placed in the hearts of His friends (awliyāʾ), people of intellect (ʿuqalāʾ),
and gnostics (ʿārifīn).”92 In a passing comment, he mentions the Sufis who use
the Greatest Name of God to produce wondrous effects in the world. The au-
thor then claims to have written a treatise on this subject.93 Beyond these ele-
ments, however, one struggles to find a distinctively Islamic mystical tradition
reflected in the practical and theoretical contents of the Ġāya.
In contrast with the Ġāya, Ibn Masarra’s Kitāb Ḫawāṣṣ al-ḥurūf is concerned
with “the science of [Divine] Names and attributes.” It is a “private science bet
ween the heart of a human being and his Lord.”94 Referring to Sahl al-Tustarī,
Ibn Masarra asserts that letters are the foundations of creation.95 The cos-
mos can be comprehended by the soul and heart of an individual by approa
ching the letters, names, and fawātiḥ as symbols representing cosmological
and cosmogonical principles that encapsulate God’s direct powers of cre-
ation and generation. Ibn Masarra syncretises this “Islamic” cosmogony with
Neoplatonic emanationism. Existents are divided into four classes: God, who is
“distinct from [created] things”; the Universal Intellect (al-ʿaql al-kullī), which
“contains divine virtues (faḍāʾil)”; and the Universal Soul (al-nafs al-kulliyya),
“which occupies primal matter,” that is, the body of the world it “carries.” The
celestial spheres were set up by the Universal Soul and the Whole received
warmth from it. The fourth and final existent is Nature.96 The radiance from
the name Allāh forms the essence of the Intellect; the radiance from the name
al-Raḥmān (Most Compassionate) is the essence of the Universal Soul; and
from the name al-Raḥīm (Most Merciful) the body of the world (Nature) ema-
nates. Ibn Masarra writes:
91 The Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ also refer to the fawātiḥ as mysteries that puzzled exegetes and others
who tried to interpret them; Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, III, p. 378-9; Ebstein, Mysticism and
Philosophy, p. 107.
92 Al-Qurṭubī, Picatrix, p. 169-175.
93 Ibid.
94 Garrido Clemente, “Edición Crítica del K. Jawāṣṣ al-Ḣurūf de Ibn Masarra,” al-Andalus
Magreb, 14 (2007), p. 61.
95 Ibid., p. 62-63.
96 Ibid., p. 74.
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316 Saif
From the ulūhiyya [Allāh] with al-Raḥmān [and] with al-Raḥīm you
know that the Universal Intellect is consumed with the Universal Soul
and that the Universal Soul is consumed with the body of the world,
this according to the school (maḏhab) of the philosophers and the
erring ancient nations to whom no prophet was sent (ahl al-fatarāt), who
attained the knowledge of tawḥīd in the absence of prophecy. Yet their
knowledge thereof is in accordance with the [Divine] Names, although
prophecy explicated and demonstrated it in a far clearer and more con-
clusive manner.97
Neoplatonism provided the cosmological stratification which can be utilized

in the soul’s ascent, even providing the bases for the graded praxis of self-
divinisation. As Ibn Masarra writes in his Risālat al-iʿtibār, “this world and all
its creatures [form] a ladder which the contemplators climb up towards the
highest of God’s grand signs (āyāt). He who ascends, ascends from the bottom
to the top. They ascend by elevating their intellects from their lowly rank up to
the grand signs where the attributes of prophets reach.”98
Ibn Masarra exhibits an elementary knowledge of Neoplatonic emanatio
nism, first established in the Islamic world through the Theology of Aristotle,
which became a common element of mystical thought by the time of Ibn
Masarra.99
Furthermore, the post-Fatimid Ismāʿīlī Neoplatonised cosmology arguably
contributed to the overall Islamicisation of the cosmological-cosmogenical
world-view of the fourth/tenth century.100
In comparison, though the cosmological framework of the Ġāya’s content is
primarily Neoplatonic, any reading of it will immediately show that it is alien
to the tradition to which many have claimed it belonged based on its author-
ship. The sources of the Ġāya are Greek, Sabean, Nabatean, Indian, etc., and its
magic is astral-natural without reference to letter magic or a Sufi cosmology.
Surveying the content of the Ġāya, it seems that al-Qurṭubī had stronger lea
nings towards the traditions of astral magic based on natural philosophy that
97 Ibid., p. 61.

98 Pillar Garrido Clemente, “Edición Crítica de la Risālat al-Iʿtibār de Ibn Masarra de Cór-
doba,” MEAH, Sección Árabe-Islam, 56 (2007), p. 92.
99 Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, p. 114.
100 Farhad Daftary, The Ismāʿīlīs, p. 223-224. Ebstein, Mysticism and Philosophy, p. 79; see Cle-
mente, “Edición Crítica de la Risālat al-Iʿtibār,” p. 99-100; Daniel De Smet, “Ismāʿīlī Theol-
ogy,” in The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Philosophy, ed. Sabine Schmidtke, Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 2016, p. 313-324; Daftary, The Ismāʿīlīs, p. 133-134.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

thrived in the East; he was also inspired by the Rasāʾil of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ
and their magical ideas. The lettrist conception of pseudo-al-Tustarī and Ibn
Masarra set the foundations for a more revelatory application of letters that,
as we shall see, informs the magic of Aḥmad al-Būnī, who systematised their
instrumentalisation. The most obvious difference between letter magic and the
astral/natural magic found in the Sirr al-asrār, the Ġāya, and the Rasāʾil is that
the magic in these three texts is explained by the astral agency which connects
the celestial world to the natural world and is manipulated by the operator.
Letter magic, by contrast, is revelatory and depends on the capacity of the op-
erator to receive divine knowledge through contemplating and meditating on
the letters as universal principles and signs indicating the divine dimension
from which all creation singly emerged. Simply put, the magic of the aforemen-
tioned three texts cannot be conceived of as Islamic as it is based on a meta-
physical exposition that is essentially Hellenistic—Aristotelian, Neoplatonic,
Pythagorean and Stoic—according to which creation occurs by means of ce-
lestial efficient causes. In the Risālat al-ḥurūf and all the Sufi-oriented texts
we have dealt with in this section, however, it is stressed that God does not
need causes to create. In other words, creation is an act of direct divine effu-
sion; hence we encounter a universe whose cosmogenic principles are divine
utterances that become the fabric and essence of creation and the created.
3 From Mind to Heart
We have seen in the previous section how the early mystical texts emphasized
the superiority of revelatory knowledge to intellectual knowledge. The former
requires re-orienting the soul towards the Divine through concentrating on
signs or token of the Divine rather than effects through which the causes are
inferred. These tokens are the letters which make up Divine Speech through
which the universe is constructed; therefore, knowledge of the letters reveals
the emanative and volitional structure of the universe. This revelatory shift
is not only ontological but also epistemological, as the registration of signs/
letters and their interpretation depend on a different faculty of realisation.
Abū Ḥāmid al-Ġazālī (d. 505/1111) and the Greatest Master Muḥyī l-Dīn b. ʿArabī
(d. 638/1240) articulated this ontological and epistemological re-orientation
more fully and systematically than their predecessors. As we shall see, their
expositions fed directly into ideas about the instrumentalisation of letters (let-
trist magic).
Al-Ġazālī’s Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn is largely concerned with the legitimate means
of knowing and accessing the Divine. Early in the text, he cautions that this
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318 Saif
access cannot be achieved without strict religiosity. Accordingly, salvation

is attained through two levels of experience: the level of praxis (muʿāmala)
and the level of unveiling (mukāšafa), which is “the knowledge of the hidden
(bāṭin).”101 He stresses that his own tome is dedicated to the first as the second
should not be divulged in books even if it is the goal of many.102 The level of
praxis itself is divided into ẓāhir (manifest) which is undertaken through out-
ward adherence to the divine law, and bāṭin (hidden) which is reached through
the “actions of the heart.” The manifest is the principle of islām (submission)
and the hidden is that of īmān (faith).103
Al-Ġazālī is promoting what we can refer to as “revelatory bāṭinism,” in
contrast to the “intellectual bāṭinism” that we encounter in al-Kindī who, as
noted above, engages in an exegetical exercise that subordinates the Qurʾān to
natural philosophy and reads it through an intellectual lens.104 Hidden phe-
nomena and causes can be understood through intellection and reason; this
is the epistemological foundation of texts such as the Ġāyat al-ḥakīm and the
Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ. In the former, al-Qurṭubī briefly explains the meaning
of ẓāhir and bāṭin phenomena respectively; the first is received from the fa
culty of imagination processing sensory input, whereas the second relies on
the mind’s ability to form inferences (istidlālāt); thus, his bāṭinism is markedly
different from al-Ġazālī’s and Ibn ʿArabī’s, who insist that rational inferences
cannot lead to true knowledge of things hidden. Furthermore, al-Qurṭubī uses
the word bāṭin to describe the internal senses as distinct from the five exter-
nal ones.105 The notion of having five external senses—sight, hearing, smell-
ing, tasting, and touch—as well as internal senses is established by Ibn Sīnā
(d. 428/1037), for whom the internal senses are the common sense, imagina-
tion, estimation, thinking, and memory. These make up the cognitive ability
of human beings and they can be applied for bāṭinī understanding or ẓāhirī/
101 Abī Ḥāmid al-Ġazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, Beirut, al-Maktaba l-ʿaṣriyya, 2007, I, p. 30.
102 Ibid., p. 23, 116.
103 Ibid., p. 164.
104 Al-Ġazālī’s revelatory bāṭinism constitutes a subtle layer of the overarching objective of
Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn: the demotion of kalām and fiqh in favour of the revelatory experience
of truth; see Kenneth Garden, “Al-Ghazālī’s Contested Revival: Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn and Its
Critics in Khorasan and the Maghrib,” PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, December
2005, p. 6-7, 16, 20-27, 51.
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external purposes, which correspond with metaphysical inquiry and physical/

natural inquiry respectively.106
In contradistinction, the nexus of revelatory bāṭinism for al-Ġazālī becomes
the heart and its capacity to receive revelation. In a chapter entitled “On the
explication of the heart’s wonders” (Kitāb šarḥ ʿaǧāʾib al-qalb), we encounter
his epistemological typology in which the heart, spirit, and soul are defined.
Each of these has physical and inner aspects. The heart is the fleshy organ itself
but it is also “a spiritual divine subtle power (laṭīfa) which has an attachment
to this corporeal heart.” It is not possible to articulate the nature of this attach-
ment because it is related to the level of mukāšafa which, he here repeats, is
not the concern of his book, and because it requires revealing the secret of
the soul, which one is not permitted to reveal; however, this subtle power re
presents “the quiddity of being human.”107 Moreover, it is what gives a human
being “the preparedness to know God […] for the heart is the knower of God.”108
Concerning the spirit, on the one hand it is the medical vaporous substance
that issues forth from the heart; on the other, it is also a subtle power (laṭīfa)
that is “knowing and aware” and it is categorised as one of the secret workings
of the heart. As for the soul, it may refer to the affected soul, in the Aristotelian
sense, whose actions are necessitated by the body. This is the soul for whose
subduing the Sufis call. However, the soul is also a subtle power (laṭīfa) identi-
fied as the ipseity of being human which facilitates knowing God.
From this description of the subtle powers (laṭāʾif ), it becomes clear that
the functions of the spirit and soul are subordinated to and contained within
the heart.109 This focalisation leads al-Ġazālī to completely bypass the intel-
lect, as is evident from the two descriptions he provides for it: it is the “knowl-
edge of the truths of things, making it a description of the knowledge located
in the heart.” It is “that which receives knowledge, and so it is the heart, I mean
particularly the subtle power (laṭīfa).”110
The intellect, that is, is not an independent faculty dedicated to intellec-
tion and deductive processes. The intellect is the heart. Referring to Sahl al-
Tustarī, al-Ġazālī explains that the heart is the microcosmic ʿarš (Throne)
106 Peter E. Pormann, “Avicenna on Medical Practice, Epistemology, and the Physiology of
the Inner Senses,” in Interpreting Avicenna: Critical Essays, ed. Peter Adamson, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 102-106.
107 Al-Ġazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, II, p. 4.
108 Ibid., p. 3.
109 Ibid., p. 5.
110 Ibid., p. 6.
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320 Saif
and the chest is the kursī (Pedestal), establishing a parallel between the epis-
temological hierarchy and the Islamicised Neoplatonic ontological hierarchy
discussed above.111
This heart-centred, non-discursive, and revelatory way to the Divine was
also propounded in the treatise known as Fī l-farq bayn al-ṣadr wa-l-qalb wa-
l-fuʾād wa-l-lubb (On the Difference between the Chest, the Heart, the Kindling
Heart, and the Core), attributed to the third/ninth-century Sufi master al-
Ḥakīm al-Tirmiḏī. It is stressed in this text that “the knowledge of the bāṭin is
the knowledge of the heart, and it is the [most] useful science.”112 He unpacks
the functions of the different concentric constituents of the heart: the outer
layer is the forefront or bosom of the heart (ṣadr), and locus of the waystation
of islām.113 The second layer is the heart (qalb), which actualises the waystation
of īmān and is the locus where bāṭini inclinations are first ignited.114 The third
layer is the kindling heart (fuʾād) where theophany and visions are received as
signs of the realisation of the waystation of iḥsān (perfection).115 Islām, īmān,
and iḥsān refer to levels of belief from the following hadith in which the angel
Gabriel/Ǧibrīl asks the Prophet Muḥammad:
“What is īmān?” God’s Messenger replied, “Īmān is to believe in God,

His angels, (the) meeting with Him, His Apostles, and to believe in
Resurrection.” He asked, “What is islām?” God’s Messenger replied, “To
worship God Alone and none else, to offer prayers, to pay the obligato-
ry charity (zakāt), and to fast during the month of ramaḍān.” He asked,
“What is iḥsān (perfection)?” God’s Messenger replied, “To worship God
as if you see Him, and if you cannot see Him then [knowing] that He is
seeing you.”116
These three stages of belief became spiritual waystations in Sufi tradition. Al-
Ġazālī, as we have seen, discusses the first two, perhaps refraining from the
third considering it to belong to mukāšafa. Al-Tirmiḏī, however, adds a fourth:
111 Ibid., p. 6.
112 Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAlī l-Ḥakīm al-Tirmiḏī, Bayān fī l-farq bayn al-ṣaḍr wa-
l-qalb wa-l-fuʾād wa-l-lubb, Amman, Muʾassasat Āl al-Bayt al-malakiyya li-l-fikr al-islāmī,
2012, p. 31.
113 Ibid., p. 14-15.
114 Ibid., p. 16.
115 Ibid., p. 18, p. 53.
116 Al-Buḫārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, Book 2, Hadith 43 (https://sunnah.com/bukhari/2/43).
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emancipation, which is localized in the final, innermost constituent of the

heart, the core (lubb), where the Divine is truly witnessed.117 The path to God
requires a re-channelling from a rational and intellectual occupation to the
affective cultivation of internal resolve, directing the will toward the Divine—
God, the Truth—from whom the light of true knowledge shines into the heart.
Indeed, al-Tirmiḏī emphasizes that the mind’s “dominion is deficient,” al-
though it is beneficial up to a point, adding that it is bound by language—linear
reasoning—which cannot reach and articulate an authentic mystical expe
rience. As a result, “not every person of intellect (ʿāqil) knows God, but every
knower of God is a person of intellect.”118 This is in contrast with Iḫwān al-
Ṣafāʾ’s statement above according to which any “person of intellect” is able to
know the Divine through the study of astrology and contemplation of the cos-
mos and the series of causes and effects that governs it.119
For al-Ġazālī, as long as orthopraxy is maintained, when the heart’s subtle
powers are properly engaged contemplating the Divine, the truths behind
everything known will be reflected on it and it shall be like a mirror.120 Therefore,
the heart witnesses God “if the veil is lifted through devoutness (taqwā), and
whoever has the veil between him and God lifted, the image of the mulk (cre-
ation) and malakūt will manifest in his heart.”121 The malakūt comprises the
Preserved Tablet (al-lawḥ al-maḥfūẓ) in which existents first come to be be-
fore corporeality, and the angelic realm.122 This manifestation, according to
al-Ġazālī, takes place at the deepest point of the bāṭin level of īmān (faith) ac-
cessed only by gnostics (ʿārifīn), not “the faith of the common people” which is
“pure imitation,” and not “the faith of intellectual theologians (mutakallimūn)
which is intermingled with a kind of inference.”123 Gnostics experience revela-
tion (ilhām)—these are the awliyāʾ (the friends of God)—and rational theolo-
gians engage in rational consideration (iʿtibār)—these are the ʿulamāʾ (people
of exoteric and rational knowledge). As a result of this unveiling and manifes-
tation, the gnostic may attain karāmāt (extraordinary feats) such as visions.124
Al-Ġazālī thus gives the bāṭin a prominent place in this heart-centric
scheme of knowledge. We can therefore say that two of the most important
117 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmiḏi, Bayān fī l-farq, p. 57-58.

118 Ibid., p. 60, 62.
119 See p. 313, footnote 82.
120 Al-Ġazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, II, p. 17.
121 Ibid., p. 20.
122 Ibid., p. 28.
123 Ibid., p. 20-21.
124 Ibid., p. 34.
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322 Saif
achievements of al-Ġazālī’s Iḥyāʾ are cementing “esoteric” concepts within

“exoteric” adherence, and re-orienting the process of perception. He is care-
ful not to abandon the ẓāhir (manifest) and deductive processes—which take
place at the level of the heart still—to ensure the legitimacy of his episteme.
Al-Ġazālī writes: “if the bāṭin contradicts the ẓāhir, this is the nullification of
Islamic Law (šarʿ) […] whoever says that the Truth contradicts Islamic Law or
that the bāṭin contradicts the ẓāhir, this is closer to apostasy than to faith.”125 It
must be remembered that this whole scheme is still contained within the level
of muʿāmala not mukāšafa as he continuously stresses; furthermore, the struc-
ture of his exposition is itself formal and deductive—a feature that Ibn ʿArabī
explicitly critiques.
Ibn ʿArabī exhibits a thorough acquaintance with Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn in his
al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya (The Meccan Revelations), which is a text he presents as
the articulation of a revelation he received during hajj. Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn was
recited to Ibn ʿArabī by Muḥammad b. Ḫālid al-Ṣadafī l-Tilimsānī.126 For Ibn
ʿArabī, the methods of al-Ġazālī put him in the milieu of rational theologians
who side-track the bāṭinī project.127 If al-Ġazālī is cautious in his text not to
divulge the secrets of attaining theophany, Ibn ʿArabī reveals it all.
Ibn ʿArabī accepts al-Ġazālī’s stance that favours revelation as being centred
on the heart. He differs from al-Ġazālī, however, in revealing mukāšafa in his
book and exposing the operational aspects of Islamic gnosis. Ibn ʿArabī echoes
the dichotomy of physicality and “the subtle powers” (laṭāʾif ) in human exis-
tence that al-Ġazālī applies to the heart, soul, spirit, and intellect. For Ibn ʿArabī
there are two anatomical sciences: physical and divine. The first is known by
physicians, and the second—the one that al-Ġazālī refuses to discuss since it
belongs to mukāšafa—involves, according to Ibn ʿArabī, “knowing the Divine
Names and Divine relationships in the human form.”128
Ibn ʿArabī, like al-Ġazālī, stresses that this true knowledge cannot be ob-
tained by intellectual or rational theorisation (naẓar fikrī) but only through
a divine unveiling; it can never be an “objective” endeavour.129 The bāṭin,
125 Al-Ġazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, I, p. 140.

126 Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiya, VIII, p. 387.
127 Ibid., IV, p. 479; VII, p. 156.
128 Ibid., IV, p. 417.
129 Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, ed. Abū l-ʿAlāʾ ʿAfīfī, Cairo, Dār iḥyāʾ al-kutub al-ʿarabiyya, 1946,
p. 49, 51; Chittick, The Self-Disclosure, p. xii, xiii, xiv; id., “Ibn al-ʿArabī,” in History of Islamic
Philosophy, ed. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, London, Routledge (“Routledge
history of world philosophies”, 1), 1996, p. 501-502.
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according to Ibn ʿArabī, is knowledge attained by the heart.130 In the Futūḥāt,

he declares that true knowledge is “an achievement of the heart” through
which the Divine Presence is revealed and is reflected on it, like a mirror. The
heart that is “occupied with the knowledge of causes apart from God” is like a
rusty mirror.131 Ibn ʿArabī explains, in the Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, that the preoccupa-
tion with causality seen in those rational thinkers and their incapacity to reach
the truth without a discursive approach to the world’s phenomena are signs
of spiritual weakness. The gnostics, however, see things beyond the linear-
ity of rationality and causality; they witness that the world is God’s divine
effusion.132 In the Futūḥāt, we are told that this knowledge is not based on
inferences, proofs, and syllogisms, as Abū Maʿšar, al-Kindī, and the author of
the Ġāya would have it.133 Instead, the gnostic seeks dalāʾil, tokens placed by
God in the world, for which the heart’s eye searches to learn the soul’s iden-
tity in relation to the Divine.134 The world, Ibn ʿArabī tells us, is not bound by
causality (asbāb, sababiyya), and thus not rationally comprehensible, but truly
witnessed only via the divine principles we know as the Divine Names which
are made manifest to the hearts of those who observe the tokens that point to
God and signify His nearness.135 In his Mawāqiʿ al-nuǧūm he explains that the
heart itself performs the creative fiat “Be! And so it is,” but on a scale appropri-
ate to its microcosmic domain. In other words, its creative ability in a state of
spiritual sublimation and witnessing the divine (mušāhada) is a refraction of
God’s own command. The agency here is entirely God’s. This leads Ibn ʿArabī
to posit the heart as “the possessor of himma,” that resolve which enables
the subjugation and utilisation of the exterior world and the achievement of
extraordinary feats.136
Ibn ʿArabī explicitly rejects the notion of astral causation and the celestial
bodies’ mediation in creation, since God does not need instruments: “ ‘Be!’
He says, ‘and it is’ ” (kun fa-yakūn).137 As discussed below, it is the celestial
Prophetic souls that move the planets and rule existents by divine sympathy
which cannot be understood through reason and syllogisms, for it is a secret
130 Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ, p. 122-125.

131 Id., al-Futūḥāt, I, p. 142-143.
132 Id., Fuṣūṣ, p. 49, 185, 187.
133 Id., al-Futūḥāt, I, p. 94.
134 Id., Fuṣūṣ, p. 53, 105.
135 Ibid., p. 105; Chittick, The Self-Disclosure, p. 3, 6-8.
136 Ibn ʿArabī, Mawāqiʿ al-nuǧūm wa-maṭāliʿ ahillat al-asrār wa-l-ʿulūm, Beirut, al-Maktaba
l-ʿaṣriyya, p. 121.
137 Id., Fuṣūṣ, p. 115; Chittick, The Self-Disclosure, p. xix.
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324 Saif
knowledge revealed through revelation and theophany. Letters and the Divine
Names, not celestial bodies/causes, are the generating principles. Each name
realises an aspect of the world’s existence.138 And so diversity and multiplica-
tion are achieved solely through the names, which are God’s self-manifestations.139
God’s names are “divine ratios”—as opposed to the “celestial ratios” mentioned
in the Ġāya—that vary in aspect but not in essence, functioning as degrees of
God’s own effusion.140 In the Futūḥāt, Ibn ʿArabī stresses that causes of cre-
ation belong to the supercelestial dimension of God and not to the stars and
planets. Elsewhere, he affirms that “God does not create a thing with a thing,”
denying proximate causality (al-sababiyya).141 Multiplicity is in the One with-
out dividing Him; His Divine Names (which are codified by letters) produce
the universe and the variations it contains while maintaining His Unicity.142 In
affirming that “God does not create a thing with a thing,” Ibn ʿArabī is here
arguing against the philosophers, such as Ibn Sīnā, who postulate that another
created entity, namely the Intellect, generates the world with all its variation
and multiplicity, since they believe “only the one issues from the One”; this
generating entity thus becomes an efficient instrumental cause.143
This is indeed Ibn Sīnā’s position, who defines metaphysics as a divine sci-
ence “whereby the first causes of natural and mathematical existence and
what relates to them are investigated; and [it also investigates] the Cause of
Causes and Principle of Principles—namely, God, exalted be His greatness.”144
He also adds: “In Him there is no variety of forms arranged and differing, such
as there is in the human soul, in the sense previously discussed in Psychology.
For this reason, He intellectually apprehends things all at once, without being
rendered multiple by them in His substance […]. Rather, their forms emanate
from Him as Intelligibles.”145 The Pure Intellect emanates separate intellectual
agents into which it instils the universal ideas that act as archetypes of genera
ted forms: “To each sphere belongs a separate intellect whose relation to it is as
the relation of the active intellect to us.”146 The multiplicity of forms—which
cannot be in God—occurs in these separate intellects, “helped by a difference
138 Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt, I, p. 235-41.

139 Id., Fuṣūṣ, p. 65, 101, 104, 105-106, 119.
140 Ibid., p. 153.
141 Id., al-Futūḥāt, VI, p. 91.
142 Ibid., I, p. 153-157; VI, p. 110-111; Chittick, “Ibn al-ʿArabī,” p. 499.
143 Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt, VI, p. 91-92; Chittick, The Self-Disclosure, p. 16-17.
144 Avicenna, The Metaphysics of The Healing, transl. Michael E. Marmura, Provo, Brigham
Young University Press, 2005, p. 2.
145 Ibid., p. 291.
146 Ibid., p. 325.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

in the states of the celestial spheres.” The forms thus emanate from the sepa-
rate celestial intellects. The Active Intellect, the last in the emanative order,
bestows forms on matter, thereby producing the world of generation and cor-
ruption, but it does so “by the association of the celestial influences.”147 Ibn
Sīnā here reconciles Neoplatonic emanationism with Aristotelian hylomor-
phism and incorporates the theory of astral causation first established by Abū
Maʿšar—a theory Ibn ʿArabī considers reprehensible, since “God’s creation
cannot be given causes (lā yuʿallal)”; it is only accomplished by His command.
This stance is reiterated in most of Ibn ʿArabī’s works, including in an admo
nishing letter he wrote to the philosopher and occultist Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī
(d. 606/1209) criticizing his intellectual bāṭinism.148
In contrast to Ibn Sīnā, Ibn ʿArabī seems to formulate what we can describe
as “lettrist hylomorphism.” The four natures are “Primary Mothers” (ummahāt)
and from them the elements are born; however, the mothers are antipathetic
to each other and yet in generation they join in physical compositions. The
Creator chooses to harmonize them according His omniscience and divine
preconception. They do not actually exist separately in essence but emerge
by the will of God as harmonized compositions. So, the mothers/verities exist
in God and not independently in reality; they do not have actual existence be-
fore their formal composition. These formal compositions are the elements
and they can undergo transformation. The principles of generation are the let-
ters and divine names which constitute the Divine Speech and attributes. They
generate by spontaneous effusion rather than by a multiplication and serialisa-
tion of causes.
Ibn ʿArabī clearly sees in this an alternative to Aristotelian hylomorphism,
which explains the actualisation of existence as a collaboration of the four
causes: formal, material, efficient (the celestial world), and final causes. Ibn
ʿArabī tells us that he did not come upon this from his “readings in the science
of the natures according to its advocates”; rather, he was introduced to it by a
friend who initially was busy receiving medical education but discovered the
truth of generation “through kašf (a state of revelation) not through reading
and deductive reasoning”. He declares: “This is an astonishing secret, and an
abstruse complexity which is forbidden to reveal since it cannot be borne and
since the mind cannot comprehend it; but only kašf can witness it.”149
147 Ibid., p. 329-330, 334-335.

148 Mohammed Rustom, “Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Letter to Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī: A Study and Transla-
tion,” Journal of Islamic Studies, 25/2 (2014), p. 113-137.
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326 Saif
Ibn ʿArabī, thus, fully elaborates on the revelatory aspects of Islamic bāṭinism
that al-Ġazālī was careful to restrict. In revelatory bāṭinism, the cosmos must
undergo “a subjective polarisation” whereby the universe is valued as a net-
work of signs to be contemplated by the human subject in order to know God
through His attributes.150 Although such relativity and hermeneutic potential
have always been the presumption underlying the astrology and magic we see
in Abū Maʿšar, Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, and Maslama l-Qurṭubī, for Ibn ʿArabī the cos-
mos’s essential characteristic is its relativity to the human and ultimately to
God; a relation that cannot be understood causally but semiologically, namely
through the letters and Divine Names.
4 Science of Letters (ʿilm al-ḥurūf)
We find a proto-lettrist theory already in the corpus attributed to the enigmatic

and semi-legendary Ǧābir b. Ḥayyān (d. 159/815), who has existed in histori-
cal consciousness as a prolific author on alchemy and natural sciences since
the second/ninth century. The elusiveness of authenticity characterizes the
treatises dealing with magic, artificial generation, properties of things, and
numbers.151 In his Kitāb al-Ḥudūd, Kitāb al-Mawāzīn al-ṣaġīr, Kitāb al-Mīzān
al-ṣaġīr, and Kitāb al-Aḥǧār, the real characteristics of everything—minerals,
plants, animals, stars, and souls—and their manipulation can be understood by
the Science of the Balance of Letters (mīzān al-ḥurūf). This science investigates
the way in which alpha-numerical values are integral to and reflect the essence
and nature of things. Once thereby determined, one may then transform these
natures.152 However, it must be emphasized that this is a reason-motivated
150 Titus Burckhardt, Mystical Astrology According to Ibn al-ʿArabī, transl. Bulent Rauf, Paris,
Beshara Publications, 1977, p. 10.
151 Syed Nomanul Haq, Names, Natures and Things: The Alchemist Jābir ibn Ḥayyān and His
Kitāb al-Aḥjār (Book of Stones), Dordrecht, Kluwer (“Boston studies in the philosophy
of science”, 158), 1994, p. 3-14; Paul Kraus, Contribution à l’histoire des idées scientifiques
dans l’Islam. Vol. I: Le corpus des écrits jābiriens, Cairo, Imprimerie de l’Institut Français
d’Archéologie Orientale, 1943.
152 Haq, Names, Natures, and Things, p. 81-83; Denis Gril, “La science des lettres,” in Les Illumi-
nations de La Mecque: Textes Choisis, ed. Michel Chodkiewicz, Paris, Sindbad (“La Biblio-
thèque de l’Islam. Textes”), 1989, p. 414-415; Pierre Lory, “La magie des lettres dans le Šams
al-maʿārif d’al-Būnī,” Bulletin d’Études Orientales, 39-40 (1987-1988), p. 103; id., La Science
des Lettres en Islam, Paris, Dervy, 2004, p. 41-42.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

pursuit, “known by proof” (maʿlūm bi-l-burhān)153 that uniquely elaborates on

the Aristotelian notion of the actualisation of existents; it is an aetiological
morphology, rather than a revelatory and purely semiological one.
Discussion of the significance of letters can also be found in the Rasāʾil of the
Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, who consider them, in addition to numbers, as intellectual prin-
ciples and denotations of universal order. However, their discussion is akin to
the Pythagorean and Platonic, specifically Timaean, mathematical cosmology.154
Epistemologically, these principles are understood by intellectual and causal
modes of knowing; the section discussing letters and numbers opens with the
statement, “Know that whoever wishes to know the truth of things must first
look for the causes (ʿilal) of existents and the reasons (asbāb) of the created.”155
This epistemological stance markedly distances the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ’s world-view
from that of Ibn ʿArabī, who rejects causality as means of knowing the realities
of existence and the Divine. The incorporation of Neoplatonic emanationism
in the thought of Ibn ʿArabī led some studies to argue for a direct influence
of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ but there is no evidence, textual or conceptual, that Ibn
ʿArabī was directly influenced by them as ʿAfīfī and others argued.156 However,
it is most likely that Ibn ʿArabī absorbed Neoplatonic notions from their preva-
lence in the intellectual atmosphere in the Islamic west. Furthermore, as we
have seen, the cosmogony and cosmology of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ are structured
according to a causal worldview which gives prominence to the intermedia-
tion of the celestial spheres in generation and their role in establishing cos-
mological coherence. Their cosmology is a part of natural philosophy based on
a Neoplatonised Aristotelianism, in contrast to the Sufi world-view that per-
ceives the universe and its processes as direct disclosures of the Divine.
Ibn ʿArabī clearly was acquainted with the Ǧābirī Balance of Letters. Like
Ǧābir, Ibn ʿArabī viewed letters as the principles of celestial and supercelestial
motions.157 They also have “dominion [from] the higher world over the lower
world.”158 However, he “esotericises” this science consciously by explicitly
linking it with Ǧābir’s alleged mentor, Ǧaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (the sixth Shīʿī Imam)159
153 Ǧābir b. Ḥayyān, Rasāʾil Ǧābir b. Ḥayyān, ed. Aḥmad Farīd al-Mazīdī, Beirut, Dār al-kutub
al-ʿilmiyya, 2006, p. 200-203, p. 208.
154 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, III, p. 377-383; I, p. 48-77.
155 Ibid., p. 376.
156 Chittick, “Ibn al-ʿArabī,” p. 498-499; ʿAfīfī, The Sources, p. 20-27.
158 Ibid., p. 87.
159 Gril, “La science des lettres,” p. 414-415, 407-408.
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328 Saif
with whom divination and the science of letters were closely associated.160 Ibn
ʿArabī thus downplays the “intellectual” aspect of the science of letters. For
Ibn ʿArabī, the letters reflect divine verity, not natural status, and they codify
the subordination of human beings or the Human Presence to the Divine pre
sence. The human’s relationship to the Divine and its cultivation are mediated
by the letter-essences of the universe’s spheres.161
The most peculiar aspect of Ibn ʿArabī’s lettrist theory, however, is his des
cription of the letters as “nations addressed and accountable, and among them
[there are] prophets of their kind. They have names whence they are and no
one knows this save the people of unveiling.”162 They have spirits (rūḥāniyya),
even personhood, and we read in the Fuṣūṣ that each letter is associated with a
Divine Name that has power over the created the world.163
Knowledge of the letters and their spiritual forces brings about gnostic,
magical, and miraculous abilities. In the Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, Ibn ʿArabī con-
demns extraordinary feats achieved by “natural tricks” (ḥīla ṭabīʿiyya).164 It is
possible that he came across the Ġāyat al-ḥakīm, but strong evidence is lack-
ing; however, he was certainly acquainted with the Sirr al-asrār, as it forms the
basis of his work al-Tadbīrāt al-ilāhiyya; and it has been suggested that its dis-
cussion of physiognomy (firāsa) inspired his own pursuit of the matter.165 But
in the Futūḥāt, Ibn ʿArabī seems to criticise magicians who claim to receive the
powers of higher souls, or celestial rūḥāniyyāt, in the manner found in the Ġāya
and the Sirr al-asrār. He describes them as “those who believe themselves to
160 Ebstein, Mysticism and Philosophy, p. 121 (see also n. 151).

162 Ibid., p. 85.
163 Ibid., p. 123-124; Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ, p. 72.
164 Ibn ʿArabī often avails himself of “magical” terms but discards what they designate tran-
sitively, using them rather as symbols of gnostic concepts or processes. For example, in
the Futūḥāt he uses the word ṭillasm, and, exactly like the author of Ġāyat al-ḥakīm, he
understands it in terms of its reverse musallaṭ meaning to have power over something.
But in the section where he describes three talismans he is rather referring to the states or
modes of living that prevent human beings from experiencing truth and enlightenment.
They are ‘talismans’ that God imposed on common people; only Sufis can free themselves
from their effects; see Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt, V, p. 343-349. Another example of Ibn ʿArabī’s
inversion of magical terms is found in the al-Tadbīrāt al-ilāhiyya where he uses the term
ḫawāṣṣ al-aḥǧār, usually designating the occult properties of stones, to refer to traits or
powers of the gnostic’s heart that enable him to achieve different levels of consciousness
or awareness of the Divine; see Ibn ʿArabī, al-Tadbīrat al-ilāhiyya, ed. ʿĀṣim Ibrāhīm al-
Kayyālī, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2003, p. 103-106.
165 Ibid., p. 20; Franz Rosenthal, “Ibn al-ʿArabī between ‘Philosophy’ and ‘Mysticism’: ‘Sufism
and Philosophy Are Neighbors and Visit Each Other’,” Oriens, 31 (1988), p. 25.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

be only receiving [power] from the higher spirits (arwāḥ ʿulwiyya), and [think]
that they supply them [with power], and [that] they attract them [i.e. the spi
rits] to bind them and that all they are [engaged] in is derived from them […].
Such are worshippers of created beings, not worshippers of God.”166 Legitimate
occult powers, however, are much nobler than this. We read:
Divine secrets flowing into the world are supplied by the high spirits to
the righteous souls who are open to the gains from the [higher] world
in this life. They are [derived as a result of] spiritual states [articulated]
by the tongues of people who have freed their souls from the slavery of
desires and the apprehension of nature, and cleaned the mirrors of their
hearts until the higher souls approached them. Thus, they joined, with
their thoughts, the Heavenly Host (al-mala‌ʾ al-aʿlā).167
To understand the difference between the high spirits (arwāḥ) that Ibn ʿArabī
valorises and the celestial rūḥāniyyāt of the Ġāya and the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ’s
Rasāʾil, we must digress slightly to understand the discrepancy between the
structures of the spiritual world as described by both camps.
As we have seen, the celestial rūḥāniyyāt of the Ġāya are multiplications of
the Universal Soul as described in the Theology of Aristotle; they are the vital
principles or emanations that govern and administer the celestial and terres-
trial worlds.168 In the cosmos of Ibn ʿArabī, however, the Neoplatonic hypos-
tases are “islamicised,” resulting in a different ontological status.169 Ibn ʿArabī
implies that the spirit of the Prophet Muḥammad (rūḥ al-rasūl) is identical to
the Universal Soul which administers all generation.170 The spirits of the rest
of the Prophets (rūḥāniyyat nabī) reside in the celestial spheres and each of
them corresponds with a set of sciences, among other things. It is indeed, as
Chittick calls it, a prophetic cosmology and any revelation to the Friends of
God is mediated by the spirits of the prophets.171 This brings to mind the Iḫwān
al-Ṣafāʾ’s view of sacred history. In al-Risāla l-ǧāmiʿa, they introduce the seven
historical epochs which correspond to the seven prophets, though without
reference to the rūḥāniyyāt. This scheme is reminiscent of Ismāʿīlī adwār or
166 Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt, V, p. 345.

167 Ibid., p. 346.
169 Pierre Lory, “Magie et religion dans l’œuvre de Muhyi al-Dîn al-Bûnî,” Horizons maghrébins,
7-8 (1986), p. 6-7.
170 Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt, I, p. 220.
171 Chittick, The Self-Disclosure, p. xiii, xiv; Chittick, “Ibn al-ʿArabī,” p. 499.
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330 Saif
cycles according to which the sixth era is that of Muḥammad as nāṭiq (re-
vealing the exoteric aspect of religion) with ʿAlī as waṣī (disclosing the eso-
teric aspect), and in the seventh era Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl (who has gone into
concealment) becomes the nāṭiq-waṣī-imam.172 In Epistle 38, the allegory of
the king’s seven sons (prophets) and the fact that the characteristics of five
of them correspond to the natures of five planets can be read as another layer
to their view of sacred history that associates the planets with the prophets.173
The Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ do not substitute the rūḥāniyyāt (which originated in the
pseudo-Aristotelian, however, Hermetica) with the prophets. Their rūḥāniyyāt
sit firmly in the cosmological scheme of volitional causality. The most explicit
planet-prophet association is still found in Ibn ʿArabī’s al-Futūḥāt, perhaps in-
spired by the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ.174 He explains that through communicating with
the rūḥāniyyāt of the spheres, more specifically those of the prophets, the
gnostics receive many secret sciences, which include knowledge of talismans,
divination, and the secrets of Divine Names.175
Table 1 From Ibn ʿArabī’s Futūḥāt: three examples of prophetic and lettrist correspondences
Spirit Letter Sphere Day Knowledge
Idrīs N Sun Sunday The secrets of the spirits, light,

(Hermes) celestial music, instruments
Jesus Ṭ Mercury Wednesday Inspiration, revelation, worship,
invention, divination, talismans,
magic, amulets
Adam D Moon Monday Secret names
172 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, al-Risāla l-ǧāmiʿa, ed. Ǧamīl Ṣalībā, Damascus, al-Taraqqī, 1949, II, p. 145-
154; Seyyed Hossein Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines, New York,
New York University Press, 1993, p. 83; Godefroid de Callataÿ, Ikhwan al-Safa‌ʾ: A Brother-
hood of Idealists on the Fringe of Orthodox Islam, Oxford, Oneworld, 2005, p. 42-43; Daftary,
The Ismāʿīlīs, p. 131-133.
173 De Callataÿ, Ikhwan al-Safa’, p. 48-49.
174 For parallels between Ibn ʿArabī and the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, see Ebstein, Mysticism and Phi-
losophy in al-Andalus, p. 53-57, 136-138.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

Ibn ʿArabī also asserts that individuals are bestowed with various “miracles”
or “charismas” (karāmāt) as they journey through spiritual grades. He elabo-
rates on the waystations—or grades (marātib)—of islām, īmān, and iḥsān in
his Mawāqiʿ al-nuǧūm.176 He defines a miracle as “violating the norm” (ḫarq
al-ʿāda). Its purpose is “so that God can make the worshipper witness His won-
ders and make him see in His signs what will increase in him the desire for his
waystation and the force [of determination] toward that which he is heading.”177
These karāmāt are achieved through a force called himma, which is a resolve
propelled by love of God. Ibn ʿArabī defines it as a psychic power (quwwa naf-
siyya) that is directed by God toward a supernatural effect and/or revelation.178
In the Mawāqiʿ al-nuǧūm, karāmāt are divided according to the senses through
which they manifest. Belonging to the karāmāt of the eye, the Sufi can be made
able to see visitors before their arrival, see through barriers, see the Black Stone
in Mecca during prayer, and also see angels and jinn.179 Sight in this case is
achieved through the eye of the heart.180 Among the karāmāt of the ear is hea
ring the speech of inanimate things; and among those of the feet is walking on
air.181 In the Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, Ibn ʿArabī reiterates this notion and explains that
the people of unveiling receive skills to affect the world with the aid of divine
revelation through a disposition referred to as al-himma l-muʾaṯṯira, which is
the active transformative desire or resolve that exposes what lies behind the
veil of nature.182 The effect of this desire on the natural world is referred to as
tasḫīr, meaning subjugation. This is verified in the Qurʾān where we read, “And
He has subjugated to you what is in the heavens and what is on earth—all is
from Him.”183 Ibn ʿArabī asserts, “Whoever is closest to God subjugates whom-
ever is furthest from God.”184
We have seen above that al-Ġazālī veers away from any operational aspect
of bāṭinism, though he states that karāmāt can passively occur as a result of un-
veiling and manifestation.185 However, when it comes to magic he is opprobri-
ous. He categorises “sorcery (siḥr) and talismans” as reprehensible knowledge
176 Id., Mawāqiʿ al-nuǧūm, p. 16-18.

177 Ibid., p. 58.
178 Ibid., p. 75, 88.
179 Ibid., p. 58-59.
180 Ibid., p. 61-62.
181 Ibid., p. 64, 69, 113.
182 Id., Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, p. 89, 127-128, 183, 193-194.
183 Ibid.; Kor 45, 13.
184 Id., Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, p. 198.
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332 Saif
(ʿilm maḏmūm), causing only harm. He seems to be referring to astral magic

which he defines as
a kind [of knowledge] that utilizes the occult properties (ḫawāṣṣ) of

substances and mathematical matters related to the risings of the stars.
A figure is made out of these substances in the form of the cursed person.
It is allotted a specific moment according to the risings [of the stars].
With it are associated uttered words which constitute apostasy (kufr) and
obscenity ( faḥš) against religious law, and through which demonic aid is
received.186
The “science of the stars” (ʿilm al-nuǧūm) in itself is not reprehensible, par-
ticularly astronomy; however, astrology is because it requires believing that
“the planets are influential, and that they are controlling gods since they are
celestial and noble substances, having a great hold on [human] hearts. And so,
the heart pays attention to them and observes the good and evil from them, in
avoidance or in anticipation. Thus, remembrance of the Exalted God is erased
from the heart”. He adds that “the attention of most people is focused on low
approximate causes. They are disconnected from the path of ascent (taraqqī)
to the Causer of Causes.”187 Al-Ġazālī censures the star-centric worldview that
we observe in the works of natural philosophers, astrologers, and magicians
of the earlier centuries of the Islamic middle period, including Abū Maʿšar, al-
Kindī, and Maslama l-Qurṭubī, even Ibn Sīnā.
One of al-Ġazālī’s critiques against magic is that it invests too much faith
in the power of the ḫawāṣṣ. He wonders how can anyone observe the ḫawāṣṣ
of a magic square and other magical things, and yet overlook the power of
prophecy and even the spiritual power of religious obligations such as prayer.188
Concerning letters, in the Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn al-Ġazālī criticises those who take
ta‌ʾwīl (interpretation) too far and attribute to the fawātiḥ, for example, mea
nings that do not conform to any ẓāhir meaning. He sees in the science of let-
ters a deviation within revelatory bāṭinism because it is not musnad, that is,
referable to any known strong prophetic tradition, but arrived at by “opinion”
(ra‌ʾy).189 In a section concerning the harmful behaviours of common people,
he condemns their occupation with the nature of Divine attributes and letters,
186 Ibid., p. 43.

187 Ibid., p. 44.
188 Constant Hamѐs, “Entre recette magique et prière islamique,” Fétiches II: Puissance des
objets, charme des mots, Systèmes de pensée en Afrique noire, 12 (1993), p. 191-193.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

because it is a “mysterious knowledge” that they cannot obtain, but in their

doomed attempt to do so risk committing apostasy.190
At the same time, for Ibn ʿArabī it is through the letters that one is able to
know the human essence, the universe, and ultimately God. Extraordinary
feats and tasḫīr (subjugation) are gifts that are bestowed upon the person who
has experiential knowledge of the letters and Divine Names.
This idea takes us to the operational and “magical” realm of revelatory
bāṭinism. For al-Ġazālī bāṭinism involves the “resignation of the senses” in
order to let the inner faculties receive truths from ʿālam al-malakūt, the spiri-
tual world that mediates between the physical and the Divine realms. Ibn
ʿArabī goes beyond this to assert that “the men of bāṭin are those who can act
upon the realm of the unknown (ʿālam al-ġayb) and the malakūt, and they
draw down the higher souls with their resolution to [achieve] what they wish,
and I mean the souls of the planets and not the souls of the angels […]. The
souls of the planets are drawn down by names and suffumigations.” He adds
that this invocation is not a corporeal one but is achieved through the planets’
rays which have secret effects. He distinguishes them from the men of ẓāhir
who have control over the created universe, the men of ḥadd who have control
over “the realm of the fiery spirits,” a realm between heaven and hell (barzaḫ)
belonging to the spiritual world of ǧabarūt, and the men of maṭlaʿ who have
control over the Divine Names. These men, namely those of bāṭin, ḥadd, and
maṭlaʿ, have control over whatever God wills. It must be remembered these
men are ʿārifūn (gnostics), unlike the men of ẓāhir (to which Maslama l-Qurṭubī
and the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ would belong according to Ibn ʿArabī).191 In the works
of Ibn ʿArabī we encounter an operative aspect to revelatory bāṭinism which is
conspicuously lacking in those of al-Ġazālī.
5 Lettrist Magic
The ultimate expression of magical operations founded upon the science of

letters and revelatory bāṭinism is found in the works of Šihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad
b. ʿAlī b. Yūsuf al-Būnī (d. ca 622/1225 or 630/1232-1233).192 Unfortunately not
much is known about al-Būnī’s life but evidence suggests that he was Ifrīqiyan
190 Ibid., III, p. 210-211.

192 It is widely accepted that al-Būnī died in 622/1225, though Noah Gardiner’s study of the
transmission of his texts and analysis of paratexts establishes that he flourished in Cairo
in the year 622/1225; see Noah Gardiner, “Forbidden Knowledge? Notes on the Production,
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334 Saif
and sought instruction by Sufi masters.193 He had a reputation as a worker of

miracles whose prayers were always answered, and was considered by some
as a saint.194 He wrote several treatises on the occult science of letters which
correlates Arabic abǧad letters with the emanative hierarchy of the universe
influenced by Sahl al-Tustarī and Ibn Masarra.195 The mastery of these letters
benefits the operator spiritually and also magically. The circulation and influ-
ence of his works were first restricted to Sufi disciples and closed auditions.
By the eighth/fourteenth century they became better known outside these
circles and from there grew in popularity.196 However, the fame of al-Būnī
today rests on the popular printed editions of a work known as Šams al-maʿārif
al-kubrā (The Sun of Knowledge, Larger Version), which is actually a compila-
tion of Būnian occult practices produced in the eleventh/seventeenth century.
Nevertheless, it has made him one of the most recognized authors on magic
and the science of letters in the Islamic world to this day.197
Constant Hamѐs has demonstrated the link between the occult thought of
al-Būnī and the esoteric thought of al-Ġazālī, arguing that the former, though
deeply influenced by Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, subverts the bāṭinism of the latter by
his explicitly operational science of letters and tasḫīr practices.198 As Jean-
Charles Coulon shows, the author of Šams al-maʿārif was indebted more to
al-Qušayrī’s epistle on Sufism, one of the sources of the Iḥyāʾ.199 As that may
be, al-Būnī systematised Islamic lettrist magic, as we shall see, by buttressing
his practices and theory on heart-oriented revelatory bāṭinism—reminiscent
Transmission, and Reception of the Major Works of Aḥmad al-Būnī,” Journal of Arabic
and Islamic Studies, 12 (2012), p. 89.
193 Ifrīqiyā refers to the area that comprises Tunisia, western Libya and eastern Algeria; Gar-
diner, “Forbidden Knowledge,” p. 86-88; id., Esotericism in a Manuscript Culture: Aḥmad
al-Būnī and His readers through the Mamlūk Period, PhD dissertation, University of Michi-
gan, 2014, p. 75; Edgar W. Francis, IV, Islamic Symbols and Sufi Rituals for Protection and
Healing: Religion and Magic in the Writings of Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Būnī (d. 622/1225), PhD
dissertation, Los Angeles, 2005, p. 97-99.
194 Gardiner, “Forbidden Knowledge?,” p. 92; Francis, “Islamic Symbols and Sufi Rituals,”
p. 98-99.
195 Gardiner, “Forbidden Knowledge?,” p. 98-99.
196 Gardiner, Esotericism in a Manuscript Culture, p. 75-76, 88-91.
197 Gardiner, “Forbidden Knowledge?,” p. 102; id., Esotericism in a Manuscript Culture, p. 6, 20,
27-30; Coulon, La magie islamique, I, p. 480-484.
198 Constant Hamѐs, “La Ghāyat al-ḥakīm : son époque, sa postérité en terre d’islam,” in Ima
ges et magie: Picatrix entre Orient et Occident, eds Jean-Patrice Boudet, Anna Caiozzo
and Nicolas Weill-Parot, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2011, p. 228; Hamѐs, “Entre recette ma
gique,” p. 195-200.
199 Coulon, La magie islamique, I, p. 810-821.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

of al-Ġazālī’s ideas on the internalisation of revelatory and intellectual know

ledge—as opposed to a mind-oriented intellectual bāṭinism. On the other
hand, Toufic Fahd perceives Neoplatonic emanationist universal structure
and the condition of attaining illumination to enable the operator to inter-
pret the signs and ultimately their utilisation as unifying themes in the magic
of al-Qurṭubī and that of al-Būnī alike.200 Fahd also notes that one finds in
al-Būnī’s works the culmination of the idea that magic is itself the ultimate
expression of wisdom and a demonstration of God’s glory, which he shares
with al-Qurṭubī.201 Indeed, these are common concerns; however, the episte-
mological foundations of astral magic in the Ġāya and the lettrist practices in
the Būnian corpus are markedly different, which is reflected in their magical
vocabulary and elements of practice. For example, the star-centric aspiration
of the Ġāya requires the operator to have deep knowledge of astrology (both
technique and interpretation), whereas the God-centric aspiration of the
Būnian operator requires that revelatory knowledge be attained through Sufi
training. The signs to be interpreted by the former are natural tokens which in-
clude planetary configurations and natural sympathetic relationships; but the
signs noted by the latter are the letters and Divine Names which are essentially
non-sensory divine principles.
Al-Būnī’s orientation is not surprising considering that he received Sufi
training under the šayḫ Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Abī Bakr al-Qurašī
l-Mahdawī, the head of a centre for Sufi instruction in Tunis, who also was
Ibn ʿArabī’s teacher.202 It has been noted by some scholars that al-Būnī trans-
gresses Ibn ʿArabī’s doctrine by advocating the utilisation of the occult proper-
ties of letters.203 Indeed, Ibn ʿArabī, like al-Ġazālī, warns that the science of
letters in the hands of the public is likely to be misunderstood; without a deep
understanding thereof through gnosis, common people risk their religiosity.204
Furthermore, Ibn ʿArabī specifically condemns the use of letters for transitive
effects rather than the soul’s divinisation. In this case, such lettrist practice
is called sīmiyāʾ. According to Ibn ʿArabī, this is the knowledge of letters and
names that have power over the senses of the observer, causing illusions with-
out any essential transformations. It is a kind of siḥr practiced by the same
200 Toufic Fahd, “La magie comme ‘source de la sagesse’ d’après l’œuvre d’al-Būnī,” in Charmes
et sortilèges, magie et magiciens, ed. Rika Gyselen, Bures-sur-Yvette, Groupe pour l’étude
de la civilisation du Moyen-Orient (“Res Orientales”, 14), 2002, p. 61.
201 Fahd, “La magie,” p. 105-106.
202 Gardiner, Esotericism in a Manuscript Culture, p. 82; id., “Forbidden Knowledge?,” p. 87-88.
203 Id., Esotericism in a Manuscript Culture, p. 79.
204 Ibid., p. 79-81.
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336 Saif
magicians who demonstrated their powers to Moses. However, the true lettrist
is a ʿārif, acting as God’s deputy (nāʾib) with his command (taṣarruf ) that gene
rates new essences, or, as Ibn ʿArabī says, “producing beings” (īǧād kawāʾin).
We have seen that for Ibn ʿArabī in his Mawāqiʿ al-nuǧūm the heart of the ʿārif
performs the creative fiat “Be! And so it is”.205 Therefore, the legitimacy of the
operative aspect of the science of letters is conditioned by the aim and experi-
ence of kašf.
Ibn Ḫaldūn in his attack on magic equates sīmiyāʾ with talismanry, both
being mundane practices. In the Ġāya, similarly, astral/natural magic, as the
practical upshot of wisdom, is referred to as sīmiyāʾ.206 However, Ibn Ḫaldūn
contends that this sīmiyāʾ was also practiced by “the people of command
(taṣarruf ) among the Sufis” who exaggerated their desire to achieve extraordi-
nary things in the world of the elements.207 Sīmiyāʾ is achieved when “the let-
trist abandons acquaintance with the secrets of God and the truths of creation
which are the results of witnessing and unveiling, and restricts himself to the
names and the properties of letters and words.”208 In one condemning stroke
he includes as its masters both Ibn ʿArabī and al-Būnī.209
Later, the uses to which sīmiyāʾ was put came to be associated with trickery
and prestidigitation. Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa (d. 1067/1657) defines sīmiyāʾ more as pres-
tidigitation: “Know that this term can be applied to that which is not real in
magic, which is a well-known [art]; essentially, [it is] causing imagined spec-
trums in the air, which are not actually experienced by the senses. Then, some
forms appear in the substance of the air and dissipate quickly due to the ra-
pidity in which the substance of the air changes […]. As for how these forms
happen and their causes, this is a hidden matter, of which only its adepts are
cognisant.”210 Within the context of revelatory bāṭinism, then, sīmiyāʾ acquired
negative connotations—namely, it was associated with illusionism and mun-
dane magical practices such as talismans.
In their studies of the science of letters generally and al-Būnī specifically, a
number of scholars have inaccurately used sīmiyāʾ interchangeably with ʿilm
205 Ibn ʿArabī, Mawaqiʿ al-nuǧūm, p. 121.

207 Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, p. 488.
208 Ibid., p. 490.
209 Ibid., p. 488.
210 Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa, Kašf al-ẓunūn ʿan asmāʾ al-kutub wa-l-funūn, Beirut, n.d., II, p. 1020.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

al-ḥurūf (science of letters).211 In a text falsely attributed to al-Būnī known as

Šams al-maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif (The Sun of Knowledge and the Secrets of
Gnosis)—which formed the basis of al-Kubrā (The Larger Version)—212, we
read that the secrets of the letters and their instrumentalisation depend on
“the emancipation of the soul from its [physical] attachment, and [it is] the
special path on which the gnostics—people of knowledge—march toward
the emancipation of the soul from the sensory world and its purification from
the lowliness of natural matters. And they are assigned to some of them but not
to others; they protect it, conceal it, and express it with symbols.” Such extraor-
dinary skills are achieved “without difficulty and inconvenience” and, most
of all, “without any kind of tricks.” Furthermore, those who hope to achieve
such supernatural effects without bothering to purify their souls achieve only
“sīmiyāʾ and corruption on earth.”213 So, clearly, the author aligns the content
of his work with tasḫīr and distances it from the illusory and mundane sīmiyāʾ.
His practices are conditioned on the purification and elevation of the opera-
tor’s soul, by means of revelation and kašf, as only then does lettrist magic be-
come the licit prerogative of the enlightened operator.
The close link between Būnian practices and revelatory bāṭinism is best
represented in two authentic Būnian texts: Laṭāʾif al-išārāt (The Subtleties
of Signs) and Hidāyat al-qāṣidīn (Guidance for Seekers). The first is a widely
copied text which is concerned mainly with cosmogenesis and lettrist cosmology.
Therein the created celestial spheres, mundane spheres, and their revolutions
are actualised and maintained through letters. The emergence of these spheres
results from a stratified divine volitional power: two realms of Invention (ibdāʿ)
and two realms of Creation (iḫtirāʿ). The first realm of invention, the most sub-
lime, contains letter secrets, and has command over destiny; each realm below
particularises and variegates the course of the created universe. In addition,
211 See e.g. Jean-Charles Coulon, “Building al-Būnī’s Legend: The Figure of al-Būnī through
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī’s Shams al-āfāq,” Journal of Sufi Studies, 5/1 (2016), p. 1-26; Lory,
La science des lettres en Islam, p. 37; Lory, “Magie et religion,” p. 7.
212 This text contains anachronisms which could possibly be interpolations by students, as
well as material transferred verbatim from other authentic texts, particularly from the
Laṭāʾif al-išārāt; see Gardiner, “Forbidden Knowledge,” p. 6, 20, 27-30, 96, 102-103; Gardiner,
“Forbidden Knowledge,” p. 102; Coulon, La magie islamique, I, p. 480-484. The authenti
city of Šams al-maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif has been the subject of debate in the theses
of Gardiner and Coulon. However, both Šams al-maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif and the later
compilation (Šams al-maʿārif al-kubrā) are more widely copied and printed, and also
most recognizable and influential even on a popular level, and thus they both warrant
exploration as texts representative of the ideas and practices discussed in this article.
213 (Pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif, MS Paris, BnF, Arabe 2647, ff. 80v-81r.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

338 Saif
each realm is infixed with letters, reflected in the constitution of human

beings.214
The first creation is the cloud from which the macrocosmic Adam is created;
the second creation is the primordial dust. Alternatively, the first invention
is the plane of particles and the second invention is the plane of composi-
tion. This can be viewed as a soteriological map, and here al-Būnī employs the
notion of the subtle powers of the heart, soul, and intellect that we find in
al-Ġazālī, who deliberately abstains from explicating their subtle dimensions.
Al-Būnī explains that through the “subtle powers” (laṭāʾif ) of the intellect
through which one cultivates of the knowledge of the infixed letters, the first
creation is revealed (macrocosmic truth of man). Through the subtle powers of
the spirit, the second creation is revealed. With the subtle powers of the soul,
the first invention is revealed; and, finally, through the subtle powers of the
heart the second invention is revealed.215 The following table demonstrates the
hierarchy of these epistemological and soteriological pursuits:
First Invention Soul

Second Invention Heart
First Creation Intellect
Second Creation Spirit
The first invention is the most sublime as it contains letter secrets; therefore,
knowledge of it ultimately endows the gnostic with taṣarruf, “the ability to act
[on creation].” God “made the letters with meanings for the intellect, subtleties
for the spirit, images for the soul, and emanations for the heart.”216 The heart is
where God deposits the secrets of the letters and thus it holds a high place in
this hierarchy of illuminations.217 It receives revelations through “realisation”
(fahm) which happens “through God” unlike tafsīr (exoteric interpretation of
phenomena or text) and ra‌ʾy (interpretation through opinion). Ta‌ʾwīl (inter-
pretation of hidden meaning) is one degree below fahm and it is an intellec-
tual understanding that is guided by God, whereas fahm is an interpretation by
direct divine inspiration (ilhām) and an exclusive gift from God to his Friends
who are ūlū l-albāb (people possessed of innermost hearts).218 According to
214 Al-Būnī, Laṭāʾif al-išārāt, MS Paris, BnF, Arabe 2658, f. 5v.

215 Ibid., ff. 5v-6r; Gardiner, “Esotericism in a manuscript culture,” p. 192-194.
216 Al-Būnī Laṭāʾif al-išārāt, MS Paris, BnF, Arabe 2658, f. 6r.
217 Ibid., f. 10v.
218 Ibid., f. 5v.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

this schema, fahm is achieved by the heart which in turn illuminates the soul
and brings about kašf. This is achieved by the people of bāṭin or “witnesses to
the truth.”219
In the Šams al-maʿārif, the mystical anatomy of the heart is expanded, and as
we saw with al-Ġazālī, al-Tirmiḏī, and Ibn ʿArabī, it is associated with the three
levels of belief. The heart is divided into three chambers (taǧwīfāt). The up-
permost is the locus of islām (surrender), and as it contains the rational power,
it comprehends the dictates of the will that originate in the soul (nafs). In this
chamber, the esoteric significance of letters is received. The second chamber is
the locus of imagination, originating in the spirit (rūḥ), whereby “the verities
of the spiritual realm, the higher secrets of divine power, and the scales of veri-
ties are apprehended. It is the location of the lights of bestowments and higher
secrets.” The third chamber is the locus of the kindling heart ( fuʾād) and faith
(īmān), and it receives more secrets and subtle truths. Each chamber has an
“eye,” meaning that it has the potential to achieve a certain level of insight. For
example, the Eye of Light in the first chamber enables tasḫīr and reveals “the
secrets of sensibilia, the evolution of composites, the verities of letters, their
secrets, and the greatness of what God the Exalted has placed in it [pertaining
to] the secrets of the names and the verities of His knowledge.”220
Another systematic affirmation of the revelatory reception of the secrets
of the letters and their instrumentalisation is found in al-Būnī’s Hidāyat
al-qāṣidīn.221 There the author delineates the waystations of the Sufi path:
submission (islām), faith (īmān), perfection (iḥsān), and intimacy (qurb), the
last corresponding to al-Tirmiḏī’s notion of “emancipation” localized in the
heart’s core (lubb). A specific set of “habits” (sulūk, lit. “wayfaring”) is associ-
ated with each waystation, together with doors (abwāb) or consequences and
signs (ʿalāmāt). The signs often include extraordinary skills received as a re-
sult of observing certain practices. For example, under the habit of penitence
(tawba) in the waystation of islām undertaken by the “wayfarers” (sālikīn), one
of the signs of perfecting the act of silence privately and publicly is the abi
lity to extract secrets from individuals.222 Under the habit of penitence in the
waystation of islām undertaken by the “adherents” (murīdīn), one of the signs
of perfecting the act of abandoning the company of quarrelsome people is
219 Ibid., f. 4v.

220 (Pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif, MS Paris, BnF, Arabe 2647, p. 14;
Coulon, La magie islamique, I, p. 731-735; Lory, La science des lettres en islam, p. 105.
221 Gardiner, Esotericism in a Manuscript Culture, p. 22; Coulon, La magie islamique, I, p. 477.
222 Al-Būnī, Hidāyat al-qāṣidīn, MS Istanbul Süleymaniye, Ayasofya 2160, ff. 3v-5r.
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340 Saif
the ability to find solace with inanimate things by hearing their prayers, their
speech, and their secrets.223 In the waystation of īmān (faith), adherents re-
ceive the secret of every verse/sign (āya) and are granted esoteric knowledge
as a result of strictly observing the Law (šarʿ) externally and internally. Other
signs include control over nature and the world of spirits (tasḫīr) and hea
ring their speech,224 obtaining the secrets of letters and Divine Names,225 and
“penetrating air” (i.e. levitation or flight).226
Therefore, these acts are symptomatic of the initiate’s success in completing
a stage towards enlightenment. Ultimately, the aim is to experience the quiddi-
ties of things by means of revelation rather than intellection. In the waystation
of īmān, the act of reciting the affirmation “There is no god but God” results in
“the emergence of states, actions, and speech on the honest scale and the true
path whereby beings present the verities of their primordial states without a
sign for representation or a gesture of modification.”227
Tasḫīr and extraordinary acts are the ability to utilise and take advantage
of the manifestation of these quiddities. In Hidāyat al-qāṣidīn, the term “suns
of gnosis” (šumūs al-maʿārif) is used to describe the esoteric knowledge be-
stowed upon an individual in a specific waystation;228 elsewhere, it describes
those who “utter on behalf of God what God wills. By the dismantling of their
will, God’s will appear instead,” referring to those who achieve realization
(fahm) in the sense we saw in Laṭāʿif al-išārāt.229 To al-Būnī, thus, extraordi-
nary acts become the prerogative of Sufis. As we have seen, Ibn ʿArabī elabo-
rates on these waystations—or grades (marātib)—of islām, īmān, and iḥsān
in his Mawāqiʿ al-nuǧūm. He asserts that individuals are bestowed with vari-
ous “miracles” or “charismas” (karāmāt) as they journey through these grades.230
The term karāmāt is also used by al-Būnī to describe the talents received by the
gnostic.231
Unlike talismanry, karāmāt or extraordinary skills are passively received
without recourse to any natural operations. To al-Būnī this involves the at-
traction of the power of rūḥāniyyāt; no deep knowledge of celestial or natural
223 Ibid., f. 6v.

224 Ibid., ff. 15r-16r.
225 Ibid., f. 14r.
226 Ibid., f. 24v.
227 Ibid., f. 13v.
228 Ibid., f. 15r.
229 Ibid., f. 29r.
230 Ibn ʿArabī, Mawāqiʿ al-nuǧūm, p. 16-18.
231 Ibid., p. 34-50.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

causes is required. Unlike the astral magic of the Ġāya, the effects of subjuga-
tion (tasḫīr), including that of spirits, is subjective—even if some of its effects
seem transitive—and conditioned by the subjugator’s gnostic disposition and
actions. These acts of purification are not merely preparatory or means to a
specific goal, as we see in the astral magic of the Ġāya, the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, and
the Sirr al-asrār; they are the whole focus of the gnostic’s endeavour to reach a
state of unveiling and complete divinisation of the soul.
In the Šams al-maʿārif and al-Būnī’s Laṭāʾif al-išārāt, the celestial rūḥāniyyāt
of the prophets are absent. In comparison to the rūḥāniyyāt of the Ġāya and
the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, they are no longer powers of a single ontological origin,
i.e. the celestial world, but rather intelligent beings emerging from inacces-
sible mysterious dimensions (ġayb) while still being associated to the celes-
tial spheres. Al-Būnī often speaks of angels, rūḥāniyyāt, as “helpers” (aʿwān) or
“servants” (ḫuddām) that rule over certain days, planets, Divine Names, letters,
verses of the Qurʾān, and lunar mansions.
Table 2 From Šams al-maʿārif: three examples of correspondences for the seven characters
that constitute the symbol of God’s Greatest Name: 232
Letter Sphere Character Day Spirit Minister Divine Name Purpose
F Sun Sunday Ruqyāʾīl Muḏhab Fard Silencing kings

(Singular) and other
elites
Ǧ Moon Monday Ǧibrīl Murra Ǧabbār Everlasting
(Compeller) harmony,
healing the
diseases of the
Sun
Š Mars Tuesday Simsāʾīl al-Aḥmar Šahīd Victory,
(Witness) discord,
causing hot
illnesses and
bleeding
232 (Pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif, MS Paris, BnF, Arabe 2647, f. 58r.
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342 Saif
Table 3 From Šams al-maʿārif: three examples from a list of correspondences for the verses of
sūrat al-Fātiḥa233
Verse Day Rūḥāniyya Planet Divine Name Angels of

the ʿArš
al-ḥamdu li-Llāh Sunday Ruqyāʾīl Sun al-Ḥayy Abǧd

rabb al-ʿālamīn (The Everlasting),
al-Qayyūm
(The Subsisting)
iyyāka naʿbudu Monday Ǧibrāʾīl Moon al-Sarīʿ Mnṣ͑
wa-iyyāka (The Fast),
nastaʿīn al-Qarīb
(The Near)
ġayr al-maġḍūb Tuesday Simsāʾīl Mars al-Qādir Ġẓʿš
ʿalayhim wa-lā (The
l-ḍāllīn Omnipotent)
Table 4 From Laṭāʾif al-išārāt and Šams al-maʿārif: three examples of correspondences for
the lunar mansions234
Mansion Letter Rūḥāniyya Effect
Šaraṭayna A Rūḥāniyya of anger Constrictionb

Buṭayn B Rūḥāniyya that Healing (good time
assuages anger to take medicines)
Ṯurayyā Ǧ Temperate Good time to travel
rūḥāniyya
a In Šams al-maʿārif, the name of the first lunar mansion listed is as al-Naṭḥ.
b In Šams al-maʿārif, an aggressive operation is provided to cause stress, anger, and bad luck;
(pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif, MS Paris, BnF, Arabe 2647, f. 14r-v.
233 Ibid., ff. 53r-55r.

234 Al-Būnī, Laṭāʾif al-išārāt, MS Paris, BnF, Arabe 2658, ff. 25v-28v; (pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams
al-maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif, MS Paris, BnF, Arabe 2647, ff. 13v-17v.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

The letters themselves are the essential principles of the spheres, their rota-
tions, emanations, and the rūḥāniyyāt.235 Thus it is only through mastery of
the letters that the operator can attract the powers of the rūḥāniyyāt and the
higher world.236 For al-Būnī, the ability to utilize these spiritual powers is one
of the “great effects of the soul’s emancipation” which intensifies the “great
force a person finds in his own soul”—the himma—“whereby taking charge
of the world of creation” is achieved.237 Moreover, al-Būnī explains that the
link between the different corresponding components is due to emanations
(inbiʿāṯ) that create a web of sympathies motivating “the inclinations between
jinn, human beings, and animals; each form [is inclined] towards [that which
has] its [same] form”; this is a manifestation of God’s mercy (raḥma), as it is
through the knowledge—revelatory and hermeneutic—of these correspon-
dences that one is able to ascend to the Divine.238 In the earlier magical tradi-
tion to which the Ġāya belongs, this sympathetic connection is explained by
the theory of astral causation according to which generated things/effects—
ontologically inferior—receive their forms from the celestial bodies/causes
and thus have a generative connection. For al-Būnī, by contrast, sympathy
connects all created things, which are envisaged as ontologically equal, being
produced spontaneously by Divine effusion.
As a consequence of his Sufi mindset, al-Būnī conceives of letters and names
as the fundamentals of divine truth, constituting the Divine speech whose syn-
tax can only be uncovered through unveiling and revelation; this allows the op-
erator to encapsulate its power through spoken and written speech due to the
unique human potential for divinisation as conceptualised by Ibn Masarra and
pseudo-Tustarī’s Risālat al-Ḥurūf,239 this in contrast to Ǧabir b. Ḥayyān and
Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, for example, according to whom they are principles of natural
and metaphysical realities. Thus, al-Būnī enunciates the operational aspects of
revelatory bāṭinism that al-Ġazālī and Ibn ʿArabī decline to express. Al-Ġazālī’s
orthopraxy and his desire to protect šarʿ (religious law) prevents him from
divulging realisations received through unveiling (mukāšafa); these include
cosmogenical and cosmological matters, spiritual hierarchies, and letter cor-
respondences, which Ibn ʿArabī discusses more freely. However, al-Būnī fully
articulates unveiled truths and their operational value; therefore, in his works
235 Gril, “La science des lettres,” p. 387.

236 Lory, La science des lettres, p. 30.
237 Al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif, f. 83r, f. 84v.
238 Ibid., f. 50r.
239 Lory, “La magie des lettres,” p. 99-101; Gril, “La science des lettres,” p. 385, 387, 423, 427-429.
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344 Saif
we find the culmination of the instrumentalisation of letters, mystically and

magically.
Conclusion
The translation movement that took place under the Abbasids made available
Greek knowledge, from natural philosophy to military science. It also fostered
original scientific and philosophical achievements. As part of this enthusiasm,
magic in early medieval Islam was incorporated into scientific inquiry due to
the efforts of astrologers and occultists who proposed natural explanations for
the principles of their practice. The Ġāyat al-ḥakīm, the Sirr al-asrār, and the
Rasāʾil of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ belong to a tradition that drew its metaphysical
and epistemological foundations primarily from the theories of astral influ-
ences developed by Abū Maʿšar and al-Kindī. These theories themselves were
derived and synthesized from Hellenic natural philosophy, particularly the
natural corpus of Aristotle reconciled with Neoplatonic elements that sup-
ported a volitional causality. As a result, magic was construed as a practice of
natural philosophy. The magical efficacy of talismans, amulets, and other de-
vices was predicated on the operator’s knowledge of the causal and semiologi-
cal links between the terrestrial and celestial worlds and the sympathies that
result among generated things.
By the seventh/thirteenth century, Sufism was establishing its theoretical
and technical underpinnings and the social ratification of its hierarchal sys-
tem.240 We can now discern an epistemological shift in Islamic occult thought
from magical theories drawn from natural philosophy to foundations drawn
from Sufi doctrines. The “hidden” (bāṭin) in magic is no longer the ḫawāṣṣ (oc-
cult properties) of natural things (minerals, plants, and animals), but the pow-
ers of subtle levels of reality (laṭāʾif), whether as cosmic principles (letters and
Divine Names) or as inner human faculties (heart, soul, spirit, and intellect)
that can only be understood through abstraction guided by revelation. Lettrist
occult practices and tasḫīr, as represented by al-Būnī in particular, drew their
cosmological and epistemological framework from a Sufi worldview that su-
perimposed Islamic concepts upon a newly-accentuated Neoplatonic emana-
tionism.241 Awareness of the Divine and the perception of the entirety of the
cosmos as God’s shadow shuns logical deductions of causes—an intellectual
engagement—and instead exhorts the adept to engage in soul-immersive
240 Melchert, “Origins,” p. 16.

241 Lory, “La magie des lettres,” p. 100-102.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

exercises that result in revelations—localised in the heart—about the verities

of the higher and lower worlds. “Magic,” understood as the human manipu-
lation of exterior and interior phenomena—both transitive and subjective,
without these qualities being mutually exclusive—was reconceptualised in
Sufi terms as an incidental ability passively received by the human subject in
a heightened and active state attentive solely to God. The astral magic of early
medieval Islam worked with nature; the tasḫīr and karāmāt of the later period
worked beyond it.
Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403
brill.com/arab
In Defense of Geomancy: Šaraf al-Dīn Yazdī Rebuts

Ibn Ḫaldūn’s Critique of the Occult Sciences
Matthew Melvin-Koushki
University of South Carolina
[email protected]
Abstract
The late 8th/14th century saw a renaissance of high occultism throughout

Islamdom—a development alarming to puritan scholars. This includes Ibn Ḫaldūn
(d. 808/1406), whose anti-occultist position in the Muqaddima is often assumed
to be an example of his visionary empiricism; yet his goal is simply the recatego-
rization of all occult sciences under the twin rubrics of magic and divination, and
his veto persuades more on religious and social grounds than natural-scientific.
Restoring the historian’s argument to its original state of debate with the burgeon-
ing occultist movement associated with the Mamluk sultan Barqūq’s (r. 784/1382-
791/1389 and 792/1390-801/1399) court reveals it to be not forward-thinking but rather
conservative, fideist and indeed reactionary, as such closely allied with Ibn Qayyim
al-Ǧawziyya’s (d. 751/1350) puritanical project in particular; and in any event, the
eager patronage and pursuit of the occult sciences by early modern ruling and scho
larly elites suggests that his appeal could only fall on deaf ears. That it also flatly
opposed the forms of millennial sovereignty that would define the post-Mongol
era was equally disqualifying. I here take Šaraf al‑Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī (d. 858/1454), Ibn
Ḫaldūn’s younger colleague and fellow resident in Cairo, as his sparring partner from
the opposing camp: the Timurid historian was a card-carrying occultist and member
of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ network of neopythagorean-neoplatonic-monist thinkers then
gaining prominence from India to Anatolia via Egypt. I further take geomancy (ʿilm
al-raml) as a test case, since Yazdī wrote a tract in defense of the popular divinatory
* My thanks to Michael Cook, Maria Subtelny, Mushegh Asatryan, Hussein Abdulsater, Noah
Gardiner, Daniel Sheffield, Alireza Doostdar, Justin Stearns and Evrim Binbaş for their invalu-
able comments on a draft of this article, and to Cornell Fleischer for inspiring its comparative
approach. I also thank the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University for
the research funding that made this article possible.

In Defense of Geomancy 347
science that directly rebuts Ibn Ḫaldūn’s arguments in the Muqaddima. To set the
stage for their debate, I briefly introduce contemporary geomantic theory and prac-
tice, then discuss Ibn Ḫaldūn’s and Yazdī’s respective theories of occultism with a
view toward establishing points of agreement and disagreement; I also append a
translation of Yazdī’s tract as a basis for this comparison.
Keywords
Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, Šaraf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī, Sulṭān Barqūq, Mamluk Cairo, occult
sciences (al-ʿulūm al-ġarība), geomancy (ʿilm al‑raml), lettrism (ʿilm al-ḥurūf ), magic,
divination, neopythagoreanism, neoplatonism, monism, theories of history, millennial
sovereignty
Résumé
La fin du VIIIe/XIVe siècle vit une renaissance de l’occultisme d’élite en terre d’Islam,
un développement alarmant aux yeux des savants puritains, y compris Ibn Ḫaldūn
(m. 808/1406), dont les positions anti-occultistes dans sa Muqaddima sont souvent
considérées comme un exemple de son empirisme visionnaire. Pourtant, son but
est simplement de reclasser toutes les sciences occultes sous les étiquettes gémel-
laires de magie et de divination. Son opposition catégorique convainc davantage
sur des bases religieuses et sociales que naturelles et philosophiques. Resituer l’ar-
gumentaire d’Ibn Ḫaldūn dans son débat d’origine avec le mouvement occultiste
émergent associé à la cour du sultan mamelouk Barqūq (r. 784/1382-791/1389 et
792/1390-801/1399) révèle qu’il ne s’agit pas d’une réflexion d’avant-garde mais plu-
tôt conservatrice, dogmatique et, en fait, réactionnaire, puisque particulièrement
en étroite relation avec le projet puritain d’Ibn Qayyim al-Ǧawziyya (m. 751/1350) en
particulier. Dans tous les cas, le mécénat actif et la quête des sciences occultes par
les élites dirigeantes et savantes du début de l’époque moderne suggèrent que son
appel ne pouvait que tomber dans l’oreille de sourds. En outre, le fait qu’il s’oppose
catégoriquement aux formes de souveraineté millénaire qui définissaient l’époque
post-mongole était également disqualifiant. Je prends ici Šaraf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī
(m. 858/1454), le jeune collègue d’Ibn Ḫaldūn résidant au Caire, en tant qu’adver-
saire : l’historien timouride était un occultiste convaincu et membre du réseau de
penseurs néopythagoriciens, néoplatoniciens et monistes des Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ qui ga-
gnaient alors en importance de l’Inde à l’Anatolie en passant par l’Égypte. Je prendrai
la géomancie (ʿilm al-raml) comme un cas d’école, puisque Yazdī écrivit un opuscule
pour défendre la science divinatoire populaire qui réfute directement les arguments
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

348 Melvin-Koushki
d’Ibn Ḫaldūn dans sa Muqaddima. Pour poser le débat, je présenterai succinctement

la théorie et la pratique géomantiques contemporaines, puis discuterai respecti-
vement des théories sur l’occultisme d’Ibn Ḫaldūn et de Yazdī en vue d’établir des
points d’accord et de désaccord. J’ajouterai également à cette comparaison une tra-
duction de l’opuscule de Yazdī.
Mots clefs
Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, Šaraf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī, Sulṭān Barqūq, Le Caire mamelouk,
sciences occultes (al-ʿulūm al-ġarība), géomancie (ʿilm al‑raml), science des lettres
(ʿilm al-ḥurūf ), magie, divination, néopythagorisme, néoplatonisme, monisme, théo-
ries de l’histoire, souveraineté millénaire
…
The world is full of matters occult.
Ibn Ḫaldūn1
∵
The scene is 1390s Mamluk Cairo; our principals are two historians living in
that magnetic and stimulating city, the elder hailing from Tunis and the youn
ger from Yazd, who advance what seem on the face of it to be diametrically op-
posed views on the theory and practice of the occult sciences.2 The first is Ibn
1 Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Šaddādī, Casablanca, Bayt al-funūn wa-l-
ʿulūm wa-l-ādāb, 2005, I, p. 168. This translates Ibn Ḫaldūn’s frank if tendentious admission
in his discussion of various techniques of psychic perception: wa-l-ʿālam abū l-ġarāʾib. Franz
Rosenthal’s translation of ġarāʾib here as “remarkable things” understates the matter, given
the specifically occult (ġarīb) context in which the phrase occurs. Ibn Ḫaldūn, The Muqad-
dimah: An Introduction to History, transl. Franz Rosenthal, Princeton, Princeton University
Press, 1967, I, p. 217.
2 The standard Arabic term for the occult sciences, including astrology (aḥkām al-nuǧūm),
alchemy (kīmiyāʾ) and a variety of magical and divinatory techniques, is ʿulūm ġarība, mea
ning those sciences that are unusual, rare or difficult, i.e. elite; less frequently used terms are
ʿulūm ḫafiyya and ʿulūm ġāmiḍa, sciences that are hidden or occult. These terms are routinely
used in classifications of the sciences, biographical dictionaries, chronicles, etc. Its 19th-cen-
tury European flavor notwithstanding, the term occultism is therefore used here simply to
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

Ḫaldūn (d. 808/1406), feted theoretician of history and occasional statesman,

and the second Šaraf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī (d. 858/1454), dynastic historian to the
Timurids and committed occultist.3
Ibn Ḫaldūn’s purported objectivity and skepticism on the subject of the oc-
cult sciences is now much admired, even held up as a shining, solitary example
of rationality amidst rampant superstition; a man ahead of his time, he famous-
ly rejects well-patronized sciences like astrology and alchemy out of hand.4
What is less acknowledged, however, is the fact that the Tunisian historian
argues forcefully, and at length, for the incontrovertible reality of magic and
divination with the selfsame sober objectivity.5 For their part, Yazdī’s theories
of historical evolution and human potential are not dissimilar to Ibn Ḫaldūn’s
more famous formulations, yet are predicated precisely on a thoroughgoingly
occultist outlook. Both men’s outspoken views on the subject of occultism, in
turn, go to the heart of their respective sociologies and political theologies,
which accordingly converge and diverge in instructive ways. Restoring Ibn
denote a scholarly preoccupation with one or more of the occult sciences as discrete natural-
scientific or mathematical disciplines.
3 Yazdī is best known as the author of the Ẓafarnāma, an ornate, long-admired and much-
imitated account of Tīmūr’s career; it is less widely known that this is one of five separate
chronicles that he began, including a Muqaddima, Fatḥnāma-yi ṣāḥib-qirānī, Fatḥnāma-yi
humāyūn and the Second Maqāla, none of which he finished and whose shifting ideological
strategies reflect the displacement of Tīmūr’s dispensation by that of his son Šāhruḫ. See
İ. Evrim Binbaş, Intellectual Networks in Timurid Iran: Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī and the Islami-
cate Republic of Letters, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (“Cambridge studies in Is-
lamic civilization”), 2016, p. 199-250.
4 This most recently and explicitly in Ahmad Dallal’s Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History,
New Haven-London, Yale University Press (“The Terry lectures”), 2010, which summary of the
state of the field of history of Islamicate science mentions ubiquitous sciences like alchemy
and magic but once—as being forever exiled to the shadowlands of unscience by Ibn Ḫaldūn
(p. 144-145). Such an argument, of course, is formally identical to the long-outmoded claim
that al-Ġazālī (d. 505/1111) was responsible for the permanent crippling of philosophy within
Islamdom, and merely testifies to the positivist occultophobia still dominating the field.
5 As Robert Irwin remarks, “It is easy to exaggerate the modernity of Ibn Khaldūn by discoun
ting his flirtations with the supernatural, as well as his intense, though rather conventional
piety”. Robert Irwin, “Al-Maqrīzī and Ibn Khaldūn, Historians of the Unseen,” Mamlūk Stud-
ies Review, 7/2 (2003), p. 222. Ḥasan Qubaysī offers a critique of this tendentious narrative in
his al-Matn wa-l-hāmiš: Tamārīn ʿalā l-kitāba al-nāsūtiyya, Casablanca, al-Markaz al-ṯaqāfī
l-ʿarabī, 1997. On the various contemporary, early modern Ottoman and modern European
and Arab receptions of Ibn Ḫaldūn see Róbert Simon, Ibn Khaldūn: History as Science and the
Patrimonial Empire, transl. K. Pogátsa, Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó (“Bibliotheca Orientalis
Hungarica”, 48), 2002, p. 11-80.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

350 Melvin-Koushki
Ḫaldūn’s and Yazdī’s writings to their original state of dialogue—again, the two
historians possibly met in Cairo, and certainly moved in the same court circles
while there, especially that of al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Barqūq (r. 784/1382-791/1389
and 792/1390-801/1399)6—thus furnishes us with several hitherto unexploited
advantages. Most significantly, we stand to gain more traction on Ibn Ḫaldūn’s
larger project by understanding that to which he was reacting—or as Yazdī
would say, overreacting—in his anti-occultism jags, among the most neglected
elements of the Muqaddima.7
For reasons of space, I approach this problematic here by taking geoman-
cy (ʿilm al-raml) as a convenient case study, since Ibn Ḫaldūn and Yazdī each
spend a few pages discussing this immensely popular divinatory art in ways
that debouch revealingly into the wider field here in view. To this end, I first
define this occult science and briefly sketch the contours of the Islamicate geo-
mantic tradition, with a focus on the consolidating Persianate branch of that
tradition during the 7th/13th-10th/16th centuries. I then discuss Ibn Ḫaldūn’s
and Yazdī’s respective theories of occultism with a view toward establishing
points of philosophical agreement and disagreement. Finally, I translate a tract
Yazdī wrote in defense of geomancy that gives the distinct impression of ha
ving been addressed in the first instance to Ibn Ḫaldūn.
6 Ibn Ḫaldūn lived in Cairo from 785/1383 to his death in 808/1406, and Yazdī spent at least part
of the period 795/1393-810/1408 there with his teacher and friend Ibn Turka (d. 835/1432). See
Matthew Melvin-Koushki, The Quest for a Universal Science: The Occult Philosophy of Ṣāʾin
al-Dīn Turka Iṣfahānī (1369-1432) and Intellectual Millenarianism in Early Timurid Iran, PhD
dissertation, Yale University, 2012, p. 34, 46-52; Walter J. Fischel, Ibn Khaldūn in Egypt: His
Public Functions and His Historical Research (1382-1406): A Study in Islamic Historiography,
Berkeley-Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1967.
7 Several scholars have discussed this aspect of Ibn Ḫaldūn’s project, though with insufficient
attention to contemporary high occultist theory; as Asatryan’s study is the most thorough
of these, I depend on it in the main in my discussion of Ibn Ḫaldūn’s theory of occultism
below. See Mushegh Asatrian (Asatryan), “Ibn Khaldūn on Magic and the Occult,” Iran and
the Caucasus, 7/1-2 (2003), p. 73-123; Robert Irwin, “Al-Maqrīzī and Ibn Khaldūn”; Yves Mar-
quet, “Religion, philosophie et magie devant Ibn Ḫaldūn,” Studia Islamica, 62 (1985), p. 145-
153; id., “Ibn Ḫaldūn et les conjonctions de Saturne et de Jupiter,” Studia Islamica, 65 (1987),
p. 91-96; Aziz Al-Azmeh, Ibn Khaldūn: An Essay in Reinterpretation, London, Cass, 1982; Toufic
Fahd, La divination arabe: études religieuses, sociologiques et folkloriques sur le milieu natif de
l’Islam, Leiden, Brill, 1966, p. 45-50, 196-204; and Abderrahmane Lakhsassi, “Magie: le point de
vue d’Ibn Khaldûn,” in Coran et talismans: Textes et pratiques magiques en milieu musulman,
ed. Constant Hamès, Paris, Karthala, 2007, p. 95-112.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

Islamicate Geomancy8
Geomancy, the ‘science of sand’ (ʿilm al-raml), is a uniquely Arabic and

Islamicate occult science that captured the intellects and imaginations of
scholarly elites and their royal patrons throughout the premodern Islamo-
Christianate world. As a complex divinatory science based on a binary code,
geomancy stands precise cognate to the ancient Chinese I Ching, but com-
manded in its prime a far greater territorial spread: it was—and in many cases
still is—regularly practiced as a single tradition from Fez, Paris and Timbuktu
to Kashgar, Kabul and Delhi, and calved simpler versions throughout sub-
Saharan Africa and thence the western hemisphere that remain very much in use.
Throughout its Afro-Eurasian domain geomancy was third in popularity only to
astrology and oneiromancy; indeed, due to its early incorporation of astrological
correspondences, it was often considered a form of “terrestrial astrology” requi
ring much less astronomical expertise while remaining richly informative.9 This
association is exemplified by the fact that in the early modern Persianate East
individuals designated munaǧǧims, or court astrologers, increasingly acted as
court geomancers as well.10 Raml and ǧafr, or letter divination, were also often
seen as a complementary pair of divinatory techniques based on number theory
(ʿilm al-ʿadad),11 the first employing dots (niqāṭ) and figures (aškāl) and the se
cond the letters (ḥurūf) of the Arabic alphabet (also derived from a dot), and
both equally productive of knowledge of past, present and future.
8 This section is largely taken from my study “Persianate Geomancy from Ṭūsī to the Millen-
nium: A Preliminary Survey,” forthcoming in Occult Sciences in Premodern Islamic Culture,
ed. Nader El-Bizri and Eva Orthmann, Beirut, Orient-Institut Beirut, 2017; interested read-
ers will find a fuller treatment of the subject there.
9 See e.g. Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, I, p. 174-179. Significantly, in his classification of the
sciences, Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa categorizes geomancy under the rubric of judicial astrology. Fahd,
La divination arabe, p. 41.
10 Ibid., p. 200. This blending of geomancy and astrology began early on; one of the first codi-
fiers of the Arabic geomantic tradition, Ibn Maḥfūf (d. before 664/1265), is typically called
al-Munaǧǧim. Ibid., p. 201.
11 That is, the “science of number,” or arithmetic, particularly as associated with Pythagoras
and Nicomachus. The 4th/10th-century group of neopythagorean authors known as the
Brethren of Purity, for instance, vigorously assert arithmetic to be the basis for all other
mathematical, natural, psychological and metaphysical sciences, an ascending epistemo-
logical series that culminates in sciences like astrology, alchemy and magic; see Nader El-
Bizri, “Epistolary Prolegomena: On Arithmetic and Geometry,” in Epistles of the Brethren
of Purity: The Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ and Their Rasāʾil: An Introduction, ed. Nader El-Bizri, Oxford,
Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 180-213.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

352 Melvin-Koushki
Knowledge of geomancy entered the Christianate world in the 6th/12th

century with Latin translations of Arabic works, its popularity burgeoning
from there.12 In the Islamicate world, geomancy was typically associated in
the first place with the prophets Idrīs (Enoch or Hermes)13 and Daniel and
the Indian sage Ṭumṭum, not to mention a number of other standard occultist
authorities.14 Intellectual genealogies of the science in Arabic and Persian
works on the subject thus presuppose a pre-Islamic Near Eastern or Indian
origin, as well as an early Berber connection; the otherwise unknown Abū ʿAbd
Allāh Muḥammad al-Zanātī (fl. before 629/1230), presumably of the Berber
Zanāta tribe, is acclaimed as the first major Arabic exponent of geomancy.15
While geomancy fell out of mainstream use in post-Enlightenment
Europe,16 it experienced no such decline in the “un-Enlightened” Islamicate
12 The extant Latin treatises are surveyed in Thérèse Charmasson, Recherches sur une tech-
nique divinatoire: la géomancie dans l’Occident médiéval, Genève-Paris, Droz-H. Champi-
on (“Hautes études médiévales et modernes”, 44), 1980. After Hugh of Santalla’s (fl. 1145)
pathbreaking translations of two treatises from the Arabic under the titles Ars geomanti-
ae and Geomantia nova, notable examples include Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s (d. 1535)
In Geomanticam disciplinam lectura (Opera, Hildesheim, Olms, 1970, I, p. 500-526), Chris-
tophe de Cattan’s (fl. 1558) La Géomance … avec la roüe de Pythagoras (Paris, 1558; English
translation by Francis Sparry in 1591) and Robert Fludd’s (d. 1637) De geomantia (Veronae,
1687, p. 1-170). See Marion B. Smith, “The Nature of Islamic Geomancy with a Critique of
a Structuralist’s Approach,” Studia Islamica, 49 (1979), p. 5-38: p. 8; Stephen Skinner, Geo-
mancy in Theory and Practice, St. Paul, Golden Hoard Press, 2011, p. 112-116.
13 In his Nafaḥāt al-asrār, a comprehensive geomantic manual written in Damascus in
1277/1861, Muḥammad Bāqir Ṭabāṭabāʾī Yazdī invokes a statement by Imam ʿAlī attri
buting the science to Idrīs as received from Gabriel. Muḥammad Bāqir Ṭabāṭabāʾī Yazdī,
Nafaḥāt al-asrār, lithograph, Najaf, Dār al-kutub al-ʿirāqiyya, 1359/1940, p. 10.
14 These include Imams ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and Ǧaʿfar al-Ṣādiq as well as a number of other
biblical prophets. On Ṭumṭum al-Hindī see Anton Hauber, “Ṭomṭom (Ṭimṭim) = Dan-
damiz = Dindymus?,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 63 (1909),
p. 457-472.
15 The best study to date of the Arabic geomantic tradition through the 7th/13th century is
Emilie Savage-Smith and Marion B. Smith, “Islamic Geomancy and a Thirteenth-Century
Divinatory Device: Another Look,” in Magic and Divination in Early Islam, ed. Emilie
Savage-Smith, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004, p. 211-276, which expands upon their findings in a
similarly titled publication from 1980; in particular, they show that it was fully developed
and established by the middle of that century.
16 Geomancy was largely replaced by the I Ching as the divinatory art of choice in modern
Euro-American occultism, particularly as represented by the Hermetic Order of the Gol
den Dawn; this Chinese cognate was also the subject of considerable interest to C.G. Jung
(along with a number of other occult sciences), who postulated that number regulates
both psyche and matter and described divination as the “science of synchronicity.” See
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

world, and particularly its vast Persianate subset, where occultist traditions
enjoyed smoother continuity and wider practice. Along with astrologers
and experts in ǧafr, geomancers (sg. rammāl) were in high demand at impe-
rial and regional courts during the early modern period—witness Ḥaydar
Rammāl’s successful and influential career at the court of Sulṭān Süleymān
(r. 926/1520-974/1566) in Anatolia,17 that of Hidāyat Allāh Munaǧǧim-i Šīrāzī
at the court of Emperor Akbar (r. 963/1556-1014/1605) in India, or that of
Ǧalāl al-Dīn Munaǧǧim-i Yazdī, author of the Tārīḫ-i ʿAbbāsī, at the court of
Šāh ʿAbbās (r. 995/1587-1038/1629) in Iran.18 Well into the modern period we
find vigorous testimony that the science was still considered a scholarly sta-
ple from the Maghrib to India; in 13th/19th-century Samarkand and Bukhara,
for instance, surviving miscellany notebooks kept by judges suggest that
they often employed geomantic readings to help them decide court cases.19
Geomancy’s popularity remains unabated in Iran today, though frequent
abuse by fraudsters has made its practice into something of a social problem;
as a result, rammālī (‘geomancing’) is now legally punishable by a fine and up
to seven years’ imprisonment.20 In its current, flabby Persian usage rammālī
usually connotes witchcraft or hocus-pocus, particularly of the hornswoggle
e.g. Marie-Luise von Franz, On Divination and Synchronicity: The Psychology of Meaningful
Chance, Toronto, Inner City Books (“Studies in Jungian psychology”, 3), 1980. More recently,
however, geomancy appears to be experiencing a modest revival in the Anglo-American
world; witness John Michael Greer’s The Art and Practice of Geomancy: Divination, Magic,
and Earth Wisdom of the Renaissance, San Francisco, Weiser, 2009, a comprehensive and
highly usable manual in the early modern occult-philosophical tradition.
17 See Cornell Fleischer, “Shadow of Shadows: Prophecy in Politics in 1530s Istanbul,” In-
ternational Journal of Turkish Studies, 13 (2007), p. 51-62; id., “Seer to the Sultan: Haydar-i
Remmal and Sultan Süleyman,” in Cultural Horizons: A Festschrift in Honor of Talat S. Hal-
man, ed. Jayne L. Warner, Istanbul-Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 2001, I, p. 290-299.
18 On the latter two geomancers see Melvin-Koushki, “Persianate Geomancy.”
19 They also appear to have regularly used lettrist techniques to analyze people’s charac-
ter on the basis of their names. More generally, biographical dictionaries for 13th/19th-
century Transoxania indicate that some five percent of scholars were known to be
practicing occultists—the same percentage that are identified as physicians. My thanks
to James Pickett for bringing this evidence to my attention; see now our “Mobilizing
Magic: Occultism in Central Asia and the Continuity of High Persianate Culture under
Russian Rule,” Studia Islamica, 111/2 (2016), p. 231-284.
20 Alireza M. Doostdar, Fantasies of Reason: Science, Superstition, and the Supernatural in
Iran, PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 2012, p. 48 n. 19; see also his forthcoming The
Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny, Princeton, Prin
ceton University Press, 2017.
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354 Melvin-Koushki
variety, though is not as wholly negative as the term ǧādūgarī.21 In 2009, for
instance, opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi derided Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad’s government as one of kaf-bīnī u rammālī, or palmistry and
poppycock.22 Yet even such infamy is an index of the continued inextricabi
lity of geomancy from Persianate culture.
The various Arabic terms for geomancy, the ‘science of sand’ (ʿilm al-raml,
ḫaṭṭ al-raml, ḍarb, ṭarq),23 all refer to its basic procedure of drawing 16 ran-
dom series of lines in the sand or dirt to generate the first four tetragrams of a
geomantic reading. Confusingly, in modern English usage, geomancy can also
refer to the Chinese art of feng shui, though this is a misnomer; as a system of
divining the subtle currents of the earth for the purposes of building or bury-
ing, it is more accurately termed ‘topomancy.’24 As with I Ching trigrams, the
four lines of a geomantic figure (šakl) are generated by the odd (fard) or even
(zawǧ) result of each line, creating a binary code represented as either one dot
(nuqṭa) or two dots respectively—hence the science’s alternative name of ʿilm
al-nuqṭa or ʿilm al-niqāṭ.25 This binary code is then deployed according to set
procedures to capture the flux patterns of the four elemental energies (fire,
air, water, earth) as a means to divine past, present and future events. Emilie
Savage-Smith summarizes the geomantic method as follows:
The divination is accomplished by forming and then interpreting a de-

sign, called a geomantic tableau, consisting of 16 positions, each of which
is occupied by a geomantic figure. The figures occupying the first four
positions are determined by marking 16 horizontal lines of dots on a
piece of paper or a dust board. Each row of dots is examined to deter-
mine if it is odd or even and is then represented by one or two dots ac-
cordingly. Each figure is then formed of a vertical column of four marks,
each of which is either one or two dots. The first four figures, generated
by lines made while the questioner concentrates upon the question, are
21 Doostdar, Fantasies, p. 46 n. 17.

22 Ibid., p. 4.
23 Toufic Fahd, “K̲ h̲aṭṭ,” EI2. ʿIlm al-raml is occasionally translated as ʿilm-i rīg in Persian.
24 Skinner, Geomancy, p. 36. By analogy with feng shui, exponents of ley-line theory also
adopted the term geomancy for their practice, further muddying the waters.
25 As Stephen Skinner notes in his manual on the subject, “In this century when computers
now make many of man’s economic, political and commercial forecasts, it is easy to forget
that these machines work on the same principle of binary mathematics as the infinitely
more ancient machines of the I Ching and geomancy.” Skinner, Geomancy, p. 35.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

Figure 1 A typical geomantic tableau.26
placed side by side in a row from right to left. From these four figures
the remaining 12 positions in the tableau are produced according to set
procedures. Various interpretative methods are advocated by geoman
cers for reading the tableau, often depending upon the nature of the
question asked.27
From right to left, the first four figures in the top row are termed Mothers
(ummahāt), which are combined to produce the second four in the same row,
termed Daughters (banāt); the four figures the Mothers and Daughters pro-
duce in the next row are termed Nieces (ḥafīdāt, mutawallidāt); and the Nieces
are combined to produce the zawāʾid in the rows below: first, the Right and
Left Witnesses (šawāhid), which in turn produce the Judge (mīzān) in the 15th
position at the bottom of the geomantic tableau or shield chart (taḫt). In the
16th and final position, usually drawn below and to the right of the Judge, is
the Reconciler (ʿāqiba), produced by the combination of the first Mother and
the Judge.
The number of possible combinations of figures in a geomantic tableau
is 164, or 65,536 in all.28 Each of the 16 geomantic figures and the 15 houses
of a tableau acquired specific elemental, astrological, calendrical, numeri-
cal, lettrist, humoral, physiognomical and other correspondences; detailed
26 This example is from the margin of Princeton’s copy of Šams al-Dīn Ḫafrī’s Risāla dar
Raml, MS New Series 1177, f. 24b. Note that, as here, a line of two dots in a geomantic figure
is usually written as a dash.
27 Emilie Savage-Smith, “Geomancy in the Islamic World,” in Encyclopaedia of the History
of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, ed. Helaine Selin, Berlin-
Heidelberg-New York, Springer, 2008, p. 998.
28 Smith, “The Nature of Islamic Geomancy,” p. 14.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

356 Melvin-Koushki
information can thus be derived from the figures about virtually any aspect of
human experience, whether physical, mental or spiritual, whether past, pre
sent or future.
Although many techniques of divination long persisted in the Islamicate
world,29 raml, with ǧafr and quranic bibliomancy (fāl-i Qurʾān),30 has the dis-
tinction of being the most fully Islamicized; this trio soon outpaced the others
in prestige and elite patronage as a result.31 Geomantic treatises frequently
begin by marshaling a number of prooftexts from the Quran and Hadith in
defense of the science’s religious legitimacy.32
The work of Emilie Savage-Smith, Marion B. Smith and Toufic Fahd in par-
ticular marks the indispensable starting point for any inquiry into Islamicate
geomancy;33 Robert Jaulin has explored the mathematical properties of the
science from a structuralist standpoint,34 and a number of anthropologists
have conducted surveys of geomantic practice in modern-day sub-Saharan
Africa and Yemen, including derivative forms such as ifa, gara or sikidy.35 What
29 Scapulomancy (ʿilm al-katif ), for instance, or divination by shoulder blade, was frequently
used in Khwārizm until the modern period to predict the outcome of caravan journeys,
resolve legal cases, etc. (personal communication with James Pickett).
30 Bibliomancy, especially in reference to the Qurʾān or the dīwān of Ḥāfiẓ (d. ca 792/1390),
similarly flourished in the Persianate world during the 7th/13th-10th/16th centuries; see
e.g. Christiane Gruber, “The ‘Restored’ Shīʿī muṣḥaf as Divine Guide? The Practice of fāl-i
Qurʾān in the Ṣafavid Period,” Journal of Qurʾānic Studies, 13/2 (2011), p. 29-55.
31 Fahd, La divination arabe, p. 204.
32 This includes Kor 46, 4: “Bring me a Book before this, or some trace of a science (aṯāratin
min ʿilm), if you speak truly.” And the following hadith is constantly cited: “There was a
prophet [who practiced divination by] drawing lines [in the sand], so one may draw the
way he did” (see e.g. al-Buḫārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, Kitāb al-Masāǧid wa-mawāḍiʿ al-ṣalāt, bab 8, no 1227;
Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, Kitāb al-Ṣalāt, bab 173, no 931; etc.).
33 See above; other studies include Felix Klein-Franke, “The Geomancy of Aḥmad b. ʿAlī
Zunbul: A Study of the Arabic Corpus Hermeticum,” Ambix, 20/1 (March 1973), p. 26-35;
Valerio Cappozzo, “Libri dei sogni e geomanzia: la loro applicazione letteraria tra Islam,
medioevo romanzo e Dante,” Quaderni di Studi Indo-Mediterranei, 2 (2009), p. 207-226.
34 Robert Jaulin, La géomancie: analyse formelle, Paris, Mouton, 1966; id., Géomancie et Islam,
Paris, Bourgois, 1991. Smith’s “The Nature of Islamic Geomancy” is a critique of Jaulin’s
studies.
35 See e.g. Bernard Maupoil, “Contribution à l’étude de l’origine musulmane de la géoman-
cie dans le Bas-Dahomey,” Journal de la Société des Africanistes, 13 (1943), p. 1-94; Jacques
Faublée, “Techniques divinatoires et magiques chez les Bara de Madagascar,” Journal de
la Société des Africanistes, 21 (1951), p. 127-138; Robert Jaulin, “Essai d’analyse formelle d’un
procédé géomantique,” Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Afrique Noire, series B, 19 (1957),
p. 43-71; William R. Bascom, Ifa Divination: Communication Between Gods and Men in West
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

has been almost wholly neglected to date, however, is the Persianate geoman-
tic tradition.36 This vital and productive tradition was the driving force behind
the florescence of Islamicate geomancy from the 8th/14th century onward,
itself part of the great renaissance of occultism throughout the post-Mongol
Islamicate world, and appears to begin in earnest in the mid-7th/13th century
with the importation to Iran of the Maghribi geomantic tradition associated
in the first place with al-Zanātī. This tradition would remain the gold standard
for centuries: the 7th/13th-century Shirazi geomancer Nāṣir b. Ḥaydar cleaves
to the method of the Berber master, and even three centuries later the Isfahani-
Tabrizi geomancer Ḥaydar b. Muḥammad felt it necessary to mention that his
brilliant teacher in the science was from the Maghrib.37 More famously, Naṣīr
al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274), the indefatiguable philosopher, mathematician
Africa, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1969; Philip M. Peek (ed.), African Divina-
tion Systems: Ways of Knowing, Bloomington, Indiana University Press (“African systems
of thought ”), 1991; Annick Regourd, “Pratiques de géomancie au Yémen,” in Religion et
pratiques de puissance, ed. Albert de Surgy, Paris, Éditions L’Harmattan, 1997, p. 105-128;
Jan Jansen, “Éducation arithmétique sous forme d’apprentissage: La géomancie dans les
Monts Mandingues,” Cahiers d’Études africaines, 51/1, 201 (2011), p. 9-49; see Smith, “The
Nature of Islamic Geomancy,” p. 9.
36 Apart from the early 20th-century surveys of Persian folklore by Henri Massé and Bess
Allen Donaldson which are largely incognizant of more elite, scholarly forms of geo-
mantic practice, the only attention that has been paid to the Persianate geomantic tradi-
tion is Charles Ambrose Storey’s list of works on the subject but as a strictly preliminary
foray it is unsystematic and incomplete, and focuses primarily on Indian collections.
Henri Massé, Persian Beliefs and Customs, transl. Charles Messner, New Haven, Human
Relations Area Files, 1954; on raml see p. 249-250; Bess Allen Donaldson, The Wild Rue:
A Study of Muhammadan Magic and Folklore in Iran, London, Luzac, 1938; on raml see p.
194-195; Charles Ambrose Storey, Persian Literature: A Bio-Bibliographical Survey, Leiden,
Brill, 1977, II/3, p. 480-489. Emilie Savage-Smith and Marion B. Smith have noted the ex-
istence of a healthy Persianate geomantic tradition from Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and Naṣīr al-
Dīn al-Ṭūsī onward but have dealt to date primarily with late medieval Arabic geomancy.
This general neglect has largely to do with the fact that Persian geomantic texts were not
transmitted to Europe, as well as the fact that they are an important component of the
renaissance of occultism in the early modern Islamicate world, until recently assumed by
scholars to have been a mark of terminal cultural decline—the intense occultism of the
European Renaissance being an exception to this rule, of course. See e.g. Armand Abel,
“La place des sciences occultes dans la décadence,” in Classicisme et déclin culturel dans
l’histoire de l’Islam, ed. Robert Brunschvig and Gustav Edmund von Grunebaum, Paris,
Éditions Besson, 1957, p. 291-311. An index of the popular vitality of the Persianate geo-
mantic tradition is its presence in the Thousand and One Nights; for a list of the relevant
tales see Savage-Smith and Smith, “Islamic Geomancy,” p. 220, n. 40.
37 M S Majlis 12534, p. 3; see Melvin-Koushki, “Persianate Geomancy.”
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

358 Melvin-Koushki
and astronomer-astrologer and founder of the Maragha Observatory, wrote

one of his two works on geomancy in both Arabic and Persian versions at the
request of his Mongol patron Hülegü (r. 654/1256-663/1265), and is frequently
cited as an authority in later Persian geomantic works.38 With al-Ṭūsī as pre
cedent, geomancy went on to exercise some of the best minds of the early
modern Persianate world as a mainstream occult-scientific tradition.
This Arabo-Persian geomantic tradition constitutes Yazdī’s immediate
frame of reference, and also serves to contextualize Ibn Ḫaldūn’s comments
on the science inasmuch as it represents Islamicate geomancy in its mature
phase, in this as in other fields marked by the refinement, systematization and
expansion of western, Arabic texts by eastern writers from the 7th/13th century
onward. Ibn Ḫaldūn himself unhappily admits the prevalence of geomantic
practice “in all civilized lands”39—an enviable status that, by all accounts, only
improved after the 8th/14th century, particularly in the Persianate east, where
the science’s popularity crescendoed in the runup to the Islamic millennium
(1592 ce). How, then, to explain its ubiquity among the intellectual and politi-
cal elite over the course of many centuries?
It must first be noted that geomancy was classified as an applied mathemat-
ical science from at least the 6th/12th century—a simple but oft-forgotten fact
that explains its enduring appeal to philosophers, astronomers and mathe
maticians, including in the first-place prominent thinkers like Naṣīr al-Dīn
al-Ṭūsī and Šams al-Dīn Ḫafrī (d. 942/1535).40 This appeal, in turn, signals its
38 Savage-Smith, “Geomancy in the Islamic World”; Savage-Smith and Smith, “Islamic Geo-
mancy,” p. 216. The Persian version is typically titled al-Wāfī fī ʿilm al-raml and the Arabic
al-Sulṭāniyya fī l-raml. Both versions are well represented in the manuscript record, par-
ticularly the Persian (preserved in at least 20 copies in Iran alone), and there is little rea-
son to doubt the authenticity of the treatise’s ascription to al-Ṭūsī. See Melvin-Koushki,
“Persianate Geomancy.”
39 Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, I, p. 178.
40 Unlike “philosopher” (faylasūf), “astronomer” and “mathematician” are here used as
terms of convenience: the former denotes a specialist in ʿilm al-hayʾa, while the latter
only emerged as a professional term relatively late, and was infrequently used (my thanks
to Sonja Brentjes for this observation). A prominent astronomer-philosopher under the
early Safavids, Ḫafrī produced two treatises on geomancy, an otherwise untitled Risāla
dar Raml (of which at least 20 manuscript copies survive; see e.g. MS Majlis 3931/3, p. 128-
166, and Princeton MS New Series 1177/2, ff. 18b-27a) that emphasizes the philosophical-
scientific framework of the science, and Dawāzdah maṭlaʿ (see e.g. MS Majlis 12509/1 ff.
1b-5a). On Ḫafrī’s contributions to philosophy see Firouzeh Saatchian, Gottes Wesen, Gottes
Wirken: Ontologie und Kosmologie im Denken von Šams-al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Ḫafrī (gest.
942/1535), Berlin, Klaus Schwarz (“Islamkundliche Untersuchungen”, 305), 2011; on his
signal importance to the history of astronomy see George Saliba, “A Sixteenth-Century
Arabic Critique of Ptolemaic Astronomy: The Work of Shams al-Dīn al-Khafrī,” Journal for
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

importance to the history of science more generally. (Lynn Thorndike treats

of the science frequently in passing in his monumental A History of Magic and
Experimental Science41.) Most significantly, the mathematicalization of geo-
mancy, together with lettrism, was part of a larger trend in Persianate intellec-
tual history that culminated with the fateful mathematization of astronomy in
the 9th/15th century by the members of the Samarkand Observatory, and drove
the renaissance of neopythagoreanism in Iran through the Safavid period.42
This process began with Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210), the great Ašʿarī phi-
losopher-theologian and committed occultist; his Ǧāmiʿ al-ʿulūm (aka Sittīnī),
the most comprehensive and innovative of the early Persian encyclopedias, is
the first to formally elevate geomancy from the natural sciences to the mathe
matical. Specifically, it follows the standard Avicennan epistemological pro-
gression in treating the natural sciences (ṭabīʿiyyāt), the mathematical sciences
(riyāḍiyyāt) and metaphysics (ilāhiyyāt) in that order, and under the rubric of
the mathematical sciences includes geomancy (raml), together with geometry
(handasa), mensuration (masāḥa), mechanics (ǧarr al-aṯqāl), war machines
(ālāt al-ḥurūb), Indian arithmetic (ḥisāb al-Hind), mental calculation (al-ḥisāb
al-hawāʾī), algebra (al-ǧabr wa-l-muqābala), arithmetic (ariṯmāṭīqī), magic
squares (aʿdād al-wafq), optics (manāẓir), music (mūsīqī), astronomy (hayʾat),
judicial astrology (aḥkām [al-nuǧūm]) and astral magic (ʿazāʾim). While he
devotes some five pages to our divinatory art, however, al-Rāzī’s presenta-
tion of geomancy is so rudimentary as to be useless to a would-be practitio-
ner, suggesting that it had not yet entered the intellectual mainstream in the
Persianate world.43
The Nafāʾis al-funūn fī ʿarāʾis al‑ʿuyūn of Šams al-Dīn Āmulī (d. 753/1352),
sometime mudarris at Sultaniyya under Öljeytü (r. 693/1294‑706/1307),
the History of Astronomy, 25 (1995), p. 15-38. Significantly for our purposes here, Saliba iden-
tifies Ḫafrī as the most important planetary theorist of the 10th/16th century, and believes
him to be the first thinker to redefine mathematics “as a descriptive language of scientific
processes,” foreshadowing “the modern conception of the role of mathematics in science
in general” (“Ḵafri, Šams-al-Din,” Encyclopaedia Iranica). While Saliba’s celebration of Ḫafrī
is expressly and problematically teleological and positivist, I rely on it here to emphasize
the Shirazi thinker’s neopythagorean bent—wholly elided in Saliba’s account; see Matthew
Melvin-Koushki, “Powers of One: The Mathematicalization of the Occult Sciences in the
High Persianate Tradition,” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World, 5/1 (2017), p. 127-199.
41 Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, New York, Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 1923-1958; see e.g. II, chap. 39.
42 So I argue in Melvin-Koushki, “Powers of One.”
43 Ǧāmiʿ al-ʿulūm (‘Sittīnī’), ed. Sayyid ʿAlī Āl-i Dāwūd, Tehran, Ṯurayyā, 1382/2003, p. 432-437.
In this list geomancy, the 51st science, follows judicial astrology and precedes astral magic.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

360 Melvin-Koushki
represents a second watershed in the Islamicate encyclopedic tradition.44 It

is the most extensive and polished taṣnīf al-ʿulūm work produced in either
Arabic or Persian up to the mid-8th/14th century, and as such came to serve
as the primary model for subsequent Persian encyclopedias.45 The Nafāʾis al-
funūn has as its own model al-Rāzī’s Ǧāmiʿ al-ʿulūm, but it is far more complete
and organized than that pioneering work. Most significantly, Āmulī, unlike al-
Rāzī, questions the standard Avicennan hierarchy of sciences so forcefully rei
terated a century prior by Quṭb al-Dīn al-Šīrāzī (d. 710/1311) in his Durrat al-tāǧ
li-ġurrat al-dabbāǧ, at times even challenging the latter directly by counterpo
sing what he asserts to be a more consistent classification system and moving
toward a new conception of knowledge.46 At the same time, he concurs with
the Maragha philosopher-astronomer in classifying all occult sciences, inclu
ding alchemy (kīmiyā), letter magic (sīmiyā), oneiromancy (taʿbīr), physiog-
nomy (firāsat) and astrology, as derivative natural sciences—with one pointed
and telling exception: geomancy. While al-Rāzī was the first encyclopedist to
treat this form of “terrestrial astrology” as an applied mathematical science
(i.e. an instance of the furūʿ-i riyāḍī) associated with astronomy, then, Āmulī
goes further: he dissociates the science from astrology on the one hand and all
other divinatory sciences on the other.47 Though his motive for making it is not
clear, Āmulī’s move here may be considered an index of geomancy’s increase
in prestige in Iran during the Ilkhanid period. Moreover, at 20 pages Āmulī’s
discussion of geomancy is considerably fuller than his model’s and detailed
enough to serve as a basis for elementary practice.
The prestige of geomancy only continued to increase in the Persianate
world from this point forward, such that by the 10th/16th century geomancy
was considered an essential and uncontroversial application of the quadriv-
ium in its Avicennan formulation. Writing at the turn of the Islamic millen-
nium (1001/1593), or some two and a half centuries later, for the benefit of the
44 Šams al-Dīn Āmulī, Nafāʾis al-funūn fī ʿarāʾis al‑ʿuyūn, ed. Abū l-Ḥasan Šaʿrānī and Ibrāhīm
Miyānǧī, Tehran, Intišārāt-i Islāmiyya, 1389/2010.
45 Živa Vesel, Les encyclopédies persanes : essai de typologie et de classification des sciences,
Paris, Recherche sur les civilisations (“Bibliothèque iranienne”, 31; “Recherche sur les
civilisations. Mémoire”, 57), 1986, p. 39-42.
46 Ibid., p. 41; Melvin-Koushki, “Powers of One.”
47 Šams al-Dīn Āmulī, Nafāʾis al-funūn, III, p. 537-556. Here again I use the designation
“applied mathematical science” as a term of convenience; it is not to be understood in its
strict 19th-century European sense.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

Mughal Emperor Akbar, in his Qawāʿid al-hidāya, Hidāyat Allāh Munaǧǧim-i

Šīrāzī programmatically states:48
Know (God guide you) that philosophy (ḥikmat) is divided into three
categories: the natural sciences (ʿilm-i ṭabīʿī), the mathematical sciences
(ʿilm-i riyāḍī) and metaphysics (ʿilm-i ilāhī). The principal mathemati-
cal sciences are four: astronomy (hayʾat), arithmetic (ʿadad), geometry
(handasa) and music (mūsīqī). The mathematical disciplines derived
from these are numerous, and include geomancy (raml) and astrology
(nuǧūm), which are exceedingly noble and useful sciences.49
At the same time, geomancy’s focus on the four elements—fire, air, water,
earth—also gave it a strong claim to being a natural science. As the Šaǧara u
ṯamara, a popular Persian geomantic manual of the period (formally a com-
mentary on a Persian translation of al-Zanātī’s Šaǧara), warns:
The modality of this science is a difficult one, for it is a physiological sci-

ence (ʿilm-i ṭabāʾiʿ); whoever does not have a firm grasp of physiology will
not be able to use this science.50
Our divinatory science, in other words, occupied the epistemological inter-

section between astrology and alchemy.51 It is significant in this context that
the conception of the four-cornered nuqṭa as primordial embodiment of the
four elements was likewise central to Maḥmūd Pasīḫānī’s (d. 831/1428) re-
formulation of the Ḥurūfism of his erstwhile teacher Faḍl Allāh Astarābādī
(d. 796/1394), and drove what was seen by critics to be the thoroughgoing natu-
ralism or materialism of Nuqṭawī doctrine.52
48 The Qawāʿid al-hidāya was first written for Akbar in 962/1555 just before his accession and
reworked in 1001/1593. Storey, Persian Literature, II/3, p. 482, no 850 (4, 5). On its status as
slightly edited version of a Safavid geomantic manual see Melvin-Koushki, “Persianate
Geomancy.”
49 Hidāyat Allāh Munaǧǧim-i Šīrāzī, Qawāʿid al-hidāya, MS Majlis 12563, p. 312.
50 Ibid., p. 820.
51 Klein-Franke, “The Geomancy of Aḥmad b. ʿAlī Zunbul,” p. 33, 35.
52 See e.g. Ṣādiq Kiyā’s classic study of the movement, Nuqṭawiyān yā Pasīḫāniyān, Teh-
ran, Anǧuman-i Īrān, 1320/1941. In his Durr al-yatīm, for instance, Muḥammad Dihdār
(d. 1016/1607), son of the important Safavid lettrist author Maḥmūd Dihdār Šīrāzī
(fl. 984/1576), classes the Nuqṭawīs as an execrable subset of those he calls the mass of
deficient naturalist-materialists (ǧumhūr-i ṭabīʿiyyīn u nāqiṣān-i dahriyān). Muḥammad
Dihdār, Rasāʾil-i Dihdār, ed. Muḥammad Ḥusayn Akbarī Sāwī, Tehran, Nuqṭa, 1375/1996,
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

362 Melvin-Koushki
Geomancy’s status as a mathematical occult science appears to have become

particularly salient by the early 9th/15th century, when it began to be expli
citly associated with lettrism (ʿilm al-ḥurūf), particularly letter magic (sīmiyāʾ)
and letter divination (ǧafr), both based on number theory (ʿilm al-ʿadad). This
trend is exemplified in Luṭf Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Malik Nīšāpūrī Samarqandī’s53
Ḫulāṣat al-baḥrayn, written in 812/1409, which treats of geomancy and magic
squares (aʿdād-i wafq) (the two seas of the title) as complementary sciences.54
His explicit thesis: geomancy tells you the future, and if you don’t like what you
hear, you can always change the future with letter magic. This prospect, very
simply, explains the attractiveness of this and other occult sciences to ruling
elites throughout the early modern Islamicate world and their heavy patro
nage of the same; used in conjunction with lettrism in particular, geomancy
promises the direct control of one’s political and material fate.55
I have shown elsewhere that lettrism was reformulated during this same
early 9th/15th-century moment as the primary vehicle of Islamicate neopy-
thagoreanism and philosophical occultism, and advanced as a superior
p. 131. He criticizes their doctrine as follows (ibid., p. 141): “These [people] who associate
themselves with the dot (nuqṭa) mean by it the elemental particles (aǧzā-yi ʿunṣurī) that
are in the dot; and their sublimest (ḥaqīqī) dot is the center of the earth (markaz-i ḫāk).
For this reason, whenever their leader [i.e. Maḥmūd Pasīḫānī] would mention his own
name in his treatises he would say ‘I who have dirt on my head’—that is to say, ‘I who
am the center of the earth’! [The Nuqṭawīs aside], however, the science of the dot (ʿilm-i
nuqṭa) is a noble science; for the dot refers to the absolute aspect (ḥayṯiyyat-i muṭlaqa).
The treatise Secrets of the Dot (Asrār al-nuqṭa) by Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī (may He sanc-
tify his spirit) is well-known [in this connection]. And according to the the felicitating
speech of the holy Commander of the Faithful [ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib] on [the subject of] the
dot, ‘Knowledge is a dot multiplied by the ignorant,’ here referring to the ultimate reality
(ḥaqīqat al-ḥaqāyiq) or first entification (taʿayyun-i awwal).”
53 He is perhaps to be identified with the celebrated poet Luṭf Allāh b. Sulaymān Šāh
Nīšāpūrī (d. 812/1409), a Khurasan-based encomiast to the Sarbidars and Timurids known
for his ascetic character and expertise in astrology. See Dīwān-i Luṭf Allāh Nīšābūrī, ed.
Rasūl Ǧaʿfariyān, Tehran, Asnād-i maǧlis-i šūrā-yi islāmī, 1390/2011, p. 117.
54 See Storey, Persian Literature, II/3, p. 481, no 847. Tellingly, a copy of his teacher ʿAbd al-
Ġanī Ḥāfiẓ Šīrwānī’s Anwār al-raml is bound together with an anonymous treatise on
magic squares, Kayfiyyat-i aʿmāl-i aʿdād-i wafq, in MS Marʿašī 7142.
55 As Maḥmūd Kāšī, munaǧǧim to the Timurid Iskandar Sulṭān (on whom see below), ar-
gues for the necessity of astrology: “The wise soul manages the actions of the heavens,
just as the farmer manages the power of nature by ploughing and watering.” Laurence
P. Elwell-Sutton, “A Royal Timurid Nativity Book,” in Logos Islamikos: Studia Islamica in
Honorem Georgii Michaelis Wickens, ed. Roger M. Savory and Dionisius A. Agius, Toronto,
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984, p. 130.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

alternative to both mainstream peripatetic-illuminationist philosophy and

sufi theory.56 Significantly, the network of thinkers who accomplished this re-
formulation appear to have called themselves the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ in conscious
reference to the shadowy group of 4th/10th-century neopythagorean-occultist
encyclopedists of the same name. By the early 9th/15th century this network
included most prominently Šayḫ Badr al-Dīn of Simavna (d. between 819/1416
and 823/1420) and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī (d. 858/1454) in Anatolia,57
and Ṣāʾin al-Dīn Turka Iṣfahānī (d. 835/1432) and our historian Šaraf al-Dīn
Yazdī in western Iran, with Sayyid Ḥusayn Aḫlāṭī (d. 799/1397), famed Tabrizi
Kurdish occultist and personal physician-alchemist to Sulṭān Barqūq, standing
as the network’s pivot.58 Ibn Turka, in turn, stands as its leading theoretician
in the east, being responsible for the systematization of this philosophical
lettrism59—the basis of his student and friend Yazdī’s historical and occult-
scientific outlook. That this intellectual confraternity’s interests were not con-
fined to lettrism is suggested by the fact that another of Aḫlāṭī’s disciples, Ḥasan
Abarqūhī, was known strictly as a geomancer,60 and Aḫlāṭī himself has been
credited as author of the seminal Persian geomantic manual Risāla-yi Surḫāb.61
As a divinatory methodology based on number theory, then, geomancy
fit neatly into the newly resurgent neopythagorean-neoplatonic (fīṯāġūrī-
aflāṭūnī) project that was sweeping the early 9th/15th-century intellectual
scene, and served as the primary foundation for the philosophical-scientific
56 See Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest.”

57 Cornell H. Fleischer, “Ancient Wisdom and New Sciences: Prophecies at the Ottoman
Court in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries,” in Falnama: The Book of Omens,
ed. Massumeh Farhad and Serpil Bağcı, London-Washington, Thames & Hudson-Freer
Gallery of Art, 2009, p. 232-243: p. 235; İhsan Fazlıoğlu, “İlk Dönem Osmanlı İlim ve Kültür
Hayatında İhvanu’s-Safâ ve Abdurrahman Bistâmî,” in Dîvân: İlmî Araştırmalar, 2 (1996), p.
229-240; Denis Gril, “Ésotérisme contre hérésie: ʿAbd al-Rahmân al-Bistāmī, un représent-
ant de la science des lettres à Bursa dans la première moitié du XVe siècle,” in Syncrétismes
et hérésies dans l’Orient seldjoukide et ottoman (XIV e-XVIIIe siècle), ed. Gilles Veinstein,
Louvain-Paris, Peeters (“Collection Turcica”, 9), 2005, p. 183-195; see Melvin-Koushki, “The
Quest,” p. 16-19.
58 On Aḫlāṭī see Binbaş, Intellectual Networks, p. 114-140; Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest,”
p. 45-57.
59 His Kitāb al-Mafāḥiṣ or Book of Inquiries in particular is a summa of philosophical lettrism
and Islamic neopythagoreanism; see Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest,” p. 330-378.
60 Ṭabāṭabāʾī Yazdī identifies al-Ḥāǧǧ Ḥasan as a student of Sayyid Ḥusayn Aḫlāṭī, and cites
him as a geomantic authority without associating him with a specific work (Nafaḥāt al-
asrār, p. 29).
61 Sayyid Muḥsin al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-šīʿa, ed. Ḥasan al-Amīn, Beirut, Dār al-taʿāruf, 1986-2006,
VI, p. 94.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

364 Melvin-Koushki
and spiritual-political adventurousness that characterized the early modern

Persianate world; this conceptual confluence is plainly reflected in Luṭf Allāh
Nīšāpūrī’s innovative marriage of geomancy and letter magic on the one hand
and Yazdī’s pointedly lettrist defense of the science on the other.
So far geomancy’s scientific classification; but what of its primary mecha
nism? Geomancy, like all occult sciences as practiced in the early modern
Islamo-Christianate world, is predicated on the hermetic principle of cor-
respondence (munāsaba): as above, so below. This union of supernal and
infernal, of spirit and matter, of eternity and time is governed by the law of
(gendered) attraction or love (ḥubb, maḥabba, ʿišq) obtaining between all bo
dies, from planetary to atomic.62 The neoplatonists hold that these two prin-
ciples erect a hierarchy of being that may be ascended and descended at will;
the neopythagoreans hold that number is the only shuttle capable of returning
62
I.e. the Love and Strife of Empedocles, fused with the erotic motion of Plotinus. This doc-
trine was fully islamicized by the 4th/10th century, when the Brethren of Purity declared
in their 37th treatise on love, embracing the Plotinian position: “Divine wisdom and so-
licitude has bound all existents together with a single bond and strung them together in a
single arrangement”; “God is the First Beloved, and the celestial sphere revolves solely out
of longing (šawq) for Him and love (maḥabba) for permanence.” Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil
Ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ, Beirut, al-Aʿlamī, 1426/2005, III, p. 227, 234. Likewise, in his Treatise on
Love (Risāla fī l-ʿišq), even Ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037), second father of peripateticism, posits
love as a primary ground of being, and intrinsic to the divine essence: “Love is the mani-
festation of both essence (al-ḏāt) and existence (al-wuǧūd), that is, in the Good (al-ḫayr);
the being of existents is therefore either by reason of the love in them [for the Good], or
identical to love itself.” Ibn Sīnā, Ǧāmiʿ al-badāʾiʿ, ed. Muḥammad Ḥasan Ismāʿīl, Beirut,
Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1425/2004, p. 67. In the post-Mongol period, however, the philo-
sophical doctrine of love as ground of being came to be most closely associated with Ibn
ʿArabī (d. 638/1240), who embraced the sufi concept of al-nikāḥ al-sārī fī ǧamīʿ al-ḏarārī
(“the marriage act pervading all atoms”); the same concept is referred to by his lettrist
expositor Ibn Turka as “perpetual bonding” (al-ʿaqd al-sāʾir) and “pervasive coupling” (al-
nikāḥ al-sārī). Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest,” p. 364.
Most famously the basis for Isaac Newton’s (d. 1727) theory of gravitation, this doctrine
was ubiquitous in early modern thought, from the political philosophy of Ǧalāl al-Dīn
Dawānī (d. 908/1502) in the 9th/15th century to the millenarian empiricism of Francis
Bacon (d. 1626) in the early 11th/17th. It is thus highly significant in this connection that
Bacon too elevated artificial divination—considered far inferior to natural divination
from Plato onward, and epitomized in the Islamo-Christianate world by such techniques
as geomancy—to the status of an experimental natural science, pointedly renaming it
natural divination to this end. See A.P. Langman, “The Future Now: Chance, Time and
Natural Divination in the Thought of Francis Bacon,” in The Uses of the Future in Early
Modern Europe, ed. Andrea Brady and Emily Butterworth, New York, Routledge (“Rout-
ledge studies in Renaissance literature and culture”, 12), 2010, p. 142-158, esp. p. 152.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

the human intellect to its transcendent, unitary origin. Properly manipulated,

then, the primordial virtue of number may be activated in a way that grants
knowledge of the unseen—past, present and future, essences and secret
thoughts. Geomancy is one such method of number manipulation whose effi-
cacy depends on the correspondence of above to below along the neoplatonic
Chain of Being.63
Most importantly for the history of science, this neopythagorean-neopla-
tonic framework underlying all occultist practice is itself predicated on the
principle of secondary causality vertically cascading down that Chain, though
in a form more reminiscent of the spooky—i.e. occult—causality that makes
possible quantum-mechanical nonlocality. Indeed, perhaps munāsaba itself is
better translated as ‘entanglement’—or “synchronicity,” as C.G. Jung, who was
much preoccupied by the study of the I Ching and the occult sciences general-
ly, famously termed the primary mechanism of divination, positing number as
the archetype that marries mind to matter.64 As that may be, geomancy’s basic
thesis that a binary code underlies and shapes physical reality has long been a
staple idea among logocentric metaphysicians, Muslim, Jewish and Christian
alike, a host of whom embraced the Danielic art.
It is on this point that Yazdī takes to task his anti-occultist interlocutor, Ibn
Ḫaldūn, who heaps scorn and censure on those who investigate secondary
causes,65 by counterposing geomancy as a science precisely devoted to such
investigation. Yet the Tunisian historian cannot simply be dismissed as an oc-
casionalist; it is painfully ironic, to say the least, that he inveighs against the
investigation of secondary causes in a masterwork devoted precisely to investi-
gating the causes behind the rise and fall of civilizations.66
In geomancy, then, we have a mainstream, mathematical-natural science
predicated on a neopythagorean-neoplatonic system and animated by the
twin principles of correspondence and secondary causation that was of endu
ring interest to scholarly and ruling elites throughout the Islamo-Christianate
world during the 7th/13th-10th/16th-century moment most especially, and is
63 This point is strongly made by Ḫafrī, for instance, in his Risāla dar Raml (MS Majlis 3931/3,
p. 128-129; Princeton MS New Series 1177/2, ff. 18b-19a). On the Chain of Being theory gene
rally see Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea,
Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1936; on the same in Islamicate thought see Aziz
Al-Azmeh, Arabic Thought and Islamic Societies, London, Croom Helm (“Exeter Arabic
and Islamic series”, 1), 1986, p. 2-13; on the same in the Muqaddima see id., Ibn Khaldūn,
p. 66-67; Asatrian, “Ibn Khaldūn,” p. 77-79.
64 See e.g. the study by his student Marie-Luise von Franz, On Divination and Synchronicity.
65 Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, III, p. 23-27; id., The Muqaddimah, III, p. 34-37.
66 My thanks to Justin Stearns for this observation.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

366 Melvin-Koushki
still in common use to the present. But Ibn Ḫaldūn begged to differ—albeit in
rather uncertain terms. We therefore turn to his harsh but subtle critique of the
occult sciences in general and geomancy in particular.
Ibn Ḫaldūn Against the Occult Sciences
In openly attacking the occult sciences the Tunisian historian was hardly the
odd scholar out. Anti-occultist polemics, featuring in the Arabic textual tradi-
tion from its very beginning in the 2nd/8th century, had built up a venerable
pedigree by the late 8th/14th century; it is one of the few subjects where phi-
losophers like Ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037), theologians like al-Ġazālī (d. 505/1111),
traditionalists like Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) and historians like Ibn Ḫaldūn
find common cause.67 Nor was the latter original in singling out astrology
and alchemy as the worst offenders against religion and reason; Ibn Sīnā and
Ibn Taymiyya’s student Ibn Qayyim al-Ǧawziyya (d. 751/1350), Ibn Ḫaldūn’s
earlier contemporary, had both done the same. Indeed, though a direct con-
nection is difficult to show, Ibn Ḫaldūn’s immediate precedent was likely Ibn
al-Qayyim’s sustained anti-occultist polemic in his Miftāḥ dār al-saʿāda (Key
to the Abode of Felicity), which systematically attacks the occult sciences,
particularly astrology, alchemy, magic and various forms of divination, using
67 Yahya Michot helpfully compiles a list of anti-astrology polemicists as follows in his “Ibn
Taymiyya on Astrology: Annotated Translation of Three Fatwas,” Journal of Islamic Stud-
ies, 11/2 (2000), p. 147-208: p. 151: al-Ḫalīl b. Aḥmad (d. ca 170/786), al-Šāfiʿī (d. 204/820),
Abū Tammām (d. ca 231/845), Ṯābit b. Qurra (d. 288/901), Ḥasan b. Mūsā al-Nawbaḫtī
(d. ca 310/920), Abū l-Ḥasan al-Ašʿarī (d. 324/935), al-Fārābī (d. 339/950?), Abū l-Qāsim
ʿĪsā b. ʿAlī (d. 391/1001), Uqlīdisī (mid-4th/10th c.), al-Bāqillānī (d. 403/1013), Abū Ḥayyān
al-Tawḥīdī (d. 414/1023?), Ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037), Ibn al-Hayṯam (d. 430/1039), al-Bīrūnī
(d. after 442/1050), Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064), al‑Ḫaṭīb al-Baġdādī (d. 463/1071), al-Ġazālī
(d. 505/1111), Ibn Rušd (d. 595/1198), al-Samawʾal al-Maġribī (fl. 6th/12th c.), Abū l-Barakāt
al-Baġdādī (d. after 560/1164), Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), Ibn Qayyim al-Ǧawziyya
(d. 751/1350), Ḫalīl al-Ṣafadī (d. 764/1363), Ibn al-Šāṭir al-Dimašqī (d. 777/1375), Muḥammad
al-Damīrī (d. 808/1405), Ibn Ḫaldūn (d. 808/1406) and Ibn Ḥaǧar al-Haytamī (d. 974/1567).
Ibn Taġrībirdī (d. 874/1470), who delighted in fleering astrologers, should be added to
this list (Irwin, “Al-Maqrīzī and Ibn Khaldūn,” p. 225-226), as should Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār
(d. 415/1025) and Moses Maimonides (d. 601/1204). See George Saliba, “Islamic Astronomy
in Context: Attacks on Astrology and the Rise of the Hayʾa Tradition,” Bulletin of the Royal
Institute for Inter-Faith Studies, 4/1 (2002), p. 37-41; Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Maimonides’
Repudiation of Astrology,” Maimonidean Studies, 2 (1991), p. 123-158. For Ibn Rušd’s cri-
tique of occultism more generally see his Tahāfut al-Tahāfut, ed. M. Bouyges, Beirut, Im-
primerie catholique, 1930, p. 509-511.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

natural-scientific, theological and traditionalist arguments68—an obvious

template for Ibn Ḫaldūn’s own critique of occultism on theological, natural-
scientific, social and political grounds.69
Yet Ibn al-Qayyim’s polemic, for all its urbane learnedness, is clearly re-
actionary; that a strict Ḥanbalī jurist-theologian of his training found it
necessary to recruit the help of natural philosophy and the mathematical
sciences to this end smacks of desperation—Ibn Taymiyya would hardly
have approved—,70 and suggests that he saw the burgeoning popularity
of occultism in his own day as a nigh-unstoppable force.71 This impres-
sion is confirmed by Ibn al-Qayyim’s facile identification of occultism with
Ismaʿilism, paganism and philosophy in his Iġāṯat al-lahfān min maṣāʾid
al-šayṭān (Saving the Sighing from the Snares of Satan), a rhetorical move
calculated to fan the flames of sectarian fear and theological outrage in his
readership. In this work he traces a history of philosophy from the Greeks
to the 8th/14th century, and asserts that while Socrates and his student and
successor Plato were essentially proto-Muslim, Plato’s own student Aristotle
was responsible for the terminal perversion of philosophy; Aristotle’s grea
test exponent in the Islamic dispensation is of course Ibn Sīnā, a self-con-
fessed Ismaʿili heretic (kāna min al-qarāmiṭa l-bāṭiniyya), whose school
now dominates the philosophical scene—monsters of taʿṭīl all. During the
same period, the infamously occultist Rasāʾil of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ were
written for precisely this audience of heretics (zanādiqa, malāḥida). Ibn
68 See John Livingston, “Science and the Occult in the Thinking of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya,”
Journal of the American Oriental Society, 112/4 (1992), p. 598-610.
69 It should be noted that previous arguments against the occult sciences were more often
made on purely religious grounds rather than natural-scientific; see e.g. al-Nawawī,
Fatāwā l-Imām al-Nawawī, ed. Maḥmūd al-Arnāʾūṭ, Damascus, Dār al-fikr, 1999, p. 132-135;
Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn b. al-Aṯīr, al-Maṯal al-sāʾir fī adab al-kātib wa-l-šāʿir, ed. Muḥammad Muḥyī
l-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, Cairo, Maṭbaʿat Muṣṭafā l-Bābī l-Ḥalabī, 1938-1939, II, p. 148-149.
70 Indeed, Ibn al-Qayyim even goes so far as to invoke the philosophers’ critiques of
astrology—this while fulminating against philosophy and logic on theological and secta
rian grounds in the Miftāḥ and elsewhere. See Ibn al-Qayyim, Miftāḥ dār al-saʿāda, ed.
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Ḥasan b. Qāʾid, Mecca, Dār ʿālam al-fawāʾid, 1432/2011, p. 1463.
71 As Livingston observes: “Ibn al-Qayyim’s reliance on arguments drawn from the exact sci-
ences and natural philosophy, curious defenses considering the theological conceptions
of the Ḥanbalī traditionist, is a measure of how threatening he perceived the popular-
ity of the occult sciences to be.” Livingston, “Science and the Occult,” p. 599. On Ibn al-
Qayyim’s complicated relationship to the rational sciences see Y. Tzvi Langermann, “The
Naturalization of Science in Ibn Qayyim al-Ǧawziyyah’s Kitāb al-Rūḥ,” Oriente Moderno,
90/1 (2010), p. 203-220.
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368 Melvin-Koushki
al-Qayyim here blasts Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī—or as he calls him, Naṣīr al-Širk
wa-l-Kufr—in particular, whose many crimes against Islam include assis
ting Hülegü in the destruction of the caliph, judges, jurists and traditionists
while striving to ensure the survival of philosophers (falāsifa), astrologers
(munaǧǧimūn), naturalists (ṭabāʾiʿiyyūn) and mages (saḥara), and plunde
ring the endowments of mosques, madrasas and ribāṭs for the benefit of his
depraved associates; he also took up the study of magic toward the end of
his life, becoming an idol-worshiping sorcerer in his own right. The moral of
Ibn al-Qayyim’s declinist narrative: whenever and wherever Jews, Christians
or Muslims have pursued the study of philosophy and logic, those gateway
drugs to occultism, thereby departing from the revealed truths of scripture,
God has punished them with conquest and captivity—witness the Ismaʿili
ascendancy in the west, the Christian takeover of al-Andalus and the Tatar
invasion of the east. In other words, Ibn al-Qayyim holds the popularity of
Avicennan peripatetic philosophy to be directly responsible for the Mongol
conquest of western Asia, which in turn allowed for the burgeoning of oc-
cultism through the intermediation of traitors like al-Ṭūsī.72
Ibn al-Qayyim’s arguments in both the Miftāḥ and the Iġāṯa thus imply
the following two-stage scenario: Ismaʿilism and philosophy represented the
greatest threats to Sunni orthodoxy in the pre-Mongol period, which accor
dingly saw the emergence of great anti-Ismaʿili and anti-philosophy cham-
pions of Sunnism like al-Ġazālī (d. 505/1111). The Mongols’ destruction of
organized Ismaʿilism did not extinguish that pernicious heresy, however; it
persists, viruslike and barely disguised, in contemporary occultism, which like
Ismaʿili doctrine is based on neopythagorean-neoplatonic (fīṯāġūrī-aflāṭūnī)
philosophy.73 And their patronage of peripatetic philosophy and occult prac-
tice in the person of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī only exacerbated the situation—the
popularity of philosophy, after all, was what called down the Mongol scourge
in the first place. As such, occultism and philosophy now represent the grea
test threats to Sunni orthodoxy in the post-Mongol period, with Ibn al-Qayyim,
al-Ġazālī-like, standing in the breach.74
72 Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Iġāṯat al-lahfān, ed. Muḥammad Sayyid Kīlānī, Cairo, Maṭbaʿat
Muṣṭafā l-Bābī l-Ḥalabī, n.d., p. 260-266.
73 As Livingstone observes, for Ibn al-Qayyim, occultism, as a form of “Ismāʿīlī Pythagorean
gnosticism,” was the “superstitious offspring of legitimate science and Ismāʿīlī spiritual
alchemy.” Livingston, “Science and the Occult,” p. 608.
74 Ibid., p. 598-600, 608. By this standard, of course, occult philosophers like Ibn Turka, who
systematized lettrism as a superior metaphysics, must be considered a double threat to
society and religion.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

Writing some decades later, Ibn Ḫaldūn, a Mālikī jurist with Ašʿarī leanings,
is no less reactionary in this respect; he too seeks to defend the ramparts of
religion with dire warnings as to the danger occultism poses for human civili-
zation in general and believers and political actors in particular. And like Ibn
al-Qayyim, he stands appalled witness to the renaissance of occultism in the
8th/14th century. But the rising tide was not to be stemmed. Ibn Ḫaldūn here
appears not as man ahead of his time but as a conservative, fideistic voice, a
historian run aground on the wrong side of history, his warnings left unheeded
by early modern dynasts eager to use the occult sciences as a tool for politi-
cal advancement—and a basis for their increasingly frequent claims to mil-
lennial sovereignty.75 Significantly, his appears to be the last important attack
on occultism as such in the premodern Arabic scholarly tradition.76 Even Ibn
75 On this theme see e.g. Azfar Moin, The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Saint-
hood in Islam, New York, Columbia University Press, 2012; Matthew Melvin-Koushki,
“Early Modern Islamicate Empire: New Forms of Religiopolitical Legitimacy,” in The Wi-
ley-Blackwell History of Islam, ed. Armando Salvatore, Roberto Tottoli and Babak Rahimi,
Malden, Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming 2017. Alexander Knysh identifies the Akbarian
seal of the saints doctrine—espoused by Ibn Turka and Yazdī, who rendered it (occult-)
scientific—as particularly politically problematic for the courtier and statesman Ibn
Ḫaldūn in its status “as a potential banner and ideology for violent messianic uprisings.”
Alexander Knysh, Ibn ʿArabi in the Later Islamic Tradition: The Making of a Polemical
Image in Medieval Islam, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1999, p. 198. He con-
cludes (ibid., p. 195): “Plainly, sociopolitical rather than theological considerations moti-
vated Ibn Khaldun’s severe criticism of the messianic theories imputed to Ibn ʿArabi and
to other monistic Sufis […]. Ibn Khaldun’s misgivings should be seen against the back-
ground of the turbulent Maghribi history that was punctuated by popular uprisings led
by self-appointed mahdis who supported their claims through magic, thaumaturgy, and
occult prognostication.”
76 This is not to suggest that occultism did not continue to earn the ire of some Muslim
scholars through the early modern period, only that polemic seems to have been focused
elsewhere (in 11th-12th/17th-18th-century Safavid Iran, for instance, the preferred targets
were organized sufism and Sunnism); I know of no sustained anti-occultism critique on
the model of Ibn al-Qayyim’s and Ibn Ḫaldūn’s produced after the latter’s death. In Iran,
of course, the early modern occult waters were muddied by the anarchic energy of the
Ḥurūfiyya and then the Nuqṭawiyya, this to the point that “Nuqṭawī” became a standard
term of abuse during the early Safavid period—much like naw-mulḥid had been in the
Timurid, particularly as used against occultists like Ibn Turka and Yazdī (my thanks to
Daniel Sheffield for this observation). And compared to the enthusiatic embrace of oc-
cultists at the Ottoman and Mughal courts, Safavid patronage of occultism seems to have
been somewhat lower-key; yet geomancers, astrologers and lettrists remained valued
members of the Safavid court, and the intellectual elite in Fars pursued the occult sci-
ences unchecked. See Matthew Melvin-Koushki, “The Occult Sciences in Safavid Iran and
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370 Melvin-Koushki
Ḫaldūn’s student and ardent admirer, the preeminent Mamluk historian Taqī
l-Dīn al-Maqrīzī (d. 845/1442), begged to differ with his teacher on this point,
and enthusiastically promoted the occult sciences,77 particularly geomancy.
The Mamluk historian al-ʿAynī (d. 855/1451), for instance, accuses him of being
obsessed with ḍarb al-raml.78 Indeed, in al-Muqaffā, al-Maqrīzī goes so far as
to valorize Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ (d. 518/1124) himself, attributing the dread Ismaʿili
lord’s political genius to his mastery of various occult sciences (ġawāmiḍ
ʿulūm).79
For alongside the anti-occultist current that persisted to the end of the
8th/14th century there ran an equally persistent pro-occultist countercurrent
driven by thinkers of a more neopythagorean-neoplatonic-monist bent.80 This
countercurrent is here represented by Ibn Ḫaldūn’s respondent Yazdī, whose
rebuttal may be considered a resounding success; if the enthusiastic (if some-
times fairweather) patronage of the occult sciences by Mamluk, Timurid,
Aqquyunlu, Qaraquyunlu, Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal, Qutbshahi and other
Safavid Occultists Abroad,” in The Safavid World, ed. Rudi Matthee, New York, Routledge,
forthcoming. As that may be, much further research will be necessary to determine the
extent to which occultism was or was not bundled together with Ismaʿilism, Nuqṭawism
and/or sufism by early modern Muslim polemicists.
77 Al-Maqrīzī was Ibn Ḫaldūn’s student for at least 30 years, in ʿilm al-mīqāt specifically and
historiography generally, and his Ḫiṭaṭ has been identified as ingeniously Ibn Ḫaldūnian.
Nasser Rabbat, “Was al-Maqrīzī’s Khiṭaṭ a Khaldūnian History?” Der Islam, 89/2 (2012),
p. 118-140. It is ironic that Ibn Ḫaldūn’s own interest in divination, especially the zāʾirǧa
technique, seems to have piqued al-Maqrīzī’s occultist interests. Irwin, “Al-Maqrīzī and
Ibn Khaldūn,” p. 230; Rabbat, “Was al-Maqrīzī’s Khiṭaṭ,” p. 120. Irwin remarks of al-Maqrīzī
in the same article (p. 230): “History was at the core of his oeuvre, but occult and eschato-
logical concerns were at the core of his history.” Moreover, a number of stories exist that
“reveal the interest both men shared in the power of the preternatural, especially when
transmitted via prophecies, visions, and dreams, as a means of explaining the world no
less important than observation and experience. This has prompted al-Saḫāwī, who dis-
liked both men, to comment on their credulity by saying that al-Maqrīzī endeared himself
to Ibn Ḫaldūn when he read his future and predicted the time of his judgeship, which
happened as he predicted, and that was considered a marvel.” Rabbat, “Was al-Maqrīzī’s
Khiṭaṭ,” p. 121; see al-Saḫāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, Cairo, Maktabat al-qudsī, 1935-1937, II, p. 24.
78 Al-ʿAynī, ʿIqd al-ǧumān fī ta‌ʾrīḫ ahl al-zamān, ed. ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṭanṭāwī l-Qarmūṭ,
Cairo, Maṭbaʿat ʿalāʾ, 1985, II, p. 574.
79 Al-Maqrīzī, al-Muqaffā l-kabīr, ed. Muḥammad al-Yaʿlāwī, Beirut, Dār al-ġarb al-islāmī,
1411/1991, III, p. 327-334, no 1160; my thanks to Carol Hillenbrand for this reference.
80 Ibn al-Qayyim calls them al-fīṯāġūriyya wa-l-aflāṭūniyya, dismissing them as being but
the plaything of Satan like a ball in the hands of a child. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iġāṯat al-lahfān,
p. 264.
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early modern ruling elites is any indication,81 the latter’s arguments were to
prove the more convincing to scholars and sovereigns till at least the 11th/17th
century, and in some cases the late 13th/19th.82 That the Muqaddima exerted no
detectable influence on Arabic historiography until the later Ottoman period
is due in no small part, I argue, to its confused, off-putting and old-fashioned
anti-occultist agenda, part and parcel of Ibn Ḫaldūn’s general opposition to
the philosophical sciences on the one hand and to the new forms of messianic
kingship that would define post-Mongol Islamdom on the other.83
Ibn al-Qayyim’s sectarian argument was neither new nor baseless, how
ever; this neopythagorean-neoplatonic-monist countercurrent was indeed
frequently associated with Ismaʿilism, particularly in the wake of the Iḫwān
al-Ṣafāʾ (who despite being at most only semi-Ismaʿili in outlook were received
most enthusiastically in Ismaʿili circles) and their embrace of the occult scien
ces within a neopythagorean-neoplatonic-aristotelian framework.84 That early
81 On Aqquyunlu and Safavid patronage of lettrism, for example, see my forthcoming The
Occult Science of Empire in Aqquyunlu-Safavid Iran; on Timurid patronage of the same
see my forthcoming Occult Philosophers and Philosopher Kings in Early Modern Iran, a
study of Ibn Turka and the New Brethren of Purity; on courtly patronage of occultism in
the Ottoman Empire see the abovementioned studies by Cornell Fleischer and Ahmet
Tunç Şen’s article in this special issue; on the same in the Mughal Empire see Azfar Moin’s
The Millennial Sovereign and Daniel Sheffield’s “The Lord of the Planetary Court: Cos-
mic Aspects of Millennial Sovereignty in the Thought of Āẕar Kayvān and His Associates”
(forthcoming); and on the same in the Maghrib see H.P.J. Renaud, “Divination et histoire
nord-africaine au temps d’Ibn Khaldūn,” Hespéris, 30 (1943), p. 213-221.
82 On the survival of a specifically Timurid brand of imperial lettrism in 13th/19th-century
Manghit Bukhara see Melvin-Koushki and Pickett, “Mobilizing Magic.”
83 Ibn Ḫaldūn’s anti-occultism was hardly the only issue, of course; he and his history were
much abused by contemporary Mamluk historians for a variety of reasons. Most dam
ningly, Ibn Ḥaǧar al‑ʿAsqalānī (d. 852/1449) and al-Saḫāwī (d. 902/1497) derided his poor
mastery of historical data, especially for regions beyond North Africa; his disjointed,
superficial and hence unconvincing style; and his contrarian pigheadedness. It is more-
over revealing that even al-Maqrīzī, the Muqaddima’s sole champion, declined to fol-
low its method. Simon, Ibn Khaldūn, p. 18-19. After centuries of obscurity, however, the
Muqaddima enjoyed a modest reception among 11th/17th-century Ottoman historians
due to its resonance with already-established Ottoman historiographical themes; see Cor-
nell Fleischer, “Royal Authority, Dynastic Cyclism, and ‘Ibn Khaldûnism’ in Ottoman Let-
ters,” Journal of Asian and African Studies, 18/3-4 (1983), p. 198-220: p. 199. In this context, it
should be noted that Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa (d. 1067/1657) may well have borrowed his dim view of
occultism from Ibn Ḫaldūn; see n. 129 below.
84 See Godefroid de Callataÿ, “Who Were the Readers of the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ?” Micro-
logus, 24 (2016), p. 269-302; on the association of Ismaʿilism and lettrism in the Maghrib
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

372 Melvin-Koushki
9th/15th-century Sunni thinkers such as Yazdī, Ibn Turka and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān
al-Bisṭāmī, like Būnian esotericist reading circles of the previous century,85
pointedly sported the handle Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ to announce their cognate occul
tist project may be regarded as a polemical retort to Ibn al-Qayyim and his ilk
in particular; this includes Yazdī’s opponent, Zayn al‑Dīn Ḫwāfī (d. 838/1435), a
puritanical sufi based in Herat, who denounced the ambitious intellectuals of
western Iran as neo-Ismaʿilis (naw-mulḥidān, maḏhab-i malāḥida-yi ǧadīd).86
We turn now to an examination of the main elements of Ibn Ḫaldūn’s im-
pressively synthetic anti-occultism argument on theological, natural-scientific,
social and political grounds.
In the first place, Ibn Ḫaldūn’s position is founded on a basic pessimism
with regard to human knowledge. He flatly declares it impossible to attain to
a complete knowledge of reality in a way that would validate the claims of
disciplines like astrology or metaphysics, regardless of methodology used; cer-
tain truths about the cosmos can only be known through revelation, which
is only vouchsafed a privileged few.87 Occultist or philosophical pretensions
to comprehensive knowledge, whether rational or superrational, are therefore
simply false (and thus harmful to science) and antithetical to religion (and
thus harmful to society).88 Indeed, in this respect, philosophy is more worth-
less than both astrology and alchemy, since the objectives of the latter two
sciences, however harmful and unattainable, are at least theoretically possible,
whereas philosophy’s objectives are not even theoretically possible.89 For Ibn
Ḫaldūn, as for Ibn al-Qayyim, only knowledge of the religious sciences can pro-
tect one from the pitfalls of the rational sciences, including the occult sciences.
Most damningly, these sciences tend to induce unwarranted arrogance in their
proponents, whose claims to knowledge frequently exceed the scope of the
scientific or philosophical methodologies they use, which are thus made to
tread on revelation’s turf. A proper knowledge of the natural and mathematical
sciences should serve only to deepen faith, never to replace it; and the pursuit
see Michael Ebstein, Mysticism and Philosophy in al-Andalus: Ibn Masarra, Ibn al-ʿArabī
and the Ismāʿīlī Tradition, Leiden, Brill, 2014.
85 Noah Gardiner, Esotericism in a Manuscript Culture: Aḥmad al-Būnī and His Readers
Through the Mamlūk Period, PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 2014, p. 156-157.
86 Binbaş, Intellectual Networks, p. 249; Gardiner, Esotericism, p. 156.
87 Asatrian, “Ibn Khaldūn,” p. 91.
88 Ibid., p. 123. In other words, that which contradicts religion (on knowledge-claim grounds)
is inimical to social welfare inasmuch as it offers false hope and distracts people from the
pursuit of salvation.
89 Ibid., p. 121.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

of some sciences should simply be forbidden by state fiat in the interests of

societal health.90
Ibn Ḫaldūn’s theory of human knowledge is also fundamentally elitist, pivo
ting as it does on the concept of the fiṭra, or inborn nature, as that which alone
endows man with the power of prophecy—a potential very rarely realized, and
then only in combination with the readiness (istiʿdād) of the individual so fa-
vored. This concept has a venerable pedigree going back to Abū Bakr al-Rāzī
(d. 313/925) and was developed by Ibn Sīnā in particular.91 It is this empha-
sis on the primacy of the fiṭra, however, that renders his attack on occultism
somewhat equivocal. Ibn Ḫaldūn’s argument here may be reduced to three
premises:
1) Human beings can have no knowledge of the unseen (ġayb, ġuyūb,

muġayyabāt) or control over nature (al-ṭabīʿa)92 except by means of
psychic power (al-quwwa l-nafsiyya/l-nafsāniyya), the only mecha-
nism that allows one to transcend the material realm.93
2) Psychic power is inborn (fiṭra, ǧibilla), and can never be acquired or ap-
proximated by occultist methodologies or spiritual exercise (riyāḍa),
only focused.94
3) The licitness of miraculous acts and knowledge of the unseen pro-
duced by psychic power depends on the degree of passivity or activity
of their subject—the more passive the better—and their good or evil
effects.95
90 Livingston, “Science and the Occult,” p. 608. It should be noted that Ibn al-Qayyim’s argu-
ment to this end parallels al-Ġazālī’s in his al-Munqiḏ min al-ḍalāl. Ibid., p. 607.
91 Ibid., p. 609; Marquet, “Religion, philosophie et magie,” p. 148.
92 On this problematic and unstable term see David Edwin Pingree and Syed Nomanul Haq,
“Ṭabīʿa,” EI2.
93 As Ibn Ḫaldūn elaborates, “One should realize that all (magic) activity in the world of
nature comes from the human soul and the human mind, because the human soul es-
sentially encompasses and governs nature.” Ibn Ḫaldūn, The Muqaddimah, III, p. 175; cf.
id., Muqaddima, III, p. 121. In the later addition in this section it is asserted that saints are
magically active through faith (al-kalima l-īmāniyya) alone, not through psychic power.
Id., Muqaddima, III, p. 123-124; id., The Muqaddimah, III, p. 180. This would seem to con-
tradict the historian’s position elsewhere.
94 Partially contradicting this point, in the same interpolated section it is observed that
those without innate magical ability may achieve some results through exercise, but ac-
quired magical ability is decidedly inferior to the innate kind. Id., Muqaddima, III, p. 124;
id., The Muqaddimah, III, p. 180.
95 Our historian explains the difference between miracles and sorcery as follows: miracles
are produced “by good persons for good purposes and by souls that are entirely devoted
to good deeds,” while sorcery is practiced “only by evil persons and as a rule is used for evil
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374 Melvin-Koushki
These premises, of course, are designed to guarantee a privileged epistemo-

logical position for prophetic inspiration (waḥy) and prophethood (nubuwwa),
without which there can be no religion and therefore no order to society or
salvation in the hereafter; they also explain the mechanics of prophetic and
saintly miracles (karāmāt).96 By the same token, however, they vouch for the
reality of both magic (siḥr) and divination (kihāna), which are to be respec-
tively conceived of as miracle-working and prophecy of an inferior degree.97
(As Ibn Ḫaldūn asserts: “No thinking person doubts the reality of magic.”98) It
is primarily to the extent that they involve active subjugation of spiritual enti-
ties, moreover, that magic and divination can be classified as sorcery, which
the Shariʿa categorically forbids. That is to say, Ibn Ḫaldūn maps such occult
operations onto a gamut running from licitness to illicitness, with the deciding
factor being the activity or passivity of the practitioner. Thus passive recepti
vity toward divine influxes in the form of miraculous powers and knowledge
of the unseen constitutes sanctity (wilāya), while active manipulation of the
spiritual realm and its denizens to achieve the same is evil. The invocation and
subjugation of devils (šayāṭīn) is therefore wholly illicit because self-assertive
and always pursued for evil ends (šarr); letter magic is relatively licit, at least
when performed by saints, because passively receptive to supernal influences;
and prophetic miracles are wholly licit.99 In any event, that which is illicit
needs not be uncommon; our empiricist historian assures us that he has
actions.” Id., The Muqaddimah, III, p. 176. Cf. the distinction made by ʿAllāma Ṭabāṭabāʾī
in his al-Mīzān, Beirut, al-Aʿlamī, 1971-1974, I, p. 240: “If [miraculous acts] occur by way of
an ‘advance challenge’ (taḥaddī), as with most of what is related about the prophets, it is
termed an inimitable sign (āya muʿǧiza); otherwise it is termed a miracle (karāma), or (if
it involves supplication [to God] (duʿāʾ)) an answer to prayer (istiǧābat daʿwa). Of the first
category, that which involves recourse to a jinn or spirit or suchlike is termed divination
(kihāna); that which involves invocations (daʿwa), astral magic (ʿazīma), spells (ruqya) or
suchlike is termed magic (siḥr).”
96 It should be noted that Ibn Ḫaldūn, like Ibn al-Qayyim, is quite sympathetic toward su-
fism, though only in its earlier, “purer” phase; see e.g. his Šifāʾ al-sāʾil li-tahḏīb al-masāʾil,
Damascus, Dār al-fikr, 1417/1996.
97 Al-Bāqillānī (d. 403/1014) may be considered a precedent here; in his Kitāb al-Bayān ʿan
al-farq bayn al-muʿǧizāt wa-l-karāmāt wa-l-ḥiyal wa-l-kihāna wa-l-siḥr wa-l-nīranǧāt, for
example, the Ashʿari theologian rigorously distinguishes between miracles on the one
hand and magic and divination on the other, this while admitting the reality of the latter.
Asatrian, “Ibn Khaldūn,” p. 74-76.
98 Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, III, p. 111: wuǧūd al-siḥr lā mirya fīhi bayn al-ʿuqalāʾ.
99 Asatrian, “Ibn Khaldūn,” p. 94-95, 104.
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verified the reality of various unsavory forms of magic through personal expe-
rience (taǧriba).100
The reality—and general illicitness—of magic being undeniable, Ibn
Ḫaldūn proceeds to rank workers of magic as follows:
1) those who exercise influence through their own mental focus (himma)
alone, the purest form of magic;
2) those who do so by using talismans (ṭilasmāt) to harness the power of
the spheres, the elements or the properties of numbers, a weaker form
of magic associated with astrology in particular; and
3) those who exercise influence through the powers of imagination
(al-quwā l-mutaḫayyila), which is mere prestidigitation (šaʿwaḏa,
šaʿbaḏa).101
The case of lettrism is particularly instructive for understanding Ibn Ḫaldūn’s

theory of magic and occultism more generally. In the first place, he holds it the
least execrable of the occult sciences precisely through its close connection
with sufism, the science of wilāya, which potentially lends it a hue of moral
unimpeachability: saints, unlike sorcerers, are free of base desires and eschew
100 Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, III, p. 111-113, 123; id., The Muqaddimah, III, p. 160-165, 178-179.
Here Ibn Ḫaldūn reports himself as a frequent eyewitness to the efficacy of magic. This
includes a form of voodoo, as well as a type of ripping magic: in the Maghrib “rippers”
(baʿʿāǧūn) travel the countryside killing sheep and goats by magically ripping open their
bellies, this in order to extort animals from their owners. In the same section the his-
torian repeats the refrain: “The reality of magic is attested by experience (šahidat la-hu
l-taǧriba).” Ibn al-Qayyim similarly argues against the use of magic on the basis of its
harmfulness (maḍarra) rather than its impossibility, in this comparable to disbelief (kufr)
or singing (ġināʾ), both of which most certainly exist and that in spades. Ibn al-Qayyim,
Iġāṯat al-lahfān, p. 261.
101 Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, III, p. 110; id., The Muqaddimah, III, p. 158-159. All three forms
of magic are forbidden by the Shariʿa. Id., Muqaddima, III, p. 117; id., The Muqaddimah,
III, p. 169. Our historian here makes the odd and laughably misinformed claim that the
Ġāyat al-ḥakīm of Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (d. 353/964), aka the Picatrix, remains
the final word on the subject of magic, and no one has written on it since, while Faḫr al-
Dīn al-Rāzī’s al-Sirr al-maktūm circulates widely in the east. Id., Muqaddima, III, p. 109;
id., The Muqaddimah, III, p. 157. Indeed, Ibn Ḫaldūn is also largely responsible for the per-
sistent misattribution of the Ġāya to the Andalusi mathematician-astronomer Maslama
l-Maǧrīṭī (d. after 395/1004) in modern scholarship. Godefroid de Callataÿ and Sébastien
Moureau, “Again on Maslama Ibn Qāsim al-Qurṭubī, the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ and Ibn Khaldūn:
New Evidence from Two Manuscripts of Rutbat al-ḥakīm,” Al-Qanṭara, 37/2 (2016), p. 329-
372: p. 330.
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376 Melvin-Koushki
intercourse with devils. Moreover, letter magic (sīmiyāʾ) is widely known to be

effective in its aims (and therefore valid from a natural-scientific perspective),
unlike astrology or alchemy:
The fact that it is possible to be active in the world of nature with the
help of the letters and the words composed of them, and that the created
things can be influenced in this way, cannot be denied. It is confirmed
by continuous tradition on the authority of many (practitioners of letter
magic).102
As formulated by al-Būnī and Ibn ʿArabī in particular, the sufi subset of letter
magic is known as ʿilm asrār al-ḥurūf/al-asmāʾ, the science of the secrets of
the letters or names, which is held by its exponents to allow “godly souls (al-
nufūs al-rabbāniyya) to be magically active in the realm of nature by means
of the most beautiful Names of God and the divine expressions that emerge
from the letters that encompass all the secrets operative in engendered
beings.”103 Here Ibn Ḫaldūn draws an unusual distinction between this type
of letter magic and talismanic magic (ṭilasmāt) in a manner explicable only
in terms of the premises identified above.104 Letter magic, he says, is of two
types. The first emphasizes elemental correspondences (munāsabāt)—fire,
air, water, earth; the second emphasizes numerology, with a focus on magic
squares (aʿdād al-wafq). In both cases the practitioner is the passive object
of divine unveiling (mukāšafa) or inspiration, and magical results purely
incidental, which renders the science licit. Talismanic magic, on the other
hand, which people might assume to be a form of letter magic due to simi-
larity of methodology, is in fact distinct, for it has as its explicit aim the ac-
tive harnessing of spiritual forces (quwā rūḥāniyya) by means of astral and
102 Ibn Ḫaldūn, The Muqaddimah, III, p. 174; the passage is copied verbatim from id., Šifāʾ al-
sāʾil, p. 218.
103 Id., Muqaddima, III, p. 120; cf. id., The Muqaddimah, III, p. 172. On the development of
lettrism and its divorce from sufism in the Persianate east during the 8th-9th/14th-15th
centuries see Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest,” p. 167-283.
104 Note that where Ibn Ḫaldūn classes talismans and sīmiyāʾ as distinct sciences, earlier au-
thors of classifications of the sciences, like Šams al-Dīn Muḥammad Āmulī in his Nafāʾis
al-funūn, include talismans under the rubric of sīmiyāʾ, a natural science. Melvin-Koushki,
“The Quest,” 213-214. Ibn Ḫaldūn clarifies his position: “At the present time, this science
is called sîmiyâ’ ‘letter magic.’ The word was transferred from talismans to this science
and used in this conventional meaning in the technical terminology of sufi practitioners
of magic. Thus, a general (magical) term came to be used for some particular aspect (of
magic).” Ibn Ḫaldūn, The Muqaddimah, III, p. 171.
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numerological correspondences and the ritual burning of incense attractive

to the entity in question, thereby linking high elemental natures (al-ṭabāʾiʿ
al-ʿulwiyya) with low (al-ṭabāʾiʿ al-sufliyya); magical results are here the sole
objective. In this intentionality, it is more comparable to alchemy, which has
to do with the interaction of body with body (ǧasad fī ǧasad), while talis-
mans have to do with the interaction of spirit with body (rūḥ fī ǧasad). In
other words, practitioners of letter magic rely in the first place on their own
psychic power to effect change in nature (and that indirectly), while makers
of talismans actively seek to harness celestial entities (rūḥāniyyat al-aflāk)
by binding them with forms or numerical relations. Letter magic that has
recourse to such methods instead of passively depending on intuitive inspi-
ration is tantamount to talismanic magic and hence equally illicit. Properly
done, moreover, letter magic is far more strenuous an undertaking than is
talismanic magic, for while the latter requires minimal exertion and depends
for its efficacy on basic natural-scientific principles (uṣūl ṭabīʿiyya ʿilmiyya),
the former requires great mental energy and spiritual purity to work.105
It is here highly significant that Ibn Ḫaldūn embraces both the fundamen-
tal occultist and natural-scientific principle of correspondence (munāsaba,
tanāsub) and the explicitly neoplatonic framework it presupposes, the evo-
lutionary Chain of Being (silsilat al-mawǧūdāt)—a surprising concession,
given his wholesale rejection of philosophy.106 Having affirmed the natural-
scientific validity of magic, in other words, our historian is left to argue
against its practice solely on religious and social grounds—that is, in an
Augustinian manner;107 and even this tack is qualified by a seeming leniency
toward the letter magic of the sufis, though only in his earlier treatments of
the subject.108
105 Id., Muqaddima, III, p. 120; id., The Muqaddimah, III, p. 172-178; Asatrian, “Ibn Khaldūn,”
p. 101-102; Gardiner, Esotericism, p. 309-317. This section is copied verbatim from Ibn
Ḫaldūn, Šifāʾ al-sāʾil, p. 218-220.
106 Id., Muqaddima, I, p. 152-154; id., The Muqaddimah, I, p. 194-195; Marquet, “Religion, phi-
losophie et magie,” p. 146-147. He likely borrowed it from al-Fārābī and the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ,
although he never mentions the latter directly; more notoriously, the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ would
also seem to be Ibn Ḫaldūn’s source for the idea that man’s form is not fundamentally dif-
ferent from that of an ape. See de Callataÿ, “Who Were the Readers.”
107 See Steven P. Marrone, “Magic and the Physical World in Thirteenth-Century Scholasti-
cism,” Early Science and Medicine, 14 (2009), p. 158-185: p. 161-164.
108 On Ibn Ḫaldūn’s later and harsher additions to the section on lettrism in the Muqaddima
see n. 134 below. Gardiner characterizes lettrism’s relationship to sufism in Ibn Ḫaldūn’s
system as follows: “Ibn Khaldūn places great distance between Sufism proper and let-
trism, nesting the latter among the least reputable of the intellectual sciences. While it
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378 Melvin-Koushki
Magic aside, Ibn Ḫaldūn’s epistemologically pessimistic theory of occul

tism allows him to be somewhat stricter when it comes to divination, as will
be discussed below. To briefly summarize his position for our purposes here,
however, he again emphasizes that psychic power or himma alone can give
knowledge of the unseen, and particularly of future events, with specific divi-
natory techniques acting as mere crutches to this end. The generous degree to
which Ibn Ḫaldūn wishes to entertain the validity of divination is exemplified
by his outsize discussion of the divinatory art of zāʾirǧa, formally a branch of
lettrism.109 Yet because this technique would seem to violate his theory, being
a purely mechanical procedure that produces meaningful results in its own
right (and in sound rhyme no less), he is constrained to deny the applicability
of the principle of correspondence despite his subscription to the same prin-
ciple immediately prior:
We have seen many distinguished people jump at (the opportunity for)

supernatural discoveries through (the za‌ʾirajah) by means of operations
of this kind. They think that correspondence (in form) between question
and answer shows correspondence in actuality. This is not correct, because,
as was mentioned before, perception of the [unseen (ġayb)] cannot be at-
tained by means of any technique whatever.
This and similar (things) are at first suspected as belonging to the
realm of the [unseen], which cannot be known. It is thus obvious that it
is from the relations existing among the data that one finds out the un-
known from the known. This, however, applies only to events occurring
follows the discussion on magic and talismans, and is thus a subcategory of that topic, Ibn
Khaldūn’s discussion of lettrism in the Muqaddimah is also an extension of his critique
of the aṣḥāb al-tajallī [i.e. the ‘modern’ sufis, including in the first place Ibn ʿArabī and
al-Būnī] […]. [However, his] discussion of lettrism in the Muqaddimah as one of the ‘in-
tellectual’ sciences seems intended […] to emphasize its alien-ness to Sufism proper […].
His primary concern seems to be to demonstrate that the science is incoherent, or at least
impenetrable to normal discursive apperception […]. To whatever extent Ibn Khaldūn is
willing to entertain the notion that there may be a genuine, sanctified science of letters,
he is unwilling to admit that this science—which is inseparable from kashf—can be con-
veyed in books, or by human teachers for that matter, without degenerating into sorcery
[…]. His final judgment on the matter is that the science […] can only be a form of sorcery,
even if it is faciliated through practices which in themselves are permissible, such as dhikr
and other forms of supererogatory prayer.” Gardiner, Esotericism, p. 313-317.
109 Among other indicators of his sharp interest in the subject, Ibn Ḫaldūn describes in great
detail a zāʾirǧa procedure he performed. Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, III, p. 125-161; id., The
Muqaddimah, III, p. 199-213.
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in (the world of) existence or in science. Things of the future belong to

the [unseen] and cannot be known unless the causes for their happening
are known and we have trustworthy information about it.110
Ibn Ḫaldūn goes on to declare the fundamental lettrist principle that words cor-
respond to outside reality (muṭābaqat al-kalām li-mā fī l-ḫāriǧ) to be categorical-
ly impossible where divination is concerned—a rather confusing argumentative
about-face, since he seems happy to accept just such a possibility as the primary
mechanism of letter and talismanic magic.111 Despite the historian’s overt fas-
cination with and emphatic vindication of the zāʾirǧa and related techniques,
then, in the end he must dismiss them as being but witty games.112
His encompassing if qualified embrace of magic and divination notwith-
standing, Ibn Ḫaldūn has nothing but contempt for alchemy (kīmiyāʾ) and
astrology (niǧāma). These two sciences are, in his view, religiously worthless,
rationally unconvincing, socially harmful and politically dangerous; he there-
fore exhorts rulers to stamp their practice out. For its part, alchemy a) doesn’t
work, b) can’t work, c) is a magnet for fraudsters, and d) when it does work
it is simply a form of magic, which is illegal.113 (It must be emphasized that
the context for his argument here is the status of 8th/14th-century Mamluk
Cairo as scene to a veritable alchemical renaissance, this through the labors
of the shadowy but prolific Aydamir al-Ǧildakī, second only to (pseudo-)Ǧābir
b. Ḥayyān in his pivotal influence on Arabic alchemy;114 thus did Aḫlāṭī, phy-
110 Id., The Muqaddimah, I, p. 245 (I substitute ‘unseen’ for Rosenthal’s more problematic
‘supernatural’); id., Muqaddima, I, p. 186.
111 Ibid., I, p. 186.
112 Id., The Muqaddimah, III, p. 227.
113 Asatrian, “Ibn Khaldūn,” p. 104-109. Having reclassified alchemy as a subset of magic, Ibn
Ḫaldūn identifies Ǧābir b. Ḥayyān, prototypical Muslim alchemist, as “the chief sorcerer
of Islam” (kabīr al-saḥara fī hāḏihi l-milla). Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, III, p. 109; id., The
Muqaddimah, III, p. 157. Rosenthal’s translation of this passage is somewhat garbled and
should be corrected as follows: “[Ǧābir b. Ḥayyān] scrutinized the books of this group and
derived [therefrom] the Art (al-ṣināʿa) [of alchemy]; he studied its essence and brought
it out, and composed a number of works [on the subject]. He discussed at great length
both this [science] and the art of letter magic (sīmiyāʾ), inasmuch as they are intimately
connected; for the transformation of specific bodies from one form into another can only
be effected by psychic power (al-quwwa l-nafsiyya), not by any practical art (al-ṣināʿa
l-ʿamaliyya). As such, [alchemy] is a type of magic, as we will mention in the proper place.”
114 On this crucial thinker—as yet otherwise unstudied—see Nicholas Harris, “Better Re-
ligion through Chemistry: Aydemir al-Jildakī and Alchemy under the Mamluks,” PhD
dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, forthcoming; and Harris’s article in this special
issue.
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380 Melvin-Koushki
sician-alchemist to Barqūq and ringleader of the Iḫwān, meet great acclaim in

the same city.) As for astrology, Ibn Ḫaldūn passes judgment as follows:
Thus, the worthlessness of astrology from the point of view of the religious
law, as well as the weakness of its achievements from the rational point of
view, are evident. In addition, astrology does harm to human civilization.
It hurts the faith of the common people when an astrological judgment oc-
casionally happens to come true in some unexplainable and unverifiable
manner. Ignorant people are taken in by that and suppose that all the other
(astrological) judgments must be true, which is not the case. Thus, they are
led to attribute things to some (being) other than their Creator. Further,
astrology often produces the expectation that signs of crisis will appear in
a dynasty. This encourages the enemies and rivals of the dynasty to attack
(it) and revolt (against it). We have (personally) observed much of the sort.
It is, therefore, necessary that astrology be forbidden to all civilized people,
because it may cause harm to religion and dynasty.
The fact that it exists as a natural part of human perceptions and
knowledge does not speak against (the need to forbid it). Good and evil
exist side by side in the world and cannot be removed. Responsibility
comes in connection with the things that cause good and evil. It is (our)
duty to try to acquire goodness with the help of the things that cause it,
and to avoid the causes of evil and harm. That is what those who realize
the corruption and harmfulness of this science must do.115
He further sets up a simplistic dichotomy: the more rulers patronize prognos-

ticative sciences like astrology and ǧafr, the less they patronize true learning;
or, the more occult science, the less real science.116 It is here telling that Ibn
Ḫaldūn pointedly elides the main political application of prognosticative sci-
ences in his own day—that is, as a tool for political legitimation and strategic
planning of obvious attraction to dynasts—, in favor of scare tactics: they are
115 Ibn Ḫaldūn, The Muqaddimah, III, p. 262-263; see also Asatrian, “Ibn Khaldūn,” p. 110-113;
George Saliba, “Islamic Astronomy in Context: Attacks on Astrology and the Rise of the
Hayʾa Tradition,” Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies, 4/1 (2002), p. 25-46.
For his part, Ibn al-Qayyim “considers astrology as dead in his time and its practitioners
as simply rehearsing (taqlīd) the sayings and errors of the astrologers of the past, without
always understanding them.” Michot, “Ibn Taymiyya on Astrology,” p. 150, n. 14. Similar
observations were made even by occult philosophers like Ibn Turka, who dismisses the
lettrist tradition of the previous century and a half as being but “toughened, jerked meat”
and “stale and timeworn.” Ibn Turka, Kitāb al-Mafāḥiṣ, MS Majlis 10196 ff. 52a, 53b, 157a;
Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest,” p. 241.
116 Asatrian, “Ibn Khaldūn,” p. 93.
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a weapon in the hands of the state’s enemies, for the cycling of the heavens
suggests that forcible cycling—revolution—is possible on earth. (It may be
parenthentically asked, however, why the historian’s own theory of the cyclical
rise and fall of states and extensive meditations on “signs of crisis” should be
exempt from the same criticism!)
These rhetorical maneuvers notwithstanding, Ibn Ḫaldūn’s condemna-
tion of astrology and alchemy remains confusingly equivocal from a natural-
philosophical perspective. This equivocality is necessitated by his underlying
agenda: he wishes to reclassify all the occult sciences under the twin rubrics
of magic and divination, with psychic power being the primary standard in
all cases; any dependency on physical phenomena or objects such as talis-
mans must render an occultist operation less effective. Thus alchemy, when it
works (which it occasionally does), must needs be a type of magic, and astro
logy a type of divination. The only element of the historian’s argument that
is unequivocal is his affirmation that, regardless of effectiveness, the pursuit
of magic or divination for their own sake is forbidden by the Shariʿa, and this
because it often leads to acute social and political problems.
But Ibn Ḫaldūn’s killing blows are too glancing; his anti-occultism argu-
ment, despite such impressive rhetorical and systematizing gymnastics, did
not ultimately prove convincing to most intellectuals and elite patrons of the
late 8th/14th and following centuries—precisely due to its reactionary yet
equivocal nature. That is to say, I would suggest that the primary reason why
the historian’s offensive against occultism rhetorically fails is that it concedes
too much ground to its opponent. For all his arguments about the futility and
harmfulness of the occult sciences, Ibn Ḫaldūn’s theory of human knowledge
requires that magic and divination be quite real and in some cases legitimate.
Moreover, in an apparent bid to have his cake and eat it too, to explain the
reality of magic he adopts the overtly neoplatonic Chain of Being theory and
the natural-scientific principle of correspondence along that Chain, both con-
cepts espoused by all reasonably educated occultists, thus rendering his argu-
ment a suspiciously insider one.117 (Small wonder that his student al-Maqrīzī
became an occult enthusiast, or that the historian himself was able, with more
than a little hypocrisy, to palm himself off as a seasoned occultist during his
famous Damascus interviews with Tīmūr (r. 771/1370-807/1405) in 803/1401.118)
Even his disallowing of occultism on social grounds is borrowed from the
117 It should be noted that the historian’s most important mentor, Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-
Ābilī (d. 757/1356), had studied the occult sciences with the Jewish mathematician Ḫallūf
al-Maġīlī and disseminated knowledge of the same. Al-Azmeh, Ibn Khaldūn, p. 45, n. 29.
118 Ibn Ḫaldūn, Ta‌ʾrīḫ Ibn Ḫaldūn, ed. ʿĀdil b. Saʿd, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2010, VII,
p. 543-552.
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382 Melvin-Koushki
occultists themselves, who for centuries had cautioned against the divulgence
of their teachings lest the fabric of society be rent asunder and chaos rein su-
preme.119 In so invading enemy territory, as it were, Ibn Ḫaldūn’s argument is
daring, an instance of calculated risk-taking that simply failed to pay off. As
with Ibn al-Qayyim, the fact that he thought it necessary to pursue such a risky
and equivocal line of argumentation, and this at such length—roughly eleven
percent of the Muqaddima is devoted to the subject—, testifies eloquently to
the ascendancy of occultism in his day.
Ibn Ḫaldūn’s Argument Against Geomancy
We saw above that Ibn Ḫaldūn readily admits the reality of divination as an
inferior form of prophecy, with various degrees of licitness or illicitness based
on the activity or passivity of the diviner. But how does he approach the divi-
natory art (ṣināʿa) of geomancy, whose purpose (as he states) is to extrapolate
data about the unseen (istiḫrāǧ al-ġayb) and acquire knowledge of the existen-
tia (taʿarruf al-kāʾināt)?120
Ibn Ḫaldūn first divides diviners into two classes: kāhins and ʿarrāfs. The
first class engages in “possession divination,” which is superior to the second
because less dependent on the material world; it is instead based on trafficking
with devils, whose knowledge is strictly partial and contradictory. The second
class engages in “inductive (taḥakkum) divination,”121 inferior in its dependen-
cy on physical phenomena rather than spiritual beings. These two classes cor-
respond to the first two classes of mages identified above, the second inferior
in their dependency on the physical objects that are talismans. This division,
however, has only an epistemological significance, not a social one; soothsay-
ers are soothsayers regardless of the technique they employ. As a technique
based on making random marks in the sand or on paper, then, geomancy be-
longs to the second class.122 It is also a distinctly non-elite art whose exponents
119 See Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest,” p. 199, 201-203.

120 Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, I, p. 174; id., The Muqaddimah, I, p. 226.
121 Fahd, La divination arabe, p. 113. Such a distinction is reminiscent of that famously codi-
fied in Cicero’s (d. 43 bce) De divinatione between natural and artificial divination, but
was not as systematically made in the Arabo-Persian occultist tradition. On Francis Ba-
con’s valorization of artificial divination—including in the first place geomancy—over
natural see n. 62 above.
122 Asatrian, “Ibn Khaldūn,” p. 89-91.
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are mere commoners (qawm min al-ʿāmma), and unfortunately popular in all
civilized regions.123
Restating his larger argument, Ibn Ḫaldūn then stresses that the unseen (al-
ġuyūb) cannot be perceived by means of any art whatsoever, whether rationalist
or occultist; it is the sole preserve of those elite individuals (al-ḫawāṣṣ min al-
bašar) whose inborn natures predispose them to return from the realm of sense
perception (ʿālam al-ḥiss) to the realm of the spirit (ʿālam al-rūḥ).124 The specifics
of a divinatory technique are therefore irrelevant except insofar as they help the
diviner to achieve focus. The noblest class of geomancers attempt psychic per-
ception by occupying their senses with study of the combinations of geomantic
figures, thereby attaining a state of preparedness; complete freedom from sense
perception may then lead to the unveiling (kašf) of data on the unseen. In other
words, soothsaying, properly done by a gifted individual, can unquestionably
give knowledge of the future. Such geomancers are superior to those who con-
tent themselves with arbitrary or inductive judgment (taḥakkum; i.e. the direct
analysis of a geomantic tableau) and do not seek to transcend corporeal per-
ception; the latter are limited to mere guesswork.125 But even the best diviners
achieve only a limited form of spiritual perception, not the angelic perception
that characterizes prophecy. However successful, it remains a type of soothsay-
ing, and is equivalent to divination by means of bones, water or mirrors.126
In terms of its epistemological basis as a discipline, geomancy is driven by
arbitrary notions and wishful thinking (taḥakkum wa-hawā); that is, unlike
astrology (itself epistemologically invalid), which is at least based on natural
indications (dalālāt ṭabīʿiyya), geomancy is based on merely conventional ones
(dalālāt waḍʿiyya). As such, it is not subject to rational demonstration (dalīl)
of any kind.127 (Its claim to scientific status as a branch of mathematics is here
simply ignored.128)
123 Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, I, p. 174, 178; id., The Muqaddimah, I, p. 226, 233. This is in con-
trast to astrology, regarding which Ibn Ḫaldūn states, unaccountably, that it is “unusual in
Islam and few people cultivate it.” Id., The Muqaddimah, III, p. 264.
124 Id., Muqaddima, I, p. 178; id., The Muqaddimah, I, p. 233-234.
125 See Smith, “The Nature of Islamic Geomancy,” p. 30-31.
126 Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, I, p. 178-179; id., The Muqaddimah, I, p. 234.
127 Id., Muqaddima, I, p. 175; id., The Muqaddimah, I, p. 228. In the first version of this section,
Ibn Ḫaldūn further specifies that the conventional indications on which geomancy re-
lies come about by means of awḍāʿ taḥakkumiyya (in al-Šaddādī’s edition ḥukmiyya) and
ahwāʾ ittifāqiyya, or arbitrary indications and chance impulses. Id., Muqaddima, IV, p. 85.
128 Marion Smith observes that Ibn Ḫaldūn’s fascination with the numerical properties of
the zāʾirǧa, by contrast, suggests that he was simply not acquainted with the details of the
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384 Melvin-Koushki
For Ibn Ḫaldūn, geomancy, in sum, is simply a form of divination like any
other, whereby randomly selected forms are used to occupy the senses so the
gifted soul can ascend to the realm of the spirit. Any assertion that geomancy
is capable in its own right of giving knowledge of the unseen (i.e. by the mere
interpretation of geomantic figures and their correspondences) makes it but
meaningless babble in theory and practice (haḏar min al-qawl wa-l-ʿamal).129
But his younger colleague was offended: to so defame geomancy, Yazdī
retorts, is to be an ignorant, weak-minded, backward fanatic.
Yazdī as Occult-Scientific Historian
Šaraf al-Dīn Yazdī, as noted above, was a card-carrying member of the neopy-
thagorean-neoplatonic-monist Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ movement; he thus had an in-
tellectual commitment to advancing the cause of occultism in general and
lettrism in particular as occupying an epistemological category superior to
that of the rational and religious sciences.130 He was also, naturally, a math-
ematician, and even worked for a time at the Samarkand Observatory,131 which
further suggests a predisposition toward the embrace of geomancy as an ap-
plied mathematical science.132 While brief, Yazdī’s tract in defense of the divi-
geomantic process, which is equally mathematical. Smith, “The Nature of Islamic Geo-
mancy,” p. 32-33.
129 Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, I, p. 179; id., The Muqaddimah, I, p. 234. Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa, who used
the Muqaddima, is similarly dismissive of geomantic methodology. Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa, Kašf al-
ẓunūn ʿan asāmī al-kutub wa-l-funūn, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1992, I, p. 912; by
the same token, he denies lettrism any scientific status (ibid., VI, p. 94). For his part, Ibn
al-Qayyim categorizes geomancy (al-ḫaṭṭ fī l-arḍ, ṭarq) as but one of the sciences of the
Ǧāhiliyya, extending this term to cover philosophers, astrologers and diviners (kuhhān),
while acknowledging that it, like its various cognate divination techniques—omen inter-
pretation or bibliomancy (fa‌ʾl), augury (zaǧr), scapulomancy (katif ), lithomancy (ḍarb
al-ḥaṣā), physiognomy (firāsa), lettrism (ʿilm al-ḥurūf wa-ḫawāṣṣihā), etc.—, does indeed
produce accurate predictions at times, just not reliably. Ibn al-Qayyim, Miftāḥ, p. 1434, 1466.
130 He subscribed to an epistemological hierarchy, given clearest expression by Ibn Turka,
which posits the religious sciences as foundational and peripatetic-illuminationist philo
sophy and then sufism as intermediary, with the ascent culminating in the occult scienc-
es, especially lettrism, the science of walāya or human perfection. See Melvin-Koushki,
“The Quest,” p. 315-324.
131 Binbaş, Intellectual Networks, p. 65; see Mahdi Farhani Monfared, “Sharaf al-Dīn ‘Alī Yazdī:
Historian and Mathematician,” Iranian Studies, 41/4 (2008), p. 537-547.
132 Thus the status of ʿAlī Qūščī’s (d. 878/1474) student and fellow astronomer Niẓām al-Dīn
ʿAbd al-Qādir Rūyānī Lāhīǧī (d. 925/1519) as author of the Miftāḥ-i Mafātīḥ, a popular geo-
mantic manual. See Melvin-Koushki, “Persianate Geomancy.”
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natory science therefore epitomizes the Brethren’s project as a whole, whose

burgeoning popularity in elite Cairene circles is precisely what provoked Ibn
Ḫaldūn’s (wildly unsuccessful) attack.
Indeed, the epicenter of such interest among the Mamluk ruling elite ap-
pears to have been the court of Sulṭān Barqūq himself, who proved himself
to be an enthusiastic patron of the occult sciences, as his personal library
attests.133 Ibn Ḫaldūn was understandably alarmed by the growing influence
of Aḫlāṭī’s occultist clique over his own royal patron—and so sharpened his
attacks on lettrism in later revisions of the Muqaddima. While the historian’s
earlier, slightly less hostile treatments of the science penned before his arrival
in Cairo leave its legal status ambiguous, unlike that of astrology, alchemy or
philosophy, by 797/1394—i.e. at the height of Aḫlātī’s influence at Barqūq’s
court—he had inserted a new section flatly declaring lettrism to be mere sor-
cery and hence illegal.134 To no avail: Barqūq clearly remained unconvinced.
Unlike his teacher Ibn Turka, Yazdī devoted few works to the occult sciences
as such, and achieved his fame primarily as a historian and litterateur; yet his
œuvre is permeated with occultist, and especially lettrist and astrological, sen-
sibilities. That lettrism was central to his larger intellectual project is borne out
in three works in particular: Kunh al-murād fī wafq al-aʿdād, on magic squares;
Ḥulal-i muṭarraz, the first comprehensive formulation of the muʿammā or logo-
griph/riddle genre, which presents it as an essential skill in the lettrist’s techni-
cal repertoire;135 and Nikāt-i kalimāt al-tawḥīd fī l-Qurʾān, aka Ḥaqāʾiq al-tahlīl,
a lettrist analysis of the qurʾānic muqaṭṭaʿāt, or cryptic sura-initial isolated
133 On Barqūq’s library and lettrist interests see Gardiner’s forthcoming “The Occultist Ency-
clopedism of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī.”
134 Gardiner, Esotericism, p. 317-319. Specifically, the section in which Ibn Ḫaldūn “unequivo-
cally condemns lettrism as a form of sorcery” does not appear in the earlier version of
the Muqaddima or in the Šifāʾ al-sāʾil, whose own equivocal treatment of lettrism was
also imported into the Muqaddima in its Cairene recension; this section is found only in
copies of the work produced in Cairo, including MS Süleymaniye Damad Ibrahim 863
(copied 797/1394 for Barqūq’s library) and MS Süleymaniye Yeni Cami 888 (copied
799/1397 and signed by the author), “into which are inserted slips of paper with revisions
of certain parts, including a slightly different—though no less condemnatory—version
of the [passage in question].” With Gardiner, I here hypothesize that Ibn Ḫaldūn
“significantly sharpened his arguments against al-Būnī and other lettrists during his years
in Cairo” as “an attempt to wield his position to stem the rising popularity of ‘post-esotericist’
lettrism that was spreading among communities of Mamlūk military elites and their close
advisors”—including in the first place Aḫlāṭī and his students (ibid., p. 319).
135 From Yazdī’s lettrist standpoint, moreover, the appearance of the muʿammā genre in itself
constitutes the harbinger of a new age. MS Majlis 10196, ff. 374b-375a; MS Majlis 31, ff. 2b-
3b; Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest,” p. 385, n. 25; Binbaş, Intellectual Networks, p. 84-85. On
logogriphs, including their association with lettrism, see Gernot Windfuhr, “Riddles and
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386 Melvin-Koushki
letters, and the statement of faith lā ilāha illā Llāh based on Ibn ʿArabī’s al-
Futūḥāt al-makkiyya and Ibn Turka’s Kitāb al-Mafāḥiṣ.136 Here and elsewhere,
Yazdī identifies the three basic principles on which the platform of the Iḫwān
al-Ṣafāʾ movement rested by the early 9th/15th century:
1) the coincidentia oppositorum, or union of opposites;

2) the influence of celestial bodies;137 and
3) the status of the quranic muqaṭṭaʿāt as the keys to existence.138
These principles were in turn predicated on the twin principles of second-

ary causation and correspondence of above to below along the neoplatonic-
neopythagorean Chain of Being, erected by “the gradual descent of existence
from the One”139—precisely the point on which Yazdī will call Ibn Ḫaldūn’s
bluff on both theological and natural-scientific grounds.
The first of the above three principles has a particularly lettrist salience in
this context. As asserted forcefully by Ibn Turka throughout his oeuvre, it is the
uncreated, all-creative quranic letter-number that is the supreme coincidentia
oppositorum (maǧmaʿ al-aḍdād, muʿtanaq al-aṭrāf); its resolution and transcen-
dence of all dualities (existence vs nonexistence, existence vs essence) renders
it the sole legitimate object of metaphysics, the intellect’s only vehicle of return
to the One. Significantly, Ibn Turka’s perennialist championing of this principle
was to be closely paralleled by contemporary and later European Renaissance
thinkers like Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (d. 1494), Giordano Bruno (d. 1600)
Chronograms,” in General Introduction to Persian Literature, ed. J.T.P. de Bruijn, London,

I.B. Tauris (“A History of Persian Literature”, 1), 2009.
136 See e.g. MS Süleymaniye, Ayasofya, 1801 (my thanks to Lisa Alexandrin for procuring me a
copy); Binbaş, Intellectual Networks, p. 99-101. This Ḥaqāʾiq al-tahlīl, in turn, is almost cer-
tainly the basis for Ǧalāl al-Dīn Dawānī’s (d. 908/1502) Risāla Tahlīliyya, a similarly lettrist
work. See Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest,” p. 256-261. For a list of Yazdī’s best-known works
see Kamāl al-Dīn Ḥusayn Gāzurgāhī, Maǧālis al-ʿuššāq, ed. G.R. Ṭabāṭabāʾī Maǧd, Tehran,
Zarrīn, 1376/1997, maǧlis 49, p. 234; Muḥammad Mufīd Mustawfī, Ǧāmiʿ-i Mufīdī, ed. Īraǧ
Afšār, Tehran, Asadī, 1340/1961, III, p. 303.
137 This principle in particular was widely considered a universal law of nature in Europe
until Newton promulgated his law of gravitation, itself based on the occult-philosophical
theory of love as cosmic force. See Lynn Thorndike, “The True Place of Astrology in the
History of Science,” Isis, 46/3 (1955), p. 273-278; and n. 62 above.
138 Binbaş, Intellectual Networks, p. 100-101. For a discussion of these principles see Melvin-
Koushki, The Occult Science of Empire.
139 Ibn Ḫaldūn, The Muqaddimah, III, p. 171; cf. id., Muqaddima, III, p. 119: tanazzul al-wuǧūd
ʿan al-wāḥid wa-tartībuhu.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

and Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464), who coined the Latin term.140 That is to say,
letter-number, as the maǧmaʿ al-aḍdād, renders the immaterial material; unites
Occult (bāṭin) with Manifest (ẓāhir), First (awwal) with Last (āḫir); makes
the One many and the many One; marries heaven and earth.141 The quranic
dictum “He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Occult” (Kor 57,
3) was accordingly seized upon by the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ as their central motto.
Nor did Yazdī separate theory from practice: all three lettrist-astrological
principles drove his writing of history. As a consequence, his works in that
field, and especially his celebrated and much-imitated Ẓafarnāma (Book
of Conquest), a history of Tīmūr completed in 839/1436, have a tenor that is
expressly and unprecedentedly occult-scientific. Most famously, Yazdī was res
ponsible for definitively “timuridizing” the astrological title ṣāḥib-qirān, Lord
of Conjunction; while it had been increasingly deployed by Seljuq, Ilkhanid
and Mamluk dynasts from the 7th/13th century onward, it was Yazdī’s casting
of Tīmūr in the Ẓafarnāma as historically preeminent Lord of Conjunction
140 Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest,” p. 336, 359; see e.g. David Albertson, Mathematical Theolo-
gies: Nicholas of Cusa and the Legacy of Thierry of Chartres, Oxford, Oxford University
Press (“Oxford studies in historical theology”), 2014; Ernst Cassirer, “Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola: A Study in the History of Renaissance Ideas (Part II),” Journal for the History
of Ideas, 3/3 (1942), p. 319-346; Karen Silvia de León-Jones, Giordano Bruno and the Kab-
balah: Prophets, Magicians, and Rabbis, New Haven, Yale University Press (“Yale studies
in hermeneutics”), 1997, passim. Henry Corbin emphasized the centrality of this concept
in a number of works. See Henry Corbin, En islam iranien, Paris, Gallimard, 1971-1972,
p. 84-105, 134-150; id., Temple and Contemplation, transl. Philip Sherrard with Liadain Sher-
rard, London, KPI (“Islamic texts and contexts”), 1986, p. 375-376; id., Avicenna and the Vi-
sionary Recital, transl. Willard R. Trask, New York, Pantheon (“Bollingen series”, 66), 1960,
p. 152, 201-203, 215, 376; id., Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth: From Mazdean Iran to Shiʿite
Iran, Princeton, Princeton University Press (“Bollingen series”, 91/2), 1977, p. 71-72. In his
Religion after Religion (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1999, p. 67-82), Stephen
Wasserstrom offers a wide-ranging discussion of the concept in the History of Religions
movement and in the context of poetics, politics and ethics; as he shows, Scholem, Eliade
and Corbin were all great advocates of the principle, as was Jung, who preferred the term
complexio oppositorum. See e.g. Carl Gustav Jung, Mysterium Conjunctionis, Princeton,
Princeton University Press, 1970; and David Henderson, “The Coincidence of Opposites:
C.G. Jung’s Reception of Nicholas of Cusa,” Studies in Spirituality, 20 (2010), p. 101-113; and
Freud attempted to explain the union of opposites in language and religion in his essay
“The Antithetical Sense of Primal Words,” in Collected Papers, ed. Joan Riviere, New York,
Basic Books, 1959, IV, p. 184-191.
141 It should be noted in this connection that in the Arabo-Persian encyclopedic tradition
talismans are typically defined as letter-magical devices conjuncting celestial virtues with
terrestrial objects. Melvin-Koushki, “Powers of One,” p. 148.
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388 Melvin-Koushki
that made this claim the core of Timurid—and by extension Indo-Timurid or

Mughal—universalist imperial ideology. (Thus Emperor Akbar’s claim to be a
ṣāḥib-qirān superior to Tīmūr based on a comparative analysis of their horo-
scopes; Akbar’s grandson Šāh Ǧahān (r. 1037/1628-1068/1657), more sedately,
adopted on his accession the royal title ṣāḥib-qirān-i ṯānī, the Second Lord of
Conjunction, with Tīmūr being ṣāḥib-qirān-i awwal, the First.142) But equally
crucial is the fact, typically ignored in modern scholarship, that Yazdī proves
in the preface through an analysis of Tīmūr’s horoscope that the conquerer
is a historical manifestation of the coincidentia oppositorum—his Ascendant
having the saturnine firmness (ṯabāt) of Capricorn, which is yet a cardinal or
moving (munqalib) sign, this combination allowing for sweeping revolution
(inqilāb) in the world—, a claim that admits of lettrist demonstration. Given
its deft and succinct synthesis of the three Iḫwānī principles and invocation of
the Iḫwānī motto, I translate Yazdī’s key passage in full:
The manifestation of [the Lord of Conjunction’s glorious rule] first

dawned from the horizon of conquest and victory, inaugurating an era
of abundant joy and celebration in which the tongue of laudation does
indite:
What a dream whose interpretation is you!

What a verse whose exegesis is you!
Yea, the splendor of his auspicious brow shone forth like the Sun. For
the instant the Sun enters the heaven that is the throne of sovereignty
over the seven climes, the world is illumined: the significance of his aus-
picious rise like the bright and revealing dawn itself, quickly banishing
the night that is the disorder of the world, is thus that the ascent of his
fortune is the dawning of a day gladder than the New Year festival itself.
The verification (taḥqīq) of this statement is as follows: establishing
the bases of rule and erecting the walls of caliphate, the blessed being of
that holy eminence—Lord of Conjunction, Last Emperor in History (āḫir
al-zamān)—stands as the firm and unshakable foundation of the fortune
of his glorious house; his horoscope must therefore reflect the extreme
firmness of that foundation. Yet the affairs of the world are forever sub-
ject to change and revolution (inqilāb). According to the manifest wis-
dom of the dictum “He directs the affair from heaven to earth” (Kor 32,
5), then, which indicates the fact that in the workshop of creation the
142 Moin, The Millennial Sovereign, p. 36-60.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

embroidering of satin—i.e. events in the [sublunary] realm of generation

and corruption—is a process that requires its tying to what is above, it
is necessary that his august Ascendant occupy a sign of the zodiac that
is characterized by a firmness that yet does not negate revolution. Now
the only sign to have this [dual] quality is Capricorn: it is firm in its ele-
mental association with earth and its celestial-planetary association with
Saturn; at the same time, it is among the cardinal (munqalib) signs. [His
Ascendant being in Capricorn], in the earthy house of Saturn, therefore
simultaneously represents absolute stability and total revolution.
An indication more powerful as to stability and perdurance cannot
possibly be imagined. According to verifiers (ahl-i taḥqīq),143 moreover,
it is an established principle that the ultimate perfection of a given qua
lity can only be achieved through union with its opposite (bā ḍidd-i ḫūd
muʿāniq), as any consideration of the nature of the Most Beautiful Names
(be they exalted) will make evident: “He is the First and the Last, the
Manifest and the Occult; He has knowledge of everything” (Kor 57, 3).
On the basis of these subtle and occult (ġarīb) premises, then, it
should be clear that when firmness and durability are desired, the most
appropriate zodiacal sign for governing events in engendered existence
is Capricorn. And indeed, the sweet scent of the verity of this argument
may be inhaled from the truth-gardens that bloom with the secrets of the
revealed isolated quranic letters (muqaṭṭaʿāt-i ḥurūf-i munzala-yi qurʾānī).
[Analysis of Temür’s horoscope]
The judgments of the seven stars promise plainly:

they will unlock the world.144
That this dual astrological-lettrist argument was central to Yazdī’s formulation

of Timurid imperial legitimacy is further confirmed by the surviving Dībāča to
143 Yazdī and his fellow Brethren frequently refer to themselves as the ahl-i taḥqīq, a term
with strong Akbarian connotations. Binbaş, Intellectual Networks, p. 96-104. I have ob-
served elsewhere that these “verifiers” or “investigators” represent an alternative to Ibn
ʿArabī school emphasizing the occultist and prophetic elements of the Doctor Maximus’s
œuvre, this in contradistinction to the more sufi-centric and better studied Qūnawī-
Ǧāmī-Nābulusī line. Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest,” p. 418-428.
144 Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, ed. Saʿīd Mīr-Muḥammad Ṣādiq and ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Nawāʾī, Tehran,
Kitābḫāna-yi mūza u markaz-i asnād-i maǧlis-i šūrā-yi islāmī, 1387/2008, I, p. 236-238.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

390 Melvin-Koushki
his unfinished Fatḥnāma-yi ṣāḥib-qirānī, written in 828/1424, which develops

a similar theme.145
It is thus evident that, for Yazdī and his fellow Brethren, astrological argu-
ments must always be supported with lettrist ones. But the latter may also
be used alone to clinching effect; as Yazdī asserts of Tīmūr elsewhere in the
Ẓafarnāma:
Among the most wondrous of signs and gladdening of tidings is the fact
that the date of His Majesty’s accession rests on the mighty and secure
foundation constituted by the uncreated revealed letters that open sura
al-Baqara—the centerpiece of the Speech of the All-Knowing King—, [to
wit, ALM (= [7]71)].146 This meaningful synchronicity (ittifāq-i ḥasana)
must needs inspire great hope in the world and its denizens as to the
perdurance and permanence of his felicitated rule—a period of which
it may well be said, without exaggeration, that it is superior to all other
eras and epochs to the same degree that the Holy Sanctuary [of Mecca] is
superior to all other places and regions.147
And again:
The age of that blessed and holy eminence reached 71 years, correspon
ding to the value of ALM, which opens the greatest of quranic suras; and
the length of that matchless lord’s rule as sole sovereign was 36 years,
corresponding to the value of the three letters that constitute that most
excellent of all utterances, to wit, “There is no god but God” (lā ilāha illā
Llāh = LAH). Indeed, that the fragrant Profession of Oneness (kalima-
yi tawḥīd) thus seals the sum of the unprecedented words and deeds
that issued forth from that oceanic broadcaster of justice is another
sure sign of the perfection of his felicitated state. And the fact that the
number of offspring from his seed, including both sons and grandsons,
is likewise 36, one for each year of his auspicious and glorious rule, is
145 On this work see Binbaş, Intellectual Networks, p. 215-216. Specifically, there Tīmūr’s claim
to being āḫir al-zamān—a blatantly messianic title—is proved on lettrist grounds. Yazdī
is thus the direct model for Dawānī, ideological mainstay of the Aqquyunlu state, who
likewise puts Uzun Ḥasan’s (r. 861/1457-882/1478) imperial legitimacy on a primarily let-
trist footing in his seminal Aḫlāq-i ǧalālī and elsewhere. See Melvin-Koushki, The Occult
Science of Empire.
146 I.e. 1370 ce.
147 Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, I, p. 404-405.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

also productive of hope and justifiable expectation that the sublimity

and magnificence of this felicitated and righteous padishah shall not be
limited to these his days of physical rule over the world, that abode of
deception, but rather perpetuated by his worthy successors.148
Such passages cannot be dismissed as mere rhetorical embellishment by the

post-Enlightenment occultophobic historian: they epitomize neopythagorean
historiography. The Ẓafarnāma, in other words, that ornate masterpiece, piv-
ots on the proposition that time and space are but semantic constructs, to be
deconstructed, and reconstructed, by the lettrist historian. The prevailing ten-
dency in scholarship on the development of Timurid ideology to elide lettrism
thus does considerable violence to the sources, and renders Yazdī’s astrologi-
cal-lettrist theory of history illegible: for the Timurid historian clearly consid-
ers the latter science to be epistemologically superior to all others, including
even astrology.
The extent to which this represents a radical departure from both
philosophical-scientific and political precedent cannot be overstated; and this
departure was first wrought by Ibn Turka, who elevated his brand of philo-
sophical lettrism to the status of sole universal science, encompassing even as-
tronomy-astrology within its aegis. He did so, moreover, similarly in committed
service to the Timurid dynasty. A few years after his return from Cairo in circa
810/1408—two years after Ibn Ḫaldūn’s death in the same city—, Ibn Turka
wrote his first lettrist works for his first Timurid patron: Tīmūr’s grandson and
would-be successor Iskandar Sulṭān (r. 812/1409-817/1414), the ambitious ruler
of Fars, whose bid for control of the Timurid Empire was soon stymied by his
more conservative uncle Šāhruḫ (r. 811/1409-850/1447).149
Nevertheless, and as is well known, Iskandar established a culturally bril-
liant court in Shiraz and Isfahan, and heavily patronized astronomy-astrology
in particular. It is not an accident that one of the only two Islamicate illu-
minated horoscopes to have reached us, and certainly the most gorgeous, is
Iskandar’s.150 What is less well known, however, is the fact that Iskandar seized
upon precisely Ibn Turkian lettrism as central prop, with astrology, to his claim
148 Ibid., II, p. 1295.

149 This includes his seminal Risāla-yi Ḥurūf, completed in 817/1414; a summary, edition and
translation are provided in Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest,” p. 161, 463-489.
150 See e.g. Anna Caiozzo, “The Horoscope of Iskandar Sultān as a Cosmological Vision in
the Islamic World,” in Horoscopes and Public Spheres: Essays on the History of Astrology,
eds Günther Oestmann, H. Darrel Rutkin and Kocku von Stuckrad, Berlin-New York, De
Gruyter (“Religion and society”, 42), p. 115-144.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

392 Melvin-Koushki
to saint-philosopher-kingship. He states this quite explicitly in the preface he

wrote for a comprehensive Persian manual of mathematical astronomy (ʿilm-i
hayʾat), Ǧāmiʿ-i sulṭānī, possibly his own work as well. In this preface, the
Timurid ruler provides an overview of his personal intellectual and spiritual
development as proof of his status as perfect man (insān-i kāmil) and universal
ruler, sultan-caliph of realms both seen and unseen. We are here far beyond
the Abbasid import of these terms. The impressive Islamic universalism of
Iskandar’s self-styling aside, he then claims a total mastery of “all the tradi-
tional and rational sciences in both fundamental principles and applications,”
including theology, philosophy and sufism. But he finally declares astrology
(ʿilm-i nuǧūm) to be of all sciences the most useful to kings—with the excep-
tion of lettrism (ʿilm-i ḥurūf ), the sole universal science in its status as chiefest
branch of the science of divine unity (ʿilm-i tawḥīd).151 Iskandar’s Dībāča thus
constitutes the first formal expression of the peculiarly Timurid occult-scien-
tific imperial platform that would be enshrined in Yazdī’s histories, and thence
serve as model for all successor imperial states of the Persianate world through
at least the 11th/17th century.152
It must be emphasized, however, that Ibn Turka and Yazdī were transformed
into occultist ideologues of universalist Islamic empire precisely at the Mamluk
court. Sulṭān Barqūq, an aspiring ṣāḥib-qirān, would seem to have been power-
fully attracted to the model of millennial sovereignty being developed by his
Timurid courtiers, for all that he declined (like Tīmūr himself) to overtly claim
saint-philosopher-kingship in the manner of Iskandar.153 That is to say: seeking
151 Dībāča-yi Ǧāmiʿ al-Sulṭānī, in Šaraf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī, Munša‌ʾāt, ed. Īraǧ Afšār and
Muḥammad Riḍā Abūʾī Mahrīzī, Tehran, Ṯurayyā, 1388/2009, p. 207-211. With his neopy-
thagorean proclivities, Iskandar stands cognate to such ancient philosopher-kings as
Archytas of Tarentum, one of the three most important pythagorean philosophers and
military leader of a powerful Greek city-state in the first half of the 4th century bce, who
is often cited in lettrist works of the Timurid period; see Carl A. Huffman, Archytas of
Tarentum: Pythagorean, Philosopher and Mathematician King, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 2005.
152 See Melvin-Koushki, “Early Modern Islamicate Empire”; Binbaş, Intellectual Networks,
p. 97, 272-274. Needless to say, the influence of Ibn Turka’s lettrist-neopythagorean project
was hardly limited to the political sphere. As I argue elsewhere, it provided the primary
impetus behind the celebrated mathematization of astronomy by the members of the Sa-
markand Observatory of Uluġ Beg (r. 811/1409-853/1449); it is no accident that its construc-
tion was begun the same year (823/1420) Ibn Turka completed his Kitāb al-Mafāḥiṣ, which
calls precisely for such a mathematizing project. See Melvin-Koushki, “Powers of One”;
and n. 42 above.
153 This thesis has been proposed by Noah Gardiner in his paper in development “al-Malik al-
Ẓāhir Barqūq as Millennial Sovereign?”; see also Gardiner, “The Occultist Encyclopedism.”
On Ibn Turka as timuridizer of Mamluk literary-imperial culture see my forthcoming
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

to incarnate the Iḫwānī motto, this Manifest King (al-malik al-ẓāhir) became
equally Occult.154
Such, then, was the emergent neopythagorean-occultist theory of his-
tory that Ibn Ḫaldūn found so threatening, and against whose philosophical-
scientific bases he railed, however ineffectually, at such length. But perhaps
his confused and fideistic polemic was not an overreaction. For the theory put
forward by his younger colleague and fellow Cairene Yazdī, being heavily as-
trological, is predicated precisely on a cyclical model of historical change—
and was hence in direct competition with his own. Yet the prospect offered to
dynasts by Ibn Ḫaldūn’s leveling theory, which condemns them to be forever
ground under by the cycling of history between two poles, could not but be far
less attractive than Yazdī’s to the ambitious millennial sovereigns of the post-
Mongol era. The former simply moralizes, imprisoning rulers in the binaries of
time and the strictures of Shariʿa; it offers in return only the humble rewards
that accrue through the strict enforcement of piety on an always erring soci-
ety. But the latter promises to historically empower and spiritually perfect—to
divinize—its royal patrons by means of lettrism. Not only can the future be read
by the aspiring (occult) philosopher-king: it can also be rewritten. Where Ibn
Ḫaldūn posits a ceaseless cycling between nomad and settled and attempts to
legislate the divorce of occult from manifest, then, Yazdī, the humanist, holds
up Amīr Tīmūr as coincidentia oppositorum, transcendent of all binaries in his
historical embodiment of the quranic muqaṭṭaʿāt and so an imperial expres-
sion of the One.
“Imperial Talismanic Love: Ibn Turka’s Debate of Feast and Fight (1426) as Philosophical
Romance and Lettrist Mirror for Timurid Princes.” It should be noted in this connection
that Ibn Turka’s first major work, completed in Cairo, is an ornate commentary on the
Tāʾiyya l-kubrā of Ibn al-Fāriḍ (d. 632/1235), that seminal teaching text of the Ibn ʿArabī
school; uniquely, his Šarḥ-i Naẓm al-durar adapts the new Arabic anthology-as-commen-
tary genre developed by Mamluk litterateurs to the contemporary Persian literary context.
See Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest,” p. 47, 389-400. Saʿīd al-Dīn al-Farġānī’s (d. 700/1301) ear-
lier (and strictly nonliterary) commentary on the same is the only Akbarian text that the
poorly-informed Ibn Ḫaldūn is properly familiar with, and hence a primary basis for his
rejection of decadent modern sufism. Knysh, Ibn ʿArabi, p. 197. That Ibn Turka produced a
hybrid Mamluk-Timurid work on precisely the Tāʾiyya in the same year (806/1404) that his
fellow Cairene Ibn Ḫaldūn finished the final version of the Muqaddima therefore suggests
it as both a literary and a political act.
154 Ibn Turka makes just this imperial-incarnational imperative explicit in his ornate
Munāẓara-yi bazm u razm, written in 829/1426 for Bāysunġur b. Šāhruḫ (d. 837/1433),
which synthesizes several Mamluk-Timurid Arabo-Persian literary genres to counter Ibn
Ḫaldūn’s doggedly dualist treatment of the sword vs pen trope in particular. So I argue in
Melvin-Koushki, “Imperial Talismanic Love.”
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394 Melvin-Koushki
As a theoretician of history, Yazdī, in sum, is a radical monist; Ibn Ḫaldūn,

an old-fashioned dualist. And it would seem only dualists can appreciate the
Tunisian historian’s anti-transcendence: witness his pointed rejection by a
post-Mongol Islamicate historiographical culture prizing the millenarian pos-
sibility of universalist-monist imperial transcendence—but his eager recep-
tion, some four centuries later, by French colonialists and their orientalist
heirs, who crippled the Arab-Berber colonized with Ibn Ḫaldūnian binaries.155
Yazdī’s Rebuttal
[S]ome that are perverse […] by their rash ignorance may take the name
of Magick in the worse sense, and […] cry out that I teach forbidden Arts,
sow the seed of Heresies, offend pious ears, and scandalize excellent wits;
that I am a sorcerer, and superstitious, and divellish, who indeed am a
Magician: to whom I answer, that a Magician doth not amongst learned
men signifie a sorcerer, or one that is superstitious, or divellish; but a wise
man, a priest, a prophet […].
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (d. 1535)156
Given such fundamentally different outlooks and mutually exclusive projects,

the degree to which Yazdī does in fact agree with the senior historian’s analysis
of geomancy specifically and occultism generally is perhaps surprising. In his
tract in defense of the science, introduced and translated below, Yazdī readily
acknowledges that a geomancer does not obtain knowledge of the unseen by
means of his art directly, but rather by virtue of innate readiness (istiʿdād) and
receptivity (qābiliyyat) (combined, of course, with thorough study, purity of in-
tention, intensity of concentration and rigorous observation of all the science’s
conditions)—shades of Ibn Ḫaldūn’s doctrine of fiṭra. He fully endorses the
latter’s statement—“Things of the future belong to the [unseen] and cannot be
known unless the causes for their happening are known and we have trustworthy
information about it”157—with the proviso that geomancy does in fact provide
trustworthy information about the unseen by way of the encompassing oc-
cult virtue of uncreated, all-creative number, which alone gives structure to
155 On the inextricability of modern Ibn Ḫaldūn studies from French colonialism in North
Africa see e.g. Simon, Ibn Khaldūn, p. 23-32.
156 “To the Reader,” in Three Books of Occult Philosophy, transl. John French, London, R.W. for
Gregory Moule, 1651.
157 Ibn Ḫaldūn, The Muqaddimah, I, p. 245 (emphasis added).
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

reality. Or rather, he takes this statement further: the geomancer does not ac-
cess knowledge of the unseen at all, but simply extrapolates forward along the
chain of physical events on the basis of reliable data, since number is equally
operative at all levels of existence.158 The future thus belongs not only to the
realm of the unseen but potentially to that of the seen. The geomancer, more-
over, is a passive agent in this process, which is therefore licit; the effectiveness
of a geomantic procedure is entirely based on intuitive perception (ḏawq), the
faculty targeted by divine unveiling (kašf). As such, geomancy is not subject to
rational proof (burhān), though it is hardly arbitrary as a consequence. Finally,
Yazdī concurs with Ibn Ḫaldūn’s assessment that the art holds a particular at-
traction for the unscrupulous, the ignorant and the incompetent, though this
unpleasant social fact does not invalidate it; proper training is the answer.
So much for a meeting of historians’ minds; Yazdī proceeds to parry Ibn
Ḫaldūn’s blows (and land a few of his own) with several precise counterstrokes:
First, he calls out the equivocality of the latter’s argument by reasserting
the principles of correspondence and secondary causation as the natural-
scientific basis for divination as for magic, without which the Chain of Being,
selectively and indeed mercenarily invoked by Ibn Ḫaldūn, cannot possibly
cohere. To deny that the dots and dashes of a geomantic reading reflect the or-
dered nature of existence in their own right is to deny secondary causality (i.e.
in the manner of the occasionalist Ašʿarīs), without which principle we cannot
hope to understand the world.159
158 This argument is in conscious keeping with Kor 27, 65: “None knows the unseen in the
heavens and earth except God.” Cf. the Brethren of Purity’s similar defense of the philo-
sophical and religious legitimacy of judicial astrology: “Know that many people assume
that the science of judicial astrology lays claim to knowledge of the unseen (iddiʿāʾ al-
ġayb), but this is not at all the case. To know the unseen is to know what is or will be with-
out inferring this from any cause (bi-lā istidlāl wa-lā ʿilal wa-lā sabab min al-asbāb), which
is impossible for any creature—including the astrologer, the soothsayer, the prophet,
even the angel; such knowledge is God’s alone (glorious and majestic is He).” Iḫwān al-
Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, I, p. 133. It is similarly reminiscent of that put forward by Muḥammad Salīm
al-Wāʿiẓ al-Mawṣilī l-Ḥanafī (fl. 1144/1732) several centuries later that lettrism should not
even be considered an occult science, since its methods and conditions are so clear and
well-established, unlike say algebra, which is far more occult and recondite as a science
yet never accounted such. Muḥammad Salīm al-Wāʿiẓ al-Mawṣilī l-Ḥanafī, al-Kawākib
al-durriyya fī l-uṣūl al-ǧafriyya, MS Ankara, Milli A 309/4, f. 20b; Melvin-Koushki, “The
Quest,” p. 286.
159 Ibn Ḫaldūn evidently had some sympathy for the Ashʿari position; in particular, he li-
onizes the school as the middle path, and praises its occasionalist doctrine and defini-
tion of prophecy. Al-Azmeh, Ibn Khaldūn, p. 106; Asatrian, “Ibn Khaldūn,” p. 74, 85. At
the same time, however, he happily accepts the principle of secondary causation as a
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396 Melvin-Koushki
Second, he turns the latter’s argument against occultism on religious

grounds on its head by asserting that the impressive accuracy of geomantic
readings can only serve to strengthen people’s faith, not weaken it, for it is a
window onto the wisdom and will of God. As such, the science, properly prac-
ticed, cannot possibly be heterodox.
Third, he rejects Ibn Ḫaldūn’s classification of divination as an inferior form
of prophecy; geomancy as a practice is unrelated to prophecy (just as it is un-
related to philosophy), save for the fact that its general rules were first pro-
phetically revealed, then systematized into a science for use by anyone whose
intuition is sound and who follows the correct procedure.
Fourth, he corrects Ibn Ḫaldūn’s psychological theory of occultism.
Geomancy, Yazdī states, is indeed wholly based on intention (niyyat) and men-
tation/imagination (pindārī). For geomancy to be effective, a powerful spiri-
tual connection must first be established between intention and action; one
must then be able to mentally establish a link or correspondence (munāsabatī)
with the all-emanating Source (mabda‌ʾ-i fayyāḍ) of neoplatonic cosmology. A
lack of concentration, impure motivations or basic ineptitude cannot but pro-
duce invalid readings.
Fifth, he provides a lettrist proof, which he clearly holds to be unassailable, as
to the validity of geomancy and its pedigree.160 That its goal is to “obtain infor-
mation about unknown circumstances and bring clarity to ambiguous or cryptic
situations” is confirmed through its numerological correspondence with the di-
vine name Light (Nūr). Given the central role of light in the lettrist metaphysics
of Ibn Turka and his circle, itself conceived of as an upgrade to contemporary
illuminationist philosophy, Yazdī is here effectively declaring: Q.E.D.161
Sixth, he defends the traditionalist proof, scornfully dismissed by Ibn
Ḫaldūn, which posits the prophet Daniel as the inventor of geomancy.162 Here
again his primary argument in support of his interpretation of the relevant
hadith is a lettrist one: geomancy bears a numerological correspondence to the
name Daniel, so the historical association necessarily holds.
natural-scientific fact but forbids, on purely religious grounds and with rather shocking
hypocrisy, any investigation into the causes of things. Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, III, p. 23-
27; id., Muqaddimah, III, p. 34-37; see n. 66 above.
160 As Yazdī asserts in his Nikāt-i kalimāt al-tawḥīd, lettrist proofs are among those immedi-
ately and instinctively grasped and admit of no doubt (az yaqīniyyāt-i fiṭrī-st wa dar ān hīč
šakk u šubha nīst). Yazdī, Nikāt-i kalimāt al-tawḥīd, MS Ayasofya 1801, f. 38b.
161 See Matthew Melvin-Koushki, “Of Islamic Grammatology: Ibn Turka’s Lettrist Metaphys-
ics of Light,” al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā, 24 (2016), p. 42-113.
162 Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, I, p. 176; id., The Muqaddimah, I, p. 229-231.
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

Finally, Yazdī disagrees as to the social status of geomancy: far from being
merely a low form of soothsaying persuasive only to the untutored common
ruck and subject to abuse by charlatans, this applied mathematical science,
properly practiced, holds considerable interest for members of the intellec-
tual elite—hence Yazdī’s (and al-Ṭūsī’s and Ḫafrī’s) springing to its defense.
The younger historian, of course, was himself no plebian slouch; Yazdī and his
teacher and friend Ibn Turka were later accounted the two most prominent
intellectuals of Shahrukhid Iran, and their works widely studied from India to
Anatolia during the 9th/15th and subsequent centuries.163
That committed occultists like Yazdī and his fellow Brethren won such
acclaim throughout the Persianate world, this while Ibn Ḫaldūn’s arguments
seem to have largely fallen on deaf ears, suggests that their project was at-
tuned to the increasingly millenarian zeitgeist in a way that the Tunisian
historian’s was not. Indeed, we saw above that in his anti-occultism (and anti-
philosophy) argument, Ibn Ḫaldūn, making common cause with puritanical
Ḥanbalīs like Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Ǧawziyya, comes across as
a conservative reactionary attempting to force the genie back into the bot-
tle—a quixotic enterprise at best, given the historically abysmal success rate
of genie-bottling operations. It is hardly surprising, then, that with the back-
ing of Yazdī and other respected intellectuals geomancy became a promi-
nent feature of the philosophical and political landscape of early modern
Islamdom: the art of divination, so crucial to the quest for divinization pur-
sued by many Turko-Mongol Perso-Islamic kings and other messianic clai
mants in the runup to the Islamic millennium, was eagerly patronized at the
courts of Emperor Akbar in India, Šāh ʿAbbās in Iran and Sulṭān Süleymān in
Anatolia, together with a host of lesser monarchs east and west. It is perhaps
a mercy that Ibn Ḫaldūn did not live to see occult and manifest so regally
married throughout Islamdom.
Yazdī’s Tract in Defense of Geomancy
As noted, Yazdī makes the above points in the compass of a short tract written
in defense of geomancy, titled simply Faṣlī dar bāb-i raml; I provide a translation
of it below. This tract is included in a number of manuscript copies of Yazdī’s
munša‌ʾāt, thought to be compiled by his brother Qiwām al-Dīn Muḥammad,
163 Dawlatšāh Samarqandī, Taḏkirat al-šuʿarā, ed. Edward Granville Browne, Tehran, Asāṭīr,
1382/2003, p. 340; Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest,” p. 61.
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398 Melvin-Koushki
aka Ṣāʾinī (d. 830/1427),164 which comprise the historian’s correspondence, po-
etry and incidental writings, as well as several items concerning Ibn Turka and
his immediate family; it is often featured in hybrid collections containing other
epistolary material from the early Timurid period.165 The fact that it was not
put into circulation as a standalone piece, unlike an even shorter tract on fin-
ger counting (angušt-šumārī),166 suggests that Yazdī may have planned to use it
as a chapter of a larger work that he never completed.167 The tract is not dated,
and the unsystematic nature of the collections in which it is preserved does
not suggest a specific timeframe. Because it directly responds to Ibn Ḫaldūn’s
arguments in the Muqaddima, however, which that historian continued wor
king on until his death in 808/1406, we may speculate that Yazdī composed the
tract sometime in the 790s/1390s or early 800s/1400s, perhaps even while still in
Cairo. The Munša‌ʾāt-i Yazdī was recently edited and published by the lamented
Īraǧ Afšār; this edition is the basis for my translation below.168
…
In the name of God, all-merciful, ever merciful.
After offering praise to the Knowing One (dānā) Whose pen of splendid power
drew the white and red of dawn and sunset—that stage where light and dark
meet—upon the throne of manifestation,169 and prayers for the Leader who
made the glad path of guidance—the way of the folk of felicity—clear to his
glorious community via the avenue of lawgiving (God bless him and his House
as perpetually as he is remembered by those who remember, though his men-
tion be neglected by the heedless), it may be said that all intelligent and in-
sightful persons agree that the art of geomancy (fann-i raml), according to the
164 On Qiwām al-Dīn, see Binbaş, Intellectual Networks, p. 33-35. His taḫalluṣ Ṣāʾinī signals his
devotion to Ibn Turka, laqab Ṣāʾin al-Dīn.
165 See Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest,” p. 133. While their content is largely the same, Binbaş
distinguishes between a Munša‌ʾāt-i Yazdī and a Munša‌ʾāt-i Ṣāʾinī, with the latter contai
ning poetry written for Iskandar b. ʿUmar Šayḫ and Bāysunġur b. Šāhruḫ. Binbaş, Intel-
lectual Networks, p. 111.
166 Yazdī, “Risāla dar ʿAqd-i anāmil,” in Munša‌ʾāt, p. 91-93.
167 My thanks to Evrim Binbaş for this observation.
168 Yazdī, Munša‌ʾāt, p. 87-91.
169 On such light-dark imagery as an explicit poetical expression of the Ibn Turkian doctrine
of the coincidentia oppositorum see Melvin-Koushki, “Of Islamic Grammatology,” p. 92-93.
Ibn Turka himself employs the same in his Munāẓara-yi bazm u razm, studied in Melvin-
Koushki, “Imperial Talismanic Love.”
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leading lights among the ancients and the moderns, was and is prized as being
among the most noble, sublime and effective of arts.
Some trace the point (nuqṭa) of its genealogy back to the circle (dāʾira)
of prophecy; some see its method of rendering judgments as deriving from
the first principles of philosophy (ummahāt-i uṣūl-i ḥikmat); and at times the
abominably ignorant make so bold as to accuse its exponents of heterodoxy
(sūʾ-i ʿaqīda) (I take refuge in God!). These positions variously stem from ig-
norance, hasty judgment, the entrenchment of old and corrupt opinions or
fanaticism (taʿaṣṣub).
Now all those who rashly deny the excellence of this noble art appear to do
so because they hold to the belief that knowledge of the unseen (ʿilm-i ġayb)
was only vouchsafed the holy [Prophet], knower of things hidden, and it is im-
possible for others to attain the same. But it is evident that the geomancer does
not in any way claim to have knowledge of the unseen. The most that he claims
in this regard is that his art is governed by a number of general principles and
rules that were initially discovered through revelation and inspiration (waḥy u
ilhām), then collected and taught from one generation to the next down to the
present day, and that it is possible through knowledge of these principles and
rules and total concentration (ṣidq-i andīša) on the form (ṣūrat) the unseen
returns (radd) to gain information about how specific situations will unfold at
specific times and locations.
This is no perversion of belief; to the contrary, it is a clear proof (dalīl,
burhān) that the order of existents (niẓām-i mawǧūdāt) in the Chain of Being
(tartīb-i silsila-yi mukawwanāt) necessarily manifests according to the eternal
knowledge and will and wisdom of God. If, hypothetically speaking, it were not
so, and events simply happened randomly (kayfa mā ttafaqa) or on the basis
of temporary, corruptible principles, then one could never accurately deduce
from the dashes and dots produced by the geomancer’s stylus (kilk) the man-
ner of unfolding of past, future and present events. The truth of this statement
will be obvious to the intelligent who know the basis on which geomantic
readings are derived.
It being evident, then, that a familiarity with this art can but serve to
strengthen one’s faith and make it unshakeable, for an uninformed person to
suppose it to be somehow heterodoxical is sheerest stupidity and ignorance.
Likewise, this estimable art gives us to understand the truth of the saying of
the master of creation and centerpiece of the necklace of being (the finest
blessings and greetings be to him), “Actions are defined by intentions,”170 while
170
Innamā l-aʿmāl bi-l-niyyāt (the Afšār edition incorrectly has bi-l-bayyināt); see e.g. al-
Buḫārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, Kitāb Badʾ al-waḥy, bāb 1, no 1; etc.
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400 Melvin-Koushki
his further statement, appropriate to his status as prophecy’s Seal, “I have been
given the totalizing words,”171 indicates the universality of its application.
That is to say, this principle is not limited to those actions and acts of wor-
ship and obedience mandated by the Shariʿa, for the indications of good and
evil and the signs of benefit and injury that appear in a geomantic reading on
the basis of the principles of this estimable art do so solely according to the
geomancer’s intention (niyyat). It is for this reason that geomantic readings
(aḥkām) vary according to the variation of intention: there are accordingly
many forms (ṣūrat) that when drawn in relation to one kind of intention pre-
dict auspiciousness and the realization of one’s desires, but when drawn in
relation to another kind of intention predict misfortune and the frustration of
one’s desires.
Thus those adept in this art first evoke (istiḫrāǧ) their mind (ḍamīr)—that
is, their intention—, and only then derive all the figures of a reading. It is es-
sential that a powerful spiritual connection be established between one’s
intention and one’s action so that a change in the former will cause a corre-
sponding change in the latter.
The fact that, as has been made clear, the figures drawn in a geomantic ope
ration wholly depend on the practitioner’s intention perfectly exemplifies the
truth of the hadith quoted above, as those of sound understanding will unhesi-
tatingly agree. A further reliable proof in support of this statement is the fact
that when Zayd, for example, performs a geomantic operation while focusing
his intention on ʿAmr, the reading will reflect only ʿAmr’s situation, not that
of Zayd or of a third party. The principles and rules of this art comprise many
more such secrets and details that cannot be gone into here.
I opened a page of his discourse:

secreted speech under its every fold.172
The correspondence (tawāfuqī) between the number of triplicities (muṯallaṯāt)

that are possible in a geomantic operation and the numerical value of the
[divine] name Nūr (Light),173 [i.e. 256], constitutes an intuitive indication as
171 Ūtītu ǧawāmiʿ al-kalim; see e.g. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, Kitāb al-Masāǧid wa-mawāḍiʿ al-ṣalāt, bāb
1, no 1199; Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Musnad, Musnad Abī Hurayra, nos 7521, 8266; etc. This is a fa-
vorite hadith of Ibn Turka’s as well; see e.g. Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest,” p. 454, 455, 480.
172 Awḥadī Marāġa‌ʾī, ghazal: dar ḫarābāt-i ʿāšiqān kūʾī-st / w-andar-ū ḫāna-yi parī-rūʾī-st.
173 This value is 50 + 6 + 200 = 256; there are four triplicities in a geomantic tableau (a tri-
plicity being two Mothers or two Daughters from the first row and the one Niece they
produce), so 16 × 4 × 4 = 256.
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to the benefit and goal of the science of geomancy, that being to obtain in-
formation about unknown circumstances and bring clarity to ambiguous or
cryptic situations by means of specific methods; and perception comes about
solely through the overflowing, knowledge-bearing effulgence of the holy
name Light. That is, just as light is the cause and means of the manifestation of
things, so too does geomancy constitute a means of lifting the obscuring veils
from hidden matters. The fact that the number of geomantic figures multiplied
by itself174 as well as the number of these figures multiplied by the number
of houses [in a geomantic tableau]175 are both equivalent to the value [of the
name Nūr] further reinforces this point.
If someone attempts to practice this art but is unable to benefit from it due
to the failure of his readings to match reality, this is due to either a lack of
knowledge or a defective technique. For the theoretical aspect of this art is
complicated and full of secrets that the leading authorities on the subject (God
reward their efforts) do not openly discuss in their writings, so the only way to
learn them is through long apprenticeship under a skilled teacher. The super-
ficially inquisitive (bū l-hawas) are thus unlikely to have much success in this
regard.
In practicing this art one must likewise observe many conditions and follow
a certain etiquette; a failure to do so on the part of the practitioner will pro-
duce invalid readings. [Unfortunately], most practitioners content themselves
with the basics of the art as laid out in introductory manuals on the subject
and employ it in pursuit of base, worldly ends; their greed and overweening
desire to satisfy bodily cravings distracts them from an inquiry into the finer
points of this science and from observing its necessary conditions and proper
etiquette. There is no doubt but that it is rare for an accurate impression of
reality to imprint itself on such minds.
We must therefore apply ourselves to this art with such purity of inten-
tion (ṣafā-yi niyyat), unity of purpose (waḥdat-i qaṣd) and total concentration
(ǧamʿ-i himmat) that the soul may thereby achieve a type of correspondence
(munāsabatī) with the all-emanating Source (mabda‌ʾ-i fayyāḍ) that can call
forth its effulgence and evoke hidden things to appear as they truly are and as
plainly as can be shown. Those who quaff from the flagons of intuition (kuʾūs-i
aḏwāq) will find their insight confirmed by the fact that the number of dots
in all the geomantic figures [i.e. 96] is equivalent to the value of the name
Daniel (Dāniyāl) (God bless and keep him and our own Prophet).176 From this
174 I.e. 16 x 16 = 256. The actual phrase here is murabbaʿ-i ʿadad-i aškāl-i raml.
175 Also 16, including that of the Reconciler.
176 DANYAL = 96 (4 + 1 + 50 + 10 + 1 + 30).
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402 Melvin-Koushki
equivalency based on the method of the secrets of names and numbers it may
be understood that the application of this art can only be effective when it oc-
cupies the totality of one’s attention in singularity of purpose, all centered on
the operation to the extent possible, for this science is entirely predicated on
mentation and imagination (pindārī).
Among those whom the present writer has seen exemplifying this ideal with
true intent through the rigorous pursuit and attainment of total competence
in this art is the esteemed master Mawlānā Šams al-Dīn Muḥammad Qaṣṣār
Yazdī (God increase his learning!). About this dear man it may be truthfully
said that his desire to attain such perfection impelled him to take purpose by
the collar, shake out the sleeves of preoccupation with any other activity, tuck
up the skirt of endeavor and effort in the belt of singlemindedness and detach
himself from all obligations and hindrances for a considerable length of time,
and then wholeheartedly enter the path of discipleship; he has thus spent a
large part of his life apprenticing himself to teachers, frequenting practitioners
and collecting and reading books on the subject. In fact, [he attained to such
a level of expertise that] he himself is responsible for establishing many of the
principles and rules of this art and for recording rare and useful observations
on its practice, and through long habituation he is able to effectively evoke
his mind at the beginning of each operation and thereby deliver accurate rea
dings, as geomancers may be expected to do.
My purpose in compiling these words and noting these examples is to en-
courage the intelligent, when confronted by the inaccuracy of the geomantic
readings done by certain false and insincere practitioners and the vacuousness
of their predictions, to simply attribute this to their lazy incompetence, and
not think of discounting this noble art whose principles and rules were estab-
lished through prophetic revelation (waḥy) and the inspiration (kašf, ilhām)
vouchsafed purified saints. Indeed, the surest testament to the validity of this
science is the statement of the holy Messenger and Seal himself (the highest
blessings upon him and all his brethren from among the prophets): “There was
a prophet [who practiced divination by] drawing lines, so one may draw the
way he did.”177 For this reason some exegetes hold that the term “science” (ʿilm)
177
Kāna nabiyyun mina l-anbiyāʾi yaḫuṭṭu fa-man wāfaqa ḫaṭṭahu fa-ḏāk. This prophet is usu-
ally taken to be Daniel or Idrīs; see e.g. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, Kitāb al-Masāǧid wa-mawāḍiʿ al-
ṣalāt, bāb 8, no 1227; Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, Kitāb al-Ṣalāt, bāb 173, no 931; etc. Some hadith
commentators acknowledge this as a prooftext for the licitness of geomantic practice, but
a number, including al-Nawawī, al-Ḫaṭṭābī and al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, argue for its illicitness during
the Islamic dispensation; see e.g. Muḥammad al-Amīn al-Urmī, al-Kawākib al-wahhāǧ wa-
l-rawḍ al-bahhāǧ fī šarḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim b. al-Ḥaǧǧāǧ, Jeddah, Dār al-minhāǧ, 2009, VIII,
Arabica 64 (2017) 346-403

in the verse “Bring me a Book before this, or some trace of a science (aṯāratin
min ʿilmin), if you speak truly” (Kor 46, 4) refers to the art of geomancy.178
Therefore, if a student undertakes a serious study of this science, fully ap-
plying himself, yet finds the results disappointing, he is to attribute it to his
own lack of receptivity (qābiliyyat) and poor aptitude (istiʿdād), not to a pre-
sumed invalidity of its principles and rules. For every type of work demands a
type of aptitude peculiar to it, and this is especially true in the case of this dif-
ficult work; in addition to a precise understanding of its principles and proce-
dures, observation of appropriate times and adherence to its rules of etiquette,
it requires powerful intuition (ḥads) and perfect discernment (faṭānat) [on the
part of the practitioner]. “Every type of work has its practitioners,” [as they
say], and “each person finds it easy to do what he was created to do.”179
Were I to adduce further premises than the ones I already have they would
not amount to a formal proof (burhān), and there would seem to be no way
to categorically establish the validity of these premises in any case. But those
possessed of sound intuition (ḏawq) and innate talent will recognize them to
be free of empty claims and exaggeration and untroubled by either overzea
lousness or skepticism.
Anyone who knows her alley

will know where my goods are from.180
God bless and keep the best of His creation, Muḥammad, and his pure and
holy House most abundantly; praise be to God, Lord of all the worlds.
Written by the poor wretch ʿAlī l-Yazdī.
p. 126-128. Ibn Rušd al-Ǧadd (d. 520/1126) likewise judges geomancy to be illicit in his
fatwa on the subject, attempting to demonstrate that this hadith in fact represents not
an endorsement but a definitive prohibition. Ibn Rušd, Fatāwā Ibn Rušd, ed. al-Muḫtār b.
al-Ṭāhir al-Talīlī, Beirut, Dār al-ġarb al-islāmī, 1407/1987, I, p. 249-261.
178 See e.g. Muḥammad al-Qurṭubī (671/1272), al-Ǧāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān, Tehran, Nāṣir-i
Ḫusraw, 1364/1985, XVI, p. 179-183; the exegete here argues for the licitness of oneiromancy
and omen interpretation or bibliomancy (fa‌ʾl), but the illicitness of other forms of divina-
tion, including ornithomancy (ṭīra) and augury (zaǧr) (and presumably geomancy).
179 See e.g. al-Buḫārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, Kitāb al-Tafsīr: Sūrat ‘Wa-l-layli iḏā yaġšā,’ bāb 8, no 5000; Aḥmad
b. Ḥanbal, Musnad, Musnad al-ʿašara al-mubaššarīn bi-l-ǧanna wa-ġayrihim, Min musnad
ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, no 631; etc.
180 Cf. Šāh Niʿmat Allāh Walī, ghazal: yārī ki zi malak āšnāʾī-st / dānad ki qumāš-i mā kuǧāʾī-st.
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Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441
brill.com/arab
Esotericist Reading Communities and the

Early Circulation of the Sufi Occultist Aḥmad
al-Būnī’s Works
Noah Gardiner
Department of Religious Studies, University of South Carolina
[email protected]
Abstract
The Ifrīqiyan cum Cairene Sufi Aḥmad al-Būnī (d. ca 622/1225 or 630/1232-1233) is a
key figure in the history of the Islamicate occult sciences, particularly with regard to
the “science of letters and names” (ʿilm al-ḥurūf wa-l-asmāʾ). Drawing on textual and
manuscript evidence, this paper examines the role of esotericism—religious secrecy
and exclusivity—in al-Būnī’s thought and in the promulgation and early circulation of
his works in Egypt and environs. It is argued that al-Būnī intended his works only for
elite Sufi initiates, and that, in the century or so after his death, they indeed circulated
primarily in “esotericist reading communities,” groups of learned Sufis who guarded
their contents from those outside their own circles. This tendency toward esotericism,
and the eventual exposure of al-Būnī’s texts to a wider readership, are contextualized
in relation to broader developments in late-medieval Mediterranean culture.
Keywords
Al-Būnī, esotericism, occultism, science of letters, Ayyūbid, Mamlūk, Egypt, Ibn ʿArabī,
manuscript culture, Arabic manuscripts, Kabbalah
Résumé
Le soufi ifrīqiyien puis cairote Aḥmad al-Būnī (m. ca 622/1225 ou 630/1232-1233) est
une figure clef de l’histoire des sciences occultes islamiques, en particulier en ce qui
concerne la « science des lettres et des noms » (ʿilm al-ḥurūf wa-l-asmāʾ). En s’appuyant
sur des données textuelles et manuscrites, cet article examine le rôle de l’ésotérisme—

406 Gardiner
le secret et l’exclusivité religieux—dans la pensée d’al-Būnī et dans la promulgation

et la diffusion premières de ses œuvres en Égypte et dans les environs. Il est démontré
qu’al-Būnī conçut ses travaux uniquement à destination de l’élite des soufis initiés et
que, à son époque et dans le siècle qui suivit sa mort, ceux-ci circulèrent principale-
ment dans les « communautés lettrées ésotéristes », c’est-à-dire des groupes de soufis
érudits qui préservaient leur contenu de ceux qui étaient en dehors de leur propre
cercle. Cet engouement pour l’ésotérisme et la propagation des textes d’al-Būnī à long
terme auprès d’un public plus large sont contextualisés à la lumière de l’évolution de la
culture méditerranéenne à la fin du Moyen Âge.
Mots clefs
Al-Būnī, ésotérisme, occultisme, science des lettres, Ayyoubides, Mamlouks, Égypte,

Ibn ʿArabī, culture manuscrite, manuscrits arabes, Kabbale
…
I have seen the sage and wise and pious who wagged their tongues and
stretched out their hands to write of great and awesome things in their
books and letters. But what is written abides in no cabinet, for often it may
be lost or its owner may die, and the books thus come into the hands of
fools and mockers, and consequently the Name of Heaven is desecrated.
Isaac the Blind1
⸪
Introduction: Written Secrets in the Late-Medieval Mediterranean
In a letter written in the mid-1230s CE, the Provençal Kabbalist Isaac the Blind
(d. 1235 CE) angrily warns some disciples that Kabbalistic secrets committed
to writing are prone to exposure despite the best intentions of their authors.
The precise circumstances of his disciples’ transgression are unclear, but Isaac
expresses even greater wrath at the Kabbalists of Burgos, who, he asserts,
1 Quoted in Moshe Halbertal, Concealment and Revelation: Esotericism in Jewish Thought and
Its Philosophical Implications, transl. Jackie Feldman, Princeton, Princeton University Press,
2007, p. 71.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

Esotericist Reading Communities 407
discuss Kabbalistic teachings “openly in the marketplaces and in the streets,”

such that “it is clear that their hearts have turned away from the divine.”2
Kabbalists of Isaac’s mindset were not alone in their concern that holy secrets
committed to writing might be disseminated too freely by some of their peers,
violating what often were claimed to be ancient traditions of secretive, exclu-
sively oral transmission. In roughly the same period, on the opposite side of
the Mediterranean, the great Sufi thinker Muḥyī l-Dīn b. ʿArabī (d. 638/1240),
an Andalusian who had relocated to the eastern Islamicate world, penned
Kitāb al-Mīm wa-l-wāw wa-l-nūn, a brief tract on certain aspects of the myste-
rious “science of letters and names” (ʿilm al-ḥurūf wa-l-asmāʾ)—or “lettrism,” as
scholars recently have come to call it—a body of Koran-inspired cosmological
speculation linked to praxes for the realization of spiritual and material goals
through the powers of the letters of the Arabic alphabet and the names of God.
In it he warns against anything but the most coded and guarded discussions of
lettrism in writing, lest ordinary people misunderstand or abuse this “science
of the saints” (ʿilm al-awliyāʾ).3 He particularly discourages writing about those
aspects of the science through which one can harness the occult properties
(ḫawāṣṣ) of the letters and names in order to operate on the manifest world
through talismans and related means. Meanwhile, however, a contemporary of
Ibn ʿArabī’s, the Ifrīqiyan cum Cairene Sufi Abū l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Yūsuf
al-Būnī l-Qurašī (d. ca 622/1225 or 630/1232-1233), was composing works that
addressed many of those operative, occult aspects of lettrism, works for which
he would posthumously come to be (in)famous. Did he fail to share Ibn ʿArabī’s
concerns about the exposure of such knowledge to non-initiates? Or was he,
as some have implied, a mere magician wrapping himself in the pious cloak of
Sufism while peddling popular superstitions?4
2 Ibid.; for another discussion of Isaac’s letter see Eliot Wolfson, “Beyond the Spoken Word: Oral
Tradition and Written Transmission in Medieval Jewish Mysticism”, in Transmitting Jewish
Traditions: Orality, Textuality, and Cultural Diffusion, eds Yaakov Elman and Israel Gershoni,
New Haven, Yale University Press, 2000, p. 176 ff.
3 Ibn ʿArabī, Le Livre du mim, du waw, et du nun [Kitāb al-Mīm wa-l-wāw wa-l-nūn], ed. and
transl. (in French) Charles Gilis, Beirut, Editions Albouraq, 2002, p. 56 ff.
4 Denis Gril insists that al-Būnī “was undoubtedly acting deliberately when he published”
elements of the science of letters that “others either had kept under greater cover or had
limited to oral transmission”; see “The Science of Letters”, in The Meccan Revelations, ed.
Michel Chodkiewicz, New York, Pir Press, 2004, p. 143. Chodkiewicz attempts to distance Ibn
ʿArabī’s lettrism from that of al-Būnī in his introduction to the same volume, p. 25. For typi-
cal mid-20th-c. views on al-Būnī and the quality of his thought, which mostly dismiss him
as a mere magician, see Manfred Ullmann, Die Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften im Islam,
Leiden, Brill, 1972, p. 390-391; Albert Dietrich, “al-Būnī, Abu l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Yūsuf
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

408 Gardiner
Al-Būnī’s works—and works anachronistically attributed to him, such

as the large occult miscellany Šams al-maʿārif al-kubrā—came to be so
widely copied and imitated that modern scholarship has long regarded
him as a paragon of “popular Islam” and “magic,” and his works as having
been the preserve of street-level occult practitioners and their presumably
mostly-unlettered clientele.5 In a previous article I have argued against some
of these assumptions, demonstrating on the basis of a large survey of Bunian
manuscripts that over the course of the Mamlūk period, particularly from
the mid-eighth/fourteenth-century onward, when copies seem to suddenly
have multiplied, al-Būnī’s works came to find their readership largely among
learned elites, eventually reaching into the households of ruling Mamlūk
officials.6 In this paper I offer an analysis of the earliest phase of the career
of the Bunian corpus—the century or so after al-Būnī’s death, a period from
which only a few manuscripts survive—focusing on the role of esotericism
in the thought and practices of al-Būnī and his early readers. In doing so I
endeavor to draw connections between the content of al-Būnī’s works and
his and his readers’ book-practices, i.e. their ways of teaching, reading, and
transmitting his works, and to demonstrate the importance of attention to
issues of manuscript-culture in studying the spread and reception of lettrism
and other occult-scientific discourses.7 My central arguments are that, des-
al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī al-Ṣūfī Muḥyī l-Dīn,” EI2; Armand Abel, “La place des sciences occultes dans la
décadence”, in Classicisme et déclin culturel dans l’histoire de l’islam, eds Robert Brunschvig
and Gustav Edmund von Grunenbaum, Paris, Éditions Besson, 1957, p. 291-318; cf. John
Spencer Trimingham’s views on magic in late-medieval Sufism in The Sufi Orders in Islam,
New York, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 28. For a reading of al-Būnī that better grasps
the origins of his thought see Pierre Lory, “La magie des lettres dans le Shams al-maʿārif d’al
Būnī”, Bulletin d’Études Orientales, 39-40 (1987), p. 97-111.
5 E.g. Yahya Michot, “Ibn Taymiyya on Astrology: Annotated Translations of Three Fatwas”,
in Magic and Divination in Early Islam, ed. Emilie Savage-Smith, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004,
p. 280.
6 Noah Gardiner, “Forbidden Knowledge? Notes on the Production, Transmission, and
Reception of the Major Works of Aḥmad al-Būnī,” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, 12
(2012), p. 81-143.
7 The term “manuscript culture(s)” refers to the socially embedded, physically embodied
writing and reading practices of particular medieval milieux. The study of manuscript
cultures is rooted in part in anthropological studies of the social and cognitive effects of
written media such as Walter Jackson Ong, The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for
Cultural and Religious History, New Haven-London, Yale University Press, 1967; id., Orality
and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, London-New York, Routledge (“New accents”),
2002; Jack Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press (“Themes in the social sciences”), 1977; and id., The Interface between the Written and
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

pite his modern reputation, al-Būnī intended his written works only for Sufi
initiates, beginning with his own disciples, and that, through the early-eighth/
fourteenth century, his works circulated primarily in groups of learned Sufis
who guarded their contents from those outside their own circles—groups
here termed “esotericist reading communities.”
“Esotericism,” as I employ the term in reference to Islamic culture, is not
intended as a synonym for occultism, as it has been used in some Europeanist
intellectual history.8 Rather, it denotes an epistemic framework in which
three elements figure prominently: the embrace of a Koranic hermeneutics
which posits that the holy text is possessed of both apparent and hidden
(ẓāhir and bāṭin) layers of meaning, the latter intended only for a spiritual
elite; an accompanying rhetoric of elitism and exclusivity, including the
assertion that the majority of Muslims are incapable and/or unworthy of
comprehending the true and complete nature of God’s book; and, of deci-
sive importance, actual practices of secrecy intended both to protect initiates
from the disapproval of the “vulgar” masses and to prevent the exposure of
initiatic knowledge to the same. This constellation of elements is familiar
from trends in Šīʿī and Sufi thought in periods prior to al-Būnī’s,9 as well as
the Oral, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (“Studies in literacy, family, culture and
the state”), 1987. It is also closely allied to the “New Philology” movement in Europeanist
medievalism. For a number of examples of the early fruits of that movement, see Speculum,
65/1 (1990), an issue dedicated to New Philology edited by Stephen Nichols. For more recent
work in this vein see Brian Richardson, Manuscript Culture in Renaissance Italy, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 2009; Marilynn Desmond and Pamela Sheingorn, Myth,
Montage, & Visuality in Late Medieval Manuscript Culture: Christine de Pizan’s Epistre Othea,
Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2003; Lauryn S. Mayer, Worlds Made Flesh: Reading
Medieval Manuscript Culture, London, Routledge, 2004; and Erik Kwakkel, Writing in Context:
Insular Manuscript Culture, 500-1200, Leiden, Leiden University Press (“Studies in Medieval
and Renaissance book culture”), 2013. In recent years, the study of manuscript cultures has
expanded beyond the boundaries of Europe, for example in the articles by several authors
in Buddhist Manuscript Cultures: Knowledge, Ritual, and Art, eds Stephen C. Berkwitz, Juliane
Sybille Schober, and Claudia Brown, London-New York, Routledge (“Routledge critical stu
dies in Buddhism”, 52), 2009. The ongoing research currently being conducted by the wor
king group “Manuskriptkulturen in Asien, Afrika und Europa” (SFB 950) at the University of
Hamburg should also be mentioned.
8 As in the field of “Western esoteric studies” pioneered by Antoine Faivre and currently cham-
pioned by such scholars as Wouter Hanegraaff and Kocku von Stuckrad.
9 Esotericism in much the sense used here is regularly mentioned in studies of Šīʿism and
Sufism, though focused discussions of it are somewhat rare. Maribel Fierro’s concept of
bāṭinism, which also has been taken up by Godefroid de Callataÿ, is essentially coterminous
with “esotericism” as outlined above, though I prefer the latter term for its transconfessional
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

410 Gardiner
in some medieval Islamic philosophy. It also played a key role in some classi-
cal-era occult-scientific discourses, such as Ǧābirian alchemy, though almost
none in others, such as astrology. As briefly discussed at the end of this article,
I believe its manifestation in al-Būnī’s corpus can fruitfully be considered part
of a transconfessional efflorescence of esotericism in the Mediterranean of
the sixth/twelfth and seventh/thirteenth centuries, a period the historian of
Jewish thought Moshe Halbertal has described as “the age of esotericism and
its disclosure,”10and which saw urgent debates about the limits of what could
be written.
The term “reading communities” (esotericist or otherwise) reflects the fact
that, as much scholarship on medieval Arab-Islamic manuscript culture has
shown, interactions with books were often communal activities, with books
and book-practices playing important roles not only epistemologically, but
also in the forging and maintenance of various social relationships.11 As Erik
Ohlander puts it:
applicability; Fierro, “Bāṭinism in al-Andalus: Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (d. 353/964),

Author of the Rutbat al-Ḥakīm and the Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm (Picatrix)”, Studia Islamica, 84
(1996), p. 87-112; de Callataÿ, “Philosophy and Bāṭinism in al-Andalus: Ibn Masarra’s Risālat
al-Iʿtibār and the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 41 (2014),
p. 261-312. Some other important contributions are Mohammad Amir-Moezzi, The Divine
Guide in Early Shiʿism: The Sources of Esotericism in Islam, Albany, State University of New
York Press, 1994; Etan Kohlberg, “Taqiyya in Shiʿi Theology and Religion”, in Secrecy and
Concealment: Studies in the History of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Religions, eds Hans
Kippenberg and Guy Stroumsa, Leiden-New-York-Köln, Brill (“Studies in the history of
religions”, 65), 1995, p. 345-380; Maria Dakake, “Hiding in Plain Sight: The Practical and
Doctrinal Significance of Secrecy in Shiʿite Islam”, Journal of the American Academy of
Religion, 74/2 (2006), p. 324-355; Annemarie Schimmel, “Secrecy in Sufism”, in Secrecy
in Religions, ed. Kees Bolle, Leiden, Brill (“Studies in the history of religions”, 49), 1987,
p. 81-102; Carl Ernst, “Esoteric and Mystic Aspects of Religious Knowledge in Sufism”,
Journal of Religious Studies, 12 (1984), p. 93-100; James Morris, “Ibn ʿArabi’s ‘Esotericism’:
The Problem of Spiritual Authority”, Studia Islamica, 71 (1990), p. 37-64. Michael Ebstein,
“Secrecy in Ismaʿili Tradition and in the Mystical Thought of Ibn al-ʿArabi”, Journal
Asiatique, 298/2 (2010), p. 303-343; id., “Absent Yet at All Times Present: Further Thoughts
on Secrecy in the Shiʿi Tradition and in Sunni Mysticism”, Al-Qanṭara, 34/2 (2014),
p. 387-413.
10 Halbertal, Concealment and Revelation, p. 5.
11 On the communal nature of book practices, see George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges:
Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press,
1981; Michael Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190-
1350, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (“Cambridge studies in Islamic civiliza-
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

Alongside the way in which […] texts served as instruments of autho

rity and repositories of memory in terms of their content, the text as an
object also served as an instrument of authority and legitimacy, for as a
hypostatized repository of learning, a text linked its possessor to both a
physical object (the transmitted text) as well as to a process taking place
in time and space (the event of its transmission). As such, the text could
come to serve as an instrument of affiliation and status, a thing sought
out and asked for, procured and conserved, exchanged, reproduced, and
deployed.12
The notion of reading communities also has methodological utility, insofar

as manuscripts can be approached as the surviving nodes or edges of larger
networks of humans and texts, about which they often convey substantial
information through paratexts and other codical elements. Scholars such as
Konrad Hirschler and Stefan Leder, for example, have utilized methods of
working from names recorded in “audition” (samāʿ) certificates—paratextual
records of formal transmission events, discussed in more detail later in this
article—to analyze the social makeup of specific reading communities. This
method is particularly fruitful in research on the Ayyūbid and Mamlūk periods,
tion”), 1994; Jonathan Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social
History of Islamic Education, Princeton, Princeton University Press (“Princeton studies
on the Near East”), 1992; Gregor Schoeler, The Oral and the Written in Early Islam, ed.
James E. Montgomery, transl. Uwe Vagelpohl, London, Routledge (“Routledge studies
in Middle Eastern literatures”, 13), 2006; id., The Genesis of Literature in Islam: From the
Aural to the Read, transl. Shawkat M. Toorawa, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press
(“The new Edinburgh Islamic surveys”), 2009; Stefan Leder, “Spoken Word and Written
Text—Meaning and Social Significance of the Institution of Riwāya”, in Islamic Area
Studies Working Paper Series, 31 (2002), p. 1-18; Shawkat M. Toorawa, Ibn Abī Ṭāhir Ṭayfūr
and Arabic Writerly Culture: A Ninth-Century Bookman in Baghdad, London-New York,
Routledge-Curzon (“Routledge Curzon Studies in Arabic and Middle-Eastern Literatures”,
7), 2005; Konrad Hirschler, The Written Word in the Medieval Arabic Lands: A Social and
Cultural History of Reading Practices, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2012; and
the essays by numerous authors in Andreas Görke and Konrad Hirschler, Manuscript
Notes as Documentary Sources, Würzburg, Ergon Verlag (“Beiruter Texte und Studien”,
129), 2011.
12 Erik Ohlander, Sufism in an Age of Transition: ʿUmar al-Suhrawardi and the Rise of the
Islamic Mystical Brotherhoods, Leiden-Boston, Brill (“Islamic history and civilization”, 71),
2008, p. 53.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

412 Gardiner
when the popularity of audition reached a fevered pitch in the cities of Egypt
and Syria, at least through the eighth/fourteenth century.13
The challenge of working with reading communities as an analytic device
lies in drawing connections between the content of a specific work or body
of works and the manuscript evidence in ways that enhance understanding
of the content and its reception in a specific historical milieu. In what fol-
lows I endeavor to do so by drawing connections between esotericist devices
and sentiments in al-Būnī’s texts and the manuscript evidence regarding the
texts’ early circulation. I discuss al-Būnī’s use of intertextual cross-references
between his various works, which I take as his deployment of the esotericist
writing strategy of “dispersion of knowledge” (tabdīd al-ʿilm), and I consider
ways it compelled readers to collect his works and seek instruction therein.
I also explore parts of al-Būnī’s main lettrist opus Laṭāʾif al-išārāt fī l-ḥurūf
al-ʿulwiyyāt in which he frames the science of letters and names as a hidden
tradition passed down from the prophets, and alludes to the necessity of pre-
venting the knowledge in the book from falling into the wrong hands. I then
turn to paratexts indicative of al-Būnī’s ways of composing and promulgating
his works, particularly through audition before small groups of disciples, and
I also discuss evidence of their further transmission through formal reading
practices. I argue that these practices were used to exert control over the texts,
restricting their circulation to those deemed worthy. Finally, I look at some
late-seventh/thirteenth-century compilatory manuscripts in which Bunian
works appear that shed further light on the communities in which his works
were read and transmitted early-on. In doing so I argue that many of al-Būnī’s
early readers were recent immigrants to Egypt and environs, and would have
found themselves largely outside the networks of patronage on which many
Sufis in Egypt depended. I suggest that their participation in these esotericist
reading communities, and their enactments of the claims to power and secret
knowledge his works convey, were important means through which they made
a place for themselves in the hothouse intellectual scene of late-medieval
Cairo, particularly as it swelled to become the new intellectual capital of the
Sunni world in the wake of the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 656/1258.
13 On audition and its popularity in this period see Georges Vajda, Les certificats de lecture et de
transmission dans les manuscrits arabes de la Bibliothèque nationale de Paris, Paris, Centre
national de la recherche scientifique, 1956; Stefan Leder, Yāsīn Muḥammad al-Sawwās,
and Ma‌ʾmūn al-Ṣāġarǧī (eds), Muʿǧam al-samāʿāt al-Dimašqiyya : al-muntaḫaba min sanat
550 ilā 750 H / 1155 M ilā 1349 M, Damascus, al-Maʿhad al-faransī li-l-dirasāt al-ʿarabiyya,
1996-2000, p. 30.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

Al-Būnī and His Works
Little is known of al-Būnī’s life. His nisba suggests that he was a native of the
then Almohad-ruled city of Būna (Roman Hippo, now Annaba) on the Ifrīqiyan
coast, a port in regular communication with al-Andalus.14 His father Abū l-Ḥa-
san ʿAlī was a Koran-reciter, and al-Būnī likely was well-educated in his youth.
As I discussed in a previous article, al-Būnī at some point discipled himself to
a revered Sufi šayḫ in the city of Tunis, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Mahdawī (d. 621/1224),
who himself was a major disciple of the great Abū Madyan Šuʿayb (d. between
588/1192 and 594/1198).15 Al-Mahdawī also was an important teacher of Ibn
ʿArabī, though there is nothing to indicate that al-Būnī and Ibn ʿArabī knew one
another. Significant conceptual and terminological overlaps in their ideas testify
to their having drawn from a shared pool of intellectual resources peculiar to the
Sufism of the Islamicate west, and al-Mahdawī probably bears some responsibi-
lity for this.
At some point around the turn of the seventh/thirteenth century al-Būnī
migrated to Egypt, also traveling to Mecca at least once, presumably for the
ḥaǧǧ. He mentions having been in Mecca in 621/1224,16 and paratexts discussed
below definitively place him in Cairo later that year and in 622/1225. Ḥāǧǧī
Ḫalīfa (d. 1067/1567) gives his death-date at several places in Kašf al-ẓunūn as
622/1225, and once as 630/1232-1233. Neither date is confirmed or contradicted
by other sources, aside from a highly unreliable tarǧama for al-Būnī by the late-
Mamlūk historian al-Maqrīzī (d. 845/1442) which has him dying in 602/1201,17
a date contravened by the manuscript evidence. Al-Maqrīzī also states that
al-Būnī died in Tunis, though various mentions of al-Būnī’s tomb in Cairo’s
Qarāfa cemetery suggest that this is incorrect as well.18
14 Saïd Dahmani, “Le port de Bûna au Moyen Âge”, in Histoire et archéologie de l’Afrique du
Nord: Spectacles, vie portuaire, religions. Actes du Ve colloque international réuni dans le
cadre du 115e Congrès national des sociétés savantes (Avignon, 9-13 Avril 1990), Paris, Comité
des travaux historiques et scientifiques, 1992, p. 374.
15 Gardiner, “Forbidden Knowledge?”, p. 87 ff.
16 Al-Būnī, Laṭāʾif al-išārāt fī l-ḥurūf al-ʿulwiyyāt, MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Arabe
2658, f. 54b.
17 Taqī l-Dīn al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-Muqaffā l-kabīr, ed. Muḥammad al-Yaʿlāwī, Beirut, Dār
al-ġarb al-islāmī, 2006, p. 464. Note that al-Yaʿlāwī attempts to amend the date to 622 to
match that given by Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa, but al-Maqrīzī clearly intended the 602 date, as he esti-
mates al-Būnī to have been born around 520, and states that he was around 80 when he
died.
18 Šams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. al-Zayyāt, Kitāb Kawākib al-sayyāra fī tartīb al-ziyāra, Cairo,
al-Maktaba l-Azhariyya li-l-turāṯ, 2005, p. 268; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī, Šams al-āfāq
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

414 Gardiner
Scores of works attributed to al-Būnī are extant in hundreds of manuscripts,

and questions of which works are authentic to him are complex due to pseude-
pigraphy and other issues. The topic has been investigated seriously only in my
own scholarship and that of Jean-Charles Coulon, and while we have reached
similar conclusions on many points, there is still a great deal of work to be
done on the matter.19 My comments in this paper touch on only four texts,
all of which Coulon and I both regard as genuine. These are Laṭāʾif al-išārāt
fī l-ḥurūf al-ʿulwiyyāt, an opus dedicated to lettrism that al-Būnī completed
in Cairo between 621/1224 and 622/1225; ʿAlam al-hudā wa-asrār al-ihtidāʾ fī
šarḥ asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā, a major work on the names of God and their use in
spiritual practices, completed in much the same period as Laṭāʾif al-išārāt20;
Hidāyat al-qāṣidīn wa-nihāyat al-wāṣilīn, a work on al-Būnī’s vision of the
Sufi path and the ranks of accomplishment thereupon, composed sometime
before the other two works; and al-Lumʿa l-nūrāniyya fī awrād al-rabbāniyya,
a collection of invocatory prayers apportioned to specific times and goals, the
composition-date of which is obscure.
There are only a handful of extant manuscripts of Bunian works datable to
the century or so after his death (all of which are mentioned in this paper).
This is a paucity compared to later periods, as can be seen in the chart below
(figure 1), which shows the sharp uptick in the number of manuscripts sur-
viving from the eighth/fourteenth century onward. While it of course is true
that, speaking of manuscripts in general, there are fewer surviving codices the
further back in time one goes, it is highly unlikely that this accounts for all of
fī ʿilm al-ḥurūf wa-l-awfāq, MS Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, 5076, f. 16b; and the note
in Latin on the flyleaf of Aḥmad al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif, MS Paris,
Bibiliothèque nationale de France, Arabe 2647, discussed in Gardiner, “Forbidden
Knowledge?”, p. 93-94.
19 Ibid., p. 94 ff.; for some revisions to the bibliographical findings in that article see id.,
Esotericism in a Manuscript Culture: Aḥmad al-Būnī and His Readers through the Mamlūk
Period, PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 2014, p. 19-39; Jean-Charles Coulon,
La magie islamique et le corpus bunianum au Moyen Âge, PhD dissertation, Paris IV—
Sorbonne, 2013, I, p. 447 ff.
20 In my “Forbidden Knowledge?” article of 2012 I followed Brockelmann and others in refer-
ring to this work as ʿI̲l ̲m̲̲ al-hudá rather than ʿAlam. I first saw the title rendered as ʿAlam in
John Martin, Theurgy in the Medieval Islamic World: Conceptions of Cosmology in Al-Būnī’s
Doctrine of the Divine Names, M.A. thesis, The American University in Cairo, 2011. It was
only after this that I noticed the title is indeed vocalized that way in some of the oldest
Būnian manuscripts, and thus was convinced of the correctness of that reading.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

the disparity between the early period and those after it.21 Thus these num-
bers almost certainly reflect there having been relatively few copies of al-Būnī’s
works in circulation early-on. This notion is additionally supported by the fact
that, to the best of my knowledge, the earliest mention of al-Būnī in an outside
work is in Ibn Manẓūr’s famous lexicon Lisān al-ʿarab, completed in 689/1290,
with later references not occurring until the eighth/fourteenth century, sugges-
ting that al-Būnī’s name was not widely known until at least several decades
after his death.22 His disciples were thus probably relatively few in number
and, as I argue throughout this paper, discreet in spreading his teachings.
Tabdīd al-ʿilm and the Challenges of Reading al-Būnī
Whatever the impression given by the pseudo-Bunian Šams al-maʿārif

al-kubrā, al-Būnī’s authentic works are hardly recipe-books for newcomers
to the occult arts or, for that matter, Sufism. They are densely populated with
21 The issue of the survival rate of medieval Arabic manuscripts has never been addressed
systematically. With the current state of bibliography it is difficult even to approximate
how many Arabic manuscripts have survived to the present day, much less how many
once existed. However, scholars of medieval European manuscripts have addressed the
survival rates of codices from the Latin West, and their insights can provide at least food
for thought. Bernhard Bischoff has suggested on philological grounds that around one-
in-seven codices have survived from a ninth-century CE Carolingian workshop, and J.L.
Cisne’s 2005 study that employs statistical methods and catalog data for copies of three
of the Venerable Bede’s works to construct a stochastic model of the codices’ “birth and
death” rates corroborates Bischoff’s estimate. On both researchers’ findings see the lat-
ter’s article “How Science Survived: Medieval Manuscripts’ ‘Demography’ and Classic
Texts’ Extinction,” Science, 307/5713 (2005), p. 1305-1307. A more extensive and detailed
statistical study of the production and loss rates of medieval Latin manuscripts is Eltjo
Buringh’s 2011 monograph, though he takes pains to point out that his findings cannot
be unproblematically ported to medieval Arab-Islamic milieux. Bearing this caveat in
mind, and drastically simplifying Buringh’s extremely rich data, I would at least note
that his findings suggest an increased survival rate for fourteenth century manuscripts
over thirteenth-century ones of no more than 100%, and then only with regard to cer-
tain locales, others showing significantly lower disparities; see Eltjo Buringh, Medieval
Manuscript Production in the Latin West: Explorations with a Global Database, Leiden, Brill
(“Global economic history series”, 6), 2011, passim. This is to say that, while we can assume
that age-difference is a factor in why there are fewer seventh/thirteenth-century Būnian
manuscripts than eighth/fourteenth-century ones, it almost certainly cannot explain the
difference entirely.
22 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿarab, Beirut, Dār Ṣādir, 1990, I, p. 14-15.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

416 Gardiner
unexplained technical terminology, and assume an audience already pos-

sessed of an advanced familiarity with Sufi thought and practices. Even when
techniques such as the making of talismans are discussed, a topic confined
mostly to Laṭāʾif al-išārāt, numerous points of their construction and use are
left unexplained. Indeed, it is a less than straightforward process to construe
al-Būnī’s teachings on most matters, as most of his works are laced with inter-
textual cross-references by which the reader is regularly referred to another
of al-Būnī’s works for a fuller explanation of some issue. As I have discussed
previously, I regard this web of cross-references as his implementation of the
esotericist writing strategy of “dispersion of knowledge” (tabdīd al-ʿilm), the
intentional scattering of a body of teachings across several works so as to
conceal its full contours from all but the most determined readers. The tech-
nique is best known from the large corpus of Šīʿism-infused alchemical wri-
tings attributed to the second/eighth-century alchemist Ǧābir b. Ḥayyān.23 Ibn
ʿArabī employed it as well, particularly in scattering discussions of a sensitive
topics throughout his massive al-Futūḥāt al-makkiya, as did the Jewish philo-
sopher Maimonides (d. 1204 CE).24 Scholars have noted that the technique is
intended to require the reader to put great effort into finding the necessary
works and piecing together the intended lessons, and that it strongly indicates
the necessity of a teacher to guide the reader through the textual maze.
That al-Būnī’s readers sought to gain access to as many of his works
as possible—in part, no doubt, to wend their way through his dispersed
teachings—is suggested by a number of bibliographical paratexts found in
medieval manuscripts that attempt to list al-Būnī’s works. The earliest of these
can be found in the oldest dated manuscript of a Bunian work, a copy of Laṭāʾif
al-išārāt fī l-ḥurūf al-ʿulwiyyāt produced in Egypt in 669/1270 (Berlin MS or. Fol.
80). This demonstrates that readers were engaged in this quest from early-on in
the career of the corpus, and suggests that al-Būnī’s use of tabdīd al-ʿilm helped
encourage the formation of reading communities as individuals sought out his
works and deeper instruction in the methods to which they allude.
23 On its use in the Ǧābirian corpus see Paul Kraus, Contributions à l’histoire des idées scien-
tifiques dans l’Islam: Volume I, Le corpus des écrits jābiriens, Cairo, Imprimerie de l’Institut
Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1943, I, p. xxvii-xxxiii; Ǧābir b. Ḥayyān, Dix traités
d’alchimie: Les dix premiers traités du Livre des Soixante-dix, ed. and transl. Pierre Lory,
Paris, Sindbad, 1983, p. 53, 242 ff.; Syed Nomahul Haq, Names, Natures and Things: The
Alchemist Jābir ibn Ḥayyān and His Kitāb al-Aḥjār (Book of Stones), Dordrecht, Kluwer
(“Boston studies in the philosophy of science”, 158), p. 6-7, 14.
24 Morris, “Ibn ʿArabi’s ‘Esotericism’ ”, passim; David Bakan, Maimonides’ Cure of Souls:
Medieval Precursor of Psychoanalysis, Albany, State University of New York Press, 2009,
p. 76-77.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

In another bibliographical paratext which probably dates from latter part

of the seventh/thirteenth century, one Ibn al-Ḥaddād notes that he obtained
or purchased (malaka) a copy of al-Būnī’s ʿAlam al-hudā wa-asrār al-ihtidāʾ fī
šarḥ asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā, then read it under the formal instruction of his mas-
ter, Abū l-Faḍl ʿAbbās al-Ġumārī, who had been taught by al-Būnī himself in
Alexandria:
I obtained this book and read it in the presence of my master, the distin-
guished Abū l-Faḍl ʿAbbās al-Ġumārī (may God benefit him). He [Abū
l-Faḍl] met the author in Alexandria and he [al-Būnī] bestowed upon
him the meanings of the path and the secrets of certainty, and I drew
benefit from my master ʿAbbās, praise be to God.25
The statement, which is followed by a list of other titles attributed to al-Būnī,

bears witness to the perceived need for a teacher in reading al-Būnī’s works,
ideally one in a direct line of transmission from al-Būnī himself, such as Abū
l-Faḍl ʿAbbās. Note that Abū l-Faḍl ʿAbbās’ nisba, al-Ġumārī, is a Maġribī tribal/
toponymic marker, suggesting that he was of western origin, a characteristic
that likely was shared by many of al-Būnī’s early readers. Ibn al-Ḥaddād’s sta-
tement also stands a reminder that, at least in this period, to engage with a
given Sufi work could be taken as an initiatic process in itself, one that poten-
tially could be hazardous to the reader if undertaken without the benefit of a
master.26 As discussed below, there is much in the content of al-Būnī’s texts to
encourage such an attitude.
‫ق‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ذ‬ ‫ق‬

‫ا �ل�ل�ه‬ ��‫ل�ا ب� و�رات��ه ع��لى �مولا �ي� ا �ل��ف��ا ض��ل ا ب�ي� ا �ل��ف�� ض��ل �ع ب��ا ��س ا �ل غ��م�ا ر �ي� ن��ف‬ ��‫�� ت� �ه�� ا ا � ك‬ ‫و��د �م��ل ك‬
‫ع‬
25
‫� ا ن�ا �م��ن‬ ‫��ه �ل��ق�� ا �ل��م ؤ�ل��ف� �ا لا ��س� ن�ك��د ��ة ا ف��ا د ه ف� �م�ع�ا �ن ا �ل��س��ل ك الا ��س ا ا ��ل�ق��ن��ة ا ��ست�� ف��د ت‬
‫ي� ي� و و ر ر ي ي ي و‬ ‫ري و‬ ‫ب و ي� � ب‬
‫�مولا �� ع ب��ا ��س و�ل�ل�ه ا �لح‬
.‫��م�د‬ ‫ي‬
Al-Būnī, ʿAlam al-hudā wa-asrār al-ihtidāʾ fī šarḥ asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā, MS Istanbul,
Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Hamidiye 260.1, f. 239b, gloss in bottom margin. The codex
itself was copied in Damascus in 772/1370; however, Ibn al-Ḥaddād’s statement is in a
gloss copied from the exemplar, and thus predates the codex. Given that his teacher
al-Ġumārī met al-Būnī, we can surmise that Ibn al-Ḥaddād probably authored the state-
ment no later than the turn of the eighth/fourteenth century.
26 A debate on the need for a teacher in reading Sufi works would erupt in the Islamicate
west in the mid-eighth/fourteenth century, on which see Muhsin Mahdi, “The Book
and the Master as Poles of Cultural Change in Islam”, in Islam and cultural change in
the Middle Ages: Giorgio Levi Della Vida Biennial Conference, May 11-13, 1973, Near Eastern
Center, University of California., Los Angeles, ed. Speros Vryonis, Wiesbaden, Harrasowitz
(“Giorgio Levi Della Vida biennal Conference publications”, 4), 1975, p. 3-15. Ibn al-Ḥaddād,
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

418 Gardiner
Esotericism and Lettrism
That practical concerns might have driven al-Būnī and his readers to be highly
circumspect in the circulation of his works is suggested by certain of Ibn
ʿArabī’s comments in his aforementioned Kitāb al-Mīm wa-l-wāw wa-l-nūn. Ibn
ʿArabī cautions that, though truly a Sufi initiate (a member of the ahl al-kašf
wa-l-wuǧūd), the adept who writes about the occult powers of the letters risks
being lumped together by ignorant readers with the sorcerers and heretics. He
may even be accused of being an unbeliever for speaking of secrets that God
has concealed within the created things, as the people (al-nās) will assume
that the author intends their use for sorcerous acts (al-afʿāl). What is more,
he warns, the author may be accused of charlatanry, owing to the fact that in
order to perform a given lettrist operation, the practitioner must have detailed
knowledge of the proper ways of combining letters (ṣuwar al-tarkīb), as well as
of the timing (awqāt), special scripts (aqlām),27 and other elements requisite
to such procedures. Inevitably, therefore, some unworthy individual who has
failed to duly attend to these intricacies, and thus failed to achieve the desired
result, will attempt to vindicate himself at the author’s expense by saying:
“Someone [i.e. the author] lied, for I did what he said and obtained no effect
thereby.”28 These were not idle concerns, as Mamlūk-era commentators such
as Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), Ibn al-Naqqāš (d. 763/1361), and Ibn Ḫaldūn
(d. 808/1406) indeed attacked al-Būnī posthumously as a sorcerer and here-
tic on the basis of his writings.29 With regard to charges of charlatanry, Ibn
al-Naqqāš accused al-Būnī of having fabricated all manner of “rubbish” regar-
ding the letters, such that it was a subject the knowledge of which, he insists,
could lead nowhere “but the fire.”30 We can surmise that al-Būnī may have
faced similar charges during his lifetime if his writings had come to attention
however, writing earlier and in the east, clearly still felt the need to document his having
studied the work with a teacher.
27 Aqlām here is almost certainly a reference to cryptographic scripts, such as the qalam
marmūz bi-hi Ibn ʿArabī himself offers in his Kitāb ʿAnqāʾ muġrib; see Gerald Elmore,
Islamic Sainthood in the Fullness of Time: Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Book of the Fabulous Gryphon,
Leiden-Boston-Köln, Brill (“Islamic philosophy and theology”, 32), 1999, p. 574-579.
28 Ibn ʿArabī, Le livre du mim, du waw et du nun, p. 56.
29 Ibn Taymiyya, Maǧmūʿ fatāwā šayḫ al-Islām Aḥmad b. Taymiyya, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b.
Muḥammad b. Qāsim, n.l., Maṭbaʿat al-muḫtar al-islāmī, 1979, X, p. 251; Ibn Ḫaldūn, The
Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, transl. Franz Rosenthal, New York, Pantheon,
1958, III, p. 181; Ibn al-Naqqāš is quoted by al-Saḫāwī (d. 902/1497) in al-Qawl al-munbī fī
tarǧamat Ibn al-ʿArabī, ed. Ḫālid b. al-ʿArabī Mudrik, M.A. thesis, Umm al-Qurā University,
2001, II, p. 317.
30 Ibid.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

of authorities of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Naqqāš’s ilk, though no record exists
of this having occurred.
Self-protection is not the only motive Ibn ʿArabī invokes. Of greater impor-
tance is the risk that knowledge of operative lettrism could be highly dangerous
in the hands of the unworthy. Total forbearance on the topic is best, he declares,
as it is forbidden (ḥarām) for adepts to discuss the “operative spiritual sciences”
(al-ʿulūm al-ʿamaliyya l-rūḥāniyya) in ways comprehensible to both the elite (i.e.
the Sufi adepts) and the vulgar, lest the immoral utilize them to ill ends. His own
extensive writings on lettrism—in Kitāb al-Mīm and other works, including his
magnum opus al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya—he defends as falling within these res-
trictions, asserting: “The limit at which we stop ourselves in our own books is to
address only our fellow adepts [aṣḥābunā], in such a way that no-one but them
can understand that to which we allude, and so that no-one who is not among
them can attain to it.”31 There can be little doubt that Ibn ʿArabī would have
sharply disapproved of some of al-Būnī’s writings, particularly his lettrist opus
Laṭāʾif al-išārāt fī l-ḥurūf al-ʿulwiyyāt.
Though all of al-Būnī’s works make reference to the letters, Laṭāʾif al-išārāt
fī l-ḥurūf al-ʿulwiyyāt is the only one to take lettrism as its central topic, tra-
versing both theoretical and operative aspects of the science. In it al-Būnī
outlines a complex emanationist cosmology in which Ādam plays a central
role as the microcosmic mirror of the universe, with the letters of the Arabic
alphabet being sown into his body as the fundamental links between man
and macrocosm. In doing so al-Būnī provides a conceptual framework for
various operative lettrist exercises that are prescribed in the work, including
those often labelled “magical” or “theurgic,” such as the use of talismans and
other methods for the attainment of advanced spiritual states and preterna-
tural powers. Among the work’s most striking features is a series of elaborate
diagrams—quite unusual for Arabic manuscripts of this period—which are
claimed to facilitate visionary access to the invisible worlds underlying mate-
rial reality when used in combination with the proper regimens of ḏikr, fasting,
and seclusion—actions best undertaken under the guidance of an expe-
rienced master. Some of these figures also are said to function as talismans
ensuring the protection and sustenance of the adept when inscribed on the
proper materials and at the appropriate times.
At the heart of lettrism, al-Būnī insists, is the goal of apprehending
the “nobility” (or “sublimity,” šaraf) of the Koran, with an understanding
that encompasses even its most arcane aspects: hidden forces—at once
linguistic and numerical—at work in the letters of the text. He briefly ranks
the predominant methods of interpreting the Koran and the scholars who
31 Ibn ʿArabī, Le livre du mim, du waw et du nun, p. 58.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

420 Gardiner
engage with them. The lowest are those who interpret the holy text through
opinion (ra‌ʾy) and analogy (qiyās), and who are damned to perdition as a
result. Second from bottom are the scholars of the tafsīr tradition, i.e. those
who rely on philological techniques and transmitted traditions. Next are the
people of ta‌ʾwīl, a method briefly defined as a product of divine guidance and
mediation (al-hidāya wa-l-tawfīq). The greatest adepts are the masters of the
science of letters. They are the “people of true understanding” (ahl al-fahm),
“the people of the esoteric meaning” (ahl al-bāṭin), and those with whom
God communicates through angels (muḥaddaṯūn).32 For al-Būnī, the Koran
is far more than just a source of legal and moral guidance. Throughout Laṭāʾif
al-išārāt and his other works he approaches the holy text and its constituent
parts, particularly the names of God and the letters of the alphabet, not just
as God’s speech qua semantic communication, but rather as quasi-angelic
forces constitutive of the very fabric of the created worlds. They are at once
the instruments of God’s will in a continuously remade cosmos—conceptua-
lized by al-Būnī along Neoplatonic lines—and the means by which, through
various “spiritual exercises” (riyāḍāt), including operative lettrist techniques,
an elect class of human actors could ascend the ladder of being toward the
divine while serving as God’s agents on earth.
That al-Būnī shares Ibn ʿArabī’s esotericist sentiments regarding lettrism, at
least in principle, is demonstrated in the introduction (ammā baʿd) to Laṭāʾif
al-išārāt. There he adduces a series of prophetic ḥadīṯs and reports of other
seminal figures in Islamic myth and early history, including Ādam, ʿAlī b. Abī
Ṭālib (d. 40/661), ʿAlī’s martyred son al-Ḥusayn (d. 61/680), the early convert
and proto-Sufi Abū Ḏarr al-Ġifārī (d. 32/652-653), and others. As arranged by
al-Būnī, these reports suggest the existence of a tradition of secret teachings
on the letters, one rooted in the divinely-inspired knowledge of the long line
of prophets from Ādam to Muḥammad, transmitted from Muḥammad to ʿAlī,
and thence to some number of the other Šīʿī Imāms before passing into the
guardianship of the Sufi tradition. Taken together they comprise an apologe-
tic vision of the origins of the science of letters that validates lettrism as an
ancient, sanctified, and powerful means of engaging with divine revelation.
They also serve to emphasize the need for secrecy. At one point he narrates:
Know that the science of letters is among the most sublime of the sciences
of the accomplished adepts. Such is what reaches us on the authority of
al-Ḥusayn (peace be upon him), [who said] that a man asked him about
32 Al-Būnī, Laṭāʾif al-išārāt fī l-ḥurūf al-ʿulwiyyāt, MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France,
Arabe 2658, f. 4a.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

the meaning of kāf-hāʾ-yāʾ-ʿayn-ṣād.33 He [al-Ḥusayn] said: “If I explained

it to you then you would walk on water, except that, due to its mysteries, it
would be incomprehensible to one who lacks understandings illuminated
by the light of enlightenment and the guidance of the lamp of certainty. For
if the secrets of God the Highest were made plain to the common people it
would be the cause of their disunion and destruction.”34
Shortly thereafter, al-Būnī evokes ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib in order to emphasize the
alterity of these secret teachings in relation to the norms of the Muslim
community:
It is like that which has reached us about ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (may God be
pleased with him), that he said, If I gathered a hundred people from
among the best of you, and from morning to evening transmitted to you
what I have heard from the mouth of Abū l-Qāsim [Muḥammad] (peace
be upon him), you would all flee from me, saying: “Verily ʿAlī is among the
most egregious of liars and the most iniquitous of sinners.”35
The implication is that only the truly elect are worthy of the science of let-
ters and names, while exposure of it to the masses would result in chaos and
catastrophe. Thus, in al-Būnī’s framing, lettrism is the esoteric tradition par
excellence at the very heart of Sufism and Islam.
Having come of age in Ifrīqiyā, al-Būnī almost certainly was raised according
to the Mālikī maḏhab, though he likely was exposed to Almohadism as well.
His references to such central figures of Šīʿism as ʿAlī and al-Ḥusayn should
not lead to the conclusion that he was a Šīʿī in any confessional sense, though
‫ّ �أّ �أ‬ ‫�أ‬ ّ ‫�أ‬

33 Kor 19, 1.
ّ
‫�م�ع�نى‬
‫ل��س�لا �م ن��ه ��س� �ل�ه ر ج�� ع��ن‬
‫ل‬ � ‫ح��سي��ن ع� ي�ل��ه ا‬� ��‫حرو�ف� �م��ن �ش��ر�ف� ع��لو�م ا �ل��م‬
�‫ح��ق��ق��ي��ن ك‬
‫�م�ا ب��ل غ�� ن��ا �ع��ن ا �ل‬ �‫وا ع��ل ن� ع��ل ا �ل‬
‫�أ‬ ّ ‫ّ �أ‬ ‫م م ف‬
34
�‫��ن ا � تّ�ل��صري� ب� ك‬ ‫��س ت��ه�ا �ل�ك �ل� ش‬ ّ �‫ف‬
‫��ل ��سرا ر �ه�ا‬ ‫��م��ي�� ت� ع��لى ا �ل��م�ا ء �إ لا ن��ه لا �ي��م ك‬ � ‫ر‬ ‫و‬‫﴿��ك�هي��ع��ص﴾ ��ق��ا ل �ل‬
‫� ت‬ ‫�ت �ة ش �ة ق �ن ئ ّ ت ح�أ‬ ‫�ت �ة‬ ‫�أ ف‬
‫ى‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ا‬
�‫ع‬�� ‫�ه‬‫ل‬�‫ل‬ ‫ا‬ ‫��ا ا �ي�ل��ي�� و��ل��لا �ب��د وا ر ر‬
‫ا‬ ‫�س‬� �‫�� ي�� ب��م�� ك‬ ‫�ل�ع�د �م ال ��ه�ا �م ا �ل��م��س� ن��ير ب�ن�ور ا ��ل�ه�د اي��ة ا �ل��م��س� ��ض‬
‫� �ّ �ة ف� ن ً ف �ن‬
‫�و� ��س�ب� ب��ا �ل��ت�� ت��ه��م و�ه�لا��ك�ه��م‬ ‫ ل��ل�ع�ا م� ي�� ك‬.

Al-Būnī, Laṭāʾif al-išārāt fī l-ḥurūf al-ʿulwiyyāt, MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France,
‫�أ ّ ق‬ ‫�أ‬
Arabe 2658, f. 4a-b.
ّ ‫ئ�ةً ف‬ ‫ض‬ ّ ��‫�م�ا ��ل غ�� ن��ا �ع��ن ع‬
�‫��أح�د ث� ك‬
‫�م‬ � ‫�م �م�ا‬�‫� ا �ب�ن ب�ي� ط�ا �ل� ب� ر��ي� ا �ل�ل�ه �ع ن��ه ن��ه ��ا ل �لو ج��م�ع� ت� �م��ن �خ�ي��ا رك‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ك� ب‬
‫�أ‬ ‫ي‬
35
‫ن‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�غ �ة‬
‫�م��ن �د و �إ لى ا �ل�ع ش��ى �م�ا ��س��م�ع� ت� �م��ن �ي� ب�ي� ا �ل��ا ��س��م ع� ي�ل��ه ا �ل��س�لا �م �لت��ر�ج�و� �م��ن �ع ن��د �ي� وا ن��ت��م‬
‫� ذ�� ا �ل ك� �ذ �ن �أ ف ق ف ق‬ ‫�أ‬
‫�س��ن‬ ‫ت ق ن نّ ًّ �ن‬
‫��ا ب�ي�� و ��س� ا �ل��ا � ي‬ ‫ ��و�لو� �إ � ع� ي�ل��ا �م� ك ب‬.
Ibid., ff. 4b-5a.

Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

422 Gardiner
one mid-twentieth century researcher did hold this view.36 The notion that the
members of the ahl al-bayt were the inheritors and transmitters of a body of
arcane and powerful knowledge passed down from the prophets but kept back
from the general mass of Muslims is a not-uncommon theme in Sufi writings
prior to al-Būnī.37 In the case of lettrism, however, it might be taken as reflec-
tive, if only in a highly stylized way, of the discourse’s genuinely Šīʿī pedigree.
Classical-era Sufi thought—and Sunni thought generally—devoted signi-
ficant attention to mystical meanings of the letters, particularly with regard
to the Koranic muqaṭṭaʿāt (the “disconnected” letters at the heads of several
suras)38; however, as Denis Gril, Pierre Lory, Michael Ebstein, and others have
discussed, the distinctly cosmologically-oriented and Neoplatonized strain of
lettrism in which al-Būnī’s (and Ibn ʿArabī’s) thought participates originated in
the thought of early Šīʿī “exaggerators” (ġulāt) and Ismāʿīlī theorists.39 In the
36 Mohamed El-Gawhary, whose 1968 Bonn dissertation was the first book-length treatment
of al-Būnī by a modern scholar, posited that al-Būnī was a Šīʿī, apparently on the basis of
the Twelver Šīʿī Imāms listed in the first chain of teachers attributed to al-Būnī at the end
of Šams al-maʿārif al-kubrā, and the listing of that text in a modern catalog consisting
largely (though not entirely) of Šīʿī works; El-Gawhary, Die Gottesnamen im magischen
Gebrauch in den al-Būnī zugeschriebenden Werken, PhD dissertation, Bonn, Rheinische
Friedrich Wilhelms-Universität, 1968, p. 14. For the isnād in question see (pseudo-)Aḥmad
al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif al-kubrā, Birmingham, Antioch Gate, 2007, p. 119; also the discus-
sion of “Pedigree A” in Jan Just Witkam, “Gazing at the Sun: Remarks on the Egyptian
Magician al-Būnī and his Work”, in O Ye Gentlemen: Arabic Studies on Science and Literary
Culture, In Honour of Remke Kruk, eds Arnoud Vrolijk and Jan Pieter Hogendijk, Leiden-
Boston, Brill (“Islamic philosophy, theology, and science”, 74), 2007, p. 119. The catalog in
question is Āqā Buzurg al-Ṭihrānī’s al-Ḏarīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-šīʿa.
37 For several examples see Hamid Algar, “Imām Mūsā al-Kāẓim and Ṣūfī Tradition”, Islamic
Culture, 64/1 (1990), p. 1-14.
38 For a concise discussion of Sunni exegetes’ grapplings with the muqaṭṭaʿāt, see Martin
Nguyen, “Exegesis of the ḥurūf al-muqaṭṭaʿa: Polyvalency in Sunnī Traditions of Qurʾānic
Interpretation”, in Journal of Qurʾānic Studies, 14/2 (2012), p. 1-28. On the letters in the
classical-era Sufi tradition see Gerhard Böwering, “Sulamī’s Treatise on the Science of
Letters (ʿIlm al-ḥurūf)”, in In the Shadow of Arabic: The Centrality of Language to Arabic
Culture, Studies Presented to Ramzi Baalbaki on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday, ed.
Bilal Orfali, Leiden, Brill (“Studies in Semitic languages and linguistics”, 63), 2012, p. 339-397.
On the differing traditions of lettrism see Michael Ebstein and Sara Sviri, “The So-Called
Risālat al-Ḥurūf (Epistle on Letters) Ascribed to Sahl al-Tustarī and Letter Mysticism in
al-Andalus”, Journal Asiatique, 299/1 (2011), p. 230-232.
39 On the history of lettrism prior to al-Būnī and Ibn al-ʿArabī’s period see Denis Gril, “La
science des lettres (analyse du chapitre 2 des al-Futuḥāt al-makkiyya),” in Ibn ʿArabī, Les
illuminations de la Mecque. Textes choisis présentés et traduits, ed. Michel Chodkiewicz,
Paris, Sindbad (“La bibliothèque de l’Islam”), 1989, p. 385-438; transl. as “The Science of
Letters,” in The Meccan Revelations, ed. Michel Chodkiewicz, New York, Pir Press, 2004,
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

fourth/tenth century it seems to have been taken up by Sufis in the Islamicate

west, a development probably linked to the Cordovan thinker Ibn Masarra
l-Ǧabalī (d. 319/931) and his later followers, as well as to the reception of Rasāʾil
Iḫwān al-ṣafāʾ and related Ismāʿīlī texts. This distinctly Sufi lettrism was free of
overtly Šīʿī elements such as Imamic apologetics, though its promulgators were
sufficiently attached to the notion of an invisible hierarchy of Sufi saints as to
cause later critics such as Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Ḫaldūn to accuse them of a
crypto-Šīʿism that traded Imams for saints.40
Western-Sufi lettrism also embodied a focus on the divine names largely
lacking in Šīʿī lettrism, as is evident in al-Būnī and Ibn ʿArabī’s works, as well
as in the Šarḥ Asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā of their Sevillan predecessor Ibn Barraǧān
(d. 536/1141), a major figure in twelfth-century western Sufism who is some-
times said to have been murdered by the Almoravids as a perceived threat
to their rule.41 Sufis in the Islamicate west often clashed with ruling elites,
and, though the history of the development of lettrism between Ibn Masarra
and the sixth/twelfth century is obscure, the claims of its practitioners to extra
ordinary sanctity and occult power may have been linked to these struggles.
When al-Būnī, Ibn ʿArabī and others of their western-Sufi cohort migrated
to Egypt and points further east around the turn of the seventh/thirteenth cen-
tury, their distinct strain of lettrism seems to have been unknown in their new
environs, as were many aspects of western Sufism. The cautionary notes both
sound in their lettrist works as to the need for discretion suggests that both
knew their teachings could arouse controversy. At the same time, the novelty
p. 103-219; Pierre Lory’s various essays on the topic collected in the volume La science
des lettres en islam, Paris, Éditions Dervy, 2004; Michael Ebstein, “The Word of God and
the Divine Will: Ismāʿīlī Traces in Andalusī Mysticism”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and
Islam, 39 (2012), p. 247-302; id., Mysticism and Philosophy in Al-Andalus: Ibn Masarra, Ibn
al-ʿArabī and Ismāʿīlī Tradition, Leiden-Boston, Brill (“Islamic history and civilization”,
103), 2014; and the first volume of Coulon’s La magie islamique.
40 Regarding Ibn Taymiyya, see Yahya Michot, “Misled and Misleading… Yet Central in Their
Influence: Ibn Taymiyya’s Views on the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ”, in Epistles of the Brethren of
Purity: The Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ and Their Rasāʾil: An Introduction, ed. Nader El-Bizri, Oxford,
Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 146. For Ibn Ḫaldūn’s charges along these lines, see Ibn
Ḫaldūn, The Muqaddimah, III, p. 92-93.
41 For Ibn Barraǧān’s work, see Šarḥ asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnà = Comentario sobre los nombres más
bellos de Dios, ed. Purificación de la Torre, Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Científicas, 2000. On his alleged fate at the hands of the Almoravids see Claude Addas,
“Andalusi Mysticism and the Rise of Ibn Arabi”, in The Legacy of Muslim Spain, ed.
Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Manuela Marín, Leiden-New York-Köln, Brill (“Handbuch
der Orientalistik. 1. Abt., Der Nahe und der Mittlere Osten”, 12), 1992, p. 919-929. For a
counterargument that calls this narrative seriously into question, see Yousef Casewit’s “A
Reconsideration of the Life and Works of Ibn Barrajan”, forthcoming in Al-Abḥāṯ.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

424 Gardiner
of their teachings, couched as it was in claims to be an ancient wisdom tradi-

tion, obviously held great appeal to some of their new peers. Indeed, the very
secrecy with which these teachings were surrounded would have enhanced
their value as “cultural capital.” If al-Būnī’s writings on operative lettrism vio-
late Ibn ʿArabī’s dicta against committing such teachings to books, this should
be taken not as indication of al-Būnī having abandoned the esotericist ethics
he invokes in his own works. Rather, when taken in combination with the prac-
tices of promulgating his texts discussed in the following section, it suggests
that he pursued a different strategy for deploying this valuable and quasi-il-
licit body of knowledge than the exclusively oral transmission prescribed by
Ibn ʿArabī, i.e. that of guarded circulation of texts. In the course of time this
strategy had consequences that al-Būnī likely never anticipated, namely his
posthumous fame as a magician, but it seems to have sufficed for at least a cen-
tury in ensuring the survival of his teachings without triggering their careless
dissemination.
Promulgation and Transmission of al-Būnī’s Works
Evidence regarding al-Būnī’s promulgation of his own works, their transmis-

sion, and the nature of the communities in which they circulated can be found
in the handful of manuscripts which survive from the seventh/thirteenth and
early eighth/fourteenth centuries, as well in paratexts from al-Būnī’s lifetime
and somewhat after that were reproduced or referenced in certain codices
from later in the Mamlūk period. Items from the latter category provide the
best evidence of al-Būnī’s own practices for putting his works into circulation,
showing al-Būnī in 621/1224 and 622/1225 in the Qarāfa cemetery, the great
“city of the dead” then on the outskirts of Cairo, completing and “auditio-
ning” Laṭāʾif al-išārāt and another of his most important works, ʿAlam al-hudā
wa-asrār al-ihtidāʾ fī šarḥ asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā.
ʿAlam al-hudā concerns the names of God and the means of ascending
through the “stations” (maqāmāt) of the names toward union with the divine,
particularly through taḫalluq—a term William Chittick glosses as “adoption
of the divine nature”—via contemplation and invocation of the divine names
in supererogatory spiritual exercises.42 Laṭāʾif al-išārāt and ʿAlam al-hudā
42 Regarding taḫalluq as “the adoption of the divine nature” (or theomimesis) and Ibn
al-ʿArabī’s ideas on the matter see Gerald Elmore, “Shaykh ʿAbd Al-ʿAzīz Al-Mahdawī, Ibn
Al-ʿArabī’s Mentor”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 121 (2001), p. 609; William C.
Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-ʿArabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination, Albany,
State University of New York Press, 1989, p. 21-22.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

cross-reference each other extensively, and the latter must too be conside-
red an integral part of al-Būnī’s writings on the science of letters and names,
albeit with the emphasis on the names rather than the letters. It is al-Būnī’s
lengthiest surviving work, averaging about 220 folia in length, and an autho-
rial colophon that appears in some eighth/fourteenth-century copies informs
us that he “began it in the first third of ḏū l-qaʿda in the year 621/mid-to-late
November 1224 and […] finished it on the morning of Monday the seventeenth
of ḏū l-ḥiǧǧa of the same year/the end of December 1224 […] on the outskirts
of Miṣr [Cairo].”43 Though the period noted seems desperately short for such
a lengthy work, it probably reflects only the time in which the fair copy was
penned. The work likely grew out of al-Būnī’s oral teachings in years previous,
and it is quite possible that he employed an amanuensis in committing it to
paper. Ibn ʿArabī is known to have used such methods,44 and a work of Abū
l-Ḥasan ʿAlī l-Ḥarāllī (d. 638/1240), another important western-Sufi lettrist of
the period, is recorded as having been created this way in Cairo in 629/1231-
1232.45 This location at the edge of the city in which al-Būnī mentions having
worked was almost certainly the Qarāfa cemetery, as we will see in a moment.
The first set of paratexts I will discuss come from a copy of ʿAlam al-hudā
in two parts: Süleymaniye MS Reşid efendi 590.1 and 590.2 (currently bound
as a single volume). According to the scribal colophon, the set was copied in
Cairo by Maḥmūd Šāh b. Sallār b. Dāwūd al-Āfī [?], who completed it on the
tenth of raǧab 798/April 1396 in Cairo. The most important paratexts from
this volume are two muqābala (collation) statements, one at the end of each
part, i.e. statements recording the text of the codex having been checked for
accuracy (collated) against another copy. These collations were conducted by
one Ayyūb b. Quṭlūbak al-Rūmī l-Ḥanafī, only months after the copying of
the volumes was completed, the first being collated in šawwāl 798/July 1396,
and the second in ḏū l-ḥiǧǧa/September of the same year. The collation state-
ments are extraordinary in that, like a Russian doll set, they contain a recessed
series of paratexts from previous copies of the work, such that they provide
information on both the older codex against which the surviving codex
43 Al-Būnī, ʿAlam al-hudā, MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Hamidiye 260.1 (copied in Damascus
in 772/1370); Beyazid, 1377 (copied in 773/1371), and Süleymaniye, Kılıç Ali Pas̨a, 588 (cop-
ied in 792/1390).
44 Addas, Quest, p. 128.
45 This is noted in the opening lines (fol. 1b) of al-Ḥarāllī, Kitāb al-Lamḥa fī maʿrifat al-ḥurūf,
MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Fatih, 3434, in which it is stated that the text is based on his
lectures over a period of months in 629/1231-1232 at the Ǧāmiʿ al-ʿAtīq in Cairo (Miṣr)
which were preserved through the “dictation of his speech and his editing of it [i.e. the
transcript] at the time of dictation.”
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

426 Gardiner
was collated, a non-extant copy completed in Alexandria or before ṣafar of

738/1337, and the yet-older copy against which that intermediate copy was
collated, which apparently was auditioned in the presence of, and signed by,
al-Būnī himself.
Below is the collation statement from the end of the first part (Reşid efendi
590.1), which appears directly under the scribal colophon. Note that Ayyūb b.
Quṭlūbak, the collator and the author of this statement, quotes from a colla-
tion statement in the 787/1337 exemplar from which he worked, as he indicates
by marking the end of the quote with the word intahā. I have separated out the
quoted portion with paragraph-breaks:
The collation of this volume (daftar) from beginning to end was com-
pleted from a sound copy of the text with a collation note at the end:
The most insignificant servant of God the Highest Yaḥyā b. Aḥmad
al-Ḫalīlī l-Šāfiʿī l-Ṣūfī inscribed it [the codex]. He [Yaḥyā] collated it—
against a copy which had a certificate of audition before the author (may
God have mercy on him) that carried his [al-Būnī’s] signature—on the
fourth of ṣafar in the year 738/September 1337 while he [Yaḥyā] was at a
gathering of Sufi brothers at al-Ḫānqāh al-Muḥsiniyya in Alexandria.
Intahā.
The collation of this section against the aforementioned copy of the
text [i.e. that collated by Yaḥyā] was completed and finalized at the hand
of the weakest servant of God and most needful of His mercy and forgive-
ness Ayyūb b. Quṭlūbak al-Rūmī l-Ḥanafī (may God treat him with mani-
fest and hidden kindness) near al-Madrasa l-Ṣuyurġutmušiyya in Cairo
the [city] protected [by God] (may God the Highest guard her from
plagues and preserve her from diseases) on the date of the twelfth of the
blessed [month] šawwāl of the year 798/July 1396.46
‫ف �أ‬ ‫آ‬
.‫ح��ة �م��ق��ا ب��ل��ة �م�ت�ك�وب��ة �ي� �خ�ر�ه�ا‬ ‫ب��ل غ�� ت� �م��ق��ا ب��ل��ة �ه ذ�� ا ا �ل�د ف�ت��ر �م��ن ا ّو�ل�ه لى � �خ�ره �م��ن �ن��س��خ��ة �ص‬
�
��‫ح��ي‬ ‫�إ‬
ّ ‫�أ‬
46
‫�ة‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫�ن‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ش ف � ف‬ ‫�خ‬ �‫��س��طره ق�� ع��بي��د ا �ل�ل�ه �ت�ع�ا لى ي‬
‫ح�ى �ب�ن ا �م�د ا �� ي�ل��ل� ا �ل��ا ��ع� ا ل��صو ي� و��ا ب��ل�ه�ا ب��س�� ع��ل ه�ا ��س� م�ا‬
� ‫ل‬� ‫ح‬ �
‫ي�� ع‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ل‬
‫� �ة ال �خ� �ة‬ �‫كا ن� ب‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫ف‬ �‫ا �ل��م��صنّ�� ف� ب‬
‫ح� �ض�� ر �إ و‬ � ‫�خ��ط�ه رح�م�ه ا �ل�ل�ه �ي� را ب� � فص��ر ��سن�� ث��م�ا � و ث�� ث�ل�ي��ن و��سب��ع��م�ا ي� و‬ �
‫ع‬
‫�خ ن ق � � �ن‬ ‫ا �ل��صوف�يّ��ة ب�ا �ل‬
.‫ح��س� يّ��ة ب�ث� غ��ر الا ��س� ن�ك��د ري��ة ا ن�ت��هى‬ ��‫��ا ��ا ه ا ل��م‬
‫�أ‬
‫ف‬
‫��م��ا ر �إ ��لي��ه�ا ا ع�لا ه ع��لى ي��د ض��ع�� ع��بي��د ا �ل�ل�ه‬ ‫ت ف ق ف �غ � �ن ق �ة ذ �ل‬
‫�ج�ز ء ع��ل ا �ل��ن��س��خ��ة ا �ل� ش‬
‫وا �� ا �ل��را ع� �م��ا ب��ل� �ه�� ا ا � ى‬
‫�ل�خ ف‬ ‫ف �ل‬ ‫�نف‬‫��ه��م لى رح�مت��ه و�غ� ��ف��را ن��ه ا �يو� �ب�ن ق��ط��لو��ك ا �لروم� ا �ل‬ � ‫وا‬
�‫ح��ي� ع�ا �م�ل�ه ا �ل�ل�ه ب��ل��ط��ه ا �ج��لي� وا ��ي‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ب‬ ‫حو ج� �إ‬
‫ت‬ ‫� ت ل � �ن ال �ف‬
� ‫�رو��س� ح�م�ا �ه�ا ا ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا ى ع� ا �ا‬
‫�ة‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫ق‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫ف� � ا ا �ل��م�د ��س� ا �ل��ص�� ت� ش‬
‫��م��ي�� ب��ا �هر �م��صر ا �ل��م��ح‬ ‫�غ‬ ‫�ة‬
‫ير‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ي� �ج و ر‬
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

The second collation statement is at the end of Reşid efendi 590.2, winding
sideways and upside down along the bottom and right margin of the final folio.
It repeats much of the information from the previous statement, but quotes
a different collation statement from the 738/1337 codex, which perhaps also
was in two parts. This quoted statement again mentions the copy auditioned
before al-Būnī, but goes into slightly greater detail about that audition session.
Unfortunately, it does not reproduce the text of the original certificate. Here
I include only the statement quoted by Ayyūb b. Quṭlūbak from the 738/1337
copy:
This [copy] was collated to the extent possible at a gathering of the

brothers—the Brethren of Purity and Friends of Sincerity—at al-Ḫānqāh
al-Muḥsiniyya in Alexandria. The copy it was written from has in it a cer-
tificate of audition before the author, and his signature. The audition was
in sessions [i.e. it took place over multiple sessions] the last of which was
on the twenty-third of rabīʿ al-awwal [in the] year 622/early April 1225.
The original copy of the text (nusḫat al-aṣl) that was being transmitted
was completed in al-Qarāfa l-Kubrā on the outskirts of Miṣr on Monday
the seventeenth of ḏū l-ḥiǧǧa [in the] year 621/the end of December 1224,
and the start of its composition was at the beginning of the month ḏū
l-qaʿda. God bless and grant salvation to our master Muḥammad, his fam-
ily, and his companions.47
The information in the collation statement reproduced from the 738/1337

copy thus corroborates the dates of composition for ʿAlam al-hudā given in
‫ع�� م��ن �ش�� ّ ا ل ا �ل��م��ا ك �م��ن �ش��ه ع�ا �م ث��م�ا ن� �ت��س�ع��ن‬

‫ش‬ ‫ت ت �خ ث ن‬ ‫�ف ظ‬
‫و ي‬ ‫�ر‬ ‫بر‬ ‫و‬ ‫� ر‬ �‫ح��ه�ا �ع��ن ا �ل�ع�ا �ه�ا � ب��ا ري� ا ��ل��ا �ي‬ ‫و‬
‫�ة‬ ‫ه‬� ‫�ة‬
. �‫و��سب��ع��م�ا ي� �ج�ري‬

Al-Būnī, ʿAlam al-hudā, MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Reşid Efendi, 590.1,
f. 64b, bottom of page.
‫�ن ّ�ة‬
��‫ا �ل��م‬
��‫ح��س� ي‬ ‫ح� �ض�� ر�ة ال �خ�وا ن� �خ�وا ن� ا �ل�� فص��ا ء و خ�� ّلا ن� ا �لو ف�ى ب�ا �ل‬
‫�خ�ا ن��ق��ا ه‬
� �‫��ا ن� ب‬
� � �‫وق�وب��ل� ت‬
�‫ح��س� ب� ال�إ �م ك‬
47 ‫�إ‬ ‫�إ‬
‫ن ّ�ة �ن �خ �ة ت �ت‬
‫ف� م‬ ‫نّ ف �خ‬ ‫ن‬ �‫ب�ث� غ��ر ال�إ ��س��ك��د ري� وا �ل��س�� ا ��ل�� ك‬
‫�� ب��أ�م��ه�ا ع��لي��ه�ا ��س��م�اع ا �ل��م��ص�� و��ط�ه وا �ل��س��م�اع ي� �ج��ا �ل��س‬ ‫ي‬
‫ع�� ن ��س��ت� م�ا �ة ن ا �ل��ف�� ا�غ �م��ن �ن��س��خ��ة‬ ‫ش‬ ‫�ن‬ ‫ع�� ن �م��ن �� ال ّ ل ��سنّ��ة ث�ن‬ ‫ش‬ ‫ث ث‬ ‫آ �خ‬
‫ي و � ر‬ ‫ا‬
‫ك‬
� � �� ‫�إ ي و ري و‬ � ��
� ‫� �ر�ه�ا ا ��ل��ا �ل�� وا �ل� رو� ربيع و‬
‫ح�� ّ��ة‬ ‫�أ‬
‫� �ج‬ ‫ع��ر �م��ن �ذ �� ا �ل‬ ‫�� ظ��ا �ه �م��ص � �م ال ث�ن��ن ا �ل��س�ا � � ش‬ ‫ق ف�ة‬
‫ال �ص�ل ا �ل��م��ول �م��ه�ا ب�ا �ل��را �� ا �ل �ك بر ى ب ر ر يو �إ ي‬
‫ن‬ ‫نق‬
‫ي‬ ‫بع‬
‫ق د�ة‬ ‫ت �ن ف �أ ّ ش �ذ‬ ‫ع�� ن ��س��ت��م�ا ��ة � ن ت‬ ‫ش‬ ‫نّ�ة‬
‫كا � ا ب��د ا ء ��ص� ي��ه ول ��هر �ي� ا �ل��ع� و�ص��لى ا �ل�ل�ه ع��لى‬ ‫ي و‬ ‫��س�� إح�د �ى و � ري و‬
‫ن م آ‬
.‫��م�د و� �ل�ه‬
‫��سي��د �ا ح‬

Al-Būnī, ʿAlam al-hudā, MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Reşid Efendi, 590.2,
fol. 130b, bottom and right margin.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

428 Gardiner
the authorial colophon discussed above, adding the detail that the place “at
the outskirts of Miṣr” where it was composed was al-Qarāfa l-Kubrā. It further
provides the date of the last of the sessions (maǧālis) at which ʿAlam al-hudā
was auditioned before al-Būnī: the twenty-third of rabīʿ al-awwal 622. I have
elsewhere discussed the extraordinary datum that this Alexandrian Sufi rea-
ding community is here referred to as “the brethren of purity and friends of
sincerity” (a none-too-subtle reference to the oft-maligned group of Šīʿī intel-
lectual provocateurs from fourth/tenth-century Iraq whose Epistles contain
some of the most extensive classical-era discussions of the occult sciences),
and that this Alexandrian community may well be related to a turn-of-the-
ninth/fifteenth century community of occultists who went under the same
moniker.48
The second piece of paratextual evidence relating to al-Būnī’s time at the
Qarāfa is found near the end of BnF MS arabe 2658, a handsome copy of
Laṭāʾif al-išārāt that, according to the colophon, was copied by Muḥammad
b. Muḥammad, imām of al-Ǧāmiʿ al-Yūsufī in the Fayyūm, and was comple-
ted at the famous al-Azhar mosque in Cairo at the end of muḥarram 809/July
1406. Just after the explicit and prior to the colophon—under the heading,
“Among what was found at the end of this book” (mimmā wuǧida ʿalā āḫir
48 The ninth/fifteenth-century group was centered around an enigmatic figure known
as Sayyid Ḥusayn al-Aḫlāṭī (d. 799/1397), who served for a time as a physician to the
Mamlūk sultan al-Mālik al-Ẓāhir Barqūq (d. 801/1399). It included such luminaries as the
Tīmūrid occult philosopher Ṣāʾin al-Dīn Turka Iṣfahānī (d. 835/1432), the Tīmūrid histo-
rian Šaraf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī (d. 858/1454), the anti-Ottoman rebel Badr al-Dīn al-Simāwī
(d. ca 821/1418), the aforementioned ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī, and others. For the most
extensive treatment of this group see İlker Evrim Binbaş, Intellectual Networks in Timurid
Iran: Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī and the Islamicate Republic of Letters, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press (“Cambridge studies in Islamic civilization”), 2016, p. 114-164; cf. Denis
Gril, “Ésotérisme contre hérésie: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī, un représentant de la sci-
ence des lettres à Bursa dans la premiere moitié du XVe siècle”, in Syncrétismes et hérésies
dans l’Orient seldjoukide et ottoman (XIVe-XVIIIe siècle): Actes du Colloque du Collège de
France, octobre 2001, ed. Gilles Veinstein, Louvain-Paris, Peeters (“Collection Turcica”, 9),
2005, p. 183-195; İhsan Fazlıoğlu, “İlk dönem Osmanlı ilim ve kültür hayatında İhvânu’s-
safâ ve Abdurrahmân Bistâmî”, Dîvân: İlmî Araştırmalar, 1 (1996), p. 229-240; Cornell
Fleischer, “Ancient Wisdom and New Sciences: Prophecies at the Ottoman Court in the
Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries”, in Falnama: The Book of Omens, eds Massumeh
Farhad and Serpil Bağcı, London-Washington, Thames & Hudson-Freer Gallery of Art,
2009, p. 231-244; Matthew Melvin-Koushki, The Quest for a Universal Science: The Occult
Philosophy of Ṣāʾin al-Dīn Turka Iṣfahānī (1369-1432) and Intellectual Millenarianism in
Early Timurid Iran, PhD dissertation, Yale University, 2012, p. 11-12, 25. See also Melvin-
Koushki's contribution to this volume.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

hāḏā l-kitāb)—it contains an audition certificate reproduced from the exem-

plar from which the copyist worked. The text of the certificate is:
The most just and virtuous judge, the ascetic, the judge of the poor ones
[i.e. Sufis] and support of the pious ones ʿUmar b. Ibrāhīm al-Rabaʿī and
his son Ibrāhīm (may God make them both suitable) heard the book
Laṭāʿif al-išārāt fī l-ḥarf [sic] al-ʿulwiyyāt. That was in the first third of
the month rabīʿ al-awwal of the year 622/mid-March 1225, at al-Qarāfa
l-Kabīra on the outskirts of Miṣr (may God protect her). This was the site
of its composition.49
Though the name of the šayḫ presiding over the audition is elided here, there
is no doubt that it was al-Būnī himself, as the date given is only a few weeks
prior to the auditioning of ʿAlam al-hudā referenced in the collation state-
ments discussed above. In short, al-Būnī auditioned the two works—the texts
and topics of which are so intertwined—in nearly back-to-back sessions in
the cemetery.
Audition was a practice for transferring the authority to teach and further
transmit written texts. It entailed a live reading of a work in the presence
of its author or of someone in a direct line of transmission from the author
via previous audition sessions, with the outcome that listeners were granted
the authority to further transmit the work, along with other social and spiri-
tual benefits. It also served as a means of proofreading new copies of a text.
Auditions were recorded in certificates inscribed in a copy of the text used for
the session, usually on the final leaf of the text, and a certificate licensed both
the attendees it named and the codex itself. A codex containing a certificate
often was considered the most reliable copy of a work; for this reason, copies
of works made from exemplars with certificates will often make reference to
that fact, as in the case of Reşid efendi 590, or even reproduce the certificate,
as in the case of BnF 2658. Audition practices have been the subject of a fair
amount of scholarship in the past few decades, usually with regard to their
‫ق ض‬ ّ ‫ش ت ف� �ل� �ف‬ ‫ت‬

�� ‫��ا‬
‫� �ل �ز‬ ��‫ت � ق ض‬ ‫ك � ئف‬
49
‫��س��مع ��ا ب� ل��ط�ا �� ال�إ ��ا را � ي� ا حر� ا �ل�ع��لوي�ا � ا ل��ا ي� الا ع�د ل ا ل��ص�اح ا �ل ا �ه�د ي‬
‫ش‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫فق‬ ‫ا �ل��ف��ق�� ا ء �ع�م�د�ة ا �ل��ص��ل�� ب�ن‬
‫ح�ا ء ع�مر � �إ �برا �هي��م ا �لر�ب�عي� وو�ل�د ه �إ �برا �هي��م و��ه��م�ا ا �ل�ل�ه و �ل�ك �ي� ا �ل�ع��ر‬ ‫ر و‬
‫�ظ‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ق‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫�ة‬ ّ ‫�أ‬ ‫�أ‬
� ‫�ت‬ ‫�ن‬ ‫ش‬ ‫�ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ث‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ش‬ ‫ّ �ن‬
‫ال ول �م� ��هر رب�ي�ع ال ول ��س�� ا ��ي�� و�ع��ر�ي و��س� ��م�ا ي� و �ل�ك ب�ا �ل��را � ا �ل�ب�ك��ير ب��ا �هر �م��صر‬
‫ت‬
.‫ح�م�ا �ه�ا ا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى و�هو �مو ض�� ت�ا �ي�ل� ف��ه‬
‫ع‬

Al-Būnī, Laṭāʾif al-išārāt fī l-ḥurūf al-ʿulwiyyāt, MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France,
Arabe 2658, f. 90a, bottom half of page.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

430 Gardiner
use for transmitting written hadith collections and works in related genres,
in which they are most commonly found. Konrad Hirschler, Stefan Leder, and
others have found that auditions of such texts often were highly public affairs
that afforded opportunities for the wide “publication” and publicizing of texts.50
I will suggest, however, following Claude Addas, that Sufis sometimes utilized
the practice in different settings and for rather different purposes than their
peers among the muḥaddiṯīn.
The use of audition in the circulation of Sufi texts seems to have been rare,
though the topic has yet to be addressed systematically. Most evidence of it
comes, unsurprisingly, from the seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth
centuries when audition practices were at the peak of their popularity. Erik
Ohlander has noted that Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī (d. 632/1234)—the
prominent Baghdad Sufi whose ʿAwārif al-maʿārif would become a standard
manual of ṭarīqa Sufism—made use of audition in the transmission of his own
works, and that he explicitly paralleled the formal transmission of written texts
with the imparting of initiatic Sufi knowledge, such as a prayer formula (talqīn
al-ḏikr) or the “mantle of discipleship” (ḫirqat al-irāda).51 The most abundant
collection of audition certificates in Sufi works, however, is in Osman Yahia’s
1964 analytical catalog of manuscripts of Ibn ʿArabī’s works, in which Yahia
records the contents of 187 certificates from thirty-one works in manuscript
(some in multiple copies).52 Given their shared teacher, and the similarities
and differences previously discussed in Ibn ʿArabī and al-Būnī’s statements on
esotericist knowledge transmission, the former’s use of the practice is fertile
ground for comparison with al-Būnī’s.
There are reasons to think that Ibn ʿArabī—and perhaps al-Būnī as well—
did not take up the use of audition until after having emigrated from the west,
where the practice seems to have been less common in the period in ques-
tion.53 Gerald Elmore makes no mention of a certificate being present in Berlin
50 See, for example, Konrad Hirschler, “Reading Certificates (samaʿat) as a Prosopographical
Source: Cultural and Social Practices of an Elite Family in Zangid and Ayyubid Damascus”,
in Manuscript Notes as Documentary Sources, eds Konrad Hirschler and Andreas Görke,
Würzburg, Ergon Verlag (“Beiruter Texte und Studien”, 129), 2011, p. 73-92; Stefan Leder,
“Understanding a Text through Its Transmission: Documented samaʿ, Copies, Reception”,
in the same volume, p. 59-72.
51 Ohlander, Sufism in an Age of Transition, p. 53-55.
52 For Yahia’s overview of the certificates he recorded see Osman Yahia, Histoire et classifica-
tion de l’œuvre d’Ibn ʿArabī: étude critique, Damas, Institut français de Damas, 1964, p. 76 ff.
53 So far as I know, the use of audition in the Islamicate west has not been studied, so this is
merely an impression. Given, however, that the study of uṣūl al-fiqh and the concomitant
interest in hadith transmission came rather late to the Mālikī-dominated western ter-
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

MS or. 3266, a copy of ʿAnqāʾ muġrib that apparently was made in 597/1201,
while Ibn ʿArabī was yet in the Maghrib.54 To the best of my knowledge the
earliest certificates for any of his works appear in University of Istanbul MS
79a, a copy of Rūḥ al-quds fī munāṣaḥat al-nafs. This work was composed in
Mecca in 600/1203-1204 and framed as an epistle to his and al-Būnī’s teacher
in Tunis, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Mahdawī. It contains nine certificates, the earliest of
which are from Mecca in 600/1203-1204, Baghdad and Mosul in 601/1204-1205,
Hebron (al-Ḫalīl) in 602/1205-1206, and Cairo in 603/1206-1207, and thus tracks
some of Ibn ʿArabī’s early travels in the east. Other certificates in the codex are
from as late as 628/1230-1231, recorded in his adopted home of Damascus.55 If
Ibn ʿArabī and al-Būnī indeed began recording audition certificates only after
coming east, it likely was because they found these practices useful in building
a network of peers and disciples in a new environment where these practices
were popular.
The evidence collected by Yahia shows us that Ibn ʿArabī auditioned nume-
rous works between the turn of the seventh/thirteenth century and his death
in 638/1240. As Addas has pointed out, he seems to have employed the practice
for the achievement of two rather distinct purposes: in some cases the public
dissemination of a work (as largely was the norm in the ḥadīṯ-oriented para-
digm of audition), but in other cases for the discrete and restricted—which is
to say esotericist—transmission of his decidedly initiatic works that too easily
might have shocked the sensibilities of non-adepts.56 The major example of
Ibn ʿArabī’s relatively public-oriented use of audition comes in the final decade
of his life, in relation to his massive summa, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya. A holo-
graph of the work in thirty-seven volumes, Süleymaniye MSS Evkaf Müzesi
1736-1772, contains a total of seventy-one certificates. The majority of these
record a series of sessions performed between 633/1235-1236 and 636/1238-1239
in which Ibn ʿArabī served as the presiding šayḫ. The final fourteen document
sessions conducted after the šayḫ’s death, performed under the authority of
two of his closest disciples, Ismāʿīl b. Sawdakīn al-Nūrī (d. 646/1248) and Ṣadr
ritories, as Vincent Cornell has discussed, it is hardly unexpected that audition practices
would not have flourished there to the same degree as in the east. On the late rise of
interest in uṣūl al-fiqh in the west, see Vincent J. Cornell, Realm of the Saint: Power and
Authority in Moroccan Sufism, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1998, p. 15-16.
54 Elmore, Islamic Sainthood, p. 197-199; cf. Rudolf Sellheim and Ewald Wagner, Arabische
Handschriften, Wiesbaden, Franz Steiner (“Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften
in Deutschland”, 17), 1976, no 94.
55 Yahia, Histoire et classification, p. 446 ff. (entry no 639).
56 Addas, Quest, p. 264-267.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

432 Gardiner
al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (d. 672/1274), both of whom had attended many of the earlier
sessions as listeners. Most of the sessions presided over by Ibn ʿArabī occurred
at his home, but were nonetheless sizable, with some accommodating more
than forty listeners. More than 125 participants are named in these certificates,
with a core group of around twenty-five attending regularly. Many of these
can be identified as having been among Ibn ʿArabī’s devoted disciples, and
their names appear on certificates in numerous other works as well. The other
attendees, however, must be accounted as having been among local notables
whose favor Ibn ʿArabī sought in inviting them, those who sought his in atten-
ding, or those who came in search of baraka and for pious motives generally.
To these readings of al-Futūḥāt and the community they instantiated can
be contrasted a number of auditions of some of Ibn ʿArabī’s most initiatic
works. These, as Addas has noted, bear certificates recording gatherings that
were far more exclusive. To be sure, al-Futūḥāt contains much material that
can be described as initiatic—including a great deal on theoretical aspects
of the science of letters—but, as discussed previously, such materials are so
“dispersed” as to hardly be apprehendable on the basis of a single hearing. As
Addas observes, among the šayḫ’s works it “was least susceptible to criticism
thanks to its sheer size and the diversity of themes it covers, scattered over
thousands of pages.”57 The texts belonging to this second category, however,
are more focused in their content, arguably were more susceptible to criticism,
and were auditioned only to small groups of listeners, all of whom were Ibn
ʿArabī’s close disciples. In the most extreme cases, such as Fuṣūs al-ḥikam58—
the work that incited some of the most severe critiques of Ibn ʿArabī once it
came to circulate more widely59—and the enigmatic ʿAnqāʾ muġrib,60 the sole
listener was the šayḫ’s close disciple and son-in-law Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī. In
other cases, such as the auditionings in 621/1224 of the works that comprise
Süleymaniye MS Şehit Ali Paşa 2813—including the lettrist treatises Kitāb
al-Alif (sometimes called Kitāb al-Aḥadiyya), the aforementioned Kitāb al-Mīm
wa-l-wāw wa-l-nūn, and other works dedicated to esotericist understandings
of the Koran—the listeners comprised a small, consistent group of three dis-
ciples: Badr al-Dīn Ayyūb al-Muqriʾ, Ibrāhīm b. ʿUmar al-Qurašī, and Ibrāhīm
57 Ibid., p. 267-268.

58 Yahia, Histoire et classification, p. 240 ff. (no 150).
59 Knysh, Ibn ʿArabī in the Later Islamic Tradition, p. 121-122, 124-128, and elsewhere indicated
in the index.
60 Yahia, Histoire et classification, p. 157 ff. (no 30).
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

b. Aḥmad al-Qurṭubī.61 Other groupings that similarly consisted of his intimate

followers can be identified as well. As Addas points out, these gatherings of
close disciples were no doubt also occasions for the šayḫ to elaborate orally on
his writings—including, perhaps, on operative aspects of lettrism and other
topics that he kept out of his texts in accordance with his own esotericist dicta.
The paratextual evidence for al-Būnī’s use of audition—of which the
paratexts discussed above are, to the best of my knowledge, the entirety—
is obviously far more limited than the wealth of Akbarian certificates.
Nonetheless, some pertinent observations can be made, particularly by using
the evidence of Ibn ʿArabī’s practices as a basis for comparison. Primary among
these is that al-Būnī’s use of audition seems to have mirrored Ibn ʿArabī’s eso-
tericist use of the practice. The copied certificate for Laṭāʾif al-išārāt in BnF MS
arabe 2658 names only two listeners, the qāḍī l-fuqarāʾ wa-ʿumdat al-ṣulaḥāʾ
ʿUmar b. Ibrāhīm al-Rabaʿī and his son Ibrāhīm, individuals about whom I have
been able to find no additional information. ʿUmar’s title, “judge of the poor
ones” (i.e. Sufis), is unusual; it may mean he was in fact a judge who was identi-
fied as a Sufi. The small number of listeners is reminiscent of Ibn ʿArabī’s most
restricted circles of listeners. That, taken together with the operative lettrist
content of Laṭāʾif al-išārāt, strongly suggest the event was in no way “open to
the public.” Indeed, it is a reasonable assumption that ʿUmar was a close dis-
ciple of al-Būnī’s. If he was a judge, and thus somewhat highly placed socially,
he may have been a patron as well.
The fact that al-Būnī auditioned Laṭāʾif al-išārāt and ʿAlam al-hudā in
the Qarāfa is significant. By the late Ayyūbid period the Qarāfa already was
somewhat built-up with mosques, ribāṭs, and inhabited tomb-shrines in
which Sufis and other travelers frequently lodged. Nonetheless the cemetery,
located physically at the edge of the city beneath the Muqaṭṭam hills, was (and
is) something of a liminal zone. It was a place where rich and poor inhabi-
tants of the city went to visit the tombs of relatives and saints and to appeal
to the latter’s intercessionary powers for the fulfillment of invocatory prayers
(sing. duʿāʾ), and was also a site of festive celebrations with music, feasting,
and dancing, activities all of which frequently were condemned by “conser-
vative” jurists among the ʿulamāʾ.62 The non-specificity of the location within
61 For the two lettrist works see ibid., p. 151 ff. (no 26), p. 382 ff. (no 462). On this group of three
disciples see Addas, Quest, p. 268.
62 Tetsuya Ohtoshi, “Cairene Cemeteries as Public Loci in Mamluk Egypt,” Mamluk Studies
Review, 10/1 (2006), passim; Christopher Schurman Taylor, In the Vicinity of the Righteous:
Ziyāra and the Veneration of Muslim Saints in Late Medieval Egypt, Leiden-Boston, Brill
(“Islamic history and civilization”, 22), 1999, p. 56-58.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

434 Gardiner
the Qarāfa at which the auditions were held suggests that it took place at some
minor, private site rather than a well-known one, the name of which would
have merited mentioning. Al-Būnī himself eventually was buried in the Qarāfa,
if Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. al-Zayyāt’s (d. 815/1412) grave visitation guide,
al-Kawākib al-sayyāra fī tartīb al-ziyāra fī l-Qarāfatayn al-kubrā wa-l-ṣuġrā, is
to be believed. The inclusion of al-Būnī in that work indicates that his tomb,
by Ibn al-Zayyāt’s time, was favored by some as a visitation and prayer site—
a locus of power, albeit one of many in a crowded field.63
A further clue as to the nature of these sessions is that the collation sta-
tement from ʿAlam al-hudā mentions the work having been auditioned over
the course of some number of sessions (maǧālis). This is not unusual given
the length of the work, but enlightening in that it indicates that the sort of
speed-reading that sometimes was utilized in auditions of hadith works
(when conferral of the license to transmit was the overriding concern) was not
employed.64 This suggests that these were genuine teaching sessions in which
al-Būnī guided readers through the text, expanded on key points and issues of
bodily practice, etc., and thus strengthens the notion that the proceedings were
intended for close disciples. It is likely that the auditioning of Laṭāʾif al-išārāt
a few weeks earlier was performed similarly, a key point given the numerous
talismans that populate the work. The work includes a number of cryptogram-
matic talismans (awfāq, sing. wafq), i.e. grids with letters and/or numbers in
each square, as well as far more visually and textually complex compositions.
In many cases these are given on the page with little or no additional descrip-
tion in the text, suggesting that they would have been transmitted visually, a
task that would have required a somewhat intimate setting.
What, finally, are we to make of this extraordinary few months in the Qarāfa
during which al-Būnī seems to have composed and auditioned two of his most
important works? Was he a Sufi master at the height of his powers trying to
expand his base of followers? Or, taking into consideration the 622/1225 death
date Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa gives for al-Būnī, were these the acts of someone aware of his
impending death and trying to impart his knowledge to posterity? Whatever
the case, his use of audition shows that he was composing and promulgating his
works within a distinctly medieval paradigm of the book, according to which
books were not meant to stand alone as independent sources of knowledge,
63 Ibn al-Zayyāt, al-Kawākib al-sayyāra, p. 268. See also the other references to al-Būnī’s
burial in the Qarāfa mentioned in footnote 18, supra.
64 On speed-reading and other idionsyncrasies of late-medieval audition practices, see Eerik
Dickinson, “Ibn al-Salah al-Sharazuri and the Isnad”, Journal of the American Oriental
Society, 122 (2002), p. 481-505.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

but rather were to be bound tightly to human šayḫs and reading communi-
ties. Given Ibn ʿArabī’s warnings regarding the possible repercussions of books
such as al-Būnī’s, and al-Būnī’s own declarations of the need to prevent lettrist
knowledge from falling into the hands of the vulgar, admission to this circle of
readers must certainly have been limited to a chosen few.
Al-Būnī no doubt intended his works to continue to be transmitted exclu-
sively through such formal practices, and under similarly restricted condi-
tions, and there is limited evidence that formal transmission continued for
a period of time. The aforementioned statement by Ibn al-Ḥaddād that he
read ʿAlam al-hudā with Abū l-Faḍl ʿAbbās al-Ġumārī, who himself had stu-
died with al-Būnī, is the most concrete sign of this. Another hint along these
lines comes from one of al-Būnī’s most important later interpreters, ʿAbd
al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī (d. 858/1454), who reports having read al-Būnī’s al-Lumʿa
l-nūrāniyya fī awrād al-rabbāniyya in Cairo in 807/1404-1405 under the super-
vision of ʿIzz al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Ǧamāʿa (d. 819/1416-1417), member of a
well-known dynasty of scholar-Sufis. Relatedly, al-Bisṭāmī also claims that two
other known figures “took” from al-Būnī: Kamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad
b. Ṭalḥa (d. 652/1254), a Damascene bureaucrat turned mystic who authored
the apocalyptic work al-Durr al-munaẓẓam fī l-sirr al-aʿẓam; and Abū l-ʿAbbās
Aḥmad b. ʿUmar al-Mursī (d. 686/1287), the Andalusian émigré to Alexandria
(by way of Tunis) who was the premier disciple and spiritual successor to the
great Abū l-Ḥasan al-Šāḏilī (d. 656/1258), eponym of the Šāḏiliyya order.65 It is
possible that al-Bisṭāmī fabricated these claims, though there is concrete proof
that some relatively early readers of al-Būnī were familiar with Ibn Ṭalḥa’s
work, since an important piece of early Bunian pseudepigrapha combines
portions of al-Būnī’s works with parts of al-Durr al-munaẓẓam.66 As discussed
next, other manuscript evidence indeed demonstrates that there were points
of connection between readers of al-Būnī and early Šāḏilīs in late-seventh/
thirteenth-century Cairo. Finally, al-Bisṭāmī himself formally transmitted
al-Būnī’s al-Lumʿa l-nūrāniyya to various readers over the course of the first
65 Al-Bisṭāmī, Šams al-āfāq fī ʿilm al-ḥurūf wa-l-awfāq, MS Dublin, Chester Beatty Library,
5076, f. 16b. On Ibn Talḥa, see Mohammad Masad, The Medieval Islamic Apocalyptic
Tradition: Divination, Prophecy and the End of Time in the 13th Century Eastern
Mediterranean, PhD dissertation, Washington University in St. Louis, 2008.
66 This is the quasi-pseudepigraphic medieval work that was widely circulated under the
title Šams al-maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif, on which see Coulon, La magie islamique, I,
p. 479-499.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

436 Gardiner
half of the ninth/fifteenth century, as he documents in his autobiographical

Durrat tāǧ al-rasāʾil wa-ġurrat minhāǧ al-wasāʾil.67
Early Compilations Including Bunian Works
The final line of inquiry I will discuss concerns evidence that, within a bit more
than half a century after al-Būnī’s death, the reading communities in which his
works circulated also were engaging with texts by other lettrist authors. This is
seen in two compilatory codices of the latter decades of the seventh/thirteenth
century in which works by al-Būnī are included: Chester Beatty MS 3168 and
Süleymaniye MS Carullah 986.
Chester Beatty MS 3168 is a compilatory codex copied in Cairo between
686/1287 and 687/1288 by one ʿUṯmān b. Yūsuf b. Muḥammad b. Arsalān
al-Ḥanafī. It is an important codex for the study of lettrism, in that among
the seven treatises included in it is not only the oldest dated copy of al-Būnī’s
prayer manual al-Lumʿa l-nūrāniyya, but also two short works that, in 1972, were
identified by Muḥammad Kamāl Ibrāhīm Ǧaʿfar as the only surviving writings
of the aforementioned Andalusian thinker Ibn Masarra l-Ǧabalī, a key figure
in the history of lettrism. The codex also includes a treatise on the letters that,
in 1974, the same scholar attributed to the great Sufi theorist Sahl al-Tustarī,
though this identification has been compellingly called into question recently
by Michael Ebstein and Sara Sviri.68 It additionally contains a collection of
sermons attributed to Abū l-Ḥasan al-Šāḏilī, who had died in Alexandria only
thirty years previously.69
67 Al-Bisṭāmī, Durrat tāǧ al-rasāʾil wa-ġurrat minhāǧ al-wasāʾil, MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye
Kütüphanesi, Nuruosmaniye, 4905. See especially the sixth bāb, in which al-Bisṭāmī pro-
vides a roughly year-by-year account of his activities as an author and as a transmitter of
works written by others, ff. 21b ff., but particularly ff. 24b-37b.
68 Ebstein and Sviri, “The So-Called Risālat al-Ḥurūf”, passim.
69 The full contents of Chester Beatty 3168 are: 1) Natāʾiǧ al-qurba wa-nafāʾis al-ġurba, by Faḫr
al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Aḥmad al-Ḫabrī l-Fārisī (d. 622/1225),
ff. 1-64, dated 687/1288; a treatise on the Sufi path. 2) Ḫawāṣṣ al-ḥurūf wa-ḥaqāʾiquhā
wa-uṣūluhā, by Ibn Masarra l-Ǧabalī, ff. 65-83b, n.d.; a treatise on the meanings and cos-
mic functions of the muqaṭṭaʿāt. 3) Risāla fī l-ḥurūf, attributed by some to Sahl al-Tustarī,
ff. 83b-87, n.d.; a brief work on topics similar to the previous one. 4) Risālat al-iʿtibār, by
Ibn Masarra l-Ǧabalī, ff. 88-95, n.d.; a treatise on the relationship between the inferior and
superior worlds, and on ascending from the former to the latter. 5) al-Lumʿa l-nūrāniyya,
by al-Būnī, ff. 96-125, dated 686/1287. 6) Nuzhat al-qulūb wa-buġyat al-maṭlūb, attributed
to Abū l-Ḥasan al-Shāḏilī, ff. 126-153, dated 686/1287; consisting of sermons and prayers
gathered by an anonymous disciple. 7) al-Faṣl al-rābiʿ, no author given, ff. 154-160, dated
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

The presence of Ibn Masarra’s works in the codex is strongly indicative of

the esotericist nature of the reading community of which this codex was a pro-
duct. Ibn Masarra was controversial even during his life, and so-called masarrī
groups in al-Andalus were denounced as heterodox and persecuted at various
points in the period between Ibn Masarra’s death in 319/931 and the end of the
seventh/thirteenth century. Ibn Masarra’s works even were ordered burned in
his native Cordoba on at least one occasion.70 For the only known surviving
copies of his works to reside in an Egyptian codex alongside one of al-Būnī’s
suggests that this reading community included some number of western Sufi
participants. Ibn ʿArabī referred approvingly to Ibn Masarra in some of his
works—including citing him as an authority on lettrism in Kitāb al-Mīm wa-l-
wāw wa-l-nūn—which supports the notion that other western Sufi émigrés with
esotericist leanings had access to Ibn Masarra’s works. However, given the radi-
cal dearth of surviving copies of his works, they obviously were not in common
circulation, and likely were traded exclusively among specialists—which is to
say members of lettrist circles such as this reading community. The collection
of al-Šāḏilī sermons is further indication that westerners participated in this
group. The codex was copied right around the time of Abū l-Ḥasan al-Mursī’s
death, which is quite early to contain a Šāḏilite work, possibly even predating
the doxographic efforts of al-Mursī’s chief disciple Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh al-Iskandarī
(d. 709/1309). This should not be taken to mean that the reading community
was exclusively composed of westerners, as the copyist of the codex likely
hailed from well east of Cairo, given his Ḥanafism and his great-grandfather’s
resoundingly Turkic name. What we see, rather, is signs in this community of
the gathering of actors from the edges of the Arab-Islamicate world to Cairo, as
so greatly reshaped the city after the fall of Baghdad.
The second compilatory volume of the period in which we find al-Būnī is
Süleymaniye MS Carullah 986, the first work of which is a copy of al-Būnī’s
Hidāyat al-qāṣidīn wa-nihāyat al-wāṣilīn (though in this volume titled Bidāyat
687/1288; part of a work on Arabic phonetics. For some further notes on the MS see Arthur
John Arberry, The Chester Beatty Library: A Handlist of the Arabic Manuscripts, Dublin,
Emery Walker, 1955, I, p. 68-69; Pilar Garrido-Clemente, “Edición crítica del K. Jawāṣṣ
al-ḥurûf de Ibn Masarra”, Al-Andalus Magreb, 14 (2007), p. 54 ff.
70 On Ibn Masarra and his later followers see Maribel Fierro, La heterodoxia en al-Andalus
durante el período omeya, Madrid, Instituto Hispano-Arabe de Cultura, 1987, p. 167-168;
id., “Bāṭinism in al-Andalus”, p. 98 ff; Sarah Stroumsa and Sara Sviri, “The Beginnings
of Mystical Philosophy in al-Andalus: Ibn Masarra and His Epistle on Contemplation”,
Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 36 (2009), p. 201-253; Pilar Garrido Clemente, “The
Book of the Universe: On the Life and Works of Ibn Masarra al-Jabali”, Ishraq: Islamic
Philosophy Yearbook, 1 (2010), p. 379-403; Ebstein, Mysticism and Philosophy, passim. The
full bibliography on Ibn Masarra is much longer.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

438 Gardiner
al-qāṣidīn wa-nihāyat al-wāṣilīn), followed by thirty works by Ibn ʿArabī, many

of them written after he migrated east. The manuscript is neither dated nor
signed by the copyist, but Yahia asserts that it was copied during Ibn ʿArabī’s
lifetime. Though this cannot be confirmed, certainly it was copied no later
than the turn of the eighth/fourteenth century. It is a large volume, with forty-
three lines per page in small Maġribī script, suggesting that the copyist was
a western Sufi who had come east during the seventh/thirteenth century.
Whoever he was, the copyist must have been well-integrated with the com-
munities in which Ibn ʿArabī’s works circulated. Scholars of Ibn ʿArabī regard
the texts in the volume as highly accurate, and it contains a copy of Fuṣūs
al-ḥikam, which, as mentioned earlier, was closely guarded by the šayḫ’s early
disciples, and which only very rarely was included in compilations of his
works.71
Later interpreters of al-Būnī frequently discussed his works and ideas
in combination with those of Ibn ʿArabī, and this codical pairing of the two
authors is evidence that this had already begun by the late seventh/thirteenth
century, among some of the earliest generations of Ibn ʿArabī’s disciples. Early
Šāḏilite groups also took up many aspects of Ibn ʿArabī’s teachings,72 and it is
not difficult to imagine that works by al-Būnī, Ibn ʿArabī, al-Šāḏilī, and even Ibn
Masarra sometimes all were read together in such laboratories of early-Mamlūk
Sufism as the reading communities that produced the two manuscripts to
hand. These codices bear witness to a process in which the teachings of various
western šayḫs were synthesized by groups that included many newcomers to
Egypt and environs. Given the bold alterity of western Sufism relative to the
norms of Egypt at the time, I would suggest that this process took place largely
behind closed doors, at least until the stage where these outsiders successfully
integrated themselves with, and to some degree overmastered, the eastward-
looking tradition of conspicuously šarīʿa-minded, ḫānqāh-centered Sufism
that had come to dominate Egypt during the Ayyūbid period.
Conclusion
The esotericist nature of al-Būnī’s writings and methods of promulgating

his works, and the similar inclinations of the reading communities in which
they circulated in the century or so after his death, are of interest in that they
help shed light on how such theologically risqué materials gained a foothold
71 Personal correspondence with Stephen Hirtenstein of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society.
72 Richard J.A. McGregor, Sanctity and Mysticism in Medieval Egypt: The Wafāʾ Sufi Order and
the Legacy of Ibn ʿArabī, Albany, State University of New York Press, 2004, p. 28 ff.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

in Egyptian Sufism and, eventually, Mamlūk learned culture more broadly.

Moreover, they assist in locating al-Būnī and the eventual success of his
teachings in the context of a wider trend toward esotericism in late-medieval
Mediterranean learned culture.
As mentioned at the beginning of this paper, Moshe Halbertal has argued
that the sixth/twelfth and seventh/thirteenth centuries were a time in which
a wave of esotericism gradually came to the fore in various Jewish learned
discourses, manifesting in the complex array of doctrines and praxes that fell
under the umbrella of Kabbalah, as well as in the works of such diverse thinkers
as Abraham b. Ezra (d. between 1164 and 1167 CE) and Maimonides. This trend
originated largely in the Islamicate western Mediterranean and spread around
the sea and beyond before slowly dissipating in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries as many of the discourses became so widely accepted in Jewish
culture as to render gestures at secrecy superfluous.73 In Halbertal’s analysis,
this esotericism stemmed from a crisis of dissatisfaction with the limitations
of traditional religious thought, and was an outlet for intellectual creativity
in that it “expand[ed] the receptivity of authoritative texts to new meanings”
while also endowing radically novel understandings of scripture with “the
privileged status of the internal foundation of religion” by claiming them as
secret traditions of the highest authority.74 In many cases, as in the works of
Abraham b. Ezra and some strains of Kabbalah, this entailed the use of scriptu-
ral hermeneutics to engage with occult-scientific and philosophical discourses
that were otherwise considered beyond the pale.75 Al-Būnī’s lettrism, which
al-Būnī frames as a secret exegetical tradition passed down from the prophets,
imāms, and saints, and which blends quasi-Neoplatonic metaphysical and
cosmological speculation rooted in Ismāʿīlī thought, Sufi notions of sanctity
and miracle, spiritual exercises such as ḏikr and ḫalwa, and occult-scientific
practices such as the making of talismans, certainly parallels the synthetic dis-
courses Halbertal discusses. To note this is not to follow Ullmann and others
of his generation in dismissing al-Būnī as a naive bricolateur. While some of
this synthesis likely was al-Būnī’s own creative concoction, his discipleship to
al-Mahdawī and his ideas’ resonance with those of Ibn ʿArabī, Ibn Masarra,
and others clearly indicates that he was immersed in the unique strains of
western-Sufi thought that had been fostered over preceding centuries in the
shadow of the dominating Mālikī divines of the Almoravid period and the
barely more-tolerant Almohad authorities. In coming east, al-Būnī and other
of his western-Sufi compatriots were the bearers of this creative body of lettrist
73 Halbertal, Concealment and Revelation, passim.

74 Ibid., p. 138.
75 Ibid., p. 34-48.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

440 Gardiner
thought and praxis, which they proceeded to adapt to their new surroundings.
The genuine intellectual and spiritual appeal of these novel doctrines for many
Sufis in Egypt and elsewhere in the East should not be underestimated.
Halbertal’s analysis is not entirely intellectualist, and neither should our
understanding of al-Būnī’s esotericism be. Along with other scholars of late-me-
dieval Jewish thought, he notes that Kabbalah and other esotericist discourses
were also means by which entrenched structures of socioreligious authority
were challenged, most often by savants whom whatever circumstances of birth
or politics had excluded from positions of the highest prestige—i.e. secondary
or tertiary elites.76 Thus Kabbalists and other esotericists of the period were
by no means anarchists, but rather were seeking to gain advantage without
entirely upending the epistemological basis of a social order that favored the
learned. As such, if the fear of being prosecuted as heretics was one impetus
for their secrecy, then the need to maintain boundaries against total freedom
of speculation was another. Indeed, I would posit that the catastrophes that
Isaac the Blind, Ibn ʿArabī, and al-Būnī hint would transpire if the secrets they
guarded were freely revealed to the vulgar masses can be read as intimations of
the threat to their own authority as religious specialists that a total loosening
of restrictions on scriptural hermeneutics would have represented. Facing
fluid challenges in needing to build and maintain networks of peers and
patrons without undermining their own position in society, esotericists adop-
ted various approaches in different milieux. It is in this light that I would argue
that al-Būnī’s decision to transgress certain limits by writing about operative
aspects of lettrism should not be regarded as throwing caution to the wind, but
as strategic relative to his need to establish himself in his adopted homeland,
a calculation that the risk of some degree of exposure was outweighed by the
value of written texts as “instrument[s] of affiliation and status.”77
The numbers of surviving Bunian manuscripts suggest that the volume of
copies of Bunian works in circulation increased beginning in the first half of
the eighth/fourteenth century. It is in the same period that al-Būnī’s works
began to be referenced with greater frequency in outside literature, such as
in al-Nuwayrī’s (d. 733/1333) encyclopedic Nihāyat al-arab, in which tidbits of
76 Ibid., p. 69 ff; Wolfson, “Beyond the Spoken Word”, passim; Moshe Idel, “Transmission in
Thirteenth-Century Kabbalah,” in Transmitting Jewish Traditions: Orality, Textuality, and
Cultural Diffusion, eds Yaakov Elman and Israel Gershoni, New Haven, Yale University
Press, 2000, p. 138-165.
77 Ohlander, Sufism in an Age of Transition, p. 53.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

instructions for talismans are excerpted from Laṭāʾif al-išārāt,78 or in a fatwā

from the Ḥanbalī firebrand Ibn Taymiyya on impermissible forms of prayer, in
which al-Būnī and his al-Lumʿa l-nūrāniyya are condemned for promoting star-
worship.79 The combination of the greater number of manuscripts and literary
references such as these shows that his works by then had begun to escape the
confines of the esotericist reading communities discussed in this paper, and to
circulate more freely among the sort of learned Syro-Egyptian elites at whom
works such as al-Nuwayrī’s were aimed—however much to the dismay of cer-
tain critics from among the ʿulamāʾ. This devolution of the secrecy and exclu-
sivity that originally surrounded al-Būnī’s works can be taken as a sign of his
readers’ successes in insinuating themselves into Sufi hierarchies in Egypt and
environs. This development can in turn be seen as part of the larger process
of Sufism’s expansion during the Mamlūk period to become an integral part
of both learned culture and popular piety, though the fact that the timing of it
roughly tracks the waning of Jewish esotericism’s potency in Halbertal’s chro-
nology suggests that transconfessional, pan-Mediterranean cultural dynamics
were at work rather than just Islamic and Syro-Egyptian ones.
Figure 1 Dated Mamlūk-era Bunian MSS by half-century, based on the author’s survey of the
corpus.
78 Al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab, Cairo, Dār al-kutub al-miṣriyya, 1935, XII,
p. 226-228.
79 Ibn Taymiyya, Maǧmūʿ, X, p. 251. Ibn Taymiyya in fact refers to al-Būnī’s work as al-Šuʿla
l-nūrāniyya, but šuʿla being a synonym for lumʿa strongly suggests that he was referring to
al-Lumʿa l-nūrāniyya.
Arabica 64 (2017) 405-441

Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486
brill.com/arab
Magie et politique : événements historiques et

pensée politique dans le Šams al-maʿārif attribué à
al-Būnī (mort en 622/1225)
Jean-Charles Coulon
IRHT-CNRS
[email protected]
Résumé
À la fin de l’époque médiévale, les cercles du pouvoir se sont beaucoup intéressés aux
sciences occultes. Que l’on étudie les civilisations chrétienne ou islamique, on constate
que des gouverneurs, leurs conseillers ou leurs agents faisaient la promotion de l’as-
trologie, de l’alchimie, de la magie, etc. À titre d’exemple, nous trouvons des copies de
l’ouvrage de magie le plus important de l’Islam médiéval, le Šams al-maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif
al-ʿawārif, avec des dédicaces pour des personnalités de premier plan. Les origines de
ce traité demeurent obscures, d’où la paucité des recherches sur son contexte histo-
rique. Attribué à Abū l-ʿAbbās al-Būnī, un soufi maghrébin que l’on suppose mort en
622/1225, il pourrait plutôt avoir été écrit à la fin du VIIe/XIIIe siècle ou dans la première
moitié du VIIIe/XIVe siècle, à l’époque mamelouke. La tombe d’al-Būnī était l’objet de
visites en tant que lieu de pèlerinage soufi et le Šams al-maʿārif est réputé contenir
les secrets de ce šayḫ, connu comme étant « celui dont les prières sont exaucées »
(muǧāb al-daʿawāt). Notre propos ici est d’analyser ces éléments du Šams al-maʿārif
qui contiennent une dimension historique ou politique afin de mettre en évidence des
perspectives politiques et l’influence de la pensée politique sur cet ouvrage. Certains
éléments peuvent nous informer sur le contexte historique de l’écriture de ce livre.
* Le présent article est une version développée et augmentée de certains passages inédits
de notre thèse de doctorat traitant de la question des interactions entre le Šams al-maʿārif
et la littérature d’adab et la pensée politique arabes médiévales. Voir Jean-Charles Coulon,
La magie islamique et le corpus bunianum au Moyen Âge, thèse préparée sous la direction
d’Abdallah Cheikh-Moussa et Ludvik Kalus, Université de Paris IV Sorbonne, 2013, I, p. 989-
1038. Nous tenons à remercier ici Amandine Adwan pour sa relecture et ses remarques.

Magie et politique 443
Mots clefs
Šams al-maʿārif, al-Būnī, magie, politique, califes, sultans, culture de cour
Abstract
During the late medieval period, the circles of power were very much invested in the
occult sciences. Whether we study Christendom or Islamic civilization, rulers, their
advisers or their agents promoted astrology, alchemy, magic, etc. As an outstanding
example, we find manuscripts of the seminal magical manual Šams al-maʿārif wa-
laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif dedicated to prominent individuals. The origins of this treatise remain
quite obscure, hence the paucity of research into its historical context. Attributed
to Abū l-ʿAbbās al-Būnī, a Maghribi Sufi master supposed to have died in 622/1225,
it may rather have been written at the end of the 7th/13th century or in the middle
of the 8th/14th, under Mamluk rule. And just as al-Būnī’s tomb was visited as a Sufi
shrine, the Šams al-maʿārif is supposed to contain the secrets of this shaykh, famed as
“one whose prayers are granted” (muǧāb al-daʿawāt). Our purpose here is to analyse
those elements of the Šams al-maʿārif which contain a historical or political dimension
in order to draw out some political perspectives and the influence of political thought
on this work. Such elements, in turn, may inform us about the historical background
of the writing of this book.
Keywords
Šams al-maʿārif, al-Būnī, magic, politics, caliphs, sultans, court culture
Introduction
La mise en scène du pouvoir au Moyen Âge confère aux souverains une auto-
rité de nature quasi magique. Aziz Al-Azmeh dépeint ainsi la figure idéale de
l’homme de pouvoir dans l’Islam médiéval :
Au niveau le plus élémentaire, n’importe qui aurait commencé avec les

qualités quasi-magiques de la personne du calife. Il y a un propos, très
répandu dans les écrits arabes médiévaux et attribué à la sagesse persane,
selon lequel la justice d’un roi – sulṭān, un terme fréquemment appli-
qué aussi aux califes – garantit le bon fonctionnement des saisons, la
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

444 Coulon
pluviosité et l’irrigation idoine, la bonne reproduction du bétail et le fonc-

tionnement correct du commerce. Cette indication n’est pas simplement
réductible à une expression sur les connections structurales du monde de
la prospérité détaillée dans le ‘cercle de justice’ étudié dans le précédent
chapitre, mais a des interprétations au-delà et en-deça de celles de la sa
gesse politique et des conseils généraux aux rois. Il était perçu comme une
manifestation empirique que l’injustice royale ne produit pas seulement
des effets matériels délétères, mais suscite des forces surnaturelles qui
agissent ineffablement, à une certaine distance, en faisant arrêter le ciel
de pleuvoir et le bétail de se reproduire. Les effets naturels de l’injustice
royale ne sont pas simplement métaphoriques, parce qu’ils ont à faire
avec la baraka selon deux aspects alambiqués : la baraka obtenue avec la
justice, qui se tarit avec l’injustice. La baraka était bien sûr partagée avec
les cheikhs soufis et les saints ḥanbalites. De nombreux actes et capacités
merveilleux et tangibles étaient attribués à Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal et d’autres ;
mais ceux-ci étaient aussi recherchés du lointain calife1.
Ainsi les sujets étaient en droit d’attendre la justice du pouvoir politique, et

la justice est elle-même une condition préalable pour la bénédiction dont
peuvent bénéficier les sujets. Le souverain devait rivaliser avec les saints en
justice et en bienveillance. Il était supposé avoir – dans la mesure du possible –
la capacité de prévenir les sinistres. L’intérêt des cours pour la magie et la di-
vination avait une réelle signification politique. L’existence de copies du Šams
al-maʿārif dédicacées à des figures politiques, comme nous allons le voir, est un
indicateur important dans cette perspective.
Le Šams al-maʿārif, comme tout traité, a été produit dans un contexte cultu-
rel, politique et social particulier. On ne peut appréhender un livre sans son
contexte historique. Dans le cas du Šams al-maʿārif, la magie a un rôle politique
important qui permet de comprendre pourquoi la littérature éthico-politique
a pu influencer son écriture. Le Šams al-maʿārif n’est pas plus intemporel que
d’autres traités sur la magie ou les sciences occultes.
Comme n’importe quelle forme de littérature, les textes de magie obéissent
à des codes spécifiques et ont une relation particulière au pouvoir. Ainsi,
Jacques Rancière écrivait :
L’expression « politique de la littérature » implique que la littérature fait

de la politique en tant que littérature. Elle suppose qu’il n’y a pas à se
demander si les écrivains doivent faire de la politique ou se consacrer
plutôt à la pureté de leur art, mais que cette pureté même a à voir avec la
1 Aziz Al-Azmeh, Muslim Kingship, Londres-New York, I.B. Tauris Publishers, 1997, p. 157.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

politique. Elle suppose qu’il y a un lien essentiel entre la politique comme

forme spécifique de la pratique collective et la littérature comme pra-
tique définie de l’art d’écrire2.
Bien que, comme le remarque Jean-Philippe Genet, « le concept de littéra-

ture politique est au demeurant tout aussi discutable que celui de miroir »3,
le renouveau des études sur la littérature éthico-politique et les « miroirs des
princes » nous amène à réfléchir sur la présence d’un langage éthico-politique
dans des écrits qui ne semblent pas jusqu’à présent avoir été analysés selon une
telle grille de lecture. Ainsi Jacques Rancière observe qu’« au-delà des formes
et des genres il y a un discours, voire un langage, qui sont caractéristiques du
discours sur le pouvoir et sur son exercice. Ce langage transcende les genres et
s’attache à un contenu, à des idées, à des conseils ou à des concepts »4.
Ce langage politique est présent dans d’autres genres que la seule littérature
éthico-politique. L’analyse historique implique de penser le rapport du texte à
son destinataire initial, qui est la clef afin de comprendre pleinement les en-
jeux de toute production écrite.
Depuis le XIXe siècle, le Šams al-maʿārif al-kubrā est certes largement diffusé
parmi les marabouts et les professionnels de l’occulte, mais également auprès
de particuliers. La diffusion massive permise par la lithographie et l’imprime-
rie a tendance à faire oublier le fait que de tels textes connurent d’abord une
diffusion plus réduite et limitée à un lectorat ciblé du fait des contraintes de
la copie d’un manuscrit. Cela impliquait également que le lecteur était tout à
fait capable de comprendre de nombreux niveaux de sens de ces textes afin de
tirer profit de ses enseignements et de ses recettes. Il est donc nécessaire
de réévaluer les implications politiques et sociales du Šams al-maʿārif en tant
que texte de magie.
Méthodologie : une brève histoire du Šams al-maʿārif
Le Šams al-maʿārif a une histoire très complexe. Il n’y a pas lieu ici de discuter
du problème de son attribution et de l’histoire de sa composition en différentes
phases car cela nous amènerait bien loin de l’analyse que nous proposons ici.
2 Jacques Rancière, Politique de la littérature, Paris, Éditions Galillée (« La philosophie en

effet »), 2007, p. 11.
3 Jean-Philippe Genet, « Conclusion », dans Le Prince au miroir de la littérature politique de
l’Antiquité aux Lumières, dir. Frédérique Lachaud et Lydwine Scordia, Mont-Saint-Augnan,
Publications des Universités de Rouen et du Havre, 2007, p. 406.
4 Ibid., p. 415.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

446 Coulon
Nous présentons donc ici quelques conclusions de recherches antérieurement

menées, que le lecteur désireux d’approfondissement consultera avec profit,
afin de présenter le texte qui occupera notre analyse5.
Le Šams al-maʿārif est un livre de magie attribué au mystique al-Būnī
(m. 622/1225). Bien que nous ne puissions avoir de certitude sur sa date de
mort, nous pouvons cependant affirmer que le Šams al-maʿārif, tel que nous
le connaissons en tant que traité de magie, a été écrit bien après la mort d’al-
Būnī, entre 670/1272, date mentionnée dans ce texte, et le début du IXe/fin du
XIVe siècle, qui correspond aux premières mentions du Šams al-maʿārif en tant
que traité de magie. Al-Būnī écrivit de son vivant un ouvrage intitulé Šams al-
maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif, mais il s’agit d’un texte bien différent : c’était alors
un texte de cosmologie soufie6. Le Šams al-maʿārif qui nous occupe ici a été
composé en réunissant divers textes, dont une partie est issue des œuvres d’al-
Būnī et dont une autre partie est issue de textes théologiques, astrologiques,
alchimiques, mystiques et magiques. La structure du texte est le fruit d’un
travail de compilation, dont nous avons identifié une partie des sources dans
notre travail doctoral7. Cette version du Šams al-maʿārif a par la suite été com-
plétée et augmentée, donnant naissance à un second texte intitulé Šams al-
maʿārif al-kubrā8. Ce Šams al-maʿārif al-kubrā a abondamment été copié dans
les cours ottomanes. Cependant, l’ouvrage connut une grande diffusion grâce
aux lithographies qui en ont circulé dès la fin du XIXe siècle. Cette abondante
diffusion a trouvé un relais scientifique en la personne d’Edmond Doutté qui,
dans son magnum opus, Magie et religion dans l’Afrique du Nord, publié à Alger
5 Voir notamment Coulon, La magie islamique, I, p. 447-565 ; Noah Gardiner, « Forbidden

Knowledge ? Notes on the production, transmission, and reception of the major works of
Aḥmad al-Būnī », Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, 12 (2012), p. 81-143 ; id., Esotericism in
a Manuscript Culture: Aḥmad al-Būnī and His Readers Through the Mamlūk Period, thèse de
doctorat, Université du Michigan, 2014. Toutes les citations du Šams al-maʿārif proviennent
de notre édition. Voir le volume 2 de Coulon, La magie islamique. Nous mentionnerons la fo-
liotation de notre manuscrit de base conservé à l’Escorial (coté 925) et noté Esc1. Nous ferons
suivre cette mention de la pagination dans notre travail de doctorat.
6 Voir Coulon, La magie islamique, I, p. 484-491. Nous en avons proposé une édition à partir du
seul manuscrit que nous avons clairement identifié de ce texte dans ibid., IV, p. 1-63.
7 Voir notamment notre tableau de concordance dans ibid., II, p. LXIV-XC.
8 Sur la version longue, on se référera à la tentative d’édition de la première moitié de la ver-
sion longue de Jaime Coullaut Cordero. Cf. Jaime Coullaut Cordero, El Kitāb Šams al-Maʿārif
al-Kubrà (al-ŷuzʾ al- awwal) de Aḥmad b. ʿAlī l-Būnī : Sufismo y ciencias ocultas, thèse sous la
direction de Vázquez de Benito, Université de Salamanque, 2009.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

en 1909, en traduisit de nombreux extraits9. Le succès de cet ouvrage ne fut

pas démenti tout au long du XXe siècle et en ce début de XXIe siècle puisque
le Šams al-maʿārif al-kubrā connaît encore très régulièrement de nouveaux ti-
rages ou de nouvelles éditions.
Dans cette étude, nous utiliserons notre édition du Šams al-maʿārif en tant
que compilation mise à l’écrit entre 670/1272 et le début du IXe/fin du XIVe
siècle. L’identité de son auteur est encore aujourd’hui inconnue, mais nous
montrerons qu’il n’appartenait pas à un milieu « populaire ».
La magie dans les cours médiévales
Les hommes de pouvoir sollicitaient eux-mêmes certaines formes de magie.

Nous pouvons observer des témoignages matériels entre les XIIe et XVIe siècle,
période d’élaboration du corpus bunianum, à travers quelques artéfacts.
Ainsi plusieurs artéfacts portant des dédicaces à des souverains nous sont
parvenus, parmi lesquels, par exemple, deux bols talismaniques pour le sul-
tan Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. Zankī (r. 541/1146-569/1174) datés de 563/1167-1168
et 565/1169-117010, une coupe magique au sultan mamlouke al-Ẓāhir Baybars11
(r. 658/1260-676/1277), une coupe magique au nom du sultan mamelouk
al-Manṣūr Lāǧīn12 (r. 696/1296-698/1299), encore une autre coupe magique à
Asad al-Dīn al-Malik al-Manṣūr Šīrkūh13. Le recours des hommes de pouvoir
9 Voir Edmond Doutté, Magie et religion dans l’Afrique du Nord, Alger, Typographie Adolphe
Jourdan, 1909.
10 Peter E. Pormann et Emilie Savage-Smith, Medieval Islamic Medicine, Edimbourg, Edin-
burgh University Press Ltd, 2007, p. 151 ; Emilie Savage-Smith, Francis Maddisson, Ralph
Pinder-Wilson et Tim Stanley, Science, tools and magic, New-York-Londres-Oxford, 1997,
p. 82 (objet n°25). Bien entendu, cet objet n’a pu être influencé par l’œuvre d’al-Būnī.
11 Quatrième sultan mamelouk, il prit le pouvoir en participant à l’assassinat de son prédé-
cesseur Quṭuz en 658/1260 à l’issue de la bataille de ʿAyn Ǧālūt, victoire emblématique
des Mamelouks d’Égypte contre l’avancée des Mongols. Il s’illustra également dans la
lutte contre les États latins d’Orient, avec par exemple la prise du Krak des Chevaliers et
d’autres places fortes en 669/1271. Gaston Wiet, « Baybars Ier », EI 2.
12 Sur ces coupes, Gaston Wiet, « Les inscriptions de Saladin », Syria, 3 (1922), p. 327.
Al-Malik al-Manṣūr Lāǧīn est un sultan mamelouk acheté par Qalāwūn et qui fut d’abord
commandeur de la citadelle de Damas. Son règne fut marqué par les nombreuses rivalités
entre ses partisans et ceux de son prédécesseur. Cf. Peter Malcolm Holt, « Lād̲ jī̲ n », EI 2.
13 Hans Henry Spoer, « Arabic magic medicinal bowls », Journal of the American Oriental
Society, 55 (1935), p. 254-256. Šīrkūh est également connu dans les sciences occultes pour
avoir fait un rêve prémonitoire sur sa victoire contre son adversaire fatimide. Cf. Gustav
Edmund Ritter von Grunebaum, « Introduction: the cultural function of the dream as
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

448 Coulon
à ce type d’objets semblait tellement naturel qu’il existe même des coupes ma-
giques prétendûment dédiées à Saladin14. Cette assertion est d’autant plus sur-
prenante que ce souverain a laissé chez des chroniqueurs postérieurs, comme
ʿImād al-Aṣfahānī, la réputation de n’avoir pas accordé de crédit aux paroles
des astrologues et de ne s’en remettre qu’à Dieu seul15. L’usage des coupes ma-
giques était répandu. Il s’agit d’un usage le plus souvent médical. Ainsi des ar-
tisans ont laissé leur nom sur ces objets16.
Des objets à dimension astrologique circulaient également. Il ne s’agit
plus de magie, mais l’utilisation de l’astrologie dans les rituels magiques nous
autorise à le mentionner. Ainsi Joseph Toussaint Reinaud a étudié un mi-
roir astrologique de l’Arṭuqide de Kharpert (Harput) Nūr al-Dīn Arṭuq Šāh17
(r. 622/1225-631/1234) aujourd’hui disparu. Nous pouvons mettre en relation
cet objet avec l’appétence de cette dynastie pour l’astrologie et les sciences
occultes de manière générale18. Cette appétence est manifeste dans les œuvres
d’al-Ǧawbarī (fl. 629/1232-646/1248-1249) sur la magie astrale et les façons de
détecter les ruses, astuces et divers escamotages et arnaques19.
illustrated by Classical Islam », dans The Dream and Human Societies, éd. Gustav Edmund
Ritter von Grunebaum et Roger Caillois, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1966, p. 13.
14 Cf. Ahmed Zéki Pacha, « Coupe magique dédiée à Salah ad-Din (Saladin) », Bulletin de
l’Institut Égyptien, 5e ser., 10 (1916), p. 241-287, mais c’est Gaston Wiet qui contesta cette at-
tribution sur la base de la titulature que contient la coupe, complètement anachronique
pour l’époque ayyoubide. Il propose pour contexte de production l’Égypte de la fin du IXe/
XVe siècle. Cf. Gaston Wiet, « Les inscriptions de Saladin », p. 319-328.
15 Cf. Abd al-Razzaq Moaz, « Note sur les sciences occultes vues par la société damascène
depuis le milieu du VIe/XIIe siècle jusqu’à la fin du VIIe/XIIIe siècle », Bulletin d’Études
Orientales, 44 (1992), p. 80.
16 Voir par exemple Muḥammad b. Yūnus, nom qui, comme le signale Annette Ittig, se re-
trouve sur de nombreuses coupes, ce qui suggère une abondante production tout à fait
assumée. Cf. Annette Ittig, « A talismanic bowl », Annales Islamologiques, 18 (1982), p. 81.
17 Joseph Toussaint Reinaud, Monuments arabes, persans et turcs, du cabinet de M. le Duc de
Blacas et d’autres cabinets, Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1828, p. 404-420 ; mentionné égale-
ment par Gaston Wiet, « Les inscriptions de Saladin », p. 320. Nous considérons ici qu’il
s’agit d’un objet magique dans la mesure où les miroirs magiques sont nombreux, et ces
représentations zodiacales sur un miroir semblent aller dans le même sens. Il ne s’agit
toutefois pas d’une forme de magie du même type que celle du corpus bunianum avec
emploi de versets du Coran, mais on peut rapprocher le miroir astrologique de la magie
astrale de Ġāyat al-ḥakīm ou al-Sirr al-maktūm.
18 Cf. Anna Caiozzo, Images du ciel d’Orient au Moyen Âge, Paris, Presses Universitaires de
Paris- Sorbonne (« Collection Islam »), 2003, p. 97-105.
19 Seule cette seconde œuvre nous est parvenue et a fait l’objet d’une édition : al-Ǧawbarī,
Al-Ǧ awbarī und sein Kašf al-asrār – ein Sittenbild des Geuners im arabisch- islamischen
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

Nous pouvons également ajouter à cela qu’al-Būnī est mentionné dans

des ouvrages destinés à une élite politique et militaire. Par exemple, il est
mentionné comme référence dans le domaine de la magie par Ibn Manklī
(m. après 773/1371-1372), dans son traité de furūsiyya intitulé Kitāb al-Tadbīrāt
al-sulṭāniyya fī siyāsat al-ṣināʿa l-ḥarbiyya (Le livre de la conduite des affaires
sultaniennes : le commandement de l’art de la guerre)20. Dans son traité, Ibn
Manklī, juste après le prologue, parle de différentes branches des sciences oc-
cultes, à commencer par la « science du pouvoir par les noms divins » (ʿilm
al-taṣarruf bi-l-asmāʾ al-ilāhiyya), puis la « science du secret des lettres » (ʿilm
sirr al-ḥurūf), la « numérologie » (ʿilm al-ʿadad), « ce qu’il faut écrire sur le
casque en temps de guerre » (mā yuktabu ʿalā l-bayḍ waqt al-ḥarb), plus loin
« ce que l’on écrit sur la flèche » (mā yuktabu ʿalā l-sihām), « ce que l’on écrit
pour la ruine des forteresses » (mā yuktabu li-ḫirāb al-ḥuṣūn), « ce que l’on écrit
pour préserver les chevaux et défaire l’ennemi » (mā yuktabu li-ḥifẓ al-faras wa-
li-nhizām al-ʿaduw), « ce que l’on dit sur les voyages » (mā yuqālu fī l-asfār), « ce
que l’on dit sur la défaite de l’ennemi » (mā yuqālu fī nhizām al-ʿaduw), etc. Les
recettes qui sont présentées dans ces sections, même lorsqu’elles ne sont pas
nommément associées à al-Būnī, correspondent typiquement à la structure de
la majorité des recettes du corpus bunianum, notamment les opuscules par-
fois fautivement attribués au cheikh maghrébin. À titre d’exemple, Ibn Manklī
commence avec la recette suivante : « Dans [la science du pouvoir par les noms
divins], celui qui multiplie la mention de ce sublime nom “Grand Auguste”
(Kabīr Mutaʿāl) – Il est majestueux, que Ses noms soient sanctifiés –, Dieu
lui ouvre le secret de sa signification, lui soumet les créatures du reste des
mondes, son pouvoir sur l’existence est renforcé, Dieu le préserve des mal-
heurs et le défend contre ce qu’Il abhorre » (min ḏālika “Kabīr Mutaʿāl” – ǧalla
ǧalāluhu wa-taqaddasat asmāʾuhu – man akṯara min ḏikr hāḏā l-ism al-ʿaẓīm
fataḥa Llāh ʿalayhi bi-sirr maʿnāhu fa-tuḫḍiʿu lahu l-maḫlūqāt min sāʾir al-
ʿawālim wa-quwiya taṣarrufuhu fī l-wuǧūd, wa-ḥafiẓahu Llāh taʿālā min al-āfāt,
wa-dafaʿa ʿanhu mā yakrahu)21. Cette recette est exactement du même type
que celles qui constituent al-Muntaḫab al-rafīʿ al-asnā (Le résumé élevé et
Mittelalter (7./13. Jahrhundert), éd. Manuela Höglmeier, Berlin, Klaus Schwarz Verlag,
2006.
20 Ṣādiq Maḥmūd al-Ǧumaylī, « Kitāb al-Tadbīrāt al-sulṭāniyya fī siyāsat al-ṣināʿa
l-ḥarbiyya », al-Mawrid, 12/4 (1983) [numéro spécial al-Fikr al-ʿaskarī ʿinda l-ʿarab], p. 329-
331 ; mentionné par Abbès Zouache, « Guerre et culture dans l’Orient musulman médié-
val : astrologie et divination », dans Guerre et paix dans l’Orient médiéval, dir. Mathieu
Eychenne, Stéphane Pradines et Abbès Zouache, Le Caire, IFAO-Ifpo, à paraître.
21 Al-Ǧumaylī, « Kitāb al-Tadbīrāt al-sulṭāniyya », p. 226.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

450 Coulon
haut), parfois appelé Risālat al-Ḫawāṣṣ (L’épître des propriétés), un opuscule

sur les propriétés occultes des noms divins qui a connu une bonne diffusion22.
Si le Kitāb al-Tadbīrāt al-sulṭāniyya, destiné aux hommes d’épée, mentionne
al-Būnī, le cheikh bônois est également, peut-être plus encore, une autorité
chez les hommes de plume. Nous pouvons prendre comme exemple le manuel
de chancellerie Ṣubḥ al-aʿšā fī ṣināʿat al-inšāʾ (Le matin de l’héméralope ou l’art
de la rédaction) d’al-Qalqašandī (m. 821/1418) composé en 814/1412, où al-Lumʿa
l-nūrāniyya (La lueur luminescente), les Laṭāʾif al-išārāt (Les subtilités des in-
dices) et le Šams al-maʿārif (Le soleil des connaissances) sont mentionnés23.
Cependant, les indices de la présence effective de magiciens dans les cours
sont rares. Les « professionnels » de l’occulte gardent un statut ambigu du fait
qu’ils sont officiellement condamnés par les savants religieux (ʿulamāʾ). Le re-
cours aux fabricants de talismans semble avoir toutefois été nécessaire dans la
gestion de la cité. Par exemple, Amīn al-Dawla ʿAbd al-Salām al-Sāmarrī, vizir
d’al-Ṣāliḥ Ismāʿīl b. al-Malik al-ʿĀdil24 (m. 648/1251), aurait fait installer des ta-
lismans contre les pigeons dans la mosquée des Omeyyades de Damas25.
Al-Būnī à la cour
La dynastie mamelouke a manifesté quelque intérêt pour l’œuvre d’al-Būnī.

Un culte autour de la tombe du « cheikh aux prières exaucées » se développa
dans le cimetière soufi d’al-Qarāfa. Ce quartier avait un rôle particulier dans
la diffusion de l’enseignement d’al-Būnī. Ainsi un manuscrit du commentaire
d’al-Būnī sur les noms divins comporte une note avec des informations sur le
contexte de rédaction. Il y est précisé que la copie d’origine a fait l’objet d’une
audition de la part du compositeur du traité (samāʿ al-muṣannif), i.e. al-Būnī,
comme en témoigne une marque d’audition d’une de ses « séances » (maǧālis)
dont la dernière eut lieu le 23 rabīʿ I 622/4 avril 1225. Cette copie d’origine pro-
viendrait du grand Qarāfa et aurait été copiée entre le 1er ḏū l-qaʿda et le 17 ḏū
22 Sur ce traité, voir Coulon, La magie islamique, I, p. 502-505 ; le texte est édité dans ibid., IV,
p. 312-363.
23 Al-Qalqašandī, Ṣubḥ al-aʿšā, Le Caire, Dār al-kutub al-miṣriyya, 1922, I, p. 474.
24 Ismāʿīl b. al-Malik al-ʿĀdil était un prince ayyoubide qui fut sultan de Damas de 635/1237
à 635/1238 et de 637/1239 à 643/1245. Résistant avec beaucoup de difficultés au sultan
d’Égypte al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb, il finit par être capturé et meurt assassiné en prison. Cf. Donald
Sydney Richard, « al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ ʿImād al-Dīn », EI 2.
25 Cf. Anne Regourd, « Talismans et magie autour de la mosquée des Omeyyades »,
Mélanges de l’Institut Dominicain d’Études Orientales, 22 (1995), p. 419.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

l-ḥiǧǧa 621/14 novembre-30 décembre 122426. De plus, un exemplaire des Laṭāʾif

al-išārāt, un des traités que l’on peut attribuer sans risque d’erreur à al-Būnī,
précise qu’il a été copié à partir d’un manuscrit « auditionné » (samiʿa) par le
juge (qāḍī) ʿUmar b. Ibrāhīm al-Rabʿī et son fils Ibrāhīm dans le grand Qarāfa,
« lieu de sa composition » (wa-huwa mawḍiʿ ta‌ʾlīfihi), en rabīʿ I 622, soit l’année
à laquelle les séances organisées par al-Būnī semblent s’être arrêtées27.
De façon plus générale, l’intérêt de hauts dignitaires pour le corpus bunia-
num est manifeste si l’on étudie les dédicaces des manuscrits. Ainsi un manus-
crit du Šams al-maʿārif de la Bibliothèque nationale de France à Paris (BnF,
ARABE 2649) comporte une dédicace à un certain « ʿAlāʾ al-Dunyā wa-l-Dīn28,
notre seigneur ʿAlī, le porte-écritoire (al-dawādar)29, descendance de sa ma-
jesté feu30 l’émir Ṭūġān al-Nūrūzī » ([…] al-ʿAlāʾī sayyidī ʿAlī l-dawādār naǧl
al-maqarr al-marḥūm al-amīr Ṭūġān al-Nūrūzī). Il s’agit donc d’un descendant
de l’émir Sayf al-Dīn Ṭūġān b. ʿAbd Allāh (m. 856/1452), qui faisait partie des
esclaves de Nūrūz al-Ḥāfiẓī et qui devint porte-écritoire (dawādār) du sultan
à Damas31.
Une autre dédicace écrite exactement dans le même style (ce qui permet
de supposer que le manuscrit provient du même atelier) se trouve dans le
manuscrit de l’Escorial 94332. Elle porte le nom de « Yūnus le porte-écritoire
(al-dawādar) ». Il a bien existé un émir Sayf al-Dīn Yūnus b. ʿAbd Allāh al-
Nūrūzī (m. 791/1389), porte écritoire d’al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Barqūq, deuxième ou
troisième à exercer cette fonction d’après Ibn Taġrī Birdī33, mais le colophon
26 Voir al-Būnī, ʿAlam al-hudā, MS Istanbul, Resid Efendi, 590. Sur cette note voir Coulon, La
magie islamique, I, p. 408.
27 Voir al-Būnī, Laṭāʾif al-išārāt, MS Paris, BnF, ARABE 2658, folo 90a. Sur cette note voir
Coulon, La magie islamique, I, p. 409-410 et IV, p. XXIII.
28 Nous donnons ici la forme développée d’al-ʿAlāʾī.
29 Al-dawādār désigne une fonction particulière à l’époque mamelouke : c’est celui qui porte
l’encrier de l’émir ou du sultan et doit gérer tout ce qui s’y rapporte. Il est donc un membre
actif de l’exécutif. Cf. Muḥammad Aḥmad Dahmān, Muʿǧam al-alfāẓ al-tārīḫiyya fī l-ʿaṣr
al-mamlūkī, Beyrouth, Dār al-fikr al-muʿāṣir, 1990, p. 77.
30 Al-marḥūm signifie « digne de miséricorde », mais implique que la personne soit décédée,
d’où notre traduction.
31 Cf. Ibn Taġrī Birdī, al-Manhal al-ṣāfī, éd. Muḥammad Amīn, Le Caire, Markaz taḥqīq al-
turāṯ, 1993, VII, p. 25 (notice 1285) et du même auteur al-Nuǧūm al-ẓāhira fī mulūk Miṣr
wa-l-Qāhira, éd. Muḥammad Ḥusayn Šams al-Dīn, Beyrouth, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya,
1992, XV, p. 296.
32 Pseudo-al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif, MS Saint Laurent de l’Escurial, 943, page de titre.
33 Cf. Ibn Taġrī Birdī, al-Manhal al-ṣāfī, XII, p. 263 (notice 2740) et al-Nuǧūm al-ẓāhira, XI,
p. 320.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

452 Coulon
contredit cette identification (la copie du manuscrit aurait été terminée le 10

ḏū l-ḥiǧǧa 862/19 octobre 1458). Sans doute s’agit-il plutôt d’un de ses descen-
dants, comme pour le manuscrit de Paris, BnF, ARABE 2649. Dans les deux
cas, cette haute fonction dénote une clientèle de prestige34.
Il n’est donc pas étonnant de voir que l’œuvre d’al-Būnī ait pu circuler dans
les cercles du pouvoir à l’époque ottomane. En effet, l’intégration d’al-Būnī
dans les œuvres de ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī (m. 858/1454) en sont un indice
évident : ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī s’inscrit dans une tradition de littérature
de cour. Les Ottomans ont puisé dans des œuvres divinatoires une forme de
légitimité. Les œuvres de ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī sont en fait un prélude au
culte d’Ibn ʿArabī qui s’accentue fortement avec la prise de Damas par Selīm Ier
(r. 918/1512-926/1520) en 922/1516 et à la légende selon laquelle il mit au jour le
tombeau du « plus grand cheikh ». Une œuvre fautivement attribuée à al-Būnī
conforte cette légende puisqu’il y est affirmé : « Lorsque la lettre sīn [= Selīm]
entrera dans la lettre šīn [Šām = Damas], apparaîtra la tombe de Muḥyī l-Dīn
[= Ibn ʿArabī] »35. L’œuvre est en réalité al-Durra l-fāḫira d’Aḥmad b. Muḥammad
al-Būnī (m. 1116/1704) bien que la plupart des manuscrits identifient cet auteur
à notre Aḥmad b. ʿAlī l-Būnī. L’œuvre en elle-même est le commentaire d’un
opuscule fautivement attribué à Ibn ʿArabī dans lequel il annonce l’avène-
ment de la dynastie ottomane36. Ces légendes ont sans doute pu se diffuser et
servir de légitimation à la dynastie dans la mesure où ces personnages avaient
acquis une solide réputation dans la culture ottomane37.
À n’en pas douter, la magie – et la science des lettres – en général, et l’œuvre
attribuée à al-Būnī en particulier, ont suscité l’intérêt des cercles de pouvoir.
Curieusement, il semble que la production la plus diffusée dans ces cercles
34 Sur l’importance des sciences occultes dans les cercles de pouvoir mamelouk, voir no-
tamment les contributions de Noah Gardiner et Matthew Melvin-Koushki dans le présent
volume.
35 Traduction de Bakri Aladdin. Cf. introduction dans Bakri Aladdin (dir.), Symbolisme et
herméneutique dans la pensée de Ibn ʿArabī, Damas, Institut Français du Proche-Orient,
2007, p. 10. La citation provient d’Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Būnī, al-Durra l-fāḫira ʿalā
ramz al-Šayḫ, MS Paris, BnF, ARABE 6682, folos 2a-3a.
36 Cf. Denis Gril, « L’énigme de la Šaǧara al-nuʿmāniyya fī l-dawla al-ʿuṯmāniyya, attribuée à
Ibn ʿArabī », dans Les traditions apocalyptiques au tournant de la chute de Constantinople
(Actes de la Table ronde d’Istanbul), éd. Benjamin Lellouch et Stéphane Yerasimos, Varia
Turcica, 33 (1999), p. 133-154.
37 Sur l’importance des sciences occultes dans les cercles de pouvoir ottoman, voir notam-
ment les contributions d’Ahmet Tunç Şen, Emin Lelić et Özgen Felek dans le présent
volume.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

reste celle à contenu plus magique que mystique. Il est clair que le Šams al-
maʿārif notamment correspond beaucoup plus dans son style, ses références et
ses buts aux goûts d’une élite cultivée, ce qui permet même de supposer que ce
sont dans ces cercles qu’il fut produit, à l’inverse des autres œuvres du « noyau
historique ».
Archétypes politiques dans le Šams al-maʿārif
Le Šams al-maʿārif est avant tout un livre de magie. Les analyses se focalisent
généralement sur l’aspect purement « magique » (astrologie, démonologie,
angélologie, etc.) ou l’aspect soufi (invocations, ḏikrs, etc.). Le Šams al-maʿārif
n’est pas un livre politique, ni un livre d’histoire, ni une anthologie littéraire.
Cependant, s’il ne s’inscrit dans aucun de ces genres, il est abusif de le consi-
dérer comme un traité de magie « populaire ». Comme l’essentiel de la pro-
duction écrite médiévale, il est probablement issu d’une cour (sultanienne,
émirale, vizirale, etc.). Le manque d’informations sur le compilateur qui en-
dossa l’identité d’al-Būnī nous empêche en l’état actuel de nos connaissances
de dresser un panorama plus précis du contexte de rédaction (entre la fin du
VIIe/XIIIe siècle et la fin du VIIIe/XIVe siècle). En revanche, nous pouvons re-
lever divers éléments ou proposer des pistes de lecture qui ne manqueront pas
de rappeler les codes des littératures clairement écrites dans les cours, qu’il
s’agisse de « miroirs des princes » (naṣīḥat al-mulūk) ou de littérature d’adab.
Le premier élément qui permettra de resituer cet ouvrage dans les codes de
ces littératures est l’utilisation d’archétypes de pouvoir permettant d’entrevoir
un discours politique en filigrane. Ainsi, de même qu’Alexandre le Grand est le
modèle de royauté de Kalīla wa-Dimna d’Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ38, le compilateur du
Šams al-maʿārif semble avoir eu à disposition un modèle de royauté tout trouvé
en la figure de Salomon.
Salomon, modèle de royauté

Salomon et Āṣaf b. Baraḫiyā sont des figures importantes dans le Šams al-
maʿārif. En Islam, Salomon n’est pas qu’une figure prophétique, il est aussi un
modèle de royauté. « Salomon incarne au premier chef une majesté royale,
38 Abdallah Cheikh-Moussa, « Du discours autorisé ou comment s’adresser au tyran ? », Ara-
bica, 46/2 (1999), p. 141.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

454 Coulon
qui surélève littéralement le souverain par rapport au reste de l’univers »39.

Salomon, par son pouvoir sur l’ensemble de la création, est une figure de
souverain « absolu ». Anna Caiozzo notait que la cour de Salomon est le seul
exemple de cohabitation « pacifique » entre anges et démons dans l’iconogra-
phie de l’Orient médiéval. Salomon est ainsi le trait d’union entre le monde
supérieur et le monde inférieur et garantit leur coexistence pacifique40.
La quête des instruments de pouvoir salomoniques a très tôt suscité l’attrait
des souverains. Parmi les expéditions à la recherche de villes ou de trésors de
légende qu’auraient initiés les califes (ville d’airain, ville du prophète Šaddād
b. ʿĀd, etc.), le calife omeyyade ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān (r. 65/685-86/705) au-
rait été en quête des livres et des trésors de Salomon par l’entremise de Mūsā
b. Nuṣayr (m. 98/716-717)41. Celle-ci prend l’apparence de la quête de la table
de Salomon (māʾidat Sulaymān)42 et reprend un des plus anciens récits de la
conquête d’al-Andalus relaté par Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (m. 257/871). Dans la re-
cension d’al-Ṭabarī (m. 310/923), la même année où Mūsā b. Nuṣayr découvrit
la table de Salomon, celui-ci parvint à mettre fin à une terrible sècheresse qui
s’était abattue sur l’Ifrīqiya par ses seules invocations. Si al-Ṭabarī ne fait aucun
lien clair entre la table de Salomon et ces invocations qui firent tomber la pluie,
leur immédiate juxtaposition n’est sans doute pas anodine. La quête de la table
de Salomon est également rapportée dans l’histoire de la ville d’airain dans
les Mille et une nuits, où la ville, appelée Labṭīṭ, contient la table de Salomon
et de nombreuses merveilles dont un miroir qui aurait été fait pour Salomon
39 Jocelyne Dakhlia, Le divan des rois : le politique et le religieux dans l’islam, Paris, Aubier
(« Collection historique »), 1998, p. 89. Cette prééminence en tant que modèle de souve-
raineté est clairement exprimée par exemple dans le Naṣīḥat al-mulūk (Le conseil sincère
aux rois) d’al-Māwardī, où l’auteur dresse une liste des souverains servant de modèle et
dont la première figure est Salomon, suivi de David. Cf. al-Māwardī, Naṣīḥat al-mulūk, éd.
Muḥammad Ǧāsim al-Ḥadīṯī, Bagdad, Dār al-šuʾūn al-ṯaqāfiyya l-ʿāmma, 1986, p. 131-132.
40 Anna Caiozzo, « Anges gardiens et démons familiers dans les manuscrits enluminés
de l’Orient médiéval », dans De Socrate à Tintin : anges gardiens et démons familiers
de l’Antiquité à nos jours, dir. Jean-Patrice Boudet, Philippe Faure et Christian Renoux,
Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2011, p. 105.
41 Jocelyne Dakhlia, Le divan des rois, p. 209. Jocelyne Dakhlia s’appuie cependant sur la
traduction d’Hermann Zotenberg de la traduction résumée en persan d’al-Balʿamī
(m. 363/974) de la chronique d’al-Ṭabarī. Aussi, il est possible que la table de Salomon
(māʾidat Sulaymān) mentionnée dans l’original arabe ait été déformée par une erreur de
traduction.
42 Al-Ṭabarī, Ta‌ʾrīḫ al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, éd. Muḥammad Abū l-Faḍl Ibrāhīm, Le Caire, Dār
al-Maʿārif, 1960-1969, VI, p. 481 ; Leyde, Brill, 1879-1901, II, p. 1254 ; trad. Martin Hinds, 1990,
XXIII [The Zenith of the Marwānid House], p. 201.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

et dans lequel on pouvait observer les sept climats43. On peut donc voir dans
cette centralité de la figure de Salomon la conjonction entre un héritage de la
littérature démonologique juive et chrétienne (Testament de Salomon) et une
volonté d’inscrire le discours magique dans l’exercice du pouvoir temporel.
Dans la section sur la basmala, l’auteur du Šams al-maʿārif cite Salomon
pour premier personnage coranique, affirmant que la basmala est « la pre-
mière [chose] que traça le calame céleste (al-qalam al-ʿulwī) sur la surface de
la tablette (al-ṣafḥ al-lawḥī), et c’est avec [la basmala] que Dieu – qu’Il soit
exalté – établit la royauté de Salomon – sur lui la paix ! » (wa-hiya awwal mā
ḫaṭṭahu l-qalam al-ʿulwī ʿalā l-ṣafḥ al-lawḥī, wa-hiya llatī aqāma Llāh taʿālā
bi-hā mulk Sulaymān – ʿalay-hi l-salām)44. La basmala transmet d’abord l’auto-
rité politique à Salomon. À propos de ce même verset, Salomon a un rôle bien
particulier parmi les différents prophètes qui l’auraient reçue :
La première [chose] de ce qui descendit sur Adam – sur lui le salut –

est ce verset. Il dit : « Maintenant, je sais que mes enfants n’encourront
pas le châtiment du Feu tant qu’ils existeront ». Puis [la basmala] fut
transmise après lui jusqu’au temps d’Abraham – sur lui le salut – puis
descendit sur lui dans le buchet (manǧanīq) et Dieu – qu’Il soit exalté ! –
le sauva du Feu grâce à [cette formule]. Ensuite, elle fut transmise
après lui jusqu’au temps de Salomon – sur lui la paix – et elle descen-
dit sur lui. Les anges dirent : « Par Dieu, maintenant ton règne est total,
ô fils de David ! ». Dieu – qu’Il soit exalté ! – lui ordonna de convoquer
l’ensemble des tribus, des ascètes et des fidèles. Quiconque voulait
entendre le verset de la sécurité (āyat al-amān), qu’il se réunisse autour
de Salomon fils de David dans le miḥrāb de son père. Ils se réunirent
autour de lui et Salomon monta sur la chaire à prêcher et récita sur eux
le verset de la sécurité, qui est {Au nom de Dieu, le Tout-Miséricordieux,
le Miséricordieux}. Lorsqu’ils l’entendirent, ils furent remplis de joie. Ils
dirent : « Nous attestons que tu es véritablement un envoyé de Dieu, ô
fils de David ! ». Puis [la basmala] fut transmise après lui jusqu’au temps
43 Cf. Alf layla wa-layla, Hyderabad, al-Maṭbaʿ al-Ḥayḍarī, 1884, II, p. 86-87 ; Les mille et
une nuits, trad. Jamel Eddin Bencheikh et André Miquel, Paris Gallimard, 1991-2001, IV,
p. 207-210. Voir aussi Jocelyne Dakhlia, « Un miroir de la royauté au Maghreb : la ville d’ai-
rain », dans Genèse de la ville islamique en al-Andalus et au Maghreb occidental, éds Patrice
Cressier et Mercedes García-Arenal, Casa de Velázquez, Consejo Superior de Investiga-
ciones Científicas, 1998, p. 17-36 ; Abdelfattah Kilito, L’œil et l’aiguille. Essais sur “Les mille
et une nuits”, Paris, Éditions La Découverte, 1992, p. 87-89.
44 (Pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif, Esc1, folo 11a ; Coulon, La magie islamique, II, p. 50.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

456 Coulon
de Moïse – sur lui le salut – et elle descendit sur lui. C’est grâce à elle
qu’il triompha de Pharaon et ses armées, de Coré, ses armées et ses sbires
et de Hāmān45 et ses partisans. Puis elle fut transmise après lui jusqu’au
temps de Jésus – sur lui le salut – et Dieu – qu’Il soit exalté ! – lui inspira :
« Ô fils de Marie ! Ne sais-tu pas quel verset est descendu sur toi ? »
[Jésus] répondit : « Si, ô Seigneur ! » Il lui dit : « Ô Jésus ! C’est le verset de
la sécurité qui est descendu sur toi ! » et [il s’agit de] {au nom de Dieu, le
Tout-Miséricordieux, le Miséricordieux}.
(Wa-awwal mā nazala ʿalā Ādam – ʿalay-hi l-salām – hāḏihi l-āya. Fa-qāla

l-ān ʿalimtu anna ḏurriyyatī lā tuʿaḏḏabu bi-l-nār mā dāmat ʿalay-hā
ṯumma rufiʿat baʿda-hu ilā zamān Ibrāhīm – ʿalay-hi l-salām – fa-unzilat
ʿalay-hi fī l-manǧanīq fa-naǧǧāhu Llāh taʿālā bi-hā min al-nār ṯumma
rufiʿat baʿda-hu ilā zamān Sulaymān – ʿalay-hi l-salām – fa-unzilat ʿalay-hi.
Fa-qālat al-malāʾika : « Wa-Llāh al-ān qad tamma mulkuka yā Bn Dāwūd !
Wa-amarahu Llāh taʿālā an yunādiya fī ǧamīʿ al-asbāṭ wa-l-zuhhād wa-l-
ʿubbād illā [15b] man arāda an yastamiʿa āyat al-amān fa-l-yaǧtamiʿ ilā
Sulaymān b. Dāwūd fī miḥrāb abīhi fa-ǧtamaʿū ilay-hi fa-qāma Sulaymān
fawq al-minbar fa-qara‌ʾa ʿalay-him āyat al-amān wa-hiya {bi-smi Llāhi
l-Raḥmāni l-Raḥīmi}. Fa-lammā samiʿūhā mtala‌ ʾū faraḥan, fa-qālū
našhadu inna-ka la-rasūl Allāh ḥaqqan yā Bn Dāwūd ! Ṯumma rufiʿat
baʿda-hu ilā zaman Mūsā – ʿalay-hi l-salām – fa-unzilat ʿalay-hi fa-bi-hā
qahara Firʿawn wa-ǧunūdahu wa-Qārūn wa-ǧunūdahu wa-atbāʿahu
wa-Hāmān wa-ašyāʿahu, ṯumma rufiʿat baʿda-hu ilā zaman ʿĪsā – ʿalay-hi
l-salām – fa-awḥā Llāh taʿālā ilay-hi : « Yā Bn Maryam a-mā ʿalimta ayy
āya unzilat ʿalay-ka ? » Fa-qāla : « Balā yā Rabb ! » Fa-qāla la-hu : « Yā ʿĪsā
unzilat ʿalay-ka āyat al-amān », wa-hiya {Bi-smi Llāhi l-Raḥmāni l-Raḥīmi}
[…])46
Si Abraham se voit confier la basmala pour sortir des flammes, Salomon en re-
vanche la reçoit pour la diffuser. Il réunit ses sujets et la prononce sur la chaire
45 Personnage mentionné six fois dans le Coran. Il est notamment chargé par Pharaon de
construire une tour atteignant le ciel afin de montrer l’inexistence de Dieu. Georges Vajda
considérait qu’il s’agissait d’une « confusion, encore inexpliquée, avec le ministre d’Assué-
rus dans le livre biblique d’Esther ». Il semble qu’en réalité, le nom de Hāmān soit attesté
dans les hiéroglyphes égyptiens et ait donc tiré sa source de l’histoire égyptienne. Cf. An-
thony Hearle Johns, « Hāmān », Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, dir. Jane Dammen McAuliffe,
Leyde-Boston-Cologne, Brill, 2001-2006, II, p. 399-400 ; Vajda Georges, « Hāmān », EI2.
46 (Pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif, Esc1, folo 15a-15b ; Coulon, La magie islamique, II,
p. 72-73.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

à prêcher. Les sujets se trouvent subjugués et le reconnaissent comme pro-

phète, mais la remarque des anges est éloquente car ils lui signifient que c’est
son règne (mulk) qui est ainsi parachevé. Le verset donne donc la légitimité et
la caution religieuse qui différencient Salomon des autres souverains et l’as-
socient à un pouvoir parfait. Moïse est ensuite mentionné, utilisant ce nom
contre Pharaon, l’archétype du pouvoir mécréant, associé également à Coré
et à Hāmān. On peut se demander pourquoi, selon ce passage, Salomon serait
antérieur à Moïse, contredisant ainsi la chronologie des récits bibliques. Il peut
s’agir d’une simple erreur, mais nous pouvons aussi supputer qu’il y a une vo-
lontaire mise en valeur du rôle de Salomon en tant que souverain bienveillant,
l’avertissement contre la possibilité de révolte contre un pouvoir malveillant
venant en second plan.
À côté de la valorisation du rôle de souverain, Salomon sert également
d’avertissement contre les dérives du pouvoir. L’épisode de Ṣaḫr et de la perte
de l’anneau de Salomon revient souvent dans les traités de magie. Il est men-
tionné à plusieurs reprises dans le Šams al-maʿārif. Par exemple, une allu-
sion à cette anecdote se trouve dans le commentaire d’un des noms hébreux
auxquels est consacrée une section : « Ô Mlyṭnhyāyād Hmwtā, réponds, ô
Hūwiyāʾīl. C’est par ce nom que Dieu – qu’Il soit exalté ! – rendit à Salomon
son royaume et son sceau » (yā Mlyṭnhyāyād Hmwtā aǧib yā Hūwiyāʾīl wa-bi-
hāḏā l-ism radda Llāh taʿālā ʿalā Sulaymān mulkahu wa-ḫātamahu)47. Dans la
tradition islamique, cet épisode sert à commenter le verset coranique 38, 34 :
« Certes, Nous tentâmes [encore] Salomon, et Nous plaçâmes sur son trône un
fantôme. Mais Salomon vint à résipiscence » (wa-laqad fatannā Sulaymāna
wa-alqaynā ʿalā kursiyyihi ǧasadan ṯumma anāba). Al-Ṭabarī précise dès l’in-
troduction du commentaire de ce verset : « Sa mention – qu’Il soit exalté – dit :
“Certes, Nous frappâmes Salomon d’un malheur et plaçâmes sur son trône
un corps démoniaque ressemblant à un être humain”. On mentionne que son
nom est Ṣaḫr. On dit [aussi] que son nom est Āṣaf. On dit [également] que
son nom est Āṣar. [Enfin,] on dit que son nom est Ḥabaqīq […] »48. Le nom de
Ṣaḫr est reconnu par la tradition comme étant celui du démon de Salomon.
Āṣaf est le nom du vizir de Salomon. Āṣar semble être une déformation de ce
dernier nom. Enfin, Ḥabaqīq semble être une déformation d’Habakkuk, pro-
phète biblique du temps des Chaldéens49. L’histoire de Ṣaḫr est racontée dans
l’exégèse et dans les histoires des Prophètes. Ainsi, selon la version d’al-Kisāʾī
47 Ibid., Esc1, folo 66a ; Coulon, La magie islamique, II, p. 347.
48 Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan ta‌ʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān, éd. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī,
Le Caire, Dār Hiǧr, 2001, XX, p. 88-92.
49 Sur Habakkuk, voir Yehoshua M. Grintz, Dvora Briskin-Nadiv et S. David Sperling,
« Habakkuk », Encyclopaedia Judaica, VIII, p. 171-172.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

458 Coulon
(fl. avant le VIIe/XIIIe siècle) dans ses Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ (Les histoires des pro-
phètes), Salomon confiait son anneau à une servante appelée al-Amīna lors-
qu’il avait besoin de se retirer. Convoitant cet anneau auquel Salomon devait
toute sa puissance, Ṣaḫr profita d’une des retraites de Salomon pour prendre
son apparence et récupérer l’anneau auprès d’al-Amīna, qui pensait ainsi res-
tituer l’anneau à Salomon. À l’inverse, Dieu donna à Salomon l’apparence de
Ṣaḫr, qui ne put ainsi se faire reconnaître. Il erra ainsi quarante jours, sans
qu’on pût le reconnaître. Après quoi, Dieu inspira Sa miséricorde à un groupe
de pêcheurs qui fit don à Salomon, affamé, d’un poisson dans le ventre duquel
le roi déchu retrouva son anneau50. Cet épisode a une dimension politique
évidente : le pouvoir vient de Dieu seul, et nul pouvoir n’est éternel, il peut être
perdu et Dieu peut mettre à l’épreuve tout souverain fût-il prophète. Le rappel
de cette histoire en dehors du cadre exégétique est donc un avertissement aux
souverains et une mise en garde contre leurs possibles dérives. La mention de
cet épisode dans des traités de magie peut donc avoir un double sens : s’agit-il
d’une mise en garde au magicien qui, s’il utilise son pouvoir à mauvais escient,
se le verra retirer par Dieu, ou s’agit-il d’une mise en garde au souverain qui, s’il
ne gouverne pas avec justice ou s’il n’écoute pas les recommandations de ses
conseillers, pourra se voir retirer ses pouvoirs par Dieu ? Nous verrons un peu
plus loin que le Šams al-maʿārif fait allusion en plusieurs endroits à cet épisode,
et s’éloigne parfois quelque peu de la tradition, ce qui permet une lecture plus
politique de l’épisode. Salomon n’est donc pas une simple figure de prophète /
magicien, mais aussi une figure de roi, un modèle de royauté, qui lui-même
put perdre le pouvoir avant de le recouvrer. L’auteur du traité de magie devient
alors de facto conseiller, comme l’était Āṣaf b. Baraḫiyā.
Āṣaf b. Baraḫiyāʾ, l’humble vizir et conseiller

Āṣaf b. Baraḫiyāʾ est le vizir de Salomon. Il est traditionnellement l’auteur de
traités magiques et le fidèle conseiller de Salomon. Il pourrait représenter une
image que pouvait utiliser un courtisan afin de légitimer sa position. La figure
d’Āṣaf b. Baraḫiyā, telle que présentée ici, n’aurait sans doute pas grand sens
dans un contexte strictement mystique. En effet, le Šams al-maʿārif évoque ce
personnage dans plusieurs passages, comme nous l’avons vu, toujours en lien
avec Salomon. Il est tout d’abord son plus important vizir humain (akbar wu-
zarāʾ al-ins)51 parmi trois cents. Le vizir magicien tire ainsi son épingle du jeu.
Il est présenté comme « celui qui avait connaissance de l’Écriture » et celui
50 Al-Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, Leyde, Brill, 1922, p. 293-295.

Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

qui apporte le trône de la reine de Saba à Salomon52. Il est donc l’exécuteur

des ordres de Salomon, et aussi celui qui connaît le sceau de Salomon et les
arts magiques. Salomon est le bénéficiaire de cette magie, mais c’est Āṣaf qui
en est le dépositaire et l’exécuteur. Il y a donc une séparation entre la figure
de Salomon qui demeure liée au pouvoir et celle d’Āṣaf, le courtisan magicien.
La tradition islamique nous aide notamment à comprendre la valeur que
peut avoir Āṣaf b. Baraḫiyā pour obtenir la faveur du souverain. En effet, dans
certains récits, il est celui qui démasqua Ṣaḫr lorsque ce dernier se serait fait
passer pour Salomon. C’est le cas par exemple dans la relation de cet épisode
dans le traité de magie Kitāb al-Mandal al-sulaymānī (Le livre du mandal sa-
lomonique)53. Āṣaf contribua donc à restaurer le pouvoir. Lorsque Salomon
aurait négligé le culte rendu à Dieu, ce serait également Āṣaf qui lui aurait rap-
pelé ses devoirs et permit ainsi à Salomon de ne pas encourir la colère de Dieu.
La possible association du compilateur du Šams al-maʿārif serait alors
évidente dans la mesure où la tradition islamique fait d’Āṣaf le rédacteur de
tous les traités de magie attribués à Salomon, ce dernier étant absous de tout
soupçon54.
Le motif du magicien au service d’un homme du pouvoir est en outre re-
présenté par des archétypes fréquents dans la littérature comme Balīnās au
service de Qubāḏ ou Sinnimār au service de Bahrām Gūr pour la constru-
tion du palais légendaire de Ḫawarnaq55. Or, dans al-Tibr al-masbūk fī
52 Cor 27, 40 : « Celui qui avait connaissance de l’Écriture dit : “Moi, je te l’apporterai avant
que ton regard soit revenu vers toi”. Quand [Salomon] vit [le trône] posé près de lui, il
s’écria : “Ceci [vient] de la faveur de mon Seigneur afin qu’Il éprouve si je serai reconnais-
sant ou ingrat. Celui qui est reconnaissant l’est pour soi-même. Celui qui est ingrat ... Mon
Seigneur est suffisant à Soi-même et généreux”. » (qāla llaḏī ʿindahu ʿilmun mina l-kitābi
anā ātīka bi-hi qabla an yartadda ilayka ṭarfuka fa-lammā ra⁠ʾāhu mustaqirran ʿinda-hu
qāla hāḏā min faḍli rabbī li-yablūnī a-aškuru am akfuru wa-man šakara fa-innamā yaškuru
li-nafsihi wa-man kafara fa-inna rabbī ġaniyyun karīmun). Voir (pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-
maʿārif, Esc1, folo 84a-84b ; Coulon, La magie islamique, II, p. 432-433.
53 Anne Regourd, « Le Kitāb al-mandal al-sulaymānī, un ouvrage d’exorcisme yéménite
postérieur au Ve/XIe s. ? », dans Démons et merveilles d’Orient, éd. Rika Gyselen, Bures-
sur-Yvette-Louvain, Groupe pour l’étude de la civilisation du Moyen-Orient-Peeters (« Res
Orientales », 13), 2001, p. 127 et ead., « Images de djinns et exorcisme dans le Mandal
al-sulaymānī », dans Images et magie. Picatrix entre Orient et Occident, dir. Jean-Patrice
Boudet, Anna Caiozzo et Nicolas Weill-Parot, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2011, p. 265-268
(texte arabe) et p. 276-279 (traduction).
54 Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, éds Maḥmūd Muḥammad Šākir et Aḥmad Muḥammad Šākir,
Le Caire, Maktabat Ibn Taymiyya, 1954-1968, II, p. 407 (hadith 1650).
55 Cf. Angelo Michele Piemontese, « Tracce del romanzo di Artú in testi narrativi persia-
ni », dans Medioevo romanzo e orientale. Macrotesti fra Oriente e Occidente, éd. Giovanna
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

460 Coulon
naṣīḥat al-mulūk (L’or fondu : le conseil sincère aux rois) attribué à al-Ġazālī
(m. 505/1111)56, nous trouvons un aphorisme attribué à Balīnās affirmant que
« le calame est un puissant talisman » (wa-qāla Balīnās al-ḥakīm al-qalam ṭi-
lasm kabīr)57. Il y est également affirmé que le secrétaire de chancellerie doit
avoir des compétences en astrologie58. Il y a donc la possibilité de lire le Šams
al-maʿārif comme un ouvrage de cour sous deux aspects : la magie, comme
le calame, est un important instrument d’exercice du pouvoir et le secrétaire
de chancellerie (ou le scribe, kātib) quelque peu initié aux sciences occultes
Carbonaro, Eliana Creazzo et Natalia L. Tornesello, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino Editore,

2003, p. 302 et Živa Vesel, « Réminiscences de la magie astrale dans les Haft peykar de
Neẓāmi », Studia Iranica, 24/1 (1995), p. 15.
56 L’attribution d’al-Tibr al-masbūk fī naṣīḥat al-mulūk à al-Ġazālī, admise par Henri Laoust,
a fait l’objet d’une analyse de Patricia Crone qui conclut que la première partie de l’ou-
vrage est d’al-Ġazālī, mais que la seconde ne peut qu’être l’œuvre d’un autre. Cependant,
Katia Zakharia a récemment mis en évidence des failles dans l’argumentation de Patri-
cia Crone, qui, sans infirmer définitivement son hypothèse, appelle à plus de nuance et
de prudence dans le rejet de l’attribution à al-Ġazālī de ce miroir des princes. Cf. Katia
Zakharia, « Al-Ghazâlî, conseilleur du prince », dans Savoirs et pouvoirs. Genèse des tra-
ditions, traditions réinventées, dir. Katia Zakharia et Ali Cheiban, Paris, Maisonneuve et
Larose-Maison de l’Orient, 2008, p. 209-234 ; Patricia Crone, « Did al-Ghazâlî write a mir-
ror for princes ? On the authorship of Nasîhat al-Mulûk », Jerusalem Studies of Arabic and
Islam, 10 (1987), p. 167-191.
57 Al-Ġazālī, al-Tibr al-masbūk fī naṣīḥat al-mulūk, éd. Muḥammad Aḥmad Damaǧ, Bey-
routh, al-Muʾassasa l-ǧāmiʿiyya li-l-dirāsāt wa-l-našr wa-l-tawzīʿ, 1987, p. 284 ; id., Ghazālī’s
Book of Counsel for Kings, trad. Frank Ronald Charles Bagley, Londres, Oxford University
Press, 1971, p. 113. La traduction est basée à la fois sur le texte persan édité par Ǧalāl Humāʾī
et le texte arabe édité par H.D. Isaacs. La leçon n’est pas claire quant au nom du person-
nage : certains ont lu Nalniyās, que Bagley propose à juste titre d’amender en Balīnās. C’est
Balīnās qui a été retenu par Muḥammad Aḥmad Damaǧ dans son édition.
58 Al-Ġazālī, al-Tibr al-masbūk fī naṣīḥat al-mulūk, p. 285 ; id., Ghazālī’s Book of Counsel for
Kings, p. 114 : « The secretary must know ten things. One is the nearness or farness of
water beneath the ground for digging irrigation tunnels. Others are : knowledge of the
[lengths of] night and day in winter and summer ; the courses of the moon, stars and sun,
and their conjunctions and oppositions ; ability to count on the fingers ; geometry ; the
science of calendars and dates ; the requirements of farmers ; acquaintance with medi-
cine and pharmacy ; ability to forecast north and south winds ; and skill in versification
and rhyme » ([…] yanbaġī an yakūna l-kātib ʿālim bi-ʿašarat ašyāʾ : al-awwal qurb al-māʾ
wa-buʿda-hu taḥta l-arḍ, wa-maʿrifat istiḫrāǧ al-aqinnāʾ wa-maʿrifat ziyādat al-layl wa-l-
nahār wa-nuqṣānihimā fī l-ṣayf wa-l-šitāʾ, wa-masīr al-Šams wa-l-Qamar wa-l-nuǧūm
wa-maʿrifat al-iǧtimāʿ wa-l-istiqbāl wa-l-ḥisāb bi-l-aṣābiʿ wa-l-aqdām, wa-ḥisāb al-handasa
wa-l-taqwīm, wa-ḫtiyārāt al-ayyām wa-mā yaṣluḥu li-l-muzāriʿīn wa-maʿrifat al-ṭibb wa-l-
adwiya, wa-maʿrifat rīḥ al-šamāl wa-l-ǧanūb wa-maʿrifat ʿilm al-šiʿr wa-l-qawāfī).
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

participe pleinement à cet exercice d’un pouvoir juste. L’alliance de la science

ésotérique du Coran (science des lettres, science des noms divins) à la science
astrologique que constitue le Šams al-maʿārif représente la fusion du saint (walī,
ʿālim ʿāmil) et du lettré (kātib, voire adīb), qui sont les deux aspects qui, d’après
Katia Zakharia, auraient profondément modifié la figure de l’adīb et les codes
de la littérature d’adab en unifiant deux personnages opposés jusque vers le Ve/
XIe siècle et dont l’exemple emblématique serait al-Ġazālī59. Les deux sciences
à caractère ésotérique que l’on pourrait associer à ces deux figures du saint et
du secrétaire se retrouvent donc ici fusionnées en un même ouvrage, un même
personnage. L’association des figures d’adīb et de kātib est monnaie courante
dans les traités de théorisation du rôle de secrétaire de chancellerie de l’époque
mamelouke : pour al-Qalqašandī le secrétaire doit avoir une haute culture et
avoir une parfaite maîtrise de l’écrit, pour al-Maqrīzī (m. 845/1442) il s’agit d’un
poste important qui suppose une bonne connaissance de la loi, la grammaire,
la poésie, la prose, la correspondance officielle, l’histoire, des chroniques, etc.60
Bien entendu, la réalité était beaucoup plus complexe et nombre de secrétaires
n’étaient pas réputés avoir un tel niveau d’érudition. Le secrétaire n’en est pas
moins un homme de cour faisant partie de l’entourage du sultan61. Les rela-
tions entre l’émir et le secrétaire étaient d’ordre personnel et pouvaient s’avérer
instables62. Cette insistance sur la connaissance de toutes ces disciplines vise à
vanter les mérites de l’homme de lettres par rapport au « vulgaire » secrétaire
et donc à affirmer qu’il est compétent pour exercer une telle charge car cela
apporterait indéniablement un supplément de valeur au travail administratif.
Il serait donc un indéniable surplus pour un personnage de ce type d’être versé
dans les sciences occultes et de pouvoir ainsi par la plume infléchir le destin.
Cette compétence était même recherchée auprès des cheikhs par les émirs
et sultans de l’époque mamelouke. Ainsi, en 687/1288, un des fils du sultan al-
Manṣūr Qalāwūn tombe gravement malade, et ce dernier aurait fait quérir un
59 Heidi Toelle et Katia Zakharia, À la découverte de la littérature arabe, Paris, Flammarion,
2005, p. 113.
60 Bernadette Martel-Thoumian, Les civils et l’administration dans l’état militaire mamlūk
(IXe/XVe siècle), Damas, Institut Français de Damas, 1991, p. 135.
61 Ibid., p. 156.
62 Mathieu Eychenne, Liens personnels, clientélisme et réseaux de pouvoir dans le sultanat
mamelouk, Beyrouth-Damas, Presses de l’Ifpo, 2013, chapitre I, §24. Disponible sur Inter-
net : http://books.openedition.org/ifpo/3908 (consulté le 1er mai 2013). L’auteur affirme
même que « la précarité des situations […] a poussé les administrateurs à développer des
stratégies de rechange ». Le développement des sciences magiques pourrait-il être vécu à
la fois comme une compétence supplémentaire pour affirmer la valeur d’un secrétaire et
un moyen de protection contre un revirement de situation ?
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

462 Coulon
cheikh pour prier pour son fils63. D’après Éric Geoffroy, la faculté de prédire
l’avenir contribua à ce que des émirs entretiennent d’étroites relations avec des
cheikhs64. C’est le cas par exemple du cheikh Ḫiḍr al-Mihrānī, qui aurait reçu
les faveurs de Baybars (r. 658/1260-676/1277) après avoir prédit les événements
les plus importants de son règne65. Il semble toutefois, dans ce dernier cas, que
le statut de conseiller du prince ait pris le pas sur sa qualité de cheikh dans la
mesure où son ascendant sur le sultan fut tel que les émirs finirent par s’accor-
der pour le faire tomber en disgrâce. Si les fonctions de cheikh et de secrétaire
sont bien distinctes, il semble que le Šams al-maʿārif mette à disposition d’un
plus large public ces pouvoirs du cheikh tant convoités par les sultans et les
émirs. La présence récurrente d’Āṣaf b. Baraḫiyā dans le Šams al-maʿārif peut
correspondre à cette volonté de représenter le conseiller du pouvoir.
Balaam : l’antimodèle
Si Salomon est un modèle de royauté, la littérature de conseils au prince, tout
en faisant l’éloge du souverain, le met en garde contre ses excès. C’est de cette
façon que le conseiller légitime la place de son discours. Cette mise en garde
contre les excès est fondamentale : « l’hubris royale est aussi un corollaire
de l’absolutisme. Le pouvoir fascine son détenteur et l’intoxique avec autant
d’intensité qu’un jeune peut être intoxiqué »66. L’épisode de la privation du
pouvoir de Salomon illustre les conséquences d’une déviance dans l’exercice
du pouvoir. La figure de Balaam illustre également ce cas. Cité à plusieurs re-
prises, il représente un avertissement au souverain : un pouvoir si grand soit-il
peut être retiré s’il est utilisé à mauvais escient. Balaam n’est pas nommé dans
le Coran, mais les exégètes l’identifient à « celui à qui Dieu donna Ses signes et
qui s’en défit » dans un verset coranique67. Nombre d’exégètes, comme al-Ṭa-
barī, estime que ce personnage est « Balʿam (sic). Il était savant, il savait le
plus sublime nom de Dieu, le nom scellé, puis il tomba dans la mécréance »
(yuqālu la-hu Balʿam wa-kāna ʿālim yaʿlamu l-ism [p. 258] al-aʿẓam al-maktūm
fa-kafara)68. Deux raisons auraient contribué à sa déchéance et la perte du
63 Ibid., chapitre II, §63.

64 Éric Geoffroy, Le soufisme en Égypte et en Syrie, Damas, Institut Français de Damas, 1995,
p. 125.
65 Eychenne, Liens personnels, clientélisme et réseaux de pouvoir dans le sultanat mamelouk,
chapitre II, §86-93.
66 Al-Azmeh, Muslim Kingship, p. 126.
67 Cor 7, 175.
68 Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, éd. Šākir, XIII, p. 257-258. Selon d’autres traditions proposées
par al-Ṭabarī, les « signes » (āyāt) dont aurait été gratifié Balaam seraient un livre (c’est-
à-dire une part de la Révélation) ou le statut de Prophète (al-nubuwwa). Enfin, une autre
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

plus sublime nom de Dieu. La première est qu’il aurait utilisé ce nom contre
Moïse malgré l’avertissement de Dieu. Il aurait ainsi rejoint les adversaires du
peuple de Moïse et avait leur faveur. Cependant, la seconde raison est qu’« il
ne pouvait pas cohabiter avec les meilleures femmes. Alors il forniquait avec
une ânesse qu’il possédait » ([ …] kāna lā yastaṭīʿu an ya‌ʾtiya l-nisāʾ min ʿiẓami-
hinna fa-kāna yankaḥu atān la-hu)69. Il passe donc de rebelle à l’ordre divin à
débauché. Cette idée de révolte contre l’ordre divin revient à chaque mention
de Balaam. Ainsi, dans le commentaire du nom al-Raḥmān, il est mentionné :
C’est un nom syriaque70 (suryānī). Son explication est « Celui qui fait sor-
tir les choses du néant à l’existence ». Il a des significations que le lecteur
se doit de cacher aux insensés pour qu’ils ne s’attachent pas à [ces signifi-
cations] pour faire des choses répréhensibles et illicites. Il serait déchu de
la source de Dieu – qu’Il soit exalté ! – comme Balaam (Balʿām b. Bāʿūrāʾ)
déchût lorsqu’il voulut avec [ce nom] se rebeller [contre] Dieu – qu’Il soit
exalté ! – .
([…] wa-huwa sm suryānī wa-tafsīruhu muḫriǧ l-ašyāʾ min al-ʿadam ilā

l-wuǧūd, wa-la-hu maʿānin yaǧibu ʿalā l-nāẓir fī-hā katmuhā ʿan al-sufahāʾ
liʾallā yatawaṣṣalūna bi-hā ilā fiʿl al-munkarāt wa-l-muḥarramāt fa-yasqaṭa
min ʿayn Allāh taʿālā kamā saqaṭa Balʿām b. Bāʿūrā lammā arāda bi-hi
maʿṣiyat Allāh taʿālā)71
C’est également ce type de discours qui est mis en valeur dans la section sur les
noms que Jésus utilisa pour ressusciter le mort72. Le verset coranique est cité
dans son ensemble et, de même, il est demandé de le préserver des « insen-
sés ». La signification de cet épisode, à savoir que l’acquisition et l’utilisation du
plus sublime nom de Dieu ou d’un pouvoir immense supposent bienveillance
et pureté d’intention, peut être destinée à un lectorat mystique en mettant en
identification propose de voir en ce personnage le poète contemporain du Prophète

Umayya b. Abī l-Ṣalt (ibid., p. 255-257). Sur l’histoire de Balʿām b. Bāʿūrāʾ, voir aussi al-
Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, p. 227-230.
69 Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, éd. Šākir, XIII, p. 258.
70 Le suriyānī ne désigne en réalité pas le syriaque stricto sensu, mais la langue primordiale
à laquelle ont accès les mystiques ayant atteint le stade d’homme complet (al-insān
al-kāmil). Selon ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Dabbāġ, il s’agit de la « langue des enfants, des esprits (al-
arwāḥ) et des initiés ». Voir Geoffroy, Le soufisme en Égypte et en Syrie, p. 304, note 41.
71 (Pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif, Esc1, folo 12a ; Coulon, La magie islamique, II, p. 54-55.
72 (Pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif, Esc1, folo 26a-26b ; Coulon, La magie islamique, II,
p. 128-138.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

464 Coulon
garde contre le développement d’un ego spirituel, comme à un lectorat poli-

tique en mettant en garde contre l’injustice et la tyrannie. « L’idée qui perce
ici, que les bienfaits divins ne sont retirés qu’aux ingrats ou aux désobéissants
[…], est nécessaire à une argumentation visant à brandir la menace d’un châ-
timent éternel »73, constate Katia Zakharia à propos du miroir des princes at-
tribué à al-Ġazālī. Cette assertion semble également valable pour cet épisode
de Balaam.
La cour des anges et des démons
Il a déjà été maintes fois souligné que le monde invisible est souvent présenté
par analogie avec le monde visible, notamment au sujet des djinns qui sont le
pendant invisible de l’être humain. L’angélologie n’échappe pas à la règle, et la
cour des souverains sous une forme idéalisée sert de modèle à la conception
de la souveraineté angélique et démoniaque. En effet, dans les sections concer-
nant les « saisons » (ṯāqūfa), chaque saison est associée à un point cardinal et à
un ange74. Chacun de ces anges dispose d’auxiliaires (aʿwān) et d’esprits (riyāḥ).
Ce terme d’auxiliaire, qualifié de chtonien (al-aʿwān al-arḍiyya), est repris pour
désigner les serviteurs (ḫuddām) des anges75. Le terme d’auxiliaire (ʿawn) sert
à désigner dans les traités éthico-politiques les sujets proches du souverain,
ceux qui reçoivent directement ses ordres et doivent les exécuter. Or, ces es-
prits chtoniens (c’est-à-dire des djinns) sont ceux qui exécutent les ordres des
anges dans le monde sensible. Ces esprits chtoniens sont divisibles en quatre
grands groupes ayant à leur tête un effrit, l’effrit étant dans l’imaginaire co-
ranique un exécutant direct des ordres du roi Salomon. La cour de Salomon,
telle qu’elle est présentée, sous l’autorité de Kaʿb al-Aḥbār (m. 32/652-653, en
34/654-655 ou 35/655-656), est également fait d’une hiérarchie particulière,
avec des djinns et démons présentés comme les plus obéissants des serviteurs.
On peut également signaler dans de nombreuses formules adressées aux anges
les participes actifs sāmiʿ muṭīʿ 76, expression issue du hadith77 et récurrente
73 Zakharia, « Al-Ghazâlî, conseilleur du prince », p. 222.

74 (Pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif, Esc1, folo 27a ; Coulon, La magie islamique, II, p. 140-141.
75 (Pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif, Esc1, folo 36b ; Coulon, La magie islamique, II, p. 192.
76 Par exemple, cf. (pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif, Esc1, folo 38a ; Coulon, La magie isla-
mique, II, p. 204-205.
77 Les verbes des racines S.M.ʿ et Ṭ.W.ʿ se retrouvent dans de nombreux hadiths. Les parti-
cipes actifs se retrouvent dans un hadith montrant bien l’appel à la soumission à Dieu, qui
devient soumission au pouvoir dans les miroirs des princes : « aucune preuve [à charge]
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

dans les miroirs des princes pour qualifier les « auxiliaires ». On voit ainsi dé-
crite dans l’ensemble du Šams al-maʿārif une structure hiérarchique du monde
invisible où chacun a une place dans l’exécution des ordres du roi aidé de son
vizir.
Nous avons vu que l’histoire de Ṣaḫr dérobant l’anneau de Salomon et usur-
pant ainsi son pouvoir était subrepticement rappelée en plusieurs endroits du
Šams al-maʿārif. Ce personnage a un rôle particulier dans la présentation des
rapports entre les djinns et avec le pouvoir. Ainsi, dans un passage, Ṣaḫr est
identifié comme le chef des djinns (sayyiduhum), et plus particulièrement des
quatre effrits portant le trône de Salomon78 :
Ainsi, lorsque Salomon – sur lui la paix – emprisonna Ṣaḫr, le djinn qui
était leur seigneur, les djinns furent méprisés et humiliés. Salomon – sur
lui la paix – voulut leur amitié et contraignit leurs cœurs. Il divisa la terre
pour eux et les fit régner sur les jours. Il donna à al-Muḏahhab le premier
quart de la terre. Il donna le deuxième quart au maître du mardi, qui est
al-Aḥmar (litt. « le Rouge »), dont le nom est Šūġāl et qui est un des effrits
et des quatre vizirs. Il donna le troisième tiers au maître du jeudi dont le
nom est Šamhūraš. Il donna le quatrième quart au maître du samedi dont
le nom est Maymūn.
(Wa-ḏālika anna Sulaymān – ʿalay-hi l- salām – lammā saǧana Ṣaḫr

al-ǧinnī wa-huwa sayyiduhum istahānat al-ǧinn wa-ḏallat. Fa-arāda
Sulaymān – ʿalay-hi l-salām – iʾtilāfahum wa-ǧabra qulūbihim. Fa-qasama
ʿalay-him al-arḍ wa-mallakahum al-ayyām. Fa-aʿṭā l-Muḏahhab al-rubʿ
al-wāḥid min al-arḍ. Wa-aʿṭā l-rubʿ al-ṯānī li-ṣāḥib yawm al-ṯulāṯāʾ wa-huwa
l-Aḥmar wa-smuhu Šūġāl wa-huwa aḥad al-ʿafārīt wa-l-wuzarāʾ al-arbaʿa.
contre celui qui entend et obéit ! » (wa-inna l-sāmiʿ al-muṭīʿ lā ḥuǧǧa ʿalay-hi). Cf. Aḥmad
b. Ḥanbal, IV, 96.
78 Ṣaḫr peut ainsi apparaître comme le double maléfique d’Āṣaf. Lawrence Paul Elwell-
Sutton relatait un récit persan dans lequel un roi et son vizir peuvent se transférer dans
les corps des animaux. Le roi devient alors gazelle alors que le vizir investit le corps du
roi et usurpe son pouvoir. C’est sous la forme d’un perroquet que le roi retrouve son
épouse et élabore avec elle un stratagème pour que le vizir quitte de nouveau le corps du
roi. On peut voir dans cette histoire une transformation du récit de la perte de l’anneau
de Salomon, à ceci près que le roi est ici trahi par son propre vizir. Cf. Lawrence Paul
Elwell-Sutton, « Magic and the supernatural in Persian folk-literature », dans Ve congrès
international d’arabisants et d’islamisants, Bruxelles, Centre pour l’Étude des Problèmes
du Monde Musulman Contemporain, 1970, p. 194-195.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

466 Coulon
Wa-aʿṭā l-rubʿ al-ṯāliṯ li-ṣāḥib yawm al-ḫamīs, wa-smuhu Šamhūraš.

Wa-aʿṭā l-rubʿ al-rābiʿ li-ṣāḥib yawm al-sabt wa-smuhu Maymūn)79.
Le passage en question dans le Šams al-maʿārif relate que lorsque Ṣaḫr fut em-
prisonné, les djinns se soumirent au roi-prophète. Or, dans la tradition musul-
mane, Ṣaḫr n’est pas un chef des djinns, mais un djinn rebelle agissant seul80.
Cette présentation de l’épisode peut rappeler les intrigues de cour, particulière-
ment à l’époque mamelouke. En effet, comme le souligne Jean-Claude Garcin,
« le sultan fut aussi pendant longtemps assisté d’un “lieutenant” (nous dirions
vice-roi), auxiliaire dangereux mais nécessaire lorsque les sultans avaient à
quitter souvent leur capitale »81. Ce lieutenant pouvait être un véritable chef de
parti au sein d’une cour et, partant, une menace pour le souverain. L’exercice
du pouvoir à l’époque mamelouke était, au dire des souverains, source d’infinis
tracas et d’une permanente suspicion, comme en témoigne la confidence de
Barqūq82 (r. 784/1382 à 791/1389 et de 792/1390 à 801/1399) rapportée par Ibn
Qāḍī Šuhba83 (n. 779/1377, m. 851/1448) selon laquelle, depuis qu’il était devenu
émir, il ne s’était plus jamais senti en sécurité84. Nous pourrions mettre en re-
lation cette crainte de Barqūq avec sa quête d’ouvrages de sciences occultes85.
À la lumière de ces différents élements, nous pouvons donc supposer que la
hiérarchie des esprits dans le Šams al-maʿārif pourrait être une représentation
des luttes entre les différents partis dans les cours mameloukes.
79 Ibid., Esc1, folo 36b ; Coulon, La magie islamique, II, p. 193-194. Pour le passage complet,
voir ibid., I, p. 907-909.
80 Al-Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, p. 293-295.
81 Jean-Claude Garcin, « Le Proche-Orient à l’époque mamluke », dans États, sociétés et
cultures du Monde Musulman Médiéval. Xe-XVe siècle, dir. Jean-Claude Garcin, Paris,
Presses Universitaires de France (« Nouvelle Clio »), 1995, I, p. 351.
82 Cf. Warren C. Schultz, « Barqūq b. Anas al-Malik al-Ẓāhir », EI3.
83 Ibn Qāḍī Šuhba est un auteur d’ouvrages biographiques et un juriste installé à Damas où
il fut qāḍī en chef de 842/1438 à 844/1440. Cf. Joseph Schacht, « Ibn Ḳāḍī S̲h̲uhba », EI2.
84 Cité dans Jo Van Steenbergen, Order Out of Chaos. Patronage, Conflict and Mamluk
Socio-Political Culture, 1341-1382, Leyde-Londres, Brill (« The Medieval Mediterranean
Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400-1500 », 65), 2006, p. 124. Sur la lutte pour affirmer
son pouvoir, cf. plus généralement p. 123-168.
85 Noah Gardiner travaille présentement sur la bibliothèque d’ouvrages de sciences occultes
du souverain Barqūq. Cette recherche en cours a fait l’objet de communications lors de
récents colloques, mais celles-ci ne sont pas encore publiées au moment de l’écriture du
présent article.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

La perpétuation de la royauté astrale
La mise en scène de l’astrologie est également étroitement dépendante des re-

présentations de la royauté. Ainsi, dans le Šams al-maʿārif, le Soleil est décrit
comme le « sultan de la sphère » (sulṭān al-falak), la Lune comme le « vizir du
sultan » (wazīr al-sulṭān), Mars comme « le porteur de l’épée du roi »86 (sayyāf
al-malik), Mercure comme « le secrétaire du roi » (kātib al-malik), Jupiter le
« juge du roi »87 (qāḍī l-malik), Vénus la « servante du roi » (ǧāriyat al-malik)
et Saturne le « policier du roi » (šurṭī l-malik)88. Les planètes sont représentées
à travers leur rôle auprès du roi89, conformément à une représentation plus
ancienne que l’on trouve par exemple dans l’œuvre d’Ibn al-Ḥātim (fl. première
moitié du IVe/Xe siècle)90. Il ne s’agit pas d’une représentation où l’aspect so-
86 Le terme de sayyāf n’est pas sans poser de problème. Littéralement, il désigne le proprié-
taire ou le porteur d’une épée (ṣāḥib sayf). Sayyāf al-malik désignerait donc le porteur de
l’épée du roi, étant entendu qu’il s’agirait plutôt d’une épée d’apparat présentée lors de
défilés ou de cérémonies. Le terme peut cependant aussi désigner le bourreau, mais aussi
le fabricant d’épées. Reinhart Dozy signale également quelques occurrences où ce mot
désignerait un officier ou un capitaine commandant, mais deux des trois sources qu’il
mentionne sont des militaires du XIXe siècle et il ne cite aucune source médiévale, ce qui
ne permet pas de penser que cette signification puisse être transposée à l’époque du Šams
al-maʿārif. Nous préférons donc considérer ici le sayyāf comme le porteur de l’épée du roi
afin d’être au plus proche des attributs de Mars (à l’inverse, nous avons rendu le surnom
de Maymūn al-Sayyāf lié à Saturne par « le bourreau » afin d’être en adéquation avec les
fonctions de cet astre). Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿarab, éd. ʿAbd Allāh ʿAlī l-Kabīr, Muḥammad
Aḥmad Ḥasb Allāh et Hāšim Muḥammad al-Šāḏilī, Le Caire, Dār al-Maʿārif, 1981, III,
p. 2172 ; Albert de Biberstein-Kazimirski, Dictionnaire arabe-français, Paris, Maisonneuve
et Cie, 1860, I, p. 1177 ; Jean-Baptiste Belot, al-Farāʾid al-durriyya ʿarabī-faransī, Beyrouth,
Dār al-Mašriq, 197122, p. 354 ; Reinhart Dozy, Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes, Leyde-
Paris, E.J. Brill-Maisonneuve et Larose, 19673, I, p. 713.
87 Selon toute probabilité, il s’agit plus précisément du qāḍī l-quḍāt (« le juge des juges »)
nommé par le sultan. Sur les juges à l’époque mamelouke, voir Eychenne, Liens person-
nels, clientélisme et réseaux de pouvoir dans le sultanat mamelouk, chapitre IV.
88 (Pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif, Esc1, folos 37a-38a ; Coulon, La magie islamique, II,
p. 197-203.
89 L’ordre de cette liste ne témoigne nullement dans le cas présent d’une hiérarchie de ces
personnages mais suit l’ordre des jours de la semaine correspondant à ces planètes.
90 Kristen Lippincott et David Pingree, « Ibn al-Ḥātim on the talismans of the lunar man-
sions », Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 50 (1987), p. 62. Al-Qazwīnī éga-
lement compare les astres à des fonctions, toutefois sa classification diffère quelque peu
et sa comparaison englobe le ciel d’une manière beaucoup plus large : « Les astrologues
affirment que le Soleil est parmi les planètes comme le roi, et le reste des planètes est
comme les auxiliaires et les soldats. La Lune est comme le vizir et l’héritier présomptif.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

468 Coulon
cial embrasse l’ensemble de la société à travers des corporations de métiers,

mais bien de figures définies exclusivement par leur rapport à un homme de
pouvoir en conformité avec la fonction traditionnelle de ces planètes. Les
« types simplifiés » dans la représentation de ces astres dans les manuscrits de
cosmographie correspondent grosso modo à ces mêmes fonctions91.
L’association du Soleil et de la Lune respectivement au sultan et au vizir
reprend l’image déjà bien ancrée dans la littérature arabe de l’association entre
le souverain et son vizir. L’exemple paradigmatique est la relation de Hārūn
al-Rašīd (r. 170/786-193/809) et Ǧaʿfar al-Barmakī (m. 187/803), typifiée par
Jocelyne Dakhlia en une « passion gémellaire »92. Le souverain et son vizir sont
ainsi deux figures complémentaires.
Comme l’indique Anna Caiozzo, « la royauté cosmique s’est progressive-
ment identifiée à la royauté solaire, assurant la promotion de l’astre des jours
jusqu’alors voué à un destin mineur, et qui s’identifie à des périodes tardives,
peut-être à partir de l’époque hellénistique, au roi des étoiles »93. Elle cite par
ailleurs la sentence révélatrice d’al-Qazwīnī (m. 682/1283) « Dieu rassembla les
étoiles dans le Bélier. Il leur donna pour roi le Soleil »94. On notera à ce propos
que le Soleil est fréquemment associé au lion95, animal choisi à l’époque ma-
melouke par le sultan Baybars comme symbole de son pouvoir. L’iconographie
islamique a progressivement donné au Soleil une représentation guerrière où
Mercure est comme le secrétaire, Mars comme le chef de la police, Jupiter comme le juge,
Saturne comme le trésorier et Vénus comme les serviteurs et les servantes. Les sphères
sont comme les climats, les signes du zodiaque comme les pays, les limites comme les
villes, les degrés comme les armées, les minutes comme les quartiers [des villes] et les
secondes comme les maisons. C’est une bonne comparaison » (zaʿama l-munaǧǧimūn
anna l-šams bayn al-kawākib ka-l-malik wa-sāʾir al-kawākib ka-l-aʿwān wa-l-ǧunūd wa-l-
Qamar ka-l-wazīr wa-walī l-ʿahd wa-ʿUṭārid ka-l-kātib wa-l-Mirrīḫ ka-ṣāḥib al-šurṭa wa-
l-Muštarī ka-l-qāḍī wa-Zuḥal ka-ṣāḥib al-ḫazāʾin wa-l-Zuhara ka-l-ḫadam wa-l-ǧawārī
wa-l-aflāk ka-l-aqālīm wa-l-burūǧ ka-l-buldān wa-l-ḥudūd ka-l-mudun wa-l-daraǧāt ka-
l-ʿasākir wa-l-daqāʾiq ka-l-maḥāll wa-l-ṯawānī ka-l-manāzil wa-hāḏā tašbīh ǧayyid). Cf.
al-Qazwīnī, ʿAǧāʾib al-maḫlūqāt wa-ġarāʾib al-mawǧūdāt, éd. Ferdinand Wüstenfeld,
Göttingen, Verlag der Dieterischschen Buchhandlung, 1849, p. 23.
91 Cf. Caiozzo, Images du ciel d’Orient au Moyen Âge, p. 287-297.
92 Jocelyne Dakhlia, L’empire des passions : l’arbitraire politique en Islam, Paris, Flammarion
(« Collection historique »), 2005, p. 26-32.
93 Anna Caiozzo, Réminiscences de la royauté cosmique dans les représentations de l’Orient
médiéval, Le Caire, Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale (« Cahier des Annales isla-
mologiques », 31), 2011, p. 17.
94 Ibid., p. 18.
95 Ibid., p. 24-25.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

il mène un « combat cosmique contre l’obscurité ou les forces du mal »96, ce

qui ne manque pas d’évoquer des missions des détenteurs de pouvoir selon les
miroirs des princes : répandre le bien et combattre le mal.
Le prince est d’une manière générale comparé au Soleil dans les traités
éthicopolitiques. Les motifs astrologiques sont même au cœur de certains
éloges aux princes, comme dans al-Faḫrī d’Ibn al-Ṭiqṭaqāʾ97 (fl. fin VIIe/XIIIe-
début VIIIe/XIVe siècle) :
[Il a] une ambition qui atteint le ciel et dépasse les Gémeaux98. C’est de là
qu’il acquit une familiarité avec la science des astres : il prit leur science
en s’élevant et se rapprochant d’elles, non par le calcul et l’astrolabe. Il
s’éleva jusqu’au ciel, et ses astres lui confièrent leurs secrets. Il rivalisa en
hauteur avec les sphères et elles lui racontèrent leurs histoires, d’Orient
et d’Occident.
(Bi-himma nālat al-samāʾ, wa-ǧāwazat al-Ǧawzāʾ, wa-min hunāka ḥaṣala

la-hu l-uns bi-ʿilm al-nuǧūm fa-inna-hu aḫaḏa ʿilmahā bi-l-irtiqāʾ ilay-hā
wa-l-iqtirāb, lā bi-l-ḥiṣāb wa-l-aṣṭurlāb balaġa l-samāʾ ʿuluwwan
fa-šāfahathu bi-asrārihā kawākibuhā, wa-qaraʿa l-aflāk summuwwan
fa-ḥaddaṯathu bi-aḫbārihā mašāriquhā wa-maġāribuhā)99
Le prince est ici l’égal des astres. Ils lui dévoilent directement et sans intermé-
diaire tous leurs secrets. La présence des Gémeaux peut être aisément expli-
quée. Les Gémeaux sont en effet associés à Mercure dont ils sont le domicile100.
Ils sont donc associés à l’astre qui par nature fait le lien entre le ciel et la terre,
96 Ibid., p. 28.

97 Ṣafī l-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿAlī l-Ṭabāṭabā aussi connu sous le nom d’Ibn al-Ṭiqṭaqāʾ est un
historien irakien né peu après la prise de Bagdad par les Mongols. Cf. Franz Rosenthal,
« Ibn Ṭiḳṭaḳāʾ », EI 2.
98 La phrase arabe joue sur le verbe ǧāwaza (dépasser) qui fait écho à al-Ǧawzāʾ (les Gé-
meaux), terme de même racine.
99 Ibn al-Ṭiqṭaqā, Al-Fakhrî : histoire du khalifat et du vizirat [= al-Faḫrī fī l-ādāb al-sulṭāniyya
wa-l-duwal al-islāmiyya], éd. Hartwig Derenbourg, Paris, Librairie Émile Bouillon, 1895,
p. 11 ; à comparer avec id., Al-Fakhrî : histoire des dynasties musulmanes, trad. Émile Amar,
Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1910, p. 13.
100 Abū Maʿšar, The Abbreviation of the Introduction to Astrology, éd. et trad. Charles Burnett,
Keiji Yamamoto et Michio Yano, Leyde-New York-Cologne, E.J. Brill, 1994, p. 16 (texte
arabe) et 17 (traduction) : wa-l-Ǧawzāʾ bayt ʿUṭārid. L’autre domicile de Mercure est la
Vierge. Le domicile (bayt) d’une planète est le signe zodiacal avec lequel elle a le plus
d’affinités par nature (bi-l-ṭabʿ) et dans laquelle son influence atteint son paroxysme.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

470 Coulon
le trait d’union entre le monde céleste et le monde sublunaire. Le souverain

dépasse ainsi les connaissances écrites et accessibles au lettré, au scribe. Si l’on
suit cette description, l’astrologue lit le destin dans les astres, le souverain fait
partie des astres.
Comme nous l’avons vu, la Lune figure le vizir. Anna Caiozzo explique ainsi
sa symbolique : « La Lune permet en effet aux archétypes divins de s’incarner
sur terre et, en opposition au Soleil, elle symbolise le pouvoir à venir et veille
sur les imāms, fidèle à son rôle de protectrice du “pouvoir légitime” depuis les
temps anciens »101.
Les trois autres fonctions associées aux astres figurent respectivement le
pouvoir de l’armée avec Mars (le « porteur de l’épée »), la chancellerie (dīwān)
avec Mercure (« le secrétaire ») et la justice avec Jupiter (« le juge »). Ce sont les
trois principaux aspects du pouvoir qui sont en rivalité constante. Ces trois pou-
voirs ne sont pas nécessairement aussi bien séparés dans les faits : à l’époque
mamelouke, ce sont avant tout des émirs qui ont les charges d’ustadār (admi-
nistration des revenus et dépenses sultaniens), dāwadār (porte-écritoire) ou
ḫāzindār (trésorerie)102. Les traités demeurent généralement très théoriques,
présentant le pouvoir tel qu’il devrait être dans une image idyllique. C’est le
cas par exemple d’al-Māwardī (m. 450/1058), qui présente le calife comme un
personnage puissant et central en terre d’islam dans al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya
(Les statuts gouvernementaux) alors qu’à son époque le pouvoir effectif est dé-
tenu par les émirs bouyides. Cette séparation, correspondant au découpage
astrologique, redistribue des rôles distincts et séparés et permet donc de rap-
peler l’importance de l’homme de plume dans les rouages du pouvoir. Au-delà
des types sociaux, ces personnages sont des hommes de cour, définis par leur
rapport au souverain. En effet, pour prendre l’exemple du juge, l’expression
« juge du roi » ne manque pas de rappeler ces grands cadis attachés à la per-
sonne du calife à partir de la fin du IIe/VIIIe siècle et qui étaient des conseillers
juridiques aidant directement le calife sur des problèmes judiciaires103.
Vénus, représentée en servante, illustre l’absence des femmes dans les
rouages du pouvoir. Bien qu’elles puissent exercer une grande influence
sur les hommes de pouvoir104, elles n’ont pas de charges et ne peuvent généra-
101 Caiozzo, Réminiscences de la royauté cosmique, p. 16.

102 Garcin, « Le Proche-Orient à l’époque mamluke », p. 351.
103 Mathieu Tillier, Les cadis d’Iraq et l’État Abbasside (132/750-334/945), Damas, Ifpo, 2009,
p. 433-443.
104 Sur le rôle des femmes dans les jeux de pouvoir, cf. Dakhlia, L’empire des passions,
p. 116-154.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

lement pas prétendre à l’exercice du pouvoir105. Vénus est donc présentée avec
un statut servile, mais malgré tout positif. La femme est ainsi perçue comme
un élément structurant de la société, pourvu qu’elle ne détienne pas le pouvoir.
Nous pouvons nous interroger sur la représentation de Saturne en « poli-
cier ». En effet Saturne est d’ordinaire plutôt représenté comme un vieillard,
et Anna Caiozzo notait même qu’il était un personnage imposant une figure
marginale car il n’est pas associé à un membre de la société106. En réalité, c’est
l’aspect funeste de Saturne qui l’associe au policier : l’institution policière avait
au moins dès l’époque abbasside une très mauvaise réputation107. Des hadiths
vouent même le policier à la damnation éternelle. De là, il est probable que
cette figure extrêmement négative de l’autorité ait conféré à Saturne le rôle de
policier.
L’image de la royauté astrale impose une lecture politique. Vision idéalisée
d’un monde où chacun est à sa place, seul le cercle détenteur des pouvoirs est
représenté. Une telle métaphore n’est bien sûr pertinente que dans le cadre
d’une production et d’un lectorat premier dans ces mêmes cercles.
Les archétypes et représentations en filigrane dans le Šams al-maʿārif té-
moignent d’une vision traditionnelle et idéalisée du pouvoir. Chacun a sa place,
et tout détenteur du pouvoir doit savoir en user de façon juste et équitable, sans
commettre d’injustice ou de rebellion contre l’ordre divin : « Le prince, comme
toute créature, est redevable à Dieu de Ses bienfaits »108 rappelle sans cesse la
littérature éthico-politique. C’est donc en montrant un cadre idéal d’exercice
du pouvoir, mis en scène avec une emphase du pouvoir juste et une mise en
garde contre les dérives que le Šams al-maʿārif s’inscrit aussi dans les discours
de conseils royaux. Bien qu’il ne s’agisse pas en soi d’un traité politique, cet
aspect n’est pas absent du « grimoire ».
L’histoire et les figures de souverains dans le Šams al-maʿārif
À la vue de ces différents éléments de pensée éthico-politique, nous pouvons

présupposer que le compilateur du Šams al-maʿārif avait la connaissance de
105 Jocelyne Dakhlia rappelle qu’al-Māwardī, par exemple, exprime clairement l’idée que tout
détenteur de pouvoir ne peut être qu’un homme. La sultane Šaǧar al-Durr (qui régna en
648/1250) représente une exception. Cf. Ammann, « S̲h̲ad̲ ja̲ r al-Durr », EI 2.
106 Caiozzo, Images du ciel d’Orient au Moyen Âge, p. 294-297.
107 Tillier, Les cadis d’Iraq et l’État Abbasside (132/750-334/945), p. 660.
108 Zakharia, « Al-Ghazâlî, conseilleur du prince », p. 222.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

472 Coulon
certains textes classiques, au moins d’histoire. Des éléments historiques, et

particulièrement des figures de souverains, illustrent cette dimension éthico-
politique apparaissant en filigrane dans le Šams al-maʿārif.
Les califes et la magie

Les figures de califes sont très présentes dans le Šams al-maʿārif. En effet, l’écri-
ture magique n’est pas sans rapport avec l’histoire. Les occurrences de person-
nages historiques permettent de réintégrer ces pratiques à l’histoire du monde
et à prouver tout à la fois leur efficacité et leur licéité.
Des califes sont ainsi mentionnés en plusieurs endroits en rapport avec la
quête du plus sublime nom de Dieu. Par exemple, dans un chapitre consacré
à la quête de ce nom, l’auteur du Šams al-maʿārif développe la toute-puissance
que permet d’acquérir ce nom. Le chapitre associe ce nom suprême à Jésus
puisque c’est grâce à ce nom que ce dernier aurait pu ressusciter le mort. Il dit
à propos de ce nom divin : « C’est le nom par lequel Zubayda possédait Hārūn
al-Rašīd et [grâce auquel] il ne la contredisait pas » (wa-huwa l-ism allaḏī mala-
kat bi-hi Zubayda Hārūn al-Rašīd wa-kāna lā yuḫālifu amrahā)109. La mention
de Zubayda (m. 216/831-832)110, épouse de Hārūn al-Rašīd, réactualise la quête
de ce nom et a un double intérêt : attester la puissance du nom et affirmer que
celui-ci était connu dans l’entourage du calife. La domination de Zubayda sur
Hārūn al-Rašīd par ce nom divin montre toute sa puissance puisqu’il renverse
alors les règles de domination sociale et met le calife, gardien de la puissance
sociale et patriarcale, en position de dominé.
Nous verrons un peu plus loin que, selon le Šams al-maʿārif, la bibliothèque
de Hārūn al-Rašīd possédait un ouvrage contenant des invocations, soulignant
le lien de ce calife avec la magie dans l’imaginaire arabe médiéval.
Le même chapitre sur la quête du nom suprême mentionne également le
calife al-Ma‌ʾmūn (r. 198/813-218/833) :
Al-Ma‌ʾmūn réunit les juristes, les théologiens et les sages (al-fuqahāʾ

wa-l-ʿulamāʾ wa-ḥukamāʾ) afin de s’assurer de l’explication [de ce nom].
Ils s’accordèrent à son sujet. Qui possède ce nom et en a la certitude verra
des merveilles brisant l’ordre des choses (ʿaǧab min ḫarq al-ʿawāʾid) et il
obtiendra ce qu’il demande (wa-iʿṭāʾ al-maṭālib). Prends garde à ne jamais
avilir ces noms sublimes. Fais-en l’un de tes plus hauts desseins, attache-
toi à eux toute ta vie. Qu’ils soient ta litanie (wirdaka) de jour comme de
nuit, et tu rejoindras les saints et atteindras les rangs des dévots.
110 Cf. Renate Jacobi, « Zubayda bt. D̲ j̲aʿfar », EI2.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

(Wa-qad ǧamaʿa l-Ma‌ʾmūn al-fuqahāʾ wa-l-ʿulamāʾ wa-l-ḥukamāʾ ḥattā

taḥaqqaqa tafsīruhu, wa-ttafaqū ʿalay-hā. Fa-man kānat ʿinda-hu wa-ttaqā
rabbahu fa-inna-hu yarā ʿaǧab min ḫarq al-ʿawāʾid wa-iʿṭāʾ al-maṭālib.
Wa-iyyā-ka l-ihāna bi-hāḏihi l-asmāʾ al-ʿiẓām. [26a] Fa-ǧʿalhā min akbar
himamika wa-tamassak bi-hā dahraka wa-ǧʿalhā wirdaka fī yawmika wa-
laylatika tafūz bi-maqām al-awliyāʾ wa-taḥūz marātib al-atqiyāʾ)111
Al-Ma‌ʾmūn est le garant de la possibilité d’acquérir ce nom sans pour au-

tant être prophète. La réunion de tous les savants par ce calife montre que la
connaissance du nom peut être transmise comme un savoir et n’est pas réser-
vée à une seule quête mystique. C’est là toute la différence entre la magie, sa-
voir transmissible (que traduit le terme de ʿilm), et la mystique, expérience du
monde et de la divinité (que traduit le terme de maʿrifa). Le calife al-Ma‌ʾmūn
est réputé avoir fondé la « maison de la Sagesse » (bayt al-ḥikma), bibliothèque
dans laquelle il aurait fait venir des ouvrages du monde entier et où ils au-
raient été traduits. Le calife représente ici l’idée de quête du savoir au-delà des
frontières du dār al-islām. La quête de cette Sagesse universelle (ḥikma) est
associée à ce calife. Le compilateur du Šams al-maʿārif semble ici réinterpré-
ter l’année 218/833-834, année de la mort du calife durant laquelle il réunit un
grand nombre de savants sur l’exégèse du Coran, réunion qui aboutit à l’impo-
sition du muʿtazilisme et de la doctrine du Coran créé comme dogme officiel
du califat112. Ces considérations pseudo-historiques sont à la fois la garantie
du sérieux de la connaissance délivrée et de l’efficacité du nom, ensuite seu-
lement le rituel d’utilisation de ce nom et la figure permettant de le connaître
sont délivrés. Al-Ma‌ʾmūn joue donc un rôle important pour la légitimation et
la promotion de l’utilisation magique des beaux noms de Dieu.
Les merveilles des califes et des rois

À côté de ces occurrences des figures des califes, il faut ajouter que le compila-
teur du Šams al-maʿārif se réfère en plusieurs endroits à des sources qu’il aurait
utilisées et qui firent partie de bibliothèques califales ou princières. Hārūn al-
Rašīd et al-Ma‌ʾmūn y ont de nouveau un rôle fondamental.
111 (Pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif, Esc1, folos 25b-26a ; Coulon, La magie islamique, II,
p. 135.
112 Voir par exemple la relation de cet épisode dans al-Ṭabarī, Ta‌ʾrīḫ al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, VIII,
p. 631-650 ; éd. Brill, III, p. 1111-1140 ; trad. Clifford Edmund Bosworth, 1987, XXXII [The
Absolutists in Power: The Caliphate of al-Ma’mun, A.D. 813-33-A.H. 198-213], p. 198-223.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

474 Coulon
Ainsi c’est dans la bibliothèque (ḫizāna) de Hārūn al-Rašīd que se serait

trouvé « le grand livre réunissant les mentions et les invocations » (al-kitāb
al-ǧāmiʿ fī l-aḏkār wa-fī l-adʿiya) duquel Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Idrīs
al-Rāzī (m. 277/890) aurait puisé une formule magique que reprend l’auteur
du Šams al-maʿārif 113. Il s’agit d’un « magasin » connu dans plusieurs sources
historiques : Ibn al-Nadīm (m. 385/995 ou 388/998) le mentionne dans son
Fihrist, indiquant qu’Abū Sahl b. Nawbaḫt était à « la bibliothèque de la
sagesse » (ḫizānat al-ḥikma) pour Hārūn al-Rašīd114. Ibn al-Qifṭī (m. 646/1248)
reprend par la suite la même information et ajoute qu’Abū Sahl fut nommé par
al-Rašīd pour diriger la « bibliothèque des livres de la sagesse »115. Le Fihrist
mentionne également ʿAllān al-Šuʿūbī qui « copiait les manuscrits dans le
bayt al-ḥikma pour al-Rašīd, al-Ma‌ʾmūn et les Barmakides »116. En outre, Ibn
al-Nadīm indique que c’est à partir d’ouvrages de la bibliothèque d’al-Ma‌ʾmūn
qu’il recopie les alphabets ḥimyarite et éthiopien117. Il affirme également qu’il y
avait dans la bibliothèque d’al-Ma‌ʾmūn un manuscrit en parchemin écrit de la
main de ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib b. Hāšim, le grand-père du Prophète118. Selon Dimitri
Gutas, « un siècle et demi après al-Ma‌ʾmūn, quand sa bibliothèque avait revê-
tu des traits légendaires à l’époque d’Ibn al-Nadīm, n’importe quel livre rare
ou ancien, ou n’importe quel livre écrit dans un alphabet étrange, pouvait lui
être attribué »119. Cette attribution d’ouvrages contenant des secrets magiques
à la bibliothèque d’un calife aussi prestigieux que Hārūn al-Rašīd s’inscrit donc
dans cette historiographie faisant des bibliothèques de ces anciens califes des
endroits où se trouvent les plus fabuleuses merveilles de la culture écrite.
Un autre passage mérite une attention particulière concernant les sources
utilisées en rapport avec des souverains. En effet, une section du Šams al-
maʿārif portant sur des noms divins hébraïques reprend ce motif de l’écrit an-
cien conservé dans les trésors d’un souverain. Elle débute ainsi :
113 (Pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif, Esc1, folo 46b ; Coulon, La magie islamique, II,
p. 247-248.
114 Mentionné par Dimitri Gutas, Pensée grecque, culture arabe, trad. Abdesselam Cheddadi,
Paris, Aubier, 2005, p. 99. Cf. également Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte der arabischen Schrifttums,
Leyde, E.J. Brill, 1967-2010, VII, p. 114.
115 Ibn al-Qifṭī, Ta‌ʾrīḫ al-ḥukamāʾ, éd. Julius Lippert, Leipzig, Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhand
lung, 1903, p. 255, l. 4-7 ; mentionné par Dimitri Gutas, Pensée grecque, culture arabe, p. 99.
116 Traduit dans ibid., p. 99.
117 L’écriture ḥimyarite est d’ailleurs mentionnée dans le Šams al-maʿārif : ce serait dans cet
alphabet qu’un Chinois l’aurait transmis à al-Ḫawārizmī. Cf. (pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-
maʿārif, Esc1, folo 25a ; Coulon, La magie islamique, II, p. 130.
118 Cf. Dimitri Gutas, Pensée grecque, culture arabe, p. 101.
119 Ibid., p. 101.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

Section dans laquelle je mentionnerai les noms sublimes, leurs bienfaits

et leurs secrets.
On dit à propos de [ces noms] qu’ils sont écrits autour du Trône. Ils
contiennent le plus sublime nom de Dieu. Quand on L’invoque par [ce
nom], Il répond, quand on L’interroge avec eux, Il donne. Ce sont des
noms hébreux, nous mentionnerons en arabe leurs significations, leurs
serviteurs, leurs propriétés et leurs bienfaits. Quand tu veux invoquer par
[ces noms], fais un jeûne de trois jours en rendant grâce à Dieu – Il est
puissant et majestueux ! – après avoir purifié tes vêtements et ton corps,
parce que ce sont des noms sublimes, ils sont ici une collation authen-
tique, parce que Yaʿqūb b. Isḥāq [= al-Kindī] les a transcrits d’un écrit de la
main d’Ubayy b. Kaʿb – que Dieu soit satisfait de lui – [qui était] le scribe
de l’Envoyé de Dieu – que la prière et le salut de Dieu soient sur lui ! –,
puis l’exemplaire de la main du lieutenant (nāʾib) d’al-Malik al-Ašraf fut
déposé dans la châsse (haykal)120 d’al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ Naǧm al-Dīn Ayyūb
b. Hīka (sic), [puis] dans le cahier que j’ai retranscrit dans notre livre.
Prends bien garde à les préserver et à les cacher !
(Faṣl aḏkuru fī-hi l-asmāʾ al-ʿaẓīma wa-manāfiʿahā wa-asrārahā. Wa-hāḏihi

l-asmāʾ qīla fī-hā bi-anna-hā maktūba ḥawla l-ʿarš wa-fī-hā ism Allāh
al-aʿẓam allaḏī iḏā duʿiya bi-hi aǧāba wa-iḏā suʾila bi-hi aʿṭā wa-hiya asmāʾ
ʿibrāniyya naḏkuru maʿānīhā bi-al-ʿarabiyya wa-ḫuddāmahā wa-ḫawāṣṣahā
wa-manāfiʿahā fa-iḏā aradta an tadʿuwa bi-hā fa-ṣum li-Llāh – ʿazza
wa-ǧalla – ṯalāṯat ayyām šukran la-hu baʿd an tuṭahhira ṯiyābaka wa-badan-
aka li-anna-hā asmāʾ ʿaẓīma wa-hiya hunā muqābala ṣaḥīḥa li-anna Yaʿqūb
b. Isḥāq naqalahā min kitāb bi-ḫaṭṭ Ubayy b. Kaʿb – raḍiya Allāh ʿan-hu –
kātib rasūl Allāh – ṣallā Allāh ʿalay-hi wa-sallama – ṯumma nuqilat bi-ḫaṭṭ
nāʾib al-Malik al-Ašraf ilā haykal al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ Naǧm al-Dīn b. [sic] Ayyūb
b. Hīka [sic] ilā haykal (ditt.) ilā hāḏihi l-kurrāsa llatī naqalnāhā min-hā ilā
kitābi-nā hāḏā fa-ʿalay-ka bi-ḥifẓihā wa-katmihā)121
Dans ce texte, Ubayy b. Kaʿb122 (m. entre 19/640 et 35/656) et al-Kindī (m. ca
252/866) sont mentionnés pour authentifier la transmission de ce savoir. Le
terme de haykal (« temple » ou « châsse ») suggère que cet écrit était conservé
120 Rappelons ici que le terme de haykal désignait chez les chrétiens un « couvent, église,
chapelle où il y a une image de la Vierge », et de là un autel. Cf. Dozy, Supplément aux
dictionnaires arabes, II, p. 775.
p. 340-341.
122 Andrew Lawrence Rippin, « Ubayy b. Kaʿb », EI2.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

476 Coulon
tel un trésor par la dynastie. Dans la mesure où il s’agit d’une dynastie égyp-
tienne, tout l’imaginaire sur les puissants rois-magiciens de l’Égypte antique
est ainsi réveillé et concourt à situer cet écrit dans une longue tradition ma-
gique égyptienne qui traverserait l’histoire depuis des temps immémoriaux
jusqu’au Šams al-maʿārif.
La mention des souverains ayyoubides est spécifique à notre traité. En
effet, la mention de ces deux souverains, al-Malik al-Ašraf 123 et al-Malik
al-Ṣāliḥ Naǧm al-Dīn Ayyūb124, est beaucoup moins classique dans la mesure
où ces derniers n’appartiennent pas, au VIIe/XIIIe siècle, à ce mythique et glo-
rieux passé du califat abbasside. On peut sans doute voir dans la mention de
ces deux souverains un « régionalisme » qui indiquerait que ce passage aurait
été d’abord rédigé en Égypte sous forme indépendante, puis intégré dans le
Šams al-maʿārif à partir d’un manuscrit conservé dans une bibliothèque sul-
tanienne. Il existe d’ailleurs un manuscrit conservé à Istanbul125 et constitué
de ce seul passage du Šams al-maʿārif, témoignant donc de la circulation de ce
texte indépendamment du reste de la compilation. Le choix de son intégration
au Šams al-maʿārif avec l’histoire de sa transmission vise à inscrire ce docu-
ment et le Šams al-maʿārif dans cette quête des hommes de pouvoir.
Magie, guerre et processus de légitimation
Une des recettes du Šams al-maʿārif mérite une attention particulière pour
notre propos en raison des éléments historiques qu’elle contient ainsi que
de tout l’imaginaire pseudo-historique qu’elle présuppose. En effet, un objet
magique ayant appartenu à ces califes est mentionné. Il s’agit d’une bague
contenant des noms divins et qui aurait contribué à la stabilité de la dynastie
abbasside126 :
123 Al-Malik al-Ašraf Muẓaffar al-Dīn Mūsā, dernier sultan ayyoubide d’Égypte officiellement
de 648/1250 à 652/1254, bien qu’il n’eût aucun pouvoir dans les faits. Cf. Claude Cahen,
« Ayyūbides », EI2 et Peter Malcolm Holt, « Mamlūks », EI2.
124 Naǧm al-Dīn Ayyūb, sultan ayyoubide qui régna en Égypte de 637/1240 à 647/1249 et à
Damas en 636/1239 et de 643/1245 et 647/1249. On lui attribue de nombreuses construc-
tions de palais, notamment sur l’île de Rawḍa et sur les bords du Nil, ainsi qu’une ma-
drasa assurant l’enseignement des quatre rites juridiques. Cf. Donald Sydney Richard,
« al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ Nad̲ jm
̲ al-Dīn Ayyūb », EI2.
125 M S Istanbul, Aya Sofia, 1872. Nous avons édité ce manuscrit dans notre thèse de doctorat.
Voir Coulon, La magie islamique, IV, p. 366-370.
126 Cette anecdote vient probablement d’al-Muntaḫab al-rafīʿ al-asnā. Il est intéressant de
voir que, parmi les morceaux puisés dans cette courte épître, certains contiennent les
principales références à des souverains que l’on y trouve, ce qui tend à confirmer cette
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

Quant à Son nom le Haut le Sublime (al-ʿAlī l-ʿAẓīm), celui qui en fait un
carré magique (waffaqahumā) sur un anneau en or, l’encense avec du bois
d’aloès (ʿūd) et de l’ambre gris (ʿanbar) et le porte sur lui, tous ceux qui le
voient s’humilient devant lui et se soumettent. Les rois l’ont utilisé depuis
al-Saffāḥ127 jusqu’à notre époque. Leur règne fut stable, leur dynastie et
leur puissance s’étendirent [dans le temps]. On demanda à al-Ma‌ʾmūn :
« Comment donc ferais-tu si les rois de Perse venaient à toi ? ». Il mon-
tra sa main avec un anneau sur lequel étaient les deux noms en carré
magique (muwaffaqān). Il dit : « Personne ne peut rien contre nous aussi
longtemps que cet anneau sera gravé ».
(Wa-ammā smuhu l-ʿAlī l-ʿAẓīm man waffaqahumā fī ḫātam min ḏahab

wa-baḫḫarahu bi-ʿūd wa-ʿanbar wa-ḥamalahu maʿa-hu, fa-kull man rāʾāhu
ḏalla la-hu wa-ḫaḍaʿa. Wa-qad kānat al-mulūk tattaḫiḏuhu min baʿd
al-Saffāḥ ilā zamāni-nā hāḏā, fa-yaṯbutu mulkuhum wa-nbasaṭat daw-
latuhum wa-qadaruhum. Wa-qad qīla li-l-Ma‌ʾmūn : « Kayfa bi-ka iḏā
nazala bi-ka mulūk al-Fāris ? », fa-aḫraǧa yadahu bi-ḫātam fī-hi l-ismān
muwaffaqān. Fa-qāla : « lā yaqdiru ʿalay-nā aḥad mā dāma hāḏā l-ḫātam
manqūš »).128
Cet anneau est ainsi clairement destiné à un homme de pouvoir. Cette anec
dote est d’ailleurs reprise mot pour mot par Ibn Mankli dans son Kitāb al-
Tadbīrāt al-sulṭāniyya (sans nommer al-Būnī)129. La dynastie abbasside sert à
garantir l’efficacité de l’objet. Cela peut être une allusion au fait que chaque
calife abbasside avait son propre sceau, comme le montre al-Masʿūdī (m.
345/956) dans son Kitāb al-Tanbīh wa-l-išrāf (Le livre de l’avertissement et de la
révision). Selon ce traité, la devise gravée sur le sceau d’al-Ma‌ʾmūn, identique
à celle du sceau d’al-Saffāḥ, était « ʿAbd Allāh a la confiance de Dieu, c’est en
Lui qu’il croit » (Allāh ṯiqat ʿAbd Allāh wa-bi-hi yuʾminu)130. Le Šams al-maʿārif
volonté d’intégrer la magie à un imaginaire historico-politique et non dans une perspec-

tive purement mystique.
127 Premier calife abbasside, qui régna de 132/750 à 136/754. Cf. Sabatino Moscati, « Abu
‘l-ʿAbbās al-Saffāḥ », EI2.
128 (Pseudo-)al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif, Esc1, folo 87b ; Coulon, La magie islamique, II, p. 450.
129 Al-Ǧumaylī, « Kitāb al-Tadbīrāt al-sulṭāniyya », p. 226.
130 ʿAbd Allāh est le nom (ism) de ces deux califes. Cf. al-Masʿūdī, Kitāb al-Tanbīh wa-l-išrāf,
éd. Michael Jan de Goeje, Leyde, E.J. Brill, 1894, VIII, p. 340 (sceau d’al-Saffāḥ) et p. 352
(sceau d’al-Ma‌ʾmūn) ; id., Le livre de l’avertissement et de la révision, trad. Bernard Carra
de Vaux, Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1896, p. 438 (sceau d’al-Saffāḥ) et p. 452 (sceau d’al-
Ma‌ʾmūn). Bernard Carra de Vaux traduit la devise par « Dieu est la sûreté ʿAbd-Allah qui
se confie en lui ».
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

478 Coulon
ayant été compilé après la prise de Bagdad et la chute de la dynastie abbas

side en 656/1258, il est probable que l’auteur en parlant de « son époque »
(ilā zamāni-nā hāḏā) désigne les Abbassides du Caire sous domination ma-
melouke. Une autre hypothèse voudrait que l’auteur du Šams al-maʿārif ait re-
copié tel quel un passage d’un traité antérieur à la chute des Abbassides de
Bagdad, mais, en l’état actuel de nos connaissances, rien ne permet d’étayer
davantage cette hypothèse.
Cette anecdote fait immanquablement penser à une autre anecdote met-
tant en scène al-Ma‌ʾmūn et relatée dans le miroir des princes attribué à al-
Ġazālī. Dans cet épisode, al-Ma‌ʾmūn découvre le sceau du souverain sassanide
Kisrā (Ḫusrū) :
Ainsi, lorsqu’al-Ma‌ʾmūn découvrit la tombe de Ḫusrū, ouvrit son sar-

cophage et la fouilla, il trouva son corps131. Il avait [toujours] son éclat
et n’avait pas souffert du temps. Les vêtements qu’il portait avaient gardé
leur éclat, ils n’avaient pas changé et n’étaient pas usés. L’anneau à son
doigt avait un châton d’hyacinthe rouge de grande valeur. Al-Ma‌ʾmūn
n’avait jamais vu avant lui un semblable châton. Sur son châton était écrit
« B.H M.H B.H N.H B.H M.H », dont la signification est « Plus généreux,
plus grand », et non « Le plus grand est [le] plus généreux ». Al-Ma‌ʾmūn
ordonna qu’on le recouvrît d’un vêtement tissé avec de l’or. Un serviteur
accompagnait al-Ma‌ʾmūn, et [ce dernier] prit l’anneau du doigt de Ḫusrū.
Al-Ma‌ʾmūn ne s’en aperçut pas. Lorsqu’il le sut, il le fit revenir et ordonna
que l’on exécute le serviteur. Il dit : « Il faillit me faire un affront de sorte
qu’on aurait dit de moi jusqu’au jour du jugement dernier : “Al-Ma‌ʾmūn
était un pilleur de tombes (nabbāš) : en vérité, il a ouvert la tombe de
Ḫusrū et lui a pris son anneau du doigt” ».
(Wa-li-aǧl hāḏā lammā kašafa l-Ma‌ʾmūn turbat Kisrā wa-fataḥa tābūtahu

wa-fattašahu waǧada ṣūratahu wa-hiya bi-māʾihā mā buliyat. Wa-l-ṯiyāb
ʿalay-hā baǧdatuhā mā taġayyarat wa-lā ḫaluqat. Wa-l-ḫātam fī aṣbaʿihi
faṣṣuhu yāqūt aḥmar kaṯīr al-ṯaman, mā ra‌ʾā l-Ma‌ʾmūn qabla-hu faṣṣ
miṯla-hu. Wa-kāna ʿalā faṣṣihi maktūb B.H M.H B.H N.H B.H M.H. Wa-maʿnā
ḏālika l-aǧwad akbar wa-laysa l-akbar aǧwad. Fa-amara l-Ma‌ʾmūn an
yuġaṭṭā bi-ṯawb nusiǧa min al-ḏahab. Wa-kāna maʿa l-Ma‌ʾmūn ḫādim
fa-aḫaḏa l-ḫātam min aṣbaʿ Kisrā wa-lam yašʿar bi-hi l-Ma‌ʾmūn. Fa-lammā
131 Nous avons pris le parti de traduire ici ṣūratahu en fonction du contexte. Il est peu pro-
bable qu’il s’agisse ici d’une représentation ou d’une statue du souverain sassanide plutôt
que de son corps.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

ʿalima bi-hi aʿādahu wa-amara bi-ihlāk al-ḫādim wa-qāla : kāda yafḍaḥunī

bi-ḥayṯu yuqālu ʿannī ilā yawm al-qiyāma anna l-Ma‌ʾmūn kāna nabbāš
wa-inna-hu fataḥa qabr Kisrā wa-aḫaḏa ḫātamahu min aṣbaʿihi).132
La description de l’anneau rappelle des éléments essentiels de la composition

des talismans islamiques comme la gravure de lettres sans signification appa-
rente. Elles correspondraient à deux noms, ce qui correspond tout à fait aux
noms divins fréquemment présents dans les sceaux magiques islamiques. Leur
signification est commentée, comme c’est le cas des nomina barbara (« noms
barbares ») des traités de magie islamique.
L’épisode diffère en plusieurs points de celui du Šams al-maʿārif : al-Ma‌ʾmūn
n’y hérite pas de l’anneau par ses prédécesseurs, il le découvre dans la tombe
de l’antique souverain sassanide. De même, il ne se saisit pas de l’anneau, mais
au contraire il le laisse à son défunt propriétaire. L’anneau représente donc le
prestige de la dynastie sassanide, comme l’anneau dont hérite al-Ma‌ʾmūn dans
le Šams al-maʿārif symbolise la gloire de la dynastie abbasside. L’épisode met
en scène la continuité entre la dynastie sassanide et le califat abbasside133.
Le choix d’al-Ma‌ʾmūn plutôt qu’un autre calife pour héritier de l’anneau
dans le Šams al-maʿārif n’est pas anodin : la victoire d’al-Ma‌ʾmūn sur son frère
al-Amīn (r. 193/809-198/813) dans la guerre fratricide qui les opposa à la mort de
Hārūn al-Rašīd, bien connue du lectorat arabe médiéval, permet d’accréditer
l’idée de l’efficacité de l’anneau. Le traité suggère donc qu’al-Amīn n’avait pas
reçu l’anneau, et que l’objet donna toute légitimité à al-Ma‌ʾmūn. On ajoute-
ra également que Hārūn al-Rašīd est parfois présenté dans les sources arabes
comme ayant choisi al-Amīn pour premier successeur sous la pression de la fa-
mille abbasside car al-Ma‌ʾmūn était un fils issu d’une mère concubine de Hārūn
al-Rašīd alors qu’al-Amīn était le fils de Zubayda (Umm Ǧaʿfar), épouse légi-
time et petite-fille d’al-Manṣūr. Ainsi, selon les Murūǧ al-ḏahab d’al-Masʿūdī,
132 Al-Ġazālī, al-Tibr al-masbūk fī naṣīḥat al-mulūk, p. 233.

133 Philippe Gignoux et Ludvik Kalus ont mis en évidence les éléments de continuité entre
les sceaux des califes abbassides et ceux de leurs prédécesseurs sassanides. Cf. Philippe
Gignoux et Ludvik Kalus, « Les formules des sceaux sassanides et islamiques : continui-
té ou mutation ? », Studia Iranica, 11 (1982) [Mélanges offerts à Raoul Curiel], p. 123-153.
Nous n’avons pas trouvé la formule mentionnée dans les sceaux magiques présentés par
Rika Gyselen (cf. Sceaux magiques en Iran sassanide). Sur les sceaux des premiers califes,
voir aussi Venetia Porter, « Islamic Seals », dans 7000 Years of Seals, éd. Dominique Collon,
Londres, British Museum Press, 1997, p. 177-179. Sur l’utilisation magique de sceaux, cf.
également J. Michael Rogers, « Islamic Seals Part 2 », dans 7000 Years of Seals, éd. Domi-
nique Collon, Londres, British Museum Press, 1997, p. 185-204 et Venetia Porter, Arabic
and Persian seals and amulets in the British Museum, Londres, British Museum, 2011.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

480 Coulon
Hārūn al-Rašīd aurait fait part de ses réflexions à son vizir Abū l-Faḍl Yaḥyā
l-Barmakī pour lui indiquer qu’al-Amīn ne lui semblait pas avoir les quali-
tés d’un bon calife et qu’il préférerait désigner al-Ma‌ʾmūn pour successeur,
n’était la pression des Banū Hāšim et de Zubayda pour qu’al-Amīn soit le
seul successeur134. L’anneau serait ainsi l’héritage caché de Hārūn al-Rašīd à
al-Ma‌ʾmūn.
Un autre souverain important à être cité pour garantir l’efficacité d’une re-
cette est Sābūr (Šāpūr). Dans le Šams al-maʿārif, il apparaît comme exemple
d’utilisation d’un objet magique basé sur l’emploi de trois noms divins :
Quant à Son nom le Puissant (al-ʿAzīz) le Tout-Puissant (al-Ǧabbār)

l’Orgueilleux (al-Mutakabbir), ce sont les noms pour les rois, qui leur cor-
respondent. S’ils veulent la victoire (al-naṣr) sur leurs ennemis, qu’ils les
tracent en lettres séparées (mukassara) avec leur nombre sur ce modèle :
ʿ Ā L Z Z Ā L K M T Y Ǧ Ā R B R B, et tu écriras sur leur cercle {En vérité,
[Prophète !,] Nous t’avons octroyé un succès éclatant}135 jusqu’à Son pro-
pos {un secours puissant}136 à l’heure de Mars, et la meilleure est la pre-
mière [heure] du mardi. Si l’ascendant est le signe du Bélier, c’est bien,
ou si l’ascendant est Mars, c’est bien aussi, sinon l’heure suffit [si elle cor-
respond à Mars]. [Le sceau] est encensé de clématite137 (bahrāmaǧ), qui
134 Al-Masʿūdī, Les prairies d’or, trad. Barbier de Meynard et Pavet de Courteille, revue et cor-
rigée par Charles Pellat, Paris, Société asiatique-Paul Geuthner, 1989, IV, p. 1028-1030.
135 Cor 48, 1.
136 Cor 48, 3.
137 Bahrāmaǧ désigne généralement « une espèce de saule de Balkh et du Khorassan ». Kazi-
mirski, Dictionnaire arabe-français, I, p. 172. Cependant, dans ce contexte, nous proposons
plutôt de l’identifier à la clématite. En effet, al-Ġāfiqī et Mūsā b. Maymūn décrivent pour
bahrāmaǧ une plante identifiée par Max Meyerhof comme étant la clématite, tout en
indiquant qu’il s’agit d’une erreur d’al-Ġāfiqī par comparaison avec d’autres descriptions
du bahrāmaǧ. Al-Ġāfiqī la surnomme le « jasmin sauvage » (yāsmīn barrī). Mūsā b. May-
mūn indique que la plante est appelée en al-Andalus yirbat dufuwāqa (yerba do fuego,
litt. « l’herbe du feu », en arabe ʿušbat al-nār), ce qui concorde tout à fait ici. Cf. Mūsā
b. Maymūn, Šarḥ asmāʾ al-ʿuqqār : un glossaire de matière médicale de Maimonide, éd. et
trad. Max Meyerhof, Le Caire, Imprimerie de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale,
1940, p. 10 (texte arabe) et 35 (traduction), no 64 ; Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Muntaḫab Kitāb Ǧāmiʿ al-
mufradāt, éd. et trad. Max Mayerhof et G.P. Sobhy, Le Caire, Būlāq, 1932-1940, p. 73 (texte
arabe) et 325-329 (traduction), no 154 ; notice yāsmīn barrī : Tuḥfat al-aḥbāb. Glossaire de
la matière médicale marocaine, éd. et trad. Georges Séraphin Colin et Henri-Paul-Joseph
Renaud, Paris, Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1934, p. 22 (texte arabe) et 92-93 (tra-
duction), no 206. On trouve une concise description du saule de Balkh dans l’ouvrage
d’Ibn al-Bayṭār. Cf. Ibn al-Bayṭār, Kitāb al-Ǧāmiʿ li-mufradāt al-adwiya wa-l-aġḏiya, Le
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

est l’herbe du feu. Quand le roi le porte avec lui, quiconque le voit dans les
armées [ennemies], quand il s’avance contre eux, ils sont mis en déroute.
Sābūr l’avait pris et avec avait brisé les armées des Barmécides à leur
époque. Lorsqu’il mourut, on le trouva sur lui et il le légua après lui à son fils.
(Fa-ammā smuhu l-ʿAzīz al-Ǧabbār al-Mutakabbir hāḏihi l-asmāʾ li-l-

mulūk muwāfiqa la-hum iḏā arādū l-naṣr ʿalā aʿdāʾihim, fa-l-yarsumūhā
mukassara bi-ʿadadihā ʿalā hāḏā l-miṯāl : ʿ Ā L Z Z Ā L K M T Y Ǧ Ā R B R B,
wa-taktubu ʿalā dāʾiratihā {innā fataḥnā la-ka fatḥan mubīnan} ilā qawlihi
{naṣran ʿazīzan} fī sāʿat al-Mirrīḫ wa-l-afḍal al-ūlā min yawm al-ṯulāṯāʾ.
Wa-in kāna l-ṭāliʿ burǧ al-Ḥamal fa-ḥasan, aw yakūnu l-ṭāliʿ al-Mirrīḫ
fa-ḥasan ayḍan wa-illā fa-l-sāʿa kāfiya wa-baḫḫirhu bi-l-bahrāmaǧ, wa-
huwa ʿušb al-nār. Fa-iḏā ḥamalahu l-malik maʿa-hu fa-ayy man ra‌ʾāhu min
al-ǧuyūš qad aqbala ʿalay-him inhazamū wa-qad ittaḫaḏahu Ṣābūr
wa-kāna yaksiru bi-hi ǧuyūš al-Barāmika fī ayyāmihim. Fa-lammā māta
wuǧida ʿinda-hu wa-awṣā min baʿdi-hi li-waladihi).138
Le rituel concentre un grand nombre d’éléments ressortissant du système sym-

bolique de la guerre, représentée par la planète Mars. Ainsi ce rituel doit être
exécuté le mardi (jour de Mars), le signe zodiacal ascendant doit être le Bélier
(domicile de Mars139), la clématite (bahrāmaǧ) est décrite comme l’herbe du
feu, élément associé à Mars, et son nom n’est pas sans rappeler Bahrām, un
des noms de la planète Mars140 et, curieuse coïncidence sur le plan du réseau
analogique, du petit-fils de Sābūr. Les versets coraniques choisis contiennent
les termes de fataḥa (conquérir) et de naṣr (aide [divine] donnant la victoire)
et appellent donc à la victoire sur un ennemi.
Sābūr est un souverain sassanide réputé avoir légué à son fils et succes-
seur Hurmuzd un recueil de préceptes. L’ouvrage correspondant serait de
Caire, Būlāq, 1291/[1874], I, p. 122 ; Traité des simples, trad. Lucien Leclerc, Notices et ex-
traits des manuscrits de la bibliothèque nationale, XXIII, Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1877,
I, p. 282, n°369. Pour balḫiyya, cf. Ibn al-Bayṭār, Kitāb al-Ǧāmiʿ li-mufradāt al-adwiya wa-l-
aġḏiya, I, p. 112 ; Traité des simples, I, p. 263-264, n°344. Sur ce passage, voir aussi Coulon,
« Fumigations et rituels magiques : le rôle des encens et fumigations dans la magie arabe
médiévale », Bulletin d’Études Orientales, 64 (2015), p. 203-204.
p. 430-431.
139 Abū Maʿšar, The Abbreviation of the Introduction to Astrology, p. 14 (texte arabe) et 15 (tra-
duction) : fa-l-Ḥamal bayt al-Mirrīḫ. L’autre domicile de Mars est le Scorpion.
140 Cf. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿarab, I, p. 372.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

482 Coulon
composition tardive et reprenant la (pseudo-)tradition sassanide141. Cette

compilation d’aphorismes se présente comme la traduction de dix-neuf sen-
tences écrites sur une table en or trouvée dans un trésor de Sābūr à Istakhr
(Iṣṭaḫr)142.
L’anecdote du Šams al-maʿārif évoquait probablement au lectorat lettré de
l’époque l’épisode de la prise de Hatra (al-Ḥaḍr) par Sābūr143. Celle-ci est rela-
tée dans le Kitāb al-Aġānī (Le livre des chansons) d’Abū l-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī (m.
356/967) et reprise dans l’anthologie d’adab tardif al-Mustaṭraf (La nouvelle cu-
riosité) de l’Égyptien al-Ibšīhī (m. après 850/1446), ce qui indique qu’elle ne pou-
vait être ignorée d’un lecteur cultivé. L’anecdote relate la victoire de Sābūr sur
al-Ḍayzan lors de l’attaque de la forteresse de Hatra en représailles de l’enlève-
ment de sa sœur et de la mort de nombreux hommes au service des Sassanides.
Sābūr décida donc de réunir ses hommes pour assiéger la forteresse :
On dit : ensuite Sābūr Ḏū l-Aktāf réunit [son armée] et fit route vers eux.
Il se tint devant Hatra quatre ans sans rien tirer d’eux. Puis al-Naḍīra, la
fille d’al-Ḍayzan, eut ses menstrues – c’est-à-dire ses règles – et on la fit
sortir dans les faubourgs, bien qu’elle fût la plus belle en son temps. C’est
ainsi qu’ils faisaient avec les femmes lorsqu’elles avaient leurs règles.
Sābūr était le plus beau [des hommes] de son époque. Il la vit et elle le vit,
il s’éprit d’elle et elle s’éprit de lui. Elle lui envoya [une missive] : « Que me
feras-tu si je t’indique ce avec quoi tu détruiras cette ville et tueras mon
père ? » Il répondit : « Je t’en laisserai juge, je t’élèverai parmi mes femmes
et tu seras ma favorite parmi elles ». Elle dit : « Tu dois [prendre] un pigeon
à collier gris-cendré, écris sur sa patte avec les menstrues d’une jeune ser-
vante vierge qui aura les yeux bleus. Ensuite, envoie-la. Elle échouera sur
le mur de la ville et la ville s’effondrera ». C’était son talisman (ṭillasm)144,
le seul [moyen] qui pouvait détruire [la ville]. Il le fit et se prépara contre
eux. Elle lui dit : « Moi, j’abreuverai les gardes de vin. Quand ils seront
inconscients (ṣuriʿū), tue-les et pénètre dans la ville ». Il fit [ainsi], la ville
s’effondra, Sābūr la conquit par la force. Un jour il tua al-Ḍayzan. Il fit
périr les al-ʿAbīd, fit périr les derniers qui étaient avec al-Ḍayzan et il n’en
141 Shapur Shahbazi, « Shapur I », Encyclopædia Iranica.

142 Charles-Henri de Fouchécour, Le sage et le prince en Iran médiéval. Les textes persans de
morale et politique (IXe-XIIIe siècle), Paris, L’Harmattan, 2009, p. 29.
143 Clifford Edmund Bosworth, « S̲h̲āpūr », EI2.
144 Ainsi vocalisé dans le texte arabe.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

reste plus personne de nos jours. Les tribus de Ḥulwān145 furent frappées,
s’éteignirent et ne laissèrent aucune postérité.
(Qālū : ṯumma inna Sābūr Ḏā l-aktāf ǧamaʿa la-hum wa-sāra ilay-him,

fa-aqāma ʿalā l-Ḥaḍr arbaʿ sinīn lā yastaġillu min-hum šayʾ. Ṯumma inna
l-Naḍīra bint al-Ḍayzan ʿarakat – ay ḥāḍat – fa-uḫriǧat [p. 142] ilā l-rabaḍ
wa-kānat min aǧmal ahl dahrihā, wa-ka-ḏālika kānū yafʿalūna bi-nisāʾihim
iḏā ḥiḍna, wa-kāna Sābūr min aǧmal ahl zamānihi, fa-ra‌ʾāhā wa-ra‌ʾathu,
wa-ʿašiqahā wa-ʿašiqathu, fa-arsalat ilay-hi : mā taǧʿalu lī in dalaltuka ʿalā
mā tahdimu bi-hi hāḏihi l-madīna wa-taqtulu abī ? Qāla : uḥakkimuki
wa-arfaʿuki ʿalā nisāʾī, wa-aḫuṣṣuki bi-nafsī dūna-hunna ; qālat : ʿalay-ka
bi-ḥamāma muṭawwaqa warqāʾ, fa-ktub fī riǧlihā bi-ḥayḍ ǧāriya bikr
takūnu zarqāʾ, ṯumma arsilhā fa-inna-hā taqaʿu ʿalā ḥāʾiṭ al-madīna
fa-tatadāʿā l-madīna, wa-kāna ḏālika ṭillasmahā lā yahdimuhā illā huwa,
fa-faʿala wa-ta‌ʾahhaba la-hum, wa-qālat la-hu : anā asqī l-ḥaras al-ḫamr,
fa-iḏā ṣuriʿū fa-qtulhum wa-dḫul al-madīna, fa-faʿala fa-tadāʿat al-madīna,
wa-fataḥahā Sābūr ʿunwatan, fa-qatala l-Ḍayzan yawma‌ʾiḏ, wa-abāda
banī l-ʿAbīd, wa-afnā quḍāʿat allaḏīn kānū maʿa l-Ḍayzan fa-lam yabqa
min-hum bāqin yuʿrafu ilā l-yawm, wa-uṣībat qabāʾil Ḥulwān wa-nqaraḍū
wa-daraǧū […]).146
Sābūr finit par épouser al-Naḍīra, mais, peu après leur nuit de noces, il la fit exé-
cuter en faisant attacher ses cheveux à la queue d’un cheval lancé au galop. C’est
à ce titre qu’al-Ibšīhī mentionne l’anecdote comme illustration de la fourberie.
Le talisman est présenté comme le seul moyen qui existait pour prendre la ville.
Le rituel pour l’accomplir n’est pas complètement donné puisqu’il manque les
caractères à écrire. Bien que foncièrement différent de l’anneau présenté dans
notre « grimoire », cette anecdote bien connue de la littérature d’adab associe
Sābūr à la connaissance de moyens magiques pour la guerre. Sābūr est d’ailleurs
aussi réputé pour s’être intéressé aux sciences occultes : Ibn al-Nadīm rapporte
qu’il fit traduire en persan les livres d’« Hermès le Babylonien »147. Outre cette
145 Cf. Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī, Muʿǧam al-buldān, éd. Ferdinand Wüstenfeld, Leipzig, 1866, II,
p. 290-293.
146 Abū l-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-Aġānī, Le Caire, Dār al-kutub al-miṣriyya, 1952-1994, II,
p. 141-144. Cf. également al-Ibšīhī, al-Mustaṭraf, Le Caire, Maktabat Šaraf, 1302/[1884], I,
p. 210 ; id., al-Mostaṭraf, trad. Gaston Rat, Paris-Toulon, Isnard-Brun, 1899-1902, I, p. 643-644.
147 Ibn al-Nadīm, al-Fihrist, éd. Riḍā Taǧaddud, Téhéran, Marvi Offset printing, 1971, p. 300 ;
id., The Fihrist of al-Nadīm, éd. et trad. Bayard Dodge, New-York-Londres, Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 1970, II, p. 575.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

484 Coulon
anecdote littéraire, l’anneau rappelle son testament éthico-politique : l’objet

magique en question est un héritage, comme le testament écrit pour faciliter
le règne des descendants de Sābūr. L’objet magique est donc ici l’héritage per-
mettant la pérennité de la dynastie.
Un autre cas de rituel à caractère magique dans un contexte de guerre dans
le Šams al-maʿārif concerne l’époque des conquêtes arabes des débuts de l’is-
lam. Le conquérant Ḫālid b. al-Walīd148 (m. 21/642) apparaît comme garant de
l’efficacité de l’emploi de la basmala après un empoisonnement :
Ḫālid b. al-Walīd prit le poison que le Maître des chrétiens lui avait
envoyé en lui faisant dire : « Si tu es sincère [dans ta foi], alors le poison
ne te nuira pas avec ces mots. Bois-le ! » Ḫālid le déposa dans sa main
en présence de l’envoyé des chrétiens qui était venu à lui et en présence
de ses compagnons. Il dit : « Au nom de Dieu, le Sublime, avec le nom
duquel rien ne [peut] nuire sur terre et dans le ciel, Il est l’Audient,
l’Omniscient ». Il le but et rien ne l’atteignit excepté le suintement de la
transpiration. Si ce nom empêche le poison [de nuire] et défend [contre]
lui, il suffit en bénédiction et bienfait.
(Qad aḫaḏa Ḫālid b. al-Walīd al-summ ḥayṯu baʿaṯa bi-hi ilay-hi ʿaẓīm
al-naṣrāniyya, wa-qāla la-hu in kunta ṣādiq fa-inna l-summ lā yaḍurru
maʿa hāḏihi l-kalimāt fa-šrabhu, fa-waḍaʿahu Ḫālid fī yadihi bi-maḥḍar
rasūl al-naṣrāniyya llaḏī atā ilay-hi wa-bi-maḥḍar aṣḥābihi, wa-qāla :
« Bi-sm Allāh al-ʿaẓīm allaḏī lā yaḍurru [16b] maʿa smihi šayʾ fī l-arḍ wa-lā
fī l-samāʾ wa-huwa l-samīʿ al-ʿalīm » wa-taḥassāhu, fa-lam yuṣibhu šayʾ illā
taraššuḥ ʿaraq. Fa-iḏā kāna hāḏā l-ism manaʿa min al-summ wa-dafaʿahu
fa-kafā bi-hi baraka wa-yumn)149
Des recueils de hadiths relatent cette anecdote. Elle est associée à la prise d’al-
Ḥīra lors de la conquête arabe150. La basmala a ici deux fonctions : d’une part,
148 Ḫālid b. al-Walīd est compagnon du Prophète contre lequel il avait d’abord combattu à la
bataille d’Uḥud (en 3/625 ou 4/626) avant sa conversion en 6/627 ou 8/629. La tradition
musulmane lui attribue l’initiative de la conquête de l’Irak. Cf. Jens J. Scheiner, « Ḫālid b.
al-Walīd Gewährt Den Amān », dans Die Eroberung von Damaskus, éd. Jens J. Scheiner,
Leyde-Boston, Brill (« Islamic history and civilization »), 2010, p. 21-179 ; Patricia Crone,
« K̲ h̲ālid b. al-Walīd », EI2.
150 Abū Yaʿlā, Musnad Abī Yaʿlā l-Mawṣilī, éd. Ḥusayn Salīm Asad, Beyrouth, Dār al-Ma‌ʾmūn
li-l-turāṯ, 1989, XIII, p. 141, no 7186. Voir aussi al-Ḏahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, éd. Ḥassān
ʿAbd al-Mannān, Beyrouth, Bayt al-afkār al-duwaliyya, 2004, II, p. 1606 ; al-Ṭabarānī,
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

protéger de l’empoisonnement et, d’autre part, attester l’efficacité de la révéla-

tion coranique à travers un usage prophylactique. Cet usage sert donc à témoi-
gner de son authenticité.
Dans le Šams al-maʿārif, seul l’usage prophylactique est mis en valeur, mais
il demeure lié à une mise en scène du pouvoir thaumaturgique du conquérant
grâce à la nouvelle foi. Ici, l’épisode historique sert encore une fois à manifester
l’efficacité de l’usage apotropaïque d’une formule coranique.
Conclusion
Une lecture politique du Šams al-maʿārif est tout à fait possible. Il serait er-
roné de penser que ce type de traité magique était « populaire » car, à l’ins-
tar d’une grande partie de la production écrite médiévale, il n’était pas plus
produit dans un milieu « populaire » qu’il ne lui était destiné. Au contraire, la
magie était considérée comme une science suprême, un noble art à soustraire
aux non-initiés et à ceux qui n’en étaient pas dignes. Le Šams al-maʿārif réalise
ainsi une synthèse entre la magie astrale et la cosmologie soufie selon les codes
de l’adab. Comme le soulignait Katia Zakharia, l’adab est un élément distinc-
tif de l’élite et de la cour151. Il s’agit de l’éducation nécessaire à un homme de
bonne famille pour briller à la cour. Formellement, les textes d’adab puisent
dans l’abondante matière des « anecdotes » relevant d’horizons divers, d’où la
sentence du littérateur al-Ǧāḥiẓ définissant l’adab comme le fait de « prendre
un peu de chaque chose » (al-aḫḏ min kull šayʾ bi-ṭaraf)152.
Bien que le Šams al-maʿārif ne relève pas de l’adab en tant que tel, le com-
pilateur connaissait cette littérature et semble s’en être inspiré. Nous l’avons
vu, la lecture de certaines anecdotes suppose une certaine connaissance de
l’adab de la part du lectorat. La lecture du « grimoire » prend ainsi une autre
dimension lorsqu’elle est comparée non plus aux traités d’astrologie ou de cos-
mologie soufie, mais aux œuvres littéraires et aux préceptes de la littérature
éthico-politique. Cette notion d’adab trahit tout à la fois le milieu d’apparte-
nance du compositeur et le milieu de réception primitif du traité, davantage
destiné à une élite en quête d’un merveilleux réel et concret. Les objectifs
al-Muʿǧam al-kabīr, éd. Ḥamdī ʿAbd al-Maǧīd al-Salafī, Le Caire, Maktabat Ibn Taymiyya,
s.d., IV, p. 105-106, no 3808 ; Ibn ʿAsākir, Ta‌ʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq, éd. ʿUmar b. Ġarāma
l-ʿAmrawī, Beyrouth, Dār al-fikr, 1996, XVI, p. 251-252 (trois recensions) ; Ibn Ḥaǧar al-
ʿAsqalānī, al-Iṣāba fī tamyīz al-ṣaḥāba, éd. al-Turkī, Le Caire, 2008, III, p. 175.
151 Toelle et Zakharia, À la découverte de la littérature arabe, p. 101.
152 Ibid., p. 109.
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486 Coulon
poursuivis dans l’ouvrage révèlent les aspirations de personnes évoluant dans

les cercles de pouvoir plus que de la roture ou de la plèbe. Le prestige des des-
tinataires auxquels furent dédiées certaines copies plaident en faveur de cette
haute extraction. C’est dans cette culture du soupçon généralisé inhérente à la
cour que nombre de recettes trouvent leur pleine signification. Le traité aborde
néanmoins suffisamment de thématiques pour avoir pu être ensuite utilisé au
service d’une clientèle plus modeste lorsque l’imprimerie permit une diffusion
plus massive. La figure d’al-Būnī, en tant que soufi, a ainsi pu donner un cachet
mystique à une clientèle inquiète empêtrée dans les tourments du pouvoir
comme aux sujets dont la figure du saint est traditionnellement le protecteur
naturel. En conformant un discours magique aux codes généraux de l’adab,
le compilateur a ainsi ôté sa sainteté à al-Būnī, le faisant devenir le magicien
paria, mystique dévoyé et corrupteur de la « pureté » du soufisme. En ce sens,
cette lecture témoigne des tensions permanentes dans lesquelles se trouvaient
souverains comme courtisans au sein des cours. La magie permet de conjurer
cette culture de la méfiance.
Arabica 64 (2017) 442-486

Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530
brill.com/arab
Illuminating the Lunar Mansions

(manāzil al-qamar) in Šams al-maʿārif
Daniel Martin Varisco

Qatar University
[email protected]
Abstract
The lunar zodiac, generally known as the manāzil al-qamar in Arabic, served both as
an astronomical and an astrological system. This was a system of 28 lunar “mansions”
or “stations” in which the moon was said to station (nazala) each night of the sidereal
month. For each of the asterisms of the mansions there were prognostications, astro-
logical and mystical connections. One of the more widely traveled sources on this astro-
logical content in the past three centuries has been based on the work of the 7th/13th
century Aḥmad b. ʿAlī l-Būnī (d. ca 622/1225 or 630/1232-1233), especially the text
known as Šams al-maʿārif. This article provides a translation and edition of the rele
vant section on the lunar mansions with a critical commentary. It is based primarily
on a 11th/17th century manuscript preserved in Istanbul’s Süleymaniye library and at-
tributed to al-Būnī.
Keywords
Astrology, astronomy, magic, al-Būnī, lunar mansions, zodiac, prognostication, spirits
Résumé
Le zodiaque lunaire, généralement connu sous le nom manāzil al-qamar en arabe,

servit à la fois comme un système astronomique et astrologique. Il s’agissait d’un sys-
tème de 28 « mansions » ou « stations » lunaires dans lesquelles on disait que la lune
* I am grateful to Noah Gardiner, Muhammad Gerhoum, Hanne Schoenig, Petra Schmidl and
the three peer reviewers for advice on this article.

488 Varisco
« descendait » (nazala) chaque nuit du mois sidéral. Pour chacun des astérismes des
mansions, il y a des prédictions et des connexions astrologiques et mystiques. L’une
des sources les plus largement parcourues sur ce thème astrologique au cours des
trois derniers siècles est fondée sur l’ouvrage d’Aḥmad b. ʿAlī l-Būnī (m. ca 622/1225 ou
630/1232-1233), en particulier le texte connu sous le titre de Šams al-maʿārif. Cet article
fournit une traduction et une édition de la section sur les mansions lunaires avec un
commentaire critique. Il s’appuie principalement sur un manuscrit du XIe/XVIIe siècle
conservé à la bibliothèque Süleymaniye d’Istanbul et attribué à al-Būnī.
Mots clefs
Astrologie, astronomie, magie, al-Būnī, mansions lunaires, Zodiaque, prédiction,

esprits
One of the most common astronomical reckoning systems described by Muslim

astronomers and astrologers alike is the lunar zodiac, generally designated as
the lunar mansions (manāzil al-qamar).1 The Šams al-maʿārif attributed to the
1 The term manāzil is commonly translated as “mansions” in English with variants in French
and Spanish, especially in reference to their astrological significance. I believe the origi-
nal sense in Arabic was that of “station,” as also in the German Mondstationen, and Italian
stazione lunare in the sense of a place of alighting (mawḍiʿ al-nuzūl) for the night on a journey.
For general information on the Arabic lunar mansions and their relation to the anwāʾ aste
risms, see Daniel Martin Varisco, “The Origin of the Anwāʾ in Arab Tradition,” Studia Islamica,
74 (1991), p. 5-28, and id., “Islamic Folk Astronomy,” in Astronomy across Cultures: The History
of Non-Western Astronomy, ed. Helaine Selin, Dordrecht-Boston, Kluwer Academic Publishers
(“Science across cultures”, 1), 2000, p. 615-650. The article by Paul Kunitzsch, “al-Manāzil,”
EI2 is out of date, although still useful for identification of the stars. Arab authors on the
manāzil include Ibn Qutayba, Kitāb al-Anwāʾ, Hyderabad, Maṭbaʿat maǧlis dāʾirat al-maʿārif
al-ʿuṯmāniyya, 1956, and al-Bīrūnī, Chronologie Orientalischer Völker, Leipzig, F.A. Brockhaus,
1923, p. 336-356, and id., al-Qānūn al-Masʿūdī (Canon Masudicus), Hyderabad, Maṭbaʿat
maǧlis dāʾirat al-maʿārif al-ʿuṯmāniyya, 1956, III, p. 1139-1145. There are a number of studies
of the manāzil as they entered Latin Europe, including Charles Burnett, “Lunar Astrology:
The Variety of Texts Using Lunar Mansions, with Emphasis on Jafar Indus,” in La mémoire
du temps au Moyen Âge, ed. Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, Firenze, SISMEL-Ed. del Galluzo
(“Micrologus”, 12), 2004, p. 43-133, and David Juste, Les Alchandreana primitifs: étude sur les
plus anciens traités astrologiques latins d’origine arabe (Xe siècle), Leiden-Boston, Brill (“Brill’s
studies in intellectual history”, 152; “Brill’s texts and sources in intellectual history”, 2), 2007,
p. 123-126. A major bibliography on the lunar mansions was compiled by Robert Harry van
Gent and is available online at http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/alsufi/manazil.htm.
Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530

Illuminating the Lunar Mansions 489
7th/13th century Aḥmad b. ʿAlī l-Būnī is a widely circulated source on the hem-
erology of the lunar mansions. Since the surviving manuscripts have signifi-
cant variations, including long and short versions, it is difficult to determine
which parts were actually written or copied from other texts by al-Būnī rather
than emended by later authors. The corpus būnianum, as Witkam styles it, is
nevertheless important because it appears to represent popular practices and
because it was so widely known.2 As Noah Gardiner has recently argued, the
published edition of Šams al-maʿārif al-kubrā appears to be based on an early
11th/17th century rendition and cannot be traced back to the author himself in
the 7th/13th century.3 The many variations in the surviving manuscript copies
and the printed editions make any attempt to establish al-Būnī’s text a difficult
task. However, the pioneering works of Gardiner and Jean-Charles Coulon are
making headway on al-Būnī’s textual genealogy.4
2 Jan Just Witkam, “Gazing at the Sun: Remarks on the Egyptian Magician al-Būnī and his
Work,” in O Ye Gentlemen: Arabic Studies on Science and Literary Culture in honour of Remke
Kruk, eds Arnoud Vrolijk and Jan Pieter Hogendijk, Leiden-Boston, Brill (“Islamic philosophy,
theology, and science”, 74), 2007, p. 183.
3
Noah Gardiner, “Forbidden Knowledge: Notes on the Production, Transmission, and
Reception of the Major Works of Aḥmad al-Būnī,” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, 12
(2012), p. 81-143. He notes (p. 124): “Whatever its precise date of origin, the encyclopedic
Šams al-maʿārif al-kubrā is certainly a product of one or more early modern compilators,
and not of al-Būnī or his amanuenses.” When I refer to al-Būnī as the text’s author, the reader
should keep in mind that whatever he did write has been altered by others for the texts we
now have. The major published source still widely available is an undated printed edition of
Šams al-maʿārif al-kubrā that I purchased in Cairo in 1983. This was published by Muḥammad
ʿAlī Ṣubayʿ and sons, located at Maydān al-Azhar in Cairo. This appears to be reprinted from
the 1345/1927 edition of Muṣṭafā l-Bābī l-Ḥalabī, mentioned by Witkam, “Gazing at the Sun,”
p. 198. Witkam provides details on other editions and manuscript copies, but see Gardiner’s
article for a broad list of manuscripts. Recently there was an edition based on manuscripts
in Berlin and Paris, with a Spanish translation by Jaime Cordero, El Kitāb Šams al-Maʿārif
al-Kubrà (al-ŷuzʾ al-awwal) de Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Būnī: Sufismo y ciencias ocultas, PhD dis-
sertation, Universidad de Salamanca, 2009. An earlier publication of a shorter version was
edited by Abū Salāfa l-Farīdī l-Falakī as Šams al-maʿārif al-ṣuġrā l-maʿrūf bi-Šams al-maʿārif
wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif, Beirut, al-Maktaba l-ʿilmiyya l-falakiyya, 2003.
4 Gardiner’s thesis is Esotericism in a Manuscript Culture: Aḥmad al-Būnī and His Readers
through the Mamlūk Period, PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 2014. Coulon’s the-
sis is La magie islamique et le corpus bunianum au Moyen Âge, PhD dissertation, Paris
IV-Sorbonne, 2013. Both scholars analyze the major surviving manuscripts of the text attri
buted to al-Būnī. An earlier thesis on the symbols in al-Būnī’s work was presented by Edgar
Francis, Islamic Symbols and Sufi Rituals for Protection and Healing: Religion and Magic in
the Writings of Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Būnī (d. 622/1225), PhD dissertation, University of California,
Los Angeles, 2005.
Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530

490 Varisco
Like Noah Gardiner, I will not attempt to make sense of the published ver-
sion of al-Būnī’s Šams al-maʿārif, as the printing errors and omissions are far
too numerous. In this article, I have chosen to work from the 11th/17th cen-
tury manuscript entitled Šams al-maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif in Istanbul’s
Süleymaniye library, the MS Istanbul, Beşir Ağa, 89, copied in 1057/1647.5 This
manuscript has been chosen because it appeared at a time when major emen-
dations to the original text were in play. This includes details on the manāzil
not found in an earlier copy of Šams al-maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif (MS Paris,
BnF, Arabe 2647), which appears to date from the end of the 8th/14th century.6
After a brief analysis of the lunar mansions and their treatment in al-Būnī’s
text, I provide a translation and an annotated transcription of relevant sec-
tions in the Süleymaniye manuscript. There are variations between the many
surviving texts, so my goal is to provide access to one of the best surviving
manuscripts rather than establish a critical edition that can be attributed to
the time of al-Būnī.
The debate over the acceptability of astrology and other esoteric practi
ces as legitimate for Muslims, like a number of other doctrinal issues, carried
more weight among theologians than it did for common folk, as the common
use of talismans and other “magical” forms attests up to the present in many
traditional Muslim communities. Al-Būnī, or at least his redactors, is careful
in his text to inscribe God as the power behind all the cosmological forms
he discusses. As argued by many of his predecessors, including Abū Maʿšar
(d. ca 272/886), the motion of the stars and their influences were determined
by the creator.7 Šams al-maʿārif announces its Islamic credentials both before
and after the routine ammā baʿd with a major emphasis on the magical aspects
5 The entire manuscript consists of 215 folios with 43 lines on a page. Headings are often in red
ink. The šadda and hamza are not used. It was copied in Istanbul in mid-ǧumādā l-ūlā 1057/
June 1647.
6 An edition and translation of the Paris manuscript compared to Berlin Ahlwardt 4125 has
been made by Cordero, El Kitāb Šams al-Maʿārif al-Kubrà.
7 For a discussion of Abū Maʿšar’s argument, see Peter Adamson, “Abū Maʿshar, al-Kindī and
the Philosophical Defense of Astrology,” in Islamic Medical and Scientific Tradition: Critical
Concepts in Islamic Sciences, ed. Peter Ernst Pormann, London, Routledge (“Critical concepts
in Islamic studies”), 2011, III, p. 243-264. This article was originally published in Recherches
de théologie et philosophie médiévales, 62/2 (2002), p. 245-270. For a discussion of Ibn Qayyim
al-Ǧawziyya’s refutation of astrology, see John W. Livingston, “Science and Occult in the
Thinking of Ibn Qayyim al-Ǧawziyya,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 112/4 (1992),
p. 598-610.
Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530

of letters associated with the ninety-nine names of God and the Qurʾān.8 As
the historian of science George Saliba notes, the common practice of astrology
was widely accepted “despite the numerous theoretical and religious attacks
against its theoretical foundations.”9 Ibn al-Ǧawzī (d. 597/1200) noted that in
his time (the 6th/12th century) most people did not travel, wear new clothing
or do various kinds of work without resorting to an astrologer (munaǧǧim).
He observed that it was permissible to use the risings and settings of stars for
time-telling, navigation and finding the qibla, but not to attribute any power
to the stars through divination.10 The profession of astrologers, even when
condemned by clerics, was regulated at times under the market ḥisba rules, as
noted in the early 8th/14th century manual of Ibn al-Uḫuwwa (d. 729/1329).11
The primary value of the text attributed to al-Būnī is in the numerous for-
mulas and magical recipes, since there is a minimum of theoretical discussion.
Drawing on Ibn al-Uḫuwwa’s ḥisba manual, it seems that the main clients of
astrologers in general were women and children. Indeed, one of the complaints
lodged against practitioners of esoteric acts by scholars was that these could
take advantage of uneducated people. Ibn Ḫaldūn (d. 808/1406) distinguished
a type of imaginative fakery called šaʿwada or šaʿbaḏa, but he clearly distin-
guished this from the reality of sorcery.12 Similarly, the Victorian Edward Lane
noted from his experience in 19th century Egypt that the “more intelligent of
the Muslims” distinguished spiritual magic (rūḥāniyya), which had a legiti-
mate basis, from “natural and deceptive magic,” which was called sīmiyāʾ and
resorted to by “the less credulous Muslims.”13 Given that the Qurʾān specifies
8 Al-Būnī’s letter magic is condemned as sorcery by Ibn Ḫaldūn, The Muqaddimah: An

Introduction to History, transl. Franz Rosenthal, New York, Pantheon Books, 1958, III,
p. 181.
9 George Saliba, “The Role of the Astrologer in Medieval Islamic Society,” Bulletin d’Études
Orientales, 46 (2002), p. 66.
10 Ibn al-Ǧawzī, Aḥkām al-nisāʾ, Cairo, Maktabat Ibn Taymiyya, 1997, p. 166. The problem is
assuming that the stars themselves have influence or that individuals have power to
influence stars, as reflected in a hadith that forbids attributing power to stars rather than
God; see Ibn Qutayba, Kitāb al-Anwāʾ, p. 14. Two centuries earlier al-Nadīm remarked in
his Fihrist that “talismans of the land of Egypt and Syria are numerous and their forms
well known”; see Ibn al-Nadīm, The Fihrist of al-Nadīm, transl. Bayard Dodge, New York,
Columbia University Press, 1970, II, p. 726.
11 See Ibn al-Uḫuwwa, Maʿālim al-qurba fī aḥkām al-ḥisba, ed. Reuben Levy, London, Luzac
(“Elias John Wilkinson Gibb memorial series. New series”, 12), 1938.
12 Ibn Ḫaldūn, The Muqaddimah, III, p. 158.
13 Edward Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, London,
Murray, 1860, p. 263.
Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530

492 Varisco
the existence of the jinn as created beings and the frequent references to spirit
possession in Islamic texts, it should not be surprising that the esoteric arts
were so widely sought after across the cultures that were under Islamic rule.
Situating the Lunar Mansions
As a system of twenty-eight asterisms along the orbital path of the moon, the
formal model refers to the location of the moon vis-à-vis the fixed stars behind
it each night of its sidereal revolution over twenty-seven and one-third days
(see table 1). While the asterisms are not located at uniform distances from
each other, the astronomical model equates each mansion with an arc of 12°51’
(i.e. 360° divided by 28 mansions). Since the moon’s path is within 5° of the
ecliptic, these asterisms are mostly in zodiacal constellations. By definition,
each zodiacal span of the ecliptic comprises two and one-third lunar man-
sions. The fact that the first lunar mansion, šaraṭayn (β γ Arietis) coincides
with the beginning of the first zodiacal constellation, ḥamal (Aries), demon-
strates that the two systems were seen as part of a larger cosmological whole.
Table 1 Identification of the Twenty-eight Lunar Mansions
# Mansion Identification Zodiac link
1 šaraṭayn β γ Arietis Aries

2 buṭayn ε δ ρ Arietis Aries
3 ṯurayyā Pleiades 1/3 Aries, 2/3 Taurus
4 dabarān α Tauri Taurus
5 haqʿa λ ϕ1 ϕ2 Orionis 2/3 Taurus, 1/3 Gemini
6 hanʿa γ ξ Geminorum Gemini
7 ḏirāʿ α β Geminorum Gemini
8 naṯra ε γ δ Cancri Cancer
9 ṭarf κ Cancri, λ Leonis Cancer
10 ǧabha ζ γ η α Leonis 1/3 Cancer, 2/3 Leo
11 zubra/ḫaratān δ θ Leonis Leo
12 ṣarfa β Leonis 2/3 Leo, 1/3 Virgo
13 ʿawwāʾ β η γ δ ε Virginis Virgo
14 simāk α Virginis Virgo
15 ġafr ι κ λ Virginis Libra
16 zubānā α β Librae Libra
Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530

# Mansion Identification Zodiac link
17 iklīl β δ π Scorpii 1/3 Libra, 2/3 Scorpio

18 qalb α Scorpii Scorpio
19 šawla λ υ Scorpii 2/3 Scorpio, 1/3
Sagittarius
20 naʿāʾim σϕτζγδεη Sagittarius
Sagittarii
21 balda vacant space Sagittarius
22 saʿd al-ḏābiḥ α β Capricorni Capricorn
23 saʿd bulaʿ μ ε Aquarii Capricorn
24 saʿd al-suʿūd c1 Capricorni, β ξ 1/3 Capricorn, 2/3
Aquarii Aquarius
25 saʿd al-aḫbiya γ π ζ η Aquarii Aquarius
26 al-farġ α β Pegasi 2/3 Aquarius, 1/3
al-muqaddam Pisces
27 al-farġ δ γ Pegasi Pisces
al-muʾaḫḫar
28 rišāʾ/baṭn al-ḥūt β Andromedae Pisces
Obviously, the asterisms represent an approximate location in the sky for each
division of the arc, just as the stars in the zodiacal constellations do not define
an exact amount of 30° of arc along the ecliptic. For the most part, with the
exception of the space identified as balda (mansion #21), the asterisms are
visible to the naked eye on a clear night. But the influence attributed to each
mansion is based on the arbitrary grid rather than a formal conjunction of the
moon with the actual visible stars. Al-Bīrūnī (d. ca 442/1050) claimed that the
Hindu scholars he came across did not actually know the position of the stars,
while the Arab Bedouin, being illiterate, relied on eyesight to recognize the
mansion of the moon.14
The manāzil al-qamar were linked by early Arab Muslim authors to the me-
teorological lore of the anwāʾ (sg. nawʾ), for which there is a separate genre,
in pre-Islamic Arabia. The term manāzil is mentioned twice in the Qurʾān
(Kor 10 [Bīrūnī], 6 and 36 [Yā-Sīn], 39), but both references are better suited
14 Al-Bīrūnī, Alberuni’s India, ed. Edward C. Sachau, London, Trübner and Company, 1888, II,
p. 81-83.
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494 Varisco
to interpretation as the stages of the moon’s waxing and waning rather than
the moon’s course through the fixed stars, nor is there any clear evidence for
use of manāzil in reference to a system of 28 lunar mansions in the pre-Islamic
poetry.15 Thus, although the Kitāb al-Anwāʾ genre explicitly links the 28 lunar
mansions to the 28 asterisms known as the anwāʾ, there is no direct evidence
that the model of these 28 asterisms was used as a solar-based calendar until
after the lunar zodiac was encountered.16 The indication of each nawʾ as being
auspicious (saʿd) or inauspicious (naḥs) is unrelated to the fortunes provided
by al-Būnī and others for the lunar mansions. The occult divinatory science of
ǧafr, including predictions according to the lunar mansions, is said by pseudo-
Ǧāḥiẓ to have come to the Sasanians from India.17
Pseudo-al-Būnī on the Lunar Mansions
The magical text Šams al-maʿārif al-kubrā attributed to al-Būnī has received
less attention among scholars of Islamic magic and astrology than the widely
traveled treatises of the late 2nd/8th century Māšāʾallāh (d. ca 200/815-816)18
and the 3rd/9th century Abū Maʿšar.19 As Witkam has noted, “Western scho
larship has not always been kind to al-Būnī.”20 In part this is because the text
reads more as a patchwork of formulas with redundancy and little direct reli-
ance on the range of previous astrological work. Yet, as Noah Gardiner argues,
the focus on the flawed printed editions of Šams al-maʿārif has overshadowed
a rich manuscript corpus for this and other works attributed to al-Būnī.21 The
text’s discussion of the lunar mansions includes both their associations with
letters and aromatics, geomancy forms and the prediction of opportune or
inopportune times for certain activities. This latter is generally referred to as
15 See Varisco, “The Origin of the Anwāʾ,” p. 14-16. Al-Būnī (Šams al-maʿārif, p. 24-25) copies
the alleged pre-Islamic Arab sayings for the anwāʾ, identifying them only as manāzil and
attributing the sayings to a text by al-Kindī, which is highly dubious.
16 The claim that pre-Islamic Arabs created an arbitrary system in which the sun was said to
be “stationed” in each of the 28 asterisms for 13 days (with the exception of one nawʾ being
14 days) is simply a division of the number 28 into the 365 days of the solar year.
17 Quoted in Toufic Fahd, “D̲ j̲a̲ fr,” EI2. One of the first known borrowings of the manāzil for
hemerological predictions is by Abū Maʿšar (d. 272/866).
18 Edward S. Kennedy and David Pingree, The Astrological History of Māshāʾallāh, Cambridge,
Harvard University Press (“Harvard monographs in the history of science”), 1971.
19 David Pingree, The Thousands of Abū Maʿshar, London, The Warburg Institute, 1968.
20 Witkam, “Gazing at the Sun,” p. 184.
21 Gardiner, “Forbidden Knowledge,” p. 83.
Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530

iḫtiyārāt (i.e. hemerology or the Latin electiones) and has a long history in the
ancient civilizations of the region.22
Šams al-maʿārif is not a book for the uninitiated. Although the theoretical
justification for acts of divination is sprinkled throughout the text, it is ba-
sically a set of recipes, which are at times contradictory. It is not surprising
that several of the activities to be undertaken or not during certain mansions
are those of the astrologer or practitioner of sacred magic and alchemy. The
two Süleymaniye manuscripts, like the published Cairo editions, include two
sets of information about prognostication by each mansion. The first, which
is much abbreviated, has some parallels to the account in the early 9th/15th
century Laṭāʾif al-išārāt.23 But the second, and longer, discussion of the heme
rology is not found in the earlier text, nor in a late 14th/early 15th century Šams
al-maʿārif wa-laṭāʾif al-ʿawārif.24 Both sections focus on the link between each
of the 28 mansions and the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet.25
A major emphasis is the timing for making various kinds of magical charms.
One of these is the talisman (sg. ṭilasm; pl. -āt, ṭalāsim), a general term used
for a variety of objects reputed to have occult powers and generally inscribed
and worn or kept by a person for good fortune or to ward off ill fortune. As Ibn
Ḫaldūn remarks, “those who work with talismans seek the aid of the spiritu-
alities of the stars, the secrets of numbers, the particular qualities of existing
things, and the positions of the sphere that exercise an influence upon the
world of the elements.”26 According to the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, the sage Hermes
is quoted as saying that the best time to make talismans is after sunset until
dawn, when the spirits are out and about and not concealed; it is also impor-
tant to do this work in secret.27
As noted by al-Būnī’s text, each mansion was linked to a specific kind of
spiritual power called rūḥāniyya. This term is generally glossed as “spirituality”
or “spiritual magic.” I translate it here as “spiritual agency.” As Lane describes
22 For discussion of the hemerology, see Toufic Fahd, La divination arabe: études religieuses,
sociologiques et folkloriques sur le milieu natif de l’Islam, Paris, Sindbad, 1987, p. 483-488.
This effort has been updated by the extensive documentation provided by Coulon,
La magie islamique.
23 This is MS Paris, BnF, Arabe 2658.
24 This is MS Paris, BnF, Arabe 2647.
25 For a recent study of the magical symbolism of Arabic letters, see Cécile Bonmariage
and Sébastien Moureau, Le cercle des lettres de l’alphabet Dāʾirat al-aḥruf al-abǧadiyya:
un traité pratique de magie des lettres attribué à Hermès, Leiden-Boston, Brill (“Islamic
philosophy, theology and science”, 100), 2016.
26 Ibn Ḫaldūn, The Muqaddimah, III, p. 166.
27 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Beirut, Dār Ṣādir, 1957, IV, p. 443-444.
Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530

496 Varisco
it, this rūḥāniyya is “believed to effect its wonders by the agency of angels and
genii, and by the mysterious virtues of certain names of Allah, and other su-
pernatural means,” with one kind for good purposes and the other for bad or
evil things.28 The type of spiritual work associated with each mansion is gene
rally recognized as due to the auspicious (saʿd) or inauspicious (naḥs) nature
of each, as noted in table 2, but some mansions are mixed. This appears to stem
from associations for fortune based on the zodiacal signs, but also potentially
relevant in this divination are the planets, days of the week, months, and a
wide variety of other connections. Thus, the text includes a chart linking each
month of the Syriac reckoning with a zodiacal sign and two mansions.29
The specific objects mentioned in the text include various kinds of amulets,
signet or inscribed rings (ḫawātim),30 a magical drawing or figure (naqš), an
engraved tablet (raqīm) sometimes on lead or precious stones and a curative
charm (ruqya)31 to counteract illness. The written letters themselves were seen
as sacred in the divinatory science of ǧafr; this is sometimes styled sīmiyāʾ, es-
pecially in relation to the secret powers of the letters in the 99 divine names.32
The text also refers to nārinǧiyyāt, a variant of the well-known term nīranǧ,
in reference to an amulet with special occult properties (ḫawāṣṣ).33 Amulets
could be inscribed with Arabic letters, valued for their significance in the
Qurʾānic text and their numerical value; the text provides numerous examples
of magic squares and gematric formulas, including esoteric symbols. As noted
by Ibn Ḫaldūn, the making of talismans is lesser than the kind of sorcery that
28 Lane, An Account, p. 263.

29 Al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif, p. 25. For example, the month of nīsān (April) is linked to Taurus
(ṯawr) and the mansions of the Pleiades (ṯurayyā) and al-farġ al-muʾaḫḫar. In this system,
however, four mansions are left out, indicating how arbitrary the linkage is.
30 For a discussion of al-Būnī on signet rings, see H. Henry Spoer, “Arabic Magical Medicinal
Bowls,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 55/3 (1935), p. 237-256.
31 This term is also used for a magical chant and is said to be equivalent to Latin carmen, the
root of the English word charm; see Toufic Fahd, “Ruḳya,” EI2.
32 For ǧafr, see Toufic Fahd, “D̲ j̲afr,” EI2, and id., “Ḥurūf,” EI2; for sīmiyāʾ, see Duncan Black
MacDonald and Toufic Fahd, “Sīmiyāʾ,” EI2. In early 19th century Egypt, the term sīmiyāʾ
was used for deceptive magic in which drugs and other agents were used to affect people’s
imagination, according to Lane, An Account, p. 263.
33 The term is derived from the Persian; see Toufic Fahd, “Nīrand̲ j,̲ ” EI2. It is interesting to
note that al-Būnī does not use the term ḥiǧāb for charm, although this is a common term
known later in Egypt and the Levant.
Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530

appeals to spirits through mental activity, although he still attests that both
can have real results.34
In accordance with the astrological dictum that the stars and planets have
unseen powers to influence events on earth, the text records the descent of
spiritual agency (rūḥāniyya) for each mansion. This spiritual agency appears to
the magician as unseen personalities that communicate with him and can be
utilized for good or ill. The power of these agents is linked to the elements and
other associated links in the sublunar world, including the alphabet letter and
numerical value for each mansion, as shown in table 2.
Table 2 Associations of the twenty-eight lunar mansions35
# Mansion Letter Numerical Element Humoral Light/

value aspect dark
1 šaraṭayn a 1 fire hot light

2 buṭayn b 2 air wet dark
3 ṯurayyā ǧ 3 water dry dark
4 dabarān d 4 earth cold dark
5 haqʿa h 5 fire hot light
6 hanʿa w 6 air wet dark
7 ḏirāʿ z 7 water dry dark
8 naṯra ḥ 8 earth cold light
9 ṭarfa/ṭarf ṭ 9 fire hot light
10 ǧabha y 10 air wet light
34 There is a rich literature on the use of amulets and talismans in the Arabic tradition. For
a concise description of amulets and their use in the 8th/14th century, see Ibn Ḫaldūn,
The Muqaddimah, III, p. 158-182. A useful discussion of al-Būnī’s use of these is provided
in Cordero, El Kitāb Šams al-Maʿārif al-Kubrà, p. 25-31. For an English description of a
North African amulet, see E.A. Wallis Budge, Amulets and Superstitions, Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 1930, p. 40-43. Amulet texts are also provided in Michel Lagarde, La
magie arabe: dossier pédagogique, Rome, Pontifico Instituto di Studi Arabi, 1981.
35 The elements associated with each letter are derived from Toufic Fahd, “Ḥurūf,” EI2.
For more information on the number magic in al-Būnī’s text, see Pierre Lory, “La magie
des lettres dans le Šams al-maʿārif d’al-Būnī,” Bulletin d’Études Orientales, 39-40 (1989),
p. 97-111. The humoral aspects are from the ḏayl to al-Anṭākī, Taḏkirat ūlī l-albāb wa-l-
ǧamīʿ li-l-ʿaǧab al-ʿuǧāb, Beirut, Dār al-fikr, 1951, I, p. 102. For the links between the man-
sions and the Birhatiyya conjuration oath from a text attributed to al-Būnī, see Coulon,
La magie islamique, I, p. 1251-1252.
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Table 2 Associations of the twenty-eight lunar mansions (cont.)
# Mansion Letter Numerical Element Humoral Light/

value aspect dark
11 zubra/ḫaratān k 20 water dry light

12 ṣarfa l 30 earth cold light
13 ʿawwāʾ m 40 fire hot light
14 simāk n 50 air wet light
15 ġafr s 60 water dry light
16 zubānā ʿ 70 earth cold light
17 iklīl f 80 fire hot dark
18 qalb ṣ 90 air wet light
19 šawla q 100 water dry light
20 naʿāʾim r 200 earth cold light
21 balda š 300 fire hot dark
22 saʿd al-ḏābiḥ t 400 air wet dark
23 saʿd bulaʿ ṯ 500 water dry dark
24 saʿd al-suʿūd ḫ 600 earth cold dark
25 saʿd al-aḫbiya ḏ 700 fire hot dark
26 al-farġ al-muqaddam ḍ 800 air wet dark
27 al-farġ al-muʾaḫḫar ẓ 900 water dry dark
28 rišāʾ/baṭn al-ḥūt ġ 1000 earth cold dark
Among the items suitable for each station is the type of incense (baḫūr),
as shown in table 3. With a few exceptions, the list is virtually the same as
that given by the Yemeni al-Malik al-Ašraf ʿUmar (r. 694/1295-696/1296) near
the end of the 7th/13th century.36 One of the differences is for the Pleiades,
the third mansion; the text attributed to al-Būnī links it with flax seed, but
al-Malik al-Ašraf records oriental frankincense (lubān), echoing a tradition
attributed to Hermes and Sinān b. Ṯābit. The two Süleymaniye manuscripts
confuse the incense known as nadd, which both copy as nī (!). This confusion
appears in a number of manuscripts I have consulted.37 According to al-Anṭākī
36 See Daniel Martin Varisco, “The Magical Significance of the Lunar Stations in the 13th
Century Yemeni Kitāb al-Ṭabṣira fī ʿilm al-nujūm of al-Malik al-Ašraf,” Quaderni di Studi
Arabi, 13 (1995), p. 23.
37 For example, the Yemen text MS Cairo, Dār al-kutub, Taymūr Riyāḍa 274.
Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530

(d. 1008/1599), nadd is one of the best types of incense and he provides two
recipes for making it, one of which combines sieved aromatic wood with musk,
ambergris and mastic in rose water.38
Table 3 Incense for the twenty-eight lunar mansions according to al-Būnī’s text
# Mansion Incense
1 šaraṭayn pepper (filfil), “black cumin” (ḥabba sawdāʾ)

2 buṭayn aromatic wood (ʿūd), saffron (zaʿfarān), mastic
(maṣṭakā)
3 ṯurayyā flax seed (bizr al-kattān), “black cumin”
4 dabarān sweet pomegranate husk (qašr al-rummān),
oriental frankincense (lubān ḏakar)
5 haqʿa nadd incense, Javan frankincense (lubān ǧāwī),
mastic
6 hanʿa costus (qusṭ), wormwood seed (bizr šīḥ)
7 ḏirāʿ nettle seed (ḥabb qarīḍ), flax seed
8 naṯra costus, pomegranate husk
9 ṭarf/ṭarfa nadd incense, saffron
10 ǧabha myrtle seed (ḥabb al-ās), saffron threads
11 zubra/ḫaraṭān sweet pomegranate husk
12 ṣarfa nutmeg
13 ʿawwāʾ oriental frankincense
14 simāk oriental frankincense, indigo seed (ḥabb nīl)
15 ġafr only oriental frankincense
16 zubānā wormwood seed, camomile (bābūnaǧ)
17 iklīl pepper, saffron, aromatic wood
18 qalb leaves of white myrobalan (waraq al-ahlīlaǧ)
19 šawla pomegranate husk, mastic
20 naʿāʾim oriental frankincense
21 balda spikenard (sunbul), nadd incense
22 saʿd al-ḏābiḥ safflower (ʿuṣfur)
23 saʿd bulaʿ camomile, cumin (kammūn)
24 saʿd al-suʿūd aromatic wood, mastic
38 See al-Anṭākī, Taḏkirat ūlī l-albāb, I, p. 330.
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Table 3 Incense for the twenty-eight lunar mansions (cont.)
# Mansion Incense
25 saʿd al-aḫbiya oriental frankincense, pepper, sarcocolla

(ʿanzurūt)
26 al-farġ al-muqaddam oriental frankincense, “black cumin,” saffron
27 al-farġ al-muʾaḥḥar pepper, cinnamon (dār ṣīnī)
28 rišāʾ/baṭn al-ḥūt “black cumin”
The discussion of the manāzil is only a small part of the text. In addition to the
prognosticative details translated here, it also includes sections on the rela-
tion of the mansions to the zodiacal houses, the stars in each mansion and
details on the mansions as anwāʾ, including copying the rhymed sayings in the
anwāʾ genre.39 In the published Cairo edition there is also a section on the
number magic of each mansion under the title faṣl fī stinṭāq al-manāzil.40 For
each mansion the text lists the simple (basīṭ) formula of the actual letters and
the complex (murakkab) formula spelling out each letter. Making sense of this
number magic is not a simple exercise. As al-Būnī’s text claimed, “one should
not think that one can get at the secret of the letters with the help of logical
reasoning. One gets to it with the help of vision and divine aid.”41
Although the prognostications for each mansion are found in several im-
portant magical texts, it is clear that they formed a small part of the overall
repertoire of magical associations involving the power of heavenly bodies.
In both al-Būnī’s text and the Ġāyat al-ḥakīm attributed to al-Maǧrīṭī (pro
perly Maslama l-Qurṭubī, d. 353/964) far more attention is paid to the twelve
zodiacal signs and the seven planets.42 Al-Qurṭubī’s text specifically relates
the prognostications by the lunar mansions to India and provides little other
information on the mansions. The magician could not rely solely on the
39 For a study of the rhymed sayings in Ibn Qutayba’s Kitāb al-Anwāʾ, see Charles Pellat,
“Dictons rimés, anwāʾ et mansions lunaires chez les Arabes, Arabica, 2 (1955), p. 17-41.
40 Al-Būnī, Šams al-maʿārif, III, p. 83-84 in the published edition.
41 Quoted by Ibn Ḫaldūn, The Muqaddimah, III, p. 174.
42 See Maslama l-Qurṭubī (pseudo-Abū l-Qāsim Maslama l-Maǧrīṭī), Kitāb Ġāyat al-ḥakīm,
Beirut, Dār al-maḥaǧǧa l-bayḍāʾ, 2008. This has been translated by Hellmut Ritter and
Martin Plessner, “Picatrix”: Das Ziel des Weisen von Pseudo-Maǧrīṭī, London, The Warburg
Institute, 1962.
Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530

position of the moon in the mansion, since other criteria included the location
of the zodiacal constellations and planets in relation to the hour of the day, the
day of the week, and even the month.
Al-Būnī’s text does not quote directly from earlier well-known hemerologi-
cal texts, such as the Ġāyat al-ḥakīm or the Rasāʾil of Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, which is
a very detailed source.43 Although the specific details are at times similar, dif-
ferent terms are often employed and there is disagreement between the sour
ces. Several of the extant sources attribute the hemerological information to
Indian scholars, including al-Qurṭubī’s 4th/10th century text and the 5th/11th
century Ibn Raḥīq. There are, for example, numerous manuscripts in Cairo’s
Dār al-Kutub with similar prognostications; this suggests that texts of similar
prognostications were widely made with substantial copying but no reliance
on a specific earlier text.
Translation44
[4r] As for the twenty-eight letters according to the number of the twenty-
eight mansions, fourteen of them are visible above the earth and fourteen are
43 Among the most important published hemerological texts in Arabic are the following:
Ibn Raḥīq in Petra G. Schmidl, Volkstümliche Astronomie im islamischen Mittelalter,
Leiden-Boston, Brill (“Islamic philosophy, theology and science”, 68), 2007, I, p. 280-305;
Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil; al-Malik al-Ašraf ʿUmar in Varisco, “The Magical Significance.”
44 In the published Cairo version this is from the second part of Book One (p. 18-21), which dif-
fers from MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye, B89, which I am transcribing here. The text includes
a geomancy diagram for each mansion, which I omit here. Examples of these are repro-
duced in Emilie Savage-Smith and Marion B. Smith, Islamic Geomancy and a Thirteenth-
Century Divinatory Device, Malibu, Undena Publications, 1980, Table 2, and Cordero,
El Kitāb Šams al-Maʿārif al-Kubrà, p. 31-41. For information on the talismanic images of the
mansions, see Yosef Rappaport and Emilie Savage-Smith, An Eleventh-Century Egyptian
Guide to the Universe: The Book of Curiosities, Leiden-Boston, Brill (“Islamic philosophy
and theology”, 87), 2014, p. 506, n. 5.
I have tried to be consistent in translating terms, but sometimes the context calls for a
different nuance of the same term. For example, the format of iḏā nazala l-qamar literally
is in the past tense, but it flows better in English in the present tense, as I translate here.
Several terms have multiple meanings, so I have tried to focus on those more relevant to
the magical and spiritual senses of the content. The reader is encouraged to compare the
translation to the Arabic. For a transliteration and French translation of al-Būnī’s section
on mansions and letters, see Coulon, La magie islamique, I, p. 1254-1258. For a Spanish
translation of two different manuscripts, see Cordero, El Kitāb Šams al-Maʿārif al-Kubrà,
II, p. 23-26, 34-49.
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502 Varisco
below the earth. When a mansion sets, the fifteenth opposite it rises in this
way all the time. Thus, fifteen letters have diacritical points and thirteen are
without diacritical points. Those with diacritical points are as you can see:
b, t, ṯ, ǧ, ḫ, ḏ, z, š, ḍ, ẓ, ġ, f, q, n, y. As for those letters without diacritical points,
this is their description: a, ḥ, d, r, ṭ, k, l, m, ṣ, ʿ, s, h, w. Know that God gives you
and us success, those without diacritical points being auspicious mansions
and those with diacritical points being inauspicious mansions. Regarding the
mixed ones, those with one diacritical point are closer to being auspicious
and those with two diacritical points are moderate in their inauspiciousness,
while those with three diacritical points are the most inauspicious, such as the
šīn and the ṯāʾ. They are thus arranged and here I will explain to you the condi-
tion of that, so know that the mansions have differing forms laid down in the
divine creation, with one not resembling the other. God, the Most High, crea
ted the moon, as well as the sun, round according to a hidden secret for which
there is no human explanation, since revealing a divine secret is unbelief.
As for the moon, when it stations in naṭḥ, there are signs indicating this, but
as for talking [about this] the walls have ears so secrecy is the most suitable.
So, know that which we have pointed out about it, God having arranged it. God
speaks the truth and he guides to the right path …
[The discussion continues with an elaboration of the magical significance
of the letter alif and the mansion naṭḥ, but with little information about the
activities to be done or avoided. This is said to be a period of trouble on earth
as spiritual agency is used to seek revenge on oppressors and tyrants. Both the
alif and naṭḥ are defined as hot and dry and associated with the color red, in-
cluding Mars (mirrīḫ) as the element of fire. The text provides the words for
conjuring spirits through the power of God to seek revenge. This includes wri
ting letters on red copper, iron or red potsherds and burying this in the target’s
house after having fumigated with an appropriate incense. The example given
is for someone named ʿAmr, using the following individual letters: ʿ, m, r, w, y,
ḫ, z, ṭ, ḥ, q, m, r, y, ḫ, n, ṭ, ḥ, q, m, r. These are the individual letters from ʿAmr,
mirrīḫ (Mars), naṭḥ and qamar (the moon). This is followed by an incantation
for the summons. When the moon is in this mansion, it is said to be suitable
for love charms.]
[5r] Regarding buṭayn, the second of the mansions, it has the letter bāʾ.
When the moon stations in it, beware the power ordained by God the Most
High for spiritual agency. This is useful for wrath and what we have previously
mentioned. Medicine is drunk during it. There is a stirring up of notables, sons
of this world and rulers of the earth, because this is the second phase of Aries,
which is the phase of the sun being ascendant at sixteen degrees of Aries, on
the fourth day of April. The sun is for good fortune, except for its heat and
Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530

dryness. For its good fortune, during its ascendency in this phase, work is done
for meeting, entering before rulers for what you want from them and what
you communicate to them since it gratifies their needs. Work is done for love
charms, meeting, winning hearts and enticing them for what you want from
that. It is suitable for esoteric works of the sages and the Philosopher’s Stone
(al-akāsīr al-ḏahabiyya) and its preparation.
The third of the mansions is the Pleiades (al-ṯurayyā), which has the letter
ǧīm. When the moon stations in it, beware the spiritual agency of mixed heat,
wetness and coldness, it being of moderate good fortune. It is excellent for
travel and associating with nobles and entering before them as well as before
notables, masters in this world and scholars. This is because the Pleiades is a
cluster with numerous stars. Thus, getting together according to what we have
mentioned is excellent. There is great harmony so work is done during its as-
cendency for taking things and entering with them to nobles, since the bearer
is granted that which is desired from them. In this they are fond of him and
they are compliant to his command and not opposed to what he wants and his
requests. By this Ǧaʿfar al-Barmakī was well-liked by al-Rašīd and was granted
that which he wanted.45
The fourth of the mansions is Aldebaran (dabarān), which has the letter dāl.
When the moon stations in it, beware the spiritual agency which is corrupting
(radīʾ) and work during it that which befits corruption and that which thus
befits decay.
The fifth of the mansions is haqʿa, which has the letter hāʾ. When the moon
stations in it, beware the spiritual agency which is mixed and of moderate stir-
ring, working during it good works and some of the opposite.
The sixth of the mansions is hanʿa, which has the letter wāw. This is fortu-
nate and is suitable for companionship and gathering with those far away and
those separated, because spiritual agency descends during it that is helpful for
works of righteousness, piety and success.
The seventh of the mansions is ḏirāʿ, which has the letter zāʾ. When the
moon stations in ḏirāʿ, God the Most High sends down suitable spiritual agency
for aid in curing diseases. Sometimes the one who persists in his remembering
[God] results in opening up something from the heavenly realm. It is excellent
for devotion and seeking truth as well as suitable for all kinds of work.
45 Ǧaʿfar was the wazīr and boon-companion of the Abbasid caliph Hārūn al-Rašīd and was
known for his interest in occult sciences. The Barmakī family associated with astrologers,
such as Abū Ḥafs ʿUmar al-Ṭabarī (d. 200/816), as noted by Manfred Ullmann, Die Natur-
und Geheimwissenschaften im Islam, Leiden, Brill, 1972, p. 306.
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The eighth of the mansions is naṯra, which has the letter ḥa‌ʾ. When the
moon stations in it, the spiritual agency which is not helpful for the good is
revealed [by God]. Work on processes that corrupt is done.
The ninth of the mansions is ṭarf, which has the letter ṭāʾ. When the moon
stations in it, God the Most High sends down spiritual agency, the action of
which is bad, as in the preceding.
The tenth mansion is ǧabha, which has the letter yāʾ. When the moon sta-
tions in it, beware of the spiritual agency mixed between good and evil. During
this what is suited to it is made.
The eleventh mansion is zubra, which has the letter kāf. When the moon ar-
rives to it, [5v] virtuous spiritual agency descends for the growth of riches and
requesting needs, so during this what is suited to it is made.
The twelfth mansion is ṣarfa, which has the letter lām. When the moon sta-
tions in it, beware the spiritual agency that is mixed for good and the like, so
during this what is suited to it is made.
The thirteenth mansion is ʿawwāʾ,46 which has the letter mīm. When the
moon arrives to it, [God] sends down mixed spiritual agency. Do not engage in
activities during it except sea travel and no other.
The fourteenth mansion is simāk, which has the letter nūn. When the sun
stations in it, spiritual agency descends that is not helpful for anything good.
Do not make anything during it at all.
The fifteenth mansion is ġafr, which has the letter sīn. When the moon sta-
tions in it, virtuous spiritual agency descends and this is helpful for all activi-
ties, whether of this world or the next. So, during this do what you want and
your work will be successful.
The sixteenth mansion is zubānā, which has the letter ʿayn. When the moon
stations in it, God the Most High sends down angels that are not helpful for
good works. During it do those works that are suited to it.
The seventeenth mansion is qalb, which has the letter ṣād. When the moon
stations in it, spiritual agency descends that is helpful for all kinds of good.
During it make what is suited to virtuous works and you will succeed.
The nineteenth mansion is šawla, which has the letter qāf. When the moon
stations in it, God the Most High sends down mixed spiritual agency. Do not
engage in any actions of this world.
The twentieth mansion is naʿāʾim, which has the letter rāʾ. When the moon
stations in it, God the Most High sends down mixed spiritual agency, which is
pure and purifies hearts and delights souls. It is excellent for everything that is
attempted during it for the affairs of this world or the next.
46 This is written without the final hamza in the text.
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The twenty first mansion is balda, which has the letter šīn. When the moon
arrives to it, God the Most High sends down spiritual agency which is not help-
ful for the good. During it do not engage in any activity.
The twenty-second mansion is saʿd al-ḏābiḥ, which has the letter tāʾ. When
the moon stations in it, God the Most High sends down mixed spiritual agency
that is not suitable for anything specific in the affairs of this world and there is
neither benefit nor harm during it for activity because it is mixed.
The twenty-third mansion is saʿd bulaʿ, which has the letter ṯāʾ. When the
moon arrives to it, [God the Most High] sends down mixed spiritual agency
that is not suitable for anything specific and there is neither benefit nor harm
during it for activity.
The twenty-fourth mansion is saʿd al-suʿūd, which has the letter ḫāʾ.
When the moon stations in it, God the Most High sends down virtuous spiri-
tual agency fortunate for activity and harmonious by nature. During it make
all good works.
The twenty-fifth mansion is saʿd al-aḫbiya, which has the letter ḏāl. When
the moon arrives to it, God the Most High sends down spiritual agency
helpful for all commendable actions, as well as for companionship, love and
being kind.
The twenty-sixth mansion is al-farġ al-muqaddam, which has the letter ḍād.
When the moon arrives to it, [God] sends down spiritual agency which is for-
tunate for helping with all good actions, so during it do whatever good works
you want.
The twenty-seventh mansion is al-farġ al-muʾaḫḫar, which has the letter ẓāʾ.
When the moon arrives to it, [God] sends down mixed spiritual agency ob-
structing effort and ways of getting things done, so understand that.
The twenty-eighth mansion is al-rišāʾ,47 which has the letter ġayn. When
the moon stations in it, spiritual agency descends which is lovely, commen
dable and good for help in seeking knowledge. Prayer during it will be granted.
Virtuous works during it prosper …
[7r] Discussion on the mansion šaraṭayn […]. Its letter is the alif. When the
moon stations in šaraṭayn, which is associated with fire and is inauspicious,
those activities which are specific to women’s affairs are in order. Spiritual
agency is active for that which is connected to the psyche of rulers, with wrath,
violence and bloodshed manifest in them.48 At this time the sages are inclined
to sleep and not to act. Some of them mention that while sleeping they see
47 This is written without the final hamza in the text.

48 In Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, IV, p. 429, it is noted that at this time evil is instilled in rulers and
sultans, resulting in anger, ruthless killing, bloodshed, oppression and injustice.
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506 Varisco
something that frightens them and disturbs their moral sense. There is a bene
fit from lack of sleep at the start of this time. It is necessary to refrain from
speaking except for something necessary [7v] or if it is unavoidable. No eso-
teric work is done, but if you want to make something, then do works that
are evil and corrupting. Whoever is born during this mansion will be evil with
much wickedness (fasād). Its incense is pepper and “black cumin,”49 as God
gives success.
Discussion on the mansion buṭayn […]. Its letter is the bāʾ. When the moon
stations in buṭayn, which is hot and wet,50 virtuous and harmonious spiritual
agency descends to the world, making it suitable for that which is specific to
men but not to women. Talismans are made during it. Alchemy is successful
during it, as is every dignified divinely ordained work. It is suitable for star
ting scientific studies, fashioning signet rings (ḫawātim), engravings (naqš), in-
scribed tablets (ruqūm)51, charms for illnesses and cures, and for disarming the
enemy. Whoever is born during this will prosper,52 act properly and be popular
due to moral character.53 Its incense is aromatic wood, saffron and mastic, as
God the Most High knows best.
Discussion on the mansion the Pleiades (ṯurayyā) […]. Its letter is the ǧīm.
When the moon stations in the Pleiades, which has a mixed nature (mubahraǧ
al-ǧawhar),54 spiritual agency descends to the world. It is mixed hot and cold.
It is suitable for making talismans and actions suitable for women, as well
as appropriate, curative, cold medicines. It is safe during it for those trave
ling, who will make a great profit. It is acceptable for meeting rulers and cor-
responding with them. It is suitable for marriage, buying female and male
slaves. Everything that is planned during it will be excellent because the moon
is nearer to the earth than the sun. Everything made during it has a good
49 This is Nigella sativa, which has no specific name in English but is often called “black
cumin.”
50 In Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, IV, p. 429 this mansion is said to be dry rather than wet.
51 The more common term is raqīm, which was used in reference to an engraved stone tablet
at the entrance of the cave of the Seven Sleepers (ahl al-kahf).
52 The term here is saʿīd which connotes being prosperous, happy and fortunate in life.
53 In Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, IV, p. 430, this is only for males, while females are said to turn
out immoral.
54 Both manuscripts read mubahraǧ al-ǧawhar, which I suspect is a misreading of mumtazaǧ
al-ǧawhar as noted for several other mansions and in ibid., IV, p. 430. However, this is con-
sidered an auspicious star, according to the Picatrix; see Maslama l-Qurṭubī, “Picatrix,”
transl. Ritter and Plessner, p. 16. The term mubahraǧ can mean something that is false,
as in a coin not minted in a proper mint or something that is ornate; see the discussion
under saʿd bulaʿ.
Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530

outcome.55 Whoever is born during it will be prosperous, detest immorality,

be lovingly respectful [of God] and dwell with the righteous and the scholarly.
As for its incense, it is flax seed and “black cumin,” as God the Most High knows
the right.
The discussion on the mansion Aldebaran (dabarān) […]. Its letter is the
dāl. When the moon stations in Aldebaran, which is associated with earth56
and is inauspicious, spiritual agency descends during this to the world, causing
enmity, hostility and wickedness on the earth. Beware of pursuing requests
for things needed and starting to make things. Talismans are not made during
it, nor preparation of esoteric activities in it at all.57 All things made during it
have a bad outcome. It is not suitable except for burying the dead, burying
property and especially treasure, concealing secrets, digging wells and carving
out canals; nor is it suitable for what is like that. Whoever is born during it will
be worthy of blame and neglectful of others. Its incense is the husk of sweet
pomegranate and oriental frankincense. God the Most High gives success
for it.
The discussion on the mansion haqʿa58 […]. Its letter is the hāʾ. When the
moon stations in it, being of mixed auspicious and inauspicious fortune,59
make antidotes60 for poisons, especially for making their compounds. During
it do not prepare esoteric products related to the sun or moon, nor plant during
it a crop, nor wear new clothing nor a ring and do not marry during it for that
will not have a good outcome. Do not be active in anything related to spiritual
dealings. Whoever is born during it will have a good outcome at the end of
his life, but corruption in the first part.61 Its incense is aromatic wood, nadd
incense,62 Javan frankincense and mastic, as God knows best.
55 The published texts add another phrase on birth that appears to be out of place. This can
be translated as “Whoever is born during it will live happily and detest evil and will have
a good outcome.”
56 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, IV, p. 430 adds that it is also dry.
57 Ibid., IV, p. 431 notes that talismans should be made to counter the hostility and wicked-
ness created at the time.
58 The published Cairo text reads al-hanʿa (!).
59 Iḥwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, IV, p. 430 adds that it is also dry.
60 The manuscript reads tarīḥāt, but I suspect this should be tiryāqāt, as in the published
Cairo text, from the common term used for an antidote.
61 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, IV, p. 430 has negative qualities only for the male, but notes that the
female will be proper, quiet and chaste.
62 Nadd is an incense compound made of aromatic wood, musk, ambergris and mastic in rose
water, according to al-Anṭākī, Taḏkirat ūlī l-albāb, I, p. 330. The manuscript reads nī (!).
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508 Varisco
The discussion on the mansion hanʿa63 […]. Its letter is the wāw. When the
moon stations in hanʿa, which is an auspicious star, make [charms] for love,
sympathy and friendship. Fumigate during it. During this enter before rulers
and notables and take in their affection. [There should be] communication
with the most noble people and associating with brothers and the start of
works which you want to do. During this marry, drink medicine, buy slave girls
and males and horses, plant trees, construct buildings, measure by weight,64
travel during it, buy and sell, for all of this will have a good outcome. Whoever
is born during it will live in prosperity and die a martyr. Its incense is costus65
and wormwood seed, as God speaks the truth and […].
The discussion on the mansion ḏirāʿ […]. Its letter is the zāʾ. When the moon
stations in ḏirāʿ, which is associated with air and moderately auspicious, virtu-
ous spiritual agency descends to the world, making it suitable during it for spi
ritual cures, starting to be a scholar and by virtuous works and incense, as well
as meeting in houses of worship. Talismans are prepared and the processing of
charms is done. There is entering before rulers and communicating with the
most noble people and brothers. Whoever is born during it will be prosperous,
acting properly and successful. Its incense is nettle seed (qarīḍ) and flax seed,
as God speaks the truth and guides to the right path.
The discussion on the mansion naṯra […]. Its letter is the ḥāʾ. When the
moon stations in it, which is cold and of mixed auspicious and inauspicious
fortune, spiritual agency descends to the world, causing during it enmity, hos-
tility, divisiveness (qaṭīʿa)66 and what resembles that. It is suitable for making
talismans which are suitable for that, and invoking the displeasure [of God]
on enemies, tyrants, oppressors and the malicious. Spiritual agency is active
for wrath during it. Do not prepare esoteric work of the sun or moon during
it. Do not enter before rulers, nor begin working on war machines nor council
for it, because this is a bad [time] suitable for wicked deeds, as we mentioned.
Whoever is born during it will be ill-fated.67 Its incense is costus and pome-
granate husk, as God the Most High knows best.
63 The published Cairo text reads al-haqʿa (!).

64 Iḥwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, IV, p. 432 notes that this is for produce (ġalla), such as an agricul-
ture crop.
65 The manuscript and the published Cairo text reads quṭrub, which is not the name
of any known incense. Other sources indicate costus (qusṭ); see Varisco, “The Magical
Significance,” p. 23.
66 The term qaṭīʿa is generally used for the Greek ἀναίρεσις (anairesis), used for the act of
destroying or killing.
67 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, IV, p. 433 says the male will have a fortunate life and the female
loved by people.
Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530

The discussion on the mansion ṭarf 68 […]. Its letter is the ṭāʾ. When the
moon stations in it, which is associated with water and is consistently an in-
auspicious star, spiritual agency descends to the world and has an effect in the
way previously presented and its work is strengthened. Do not make a talis-
man, nor prepare an esoteric work. Do not enter before rulers. During it do
not begin a friendship, nor make a judgment during it, nor undertake a divi-
sion, since the seclusion is better than mixing. This is bad for all kinds of work.
Whoever is born during it will be ill-fated. Its incense is nadd incense and saf-
fron, as God knows best.
The discussion on the mansion ǧabha […]. Its letter is the yāʾ. When the
moon stations in ǧabha, this is cold69 mixed with being inauspicious, but clo
ser to being suitable. During it start friendship, anything simple, entering be-
fore rulers, as well as asking for that which comes from satisfying needs. During
it minor and recoverable illness is treated. It is suitable during it for transport-
ing things from one place to another as well as activity in general. Tailoring
(tafṣīl) and wearing new clothing are detested. Whoever is born during it will
be skillful, prosperous and successful, although during it there is some decep-
tion and treachery. Its incense is myrtle seed and saffron threads.
The discussion on the mansion ḫaratān […]. Its letter is the kāf. When the
moon stations in ḫaratān, which is zubra, this is hot and dry.70 It is suitable
for treatment of spirit-related problems, the preparing of talismans, treating
the sick, therapy for the chronically ill, buying, selling, entering before rulers
and superiors (ruʾasāʾ). During this it is useful for travel in which you consider
becoming established and settled. During this it is useful for dignified divinely
ordained work.71 It is suitable for wearing new clothing. Whoever is born du
ring it will be popular (maḥbūb) among people, even if there is some decep-
tion and slyness. Its incense is sweet pomegranate husk and no other, as God
knows best.
The discussion on the mansion ṣarfa […]. Its letter is the lām. When the
moon stations in ṣarfa, which is a star with a nature of mixed earth and fire,
auspicious72 spiritual agency descends to the world and makes suitable what-
ever is the average kinds of work. Do not prepare esoteric work, nor treat the
sick or spiritual problems. Do not enter before rulers. During it make weapons
68 The published Cairo text uses ṭarfa, which is a less common variant.
69 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, IV, p. 433 notes that it is associated with water and heat.
70 Ibid., IV, p. 434 associates it with fire and characterizes it as auspicious.
71 This probably refers to esoteric activities like treating spirit possession, as noted by ibid.,
IV, p. 434.
72 Ibid., IV, p. 435 adds that it is also dry.
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510 Varisco
of war, carry weapons and horses can be ridden. Whoever is born during it
will have a destructive character, distasteful of people and distasteful to peo-
ple, and a scoundrel, a swindler, malicious and no one will like him due to the
extent of his wickedness and his deception, as God knows best. The incense
for this is nutmeg.
The discussion on the mansion ʿawwāʾ […]. Its letter is the mīm. When the
moon stations in ʿawwāʾ, which is a hot and dry star of mixed inauspicious
fortune, spiritual agency descends to the world, and arouses libido and causes
men’s loving desire for women and sex with them. It is suitable for learning
knowledge and learning every kind of thing. Do not prepare during it the
esoteric work of the Philosopher’s Stone (al-ḥaǧar al-mukarram), for it is not
fitting for it. Do not make war on enemies, nor bring legal action, nor seek
judgement, nor enter before rulers.73 It is suitable during it for wearing new
pieces of clothing, and tailoring pieces of clothing. Whoever is born during it
will be a wealthy person, whether male or female. Its incense is oriental frank-
incense, as God the Most High knows best.
The discussion on the mansion simāk […]. Its letter is the nūn. When the
moon stations in simāk, which is a star associated with earth and dry,74 spiri-
tual agency descends to the world causing enmity and immorality in women.
It is suitable for making deadly poisons and everything that generates wicked-
ness. Starting excellent and beneficial works during it is detested, as are buy-
ing, selling and making [business] contracts. Whoever is born during it will be
a complete liar with no good outcome. Its incense is oriental frankincense and
indigo seed, as Allah the Most High is the one who gives success by his grace
and generosity.
The discussion on the mansion ġafr […]. Its letter is the sīn. When the moon
stations in ġafr,75 spiritual agency descends to the world and causes love,
friendship, comfort and benefit from rulers. During it medicines are put to-
gether which dissolve deadly poisons and in so doing avert injury. It is suitable
for preparation of the Philosopher’s Stone and treating spirit-related problems.
During it talismans are made. Everything that can be accomplished from other
crafts and esoteric works is made. Whoever is born during it will be ill-fated,
one who is deceitful and treacherous.76 Its incense is oriental frankincense and
no other, as God knows best.
73 The advice given by Ibn Raḥīq in Petra G. Schmidl, Volkstümliche Astronomie, I, p. 288 is
that it is a suitable time for entering before rulers.
74 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, IV, p. 436 adds that it is inauspicious.
75 Ibid., IV, p. 436 notes that it is auspicious and associated with air (riyāḥī).
76 Ibid., IV, p. 436 notes only positive attributes.
Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530

The discussion on the mansion zubānā […]. Its letter is the ʿayn. When the
moon stations in zubānā, which is a star associated with air and of mixed aus-
picious and inauspicious fortune, both evil and its opposite spiritual agency
descends to the world. During it do that work which is a consequence of that.
Whoever wears a new piece of clothing will fall prey to a dog bite. If you talk
with enemies using offensive speech, then disease will enter his body, causing
it to suffer and the recovery to be a burden. Whoever, male or female, is born
during it will be prosperous in all his activities, but with some deceit.77 Its in-
cense is wormwood and camomile, as God the Most High knows best.
The discussion on the mansion iklīl […]. Its letter is the fāʾ. When the moon
stations in iklīl, which is a star of mixed auspicious and inauspicious fortune,78
spiritual agency descends, with enmity, sedition (fitna) and hostility occurring
during it. Do evil work and its antidote during it. Do not travel during it, nor
marry, nor buy slave girls, nor plant flowering plants, nor plant a crop, for this
will not have a good outcome. Do not tailor clothing, nor wear it; do not bring
legal action, nor seek judgment, nor seek satisfaction of needs. Whoever is
born, male or female, during it will turn out bad and unfortunate. Its incense is
pepper, saffron and aromatic wood, as God knows best.
The discussion on the mansion qalb […]. Its letter is the ṣād. When the
moon stations in qalb, which is an auspicious star and associated with water,
spiritual agency descends to the world, making right what has been corrupted
by the previous mansion. It is suitable for buying weapons and war machines,
for buying mounts, veterinary medicine, cutting trees, planting, plowing,79
extracting that which is buried, treating domestic animals, drinking purga-
tive medicine, blood letting and cupping. Whoever is born, whether male or
female, during it will be ill-fated, but with deception and slyness.80 Its incense
is the leaves of myrobalan.
The discussion on the mansion šawla […]. Its letter is the qāf. When the
moon stations in šawla, which is a star of mixed auspicious and inauspicious
fortune,81 mixed spiritual agency descends to the world doing evil and its anti-
dote. It is suitable for a contract and its annulment and whatever kinds of work
are normal. Tailoring new clothing and wearing it are detested. Do not make
77 Ibid., IV, p. 437 notes that the male will have positive attributes, but the female will have
negative ones.
78 Ibid., IV, p. 437 only notes that it is mixed with fire and air.
79 The text reads al-ḥrāb, but I suspect this is in error for al-ḥarṯ, which is the reading in the
published edition.
80 Ibid., IV, p. 438 only provides positive attributes.
81 Ibid., IV, p. 438 adds that it is is a mixture of water and fire.
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512 Varisco
talismans during it, nor treat spirit-related problems. Seclusion and isolation
during it have a good outcome. Whoever is born, male or female, during it will
turn out bad, unfortunate, a complete liar and immoral. Its incense is pome-
granate husk and mastic.
The discussion on the mansion naʿāʾim […]. Its letter is the rāʾ. When the
moon stations in naʿāʾim, which is a star associated with fire [8v], bright, exal
ted and shining,82 spiritual agency descends to the world, making hearts un-
troubled, causing friendship, prosperity (ḥiẓẓ) and happiness. It has a good
outcome in all situations. It is suitable for preparing venerable esoteric works.83
During it one can begin judicial assessment (ḥukm) and religious legal work.
During it make talismans, construct buildings, plant trees, wear new clothing
and tailor it as well, because new clothing will not cease to bring happiness
and joy until that piece of clothing wears out. Whoever is born, male or female,
during it will be blessed, happy and successful in all their activities and the
places they live. Its incense is oriental frankincense and wormwood, as God the
Most High informs the truth.
The discussion on the mansion balda […]. Its letter is the šīn. When the
moon stations in balda,84 which is a star associated with fire and is inauspi-
cious, spiritual agency descends to the world, creating enmity, hostility, divi-
siveness and everything calamitous. Nothing is to be done except that. During
it beware the making of a talisman, nor prepare the Philosopher’s Stone, not
the “Great Gem” (al-ǧawhar al-ʿaẓīm), nor treatment of spirit-related problems,
nor planting crops or seedlings, nor make an effort to travel, nor associate with
rulers or notables, nor marry, nor buy slave girls, nor wear new clothing or tai-
lor, nor do any kind of work. Whoever is born, male or female, during it will be
ill-fated and a scoundrel (muḥtāl). Its incense is spikenard (sunbul) and aro-
matic nadd wood.
The discussion on the mansion [saʿd] al-ḏābiḥ […]. Its letter is the tāʾ. When
the moon stations in ḏābiḥ, which is a star associated with earth and of mixed
inauspicious fortune, spiritual agency descends to the world, doing hostility,
enmity and divisiveness. The outcomes of affairs or works are not commen
dable. The natures of rulers are agitated with wrath and discontent. Selling
and buying are disparaged during it except for slave girls. It is suitable for
82 Ibid., IV, p. 439 adds that is also auspicious. The published edition misreads mušarraf
(exalted) as mašūb (i.e. mixed), but this is not a star with mixed fortune.
83 The reference may be to the alchemical magic of making gold, since the term al-ḥaǧar
al-mukarram is used for the Philosopher’s Stone.
84 The text defines balda as six stars in Sagittarius, but in most of the literature balda is con-
sidered a length of arc without specific stars.
Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530

digging, excavating, cultivation. That which is buried and hidden is extracted.

Secrets are kept. Whoever is born, male or female, during it will be blessed,
desiring this world and popular for this. The incense for this is safflower, as God
knows best.
The discussion on the mansion saʿd bulaʿ […]. Its letter is the ṯāʾ. When the
moon stations in saʿd bulaʿ, which is a star of mixed nature,85 and of mixed
auspicious and inauspicious fortune, spiritual agency descends to the world,
doing evil and its antidote. It is between the good and the bad. It is suitable for
buying female and male slaves. It is suitable for buying mounts. It is suitable
for associating with elderly religious authorities (mašāʾiḫ), agricultural part-
nerships, digging up canals, digging wells and whatever resembles these kinds
of work. It is suitable for excursion and traveling, cooking and meals. Whoever
is born, male or female, during it will be blessed and righteous. Its incense is
camomile and cumin, as God the Most High informs the truth.
The discussion on the mansion saʿd al-suʿūd […]. Its letter is the ḫāʾ. When
the moon stations in saʿd al-suʿūd, which is a star of a mixed nature of earth
and air, spiritual agency descends to the world, eliminating the effects that
were before it. It is suitable for all kinds of work. During it begin to make loving
relationships, friendship and whatever is like that connected with restoring
peace to hearts. Treat spirit-related problems. Prepare talismans. Meet with
rulers, superiors, high dignitaries (arbāb al-manāṣib) and others like them. Do
whatever kinds of desirable things you want and your work will be successful.
Whoever is born, male or female, during it will be one who loves the righteous.
Its incense is aromatic wood and mastic, as God knows best.
The discussion on the mansion saʿd al-aḫbiya […]. Its letter is the ḏāl. When
the moon stations in it, which is a star associated with air and inauspicious,
spiritual agency descends to the world, creating divisiveness, sedition, hosti
lity, separation (furqa)86 and wars. During it do not finish any kind of work,
because when it is finished it will not have a favorable outcome. Do not treat
illness nor treatments for spirit-related problems. During it do not prepare
talismans. During it do not prepare the esoteric work of alchemy and letter
magic (sīmiyāʾ). Whoever is born, male or female, during it will be immoral
and an unbeliever. Its incense is oriental frankincense, pepper and sarcocolla.
The discussion on the mansion al-farġ al-muqaddam […]. Its letter is the ḍād.
When the moon stations in al-farġ al-muqaddam, which is a star associated
85 The text reads mubahraǧ al-ǧawhar here, as under ṯurayyā, but I suspect it should be read
as mumtazaǧ al-ǧawhar, as under saʿd al-suʿūd.
86 The phrase al-tafrīq bayn al-iṯnayn (separation between two individuals) is used in Iḫwān
al-Ṣafāʾ, Risāla, IV, p. 441.
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514 Varisco
with water87 and auspicious, spiritual agency descends to the world, creating
loving relationships, increasing libido, and cheering up souls with friendship
during it. It is suitable for preparing the esoteric work of alchemy, treatment of
spirit-related problems. Prepare talismans and letter magic during it. Beneficial
medicines are combined during it. Enter before rulers and superiors. Dissolve
poisons during it. Whoever is born during it will have a good outcome. Its in-
cense is oriental frankincense, “black cumin,” and saffron, as God Most High
knows best.
The discussion on the mansion al-farġ al-muʾaḫḫar […]. Its letter is the ẓāʾ.
When the moon stations in al-farġ al-muʾaḫḫar, which is an auspicious88 star
associated with water, spiritual agency descends to the world, bringing about
acts which are not commendable as was presented before in the discussion of
inauspicious mansions. During it avoid war, encountering the enemy, sedition.
Rulers shed blood during it. It is suitable during it for bloodletting, cupping,
the act of drawing blood and marriage contracts for women and men. It is sui
table for entering the hot bath, cutting hair and nails and drinking beneficial
medicines. Whoever is born during it will be of ill fortune, immoral, a liar and
disloyal (ġaddār).89 Its incense is pepper and cinnamon, as God knows best.
The discussion on the mansion rišāʾ […]. Its letter is the ġayn. When the
moon stations in rišāʾ, which is baṭn al-ḥūt, an auspicious star associated with
water, spiritual agency descends to the world for a good outcome, creating su-
perior works and acts with excellent outcomes. During it prepare the esoteric
work of the Philosopher’s Stone and the talismanic gemstone (al-ǧawhar al-
muṭalsam).90 During it treat spirit-related problems. All the works done during
it have a good outcome. It is suitable for travel, marriage, wearing new clothing,
[9r] and its tailoring, transporting from one place to another and the com-
pany of sages and superiors. Whoever is born, male or female, during it will be
blessed. Its incense is “black cumin,” as God knows best.
87 Ibid., IV, p. 442 associates this mansion with air.

88 Ibid., IV, p. 442 notes that it is mixed in fortune.
89 Ibid., IV, p. 442 only mentions negative attributes for the male and not for the female.
90 In his Tāǧ al-ʿarūs, al-Zabīdī (s.v. “Ṭ.L.S.M”) notes that Sufis use the terms sirr muṭalsam,
ḥiǧāb muṭalsam and ḏāt muṭalsam.
Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530

‫‪Illuminating the Lunar Mansions‬‬ ‫‪515‬‬
‫‪ Transcription‬‬
‫]‪[4r‬‬
‫ا � ن ز ا � �ث ن� ة � ش � ن ن‬ ‫ح �ف� ث��م�ا ن��ة � ش‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن تق ّ‬
‫كا �‬ ‫ع��ر�ي ن� ع��لى ع�د د ل��م��ا �ل ل� ��م�ا ي�� وع��ري� �‬ ‫ي و‬ ‫�ل��م�ا ا � ��د �م ا � ا �ل�رو‬
‫ف �ذ‬ ‫ح� ت� ال�أ ض� �أ ��ع��ة � ش‬ ‫ن ف ق أ ض أ ة ش نز ة ت‬
‫ع��ر �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ��ا ا‬ ‫ر � رب‬ ‫�‬
‫�‬ ‫ا �ل��ا �هر �م��ه�ا �و� ال� ر�� ر ب��ع�� ع��ر �م�� ل�� و‬
‫ظ‬
‫ح �ف خ��م��س��ة‬ ‫ذ ً �ذ‬ ‫�خ � ة � ش ن‬ ‫�غ�ا ب� ت� �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ط��ل�ع� ت� ا �ل‬
‫كا ن� ت� ا �ل�رو�‬ ‫�� ا ا ب��د ا و�ل� �ل�ك �‬ ‫ع��ر � ظ��ي��ر�ه�ا �ه �ك‬ ‫��ا م��س��‬
‫خ �ذ ز ش ض‬
‫�م�ا �تر �ى ب� � � ج� � � �� ‬
‫ت ث‬ ‫ع��ر ب�لا ن��ق��ط وا �ل��م ن��ق��وط��ة ك�‬ ‫ع�� م ن��ق�� ط��ة ث�لا ث��ة‪ � 91‬ش‬
‫� ر و و‬
‫ش‬
‫ف ف �ذ‬ ‫غ ف ق‬
‫�ر�� ه� ه � فص��ت��ه�ا ا ح د ر ط ك ل �م‬ ‫�ظ �� ن� �ي� وا �م�ا ا � �غل� ي��ر �م ن��ق��وط��ة �م� ن� الا ح‬
‫�‬
‫ت‬ ‫ز‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�غ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬
‫�صع ��س �ه و لا‪�� 92‬ا ع��ل و��ك ا �ل�ل�ه وا ي�ا �ا ا � ا �ل� ي��ر �م��وط�� م��ه�ا �هي� �م��ا �ل ا �ل��س�ع�ا د ا �‬
‫ت ف�� ن � ن � ن �ق ة ا �ة‬ ‫م‬
‫كا � م��ه�ا ل�ه �� ط�� و ح�د‬ ‫� و ا �ل��م��مت��ز�ج �ا � م�ا �‬ ‫ح ��س�ا ت‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬‫�‬ ‫ا �ل��م ن��ق�� ط��ة �م ن��ه�ا �ه �م ن��ا ز ل ا �ل��م ن‬
‫��‬
‫و‬ ‫� ي� �‬ ‫و و‬
‫ت � ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن �ق ت ن ن ت ً‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن ق‬
‫كا �‬ ‫حو��س�ا � و م�ا �‬ ‫كا � �م��و��س��ط�ا �ف� ا �ل��‬ ‫كا � �م��ه�ا �ل�ه �� ط��ا � �‬ ‫كا � ا �ر ب� ا لى ا �ل��س�عود و�م�ا �‬ ‫�‬
‫ي‬ ‫ش ن ث فت ّ‬ ‫ن‬
‫�� ف��ة‬ ‫ن نّ‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ح��س�ا ا ك ث‬ ‫كا � �‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�ق‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�م ن��ه�ا �ل�ه ث�لا ث‬
‫��بر �م��ا ل ا �ل��ي�� وا ��ل��ا ء ��د ب�ر �ل�ك و�ه�ا ا �ا ا ب�ي�� ل�ك �كي ي‬ ‫�‬ ‫� �� ط �‬ ‫�‬
‫نّ‬
‫ش‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ق‬
‫� يف� ا ��ل�� الا ��ل�هي�� لا ي��ب��ه ا ح�د �ه�ا‬ ‫�خ‬
‫ل‬‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�خ‬
‫م‬
‫��ا ل ��ل��ا � ا �لو �ض‬ ‫�ذ �ل�ك ا ع��ل ا � ا �ل��م��ا �ل ��ل�ه�ا ا �� ك�‬
‫ش‬ ‫ز‬ ‫ن‬
‫ع‬ ‫آ‬ ‫م‬
‫�� ن� �ش��رح�ه {‬ ‫ل��م��س �ل��س ّر �خ��ف��ى لا ي��م ك‬ ‫� ذ�� ل�ك ا � ش‬ ‫ت‬
‫الا �خ�ر وا �ل��ق��مر �خ ��قل��ه ا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى �م��ست��دي�ر� و ك‬
‫ة �ف‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ن ف‬
‫�� ر‬‫لا � ا � ش��ا ء ��سر ا �لرب�وب�ي�� ك‬
‫ا � ن �� ن‬ ‫ش ت ّ‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ف‬
‫حي��ط�ا �‬ ‫�� ل��ل��‬ ‫كل �م ول ك‬ ‫� ت��د ل ع��لي��ه و �‬ ‫كا ن� �ل�ه �إ ��ا را‬ ‫ة‬
‫��ا �م�ا ا �ل��ق��مر ا ا ن� ز�ل ب��م ن�� ز� �ل�� ا ��لن��ط�� ‬
‫ح‬
‫� قّ‬
‫ل‬‫�‬ ‫��ت��م�ا ن ف��ا ف��ه�� م�ا ا �ش�� ن�ا ��ه ت��د ّ� ه ا �ل�ل�ه ��ق‬ ‫�ذ ن‬
‫�‬ ‫�د‬
‫� و و ي� ى‬‫ه‬‫��‬ ‫�ه‬ ‫ح‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ل‬ ‫��‬
‫ر ب و بر و ي و‬ ‫ا ا � والا �ص��ل��ح ا �ل ك � � م‬
‫ا �ل��س�ب� ي��ل‬
‫]‪[4v‬‬
‫ف‬
‫� ا ع��ل و��ق�� ن��ا‬ ‫� ا �ل��س�ا ع�ا ت‬ ‫ا �ل��ف� ��ص� ا ��لث��ا �ن � ا �ل�ك��س ا �ل��س��ط � ت�� الا �ع�م�ا ل �م� ن الا ق��ا ت‬
‫و‬ ‫� و‬ ‫وتر ي ب‬ ‫ر و �ب‬ ‫ل ي� يف�‬
‫�ق ق ق � ت ل م ف‬ ‫ش‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ّ‬
‫ي�ه��م�ا‬ ‫ا �ل�ل�ه وا ي�ا ك ��ل�ه�د ا ي��ه و��ه��م ا ��سرا ره و�ع��ا ي��ه ا � ا �ل��م��س وا ل��مر ��د ��ا ل ا ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا ى ��‬
‫� ن �ذ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫كا ��ه ا �ل�ع�ز � ز � �ق �ل�ه �ت�ع�ا ل ا � ش‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫حو� و �ل�ك‬ ‫كل �يف� ا �ل��ف��ل�ك ي��س ب��‬ ‫ل��م��س وا �ل��ق��مر �‬ ‫ىو‬ ‫ي ي و‬ ‫ف�‬ ‫�‬ ‫و �كر�ه�م�ا �يف� ب‬
‫�‬
‫�‬
‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫كا � ب��س ّر الا �ل��‬ ‫�ر�� الا �ل�� و �‬ ‫كا ن� �ل�ه ح‬ ‫ا ن� }‪ 93‬ا �ل��ق��مر ا ا ن� ز�ل ب��م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا ��لن��ط�� ك�‬
‫�م�ا ت��ق��د �م �‬
‫ح‬
‫ة ف‬ ‫آ‬
‫ب�ن�� ‪.٢٦٤٧‬‬ ‫‪ 91‬ا ر ب��ع��ة ب�ا �ل��م��خ��طوط��ة ب�‪ ٨٩‬وب��م��خ��طوط��ة ‪ ٥٢٨‬وث�ل� ث��ة ب��م��خ��طوط��‬
‫ح‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫�� ا ب�ا لا �ص�ل‪.‬‬ ‫‪� 92‬ه ك‬
‫ة ف‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫� �ذ ه ا �ل �ل � ت �غ‬
‫طوط�� ب�ن�� ‪.٢٦٤٧‬‬ ‫� ��ير �مو�ج�ود ب�ا �ل��م��خ��‬ ‫‪ 93‬ه� ��م�ع� و م�ا‬
‫‪Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530‬‬

‫‪516‬‬ ‫‪Varisco‬‬
‫ف‬ ‫ة ف‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ةف ّ‬ ‫ف �ذ‬

‫كا �بر�ه�ا ��ي��ج��د‬ ‫��ا ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب�ت��ل�ك ا �ل��م ن�� ز� �ل�� ي��ت��ج��لى �م� ن� ت��ل�ك ا �ل��م ن�� ز� �ل�� روح�ا ن�ي�� الا �ل��‪ 94‬وا �‬
‫�ذ � ت ة ن ن ة ف� ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ق ض �‬ ‫ن �ل�خ ق ق‬ ‫ّ‬
‫كل ا ح�د �م�� ا ��ل� ب�ا �ل��هر وا �ل�� ب�� يف� ب�ا ط��ه ع��لى ا ��ل�وع ا �ل� �ي� يف� ر �ب�� الا ��س�ا �ي�� م��‬ ‫�‬
‫� � �ة‬ ‫ن ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫فن‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫�� ن� �يف� ت��ل�ك ا �ل��س�ا ع��ة و�ي ش��غ��ل �ج�وا رح�ه يف� ع ب��ا د‬ ‫ت��ف��ق��د �ل�ك و�ج �د ه �ي��ب� غ��ى �ل�ل�إ ��س�ا � ا � ي��س ك‬
‫ّ‬
‫ف‬
‫ح��ص�ل ��‬
‫ي�ه�ا‬ ‫��ثر�ة ا �ل��ذ�كر �ل�ه و�ل ز�و�م ا �ل��ط�ه�ا ر�ة �ف� ت��ل�ك ا �ل��س�ا ع��ة و�ق ب�� ا �ل��م�د �ة لا ن��ه ي�‬
‫�‬ ‫ت‬
‫ا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى وك‬
‫ل‬ ‫ي‬
‫ًّ‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ن ن‬
‫� �ه و�ي��صي��ر �مت��ع��ج� ب��ا �يف� ن��ف��س�ه‬ ‫حت�ى لا ي��د ر �ى الا ��س�ا � �م�ا ��س�ب�� ب� � ب��ض‬ ‫ع�� ت�ن�ق�� ب�� ض�� ا ��لن� ف��و��س �‬ ‫�� ض‬
‫ب‬
‫�ل� �ف ف ا ش � ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫و �ل�ك ا � الا �ل�� هي� ا ول �مرا � ب� الا ح�ا د �يف� الا ع�د ا د وا حرو� ��ل ��ب��ه ل�ه ��‬
‫ي�ه�ا‬
‫ل��س��ل ف��ا ف��ه��م �ذ �ل�ك ف��ه ت�ن��غ�� ض�� م� ن ا د ت‬ ‫ف‬ ‫نز‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ف �ذ‬
‫� �ه‬ ‫� ت�ن��غ� ي��ض‬ ‫وي ي � � ر‬ ‫��ل� �ل�ك و��ع الا ��ع�ا ج� �يف� ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م ا � ى �‬
‫قت‬ ‫�ت � ّ ��لت � ّ ف‬ ‫ف‬
‫� �ه و�م��ه �ل��م�ا �يف�‬ ‫�ب��ر ��ا ن��ه ي�ن��ا ��س� ب� ت�ن��غ� ي��ض‬
‫�م� ن� ا �ه�ل ا �ل�د ن�ي��ا وا �ش��را ��ه�ا �م� ن� ا �ه�ل ا ل��ج ب��ر وا � ك‬
‫ف‬
‫ح�لول ا �ل��ق��مر �ي��ه و�ل��م�ا �يف� ا ��لن��ط��‬ ‫حرا ر�ة وا �لي��بو��س��ة وا ن��ق�� ب��ا ض�� ا ��لن� ف��و��س ب�‬
‫�‬ ‫�ر�ف� الا �ل��ف� �م� ن� ا �ل�‬ ‫ح‬
‫ن ح‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫أ‬
‫حر ق� �‬
‫�‬ ‫حرا ر�ة وا �لي�� س��ة و�هو و�ج �ه ال� ح�م والاح�م ح�ا ر �ا �� ط��ب��ع��ة ا ��لن��ا ر م‬
‫�‬ ‫�م� ن� ا �ل�‬
‫ح��س‬ ‫ي‬ ‫س‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ر‬ ‫بو‬
‫أف‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ا �ذ ا ن‬ ‫ّ �ة‬ ‫ت ف أ‬ ‫ف �ذ‬
‫كا � ا ��لن��ط�� ط�ا �ل�ع�ا ع��لى ال� � ق�‪95‬‬ ‫�‬ ‫� �ي��ه ب�� س��م�ا ء ح�ا ر ي�ا ب��س��ة و�م� ن� ط ب��ع�ه‬ ‫��ا ا د �عو‬
‫ح‬
‫ّ �ذ‬
‫ل��ر �يق� ف��ا �ل��ق��مر ف�ي��ه و�ي��ص�� م�ا �كره‬ ‫ا�ش‬
‫ف ف�خّ‬ ‫ح‬
‫ح�ا ��س ا ح�مر ا و ح�د ي��د ا و �ش��ق�� ‬
‫ن‬
‫ع��ر �م ّر�ة �ف� �‬ ‫ح �ف� �م�ا ئ��ة‪ 96‬ا ح�د � ش‬ ‫ا ن� �كت ت‬
‫��ا ر‬ ‫�‬
‫ي‬ ‫ي و‬ ‫�� ب�� ا �ل�رو‬ ‫و‬
‫�خ � ن ن‬ ‫�‬ ‫ن ت� ّ‬
‫�خ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ق‬ ‫�غ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬
‫�ور م�� ج ��س�ه‬ ‫� �ه ود ��ه �ف� د ا ره ب��ع�د ا � ب�ره ب ب�‬ ‫ا ح�مر ع��لى ا ��س��م �م�� ا ر د � �� ي��ص�ه و� ب��ض‬
‫ي‬
‫ح �ف ا � ص�ا د �غ�� ه�م�ا �م� م�ا �ن��ا ��س��ه� م�ا ت�د �ع ا ل ��س� م�ا ء �م�ا ئ��ة‬ ‫ن ف� ا �ل� ر�ة‬
‫ي‬ ‫حرا �مث��ل ا �ل�ر� و ل�� و ير �� ي ب� �� و ب� ا ��‬ ‫�و� ي��ه‬ ‫ي� ك‬
‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ق‬
‫ع��ر �م ّر و�ه� الا ع�د ا د ا �لوا ��ع�� ع��ل ب��س��ط ح �‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫�م ّ ا ح�د � � ش‬ ‫�ة‬
‫�ر� الا �ل�� والا ��س��م�ا ء ا ��ل�يت�‬ ‫ى‬ ‫أي‬ ‫ر و ى‬
‫ق‬ ‫�غ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�ذ� �ذ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫ن‬
‫� �ه‬ ‫ت‬
‫�رو�� ا ��س��م ا �ل��م� كور ا �ل� �ي� ا ر د � �� ي��ص�ه و� ب��ض‬ ‫ت��د �عو ب��ه�ا ع��لي��ه و�هو ا � �� ح‬
‫ت‬
‫ت�ن �ظ ا ل ا � �غ � ع��ل � ا �� ن ا � ئ ا � ا �ل� ر�ة‬
‫حرا وا �م�ا ا �لي��بو��س��ة وا �م�ا‬ ‫وت��ب��س��ط�ه�ا و�� ر ى ل��ا ل� ب� ي��ه يف� س��م�ه م�� ل��ط ب��ا � م�ا‬
‫ع‬
‫ن‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ة‬ ‫� ّ �ة‬ ‫حرو�ف� ا �ل‬ ‫ا �ل��برود �ة وا �م�ا ا �لرطوب��ة ف�ت��ا �خ ��ذ ت��ل�ك ا �ل�‬
‫� ��ع�ه�ا ب�ي�� ي��د ي��ك‬ ‫ح�ا ر ا ��لي��ا ب��س�� م�� س��م�ه و��ض‬
‫ا‬ ‫�‬
‫أ‬ ‫أ‬ ‫ت‬
‫��م �م ن��ه�ا � ��س��م�ا ء �م� ن� � ��س��م�ا ء ا �ل�ل�ه‬ ‫� �ف� ا �ل��م �خ ا ��لن��ط�� ا �ل��ق��م ج�‬ ‫�� ي�� ف� ا ��لي��ه ح‬ ‫ت‬
‫�يف� �لو و��ض‬
‫ق ع‬ ‫و‬ ‫ر‬ ‫و‬ ‫�ذ � ت ح‬ ‫و‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ر‬ ‫رو‬ ‫ح‬
‫�‬
‫ع‬ ‫ز‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ث‬ ‫ق‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ه‬‫�‬ ‫�‬
‫�‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ت‬
‫�ور و ج�مع �م��ك يف� �م�ع�ه و��هره �م��ا ل �ل�ك ��ي�د و �مرو‬ ‫��ع�ا لى و��د �عو ب��ه�ا ا �ل�ع�د د ا �ل��م� ك‬
‫�ذ‬ ‫�ل� ف‬
‫� ذ�� ا �م��ق��ط�ع��ة �م��ب��سوط��ة �م ر و �م ر �ي� خ ن� ط ق� �م ر ف��ه� ه‬ ‫حرو�� ه �‬
‫ك‬ ‫� ا‬
‫ف‬
‫�ت��ض‬
‫ح‬ ‫�‬ ‫ع‬ ‫ع‬
‫�ج�ز ا ء ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م وا ك‬

‫��ثره‬ ‫�� ب� �ف� ا �‬ ‫� ف� ظ � �غ‬ ‫ة نف‬ ‫��ا ق��ص �ه ن��ا ا � ت�ل��ا ل� ا ��ل�ت� � ن ت �خ�‬ ‫‪ 94‬ن‬
‫كا �� ب��م�� طوط�� ب�� ‪ ٢٦٤٧‬و هي� ي��هر ا ل��ض ي‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ي ي‬ ‫� �ش �ف‬
‫ف� ا ��را � ا �ه� ا �ل�د ��ا‪.‬‬
‫ل ��سخ ي ف ة ئ �ل� �ف‬ ‫ي �ذ‬
‫�ص�� ط ب��ا � ا حرو�‪.‬‬ ‫��ع�د �ه� ا ن��ق��ل ا � ن�ل��ا‬
‫‪ 95‬ب‬
‫�ةع‬ ‫ف�‬
‫ّ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ة‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫ئ‬ ‫ز‬
‫طوط�� ب�� ‪� ٢٦٤٧‬مر و‪.‬‬ ‫‪� 96‬ا ��د ب��م��‬
‫‪Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530‬‬

‫ن ن �ل� ف‬
‫حرو��‪98‬‬
‫ئ‬ ‫ئ‬ ‫فً‬
‫�ر��ا �م ن��ه�ا ن�ا ر �ي�‪ 97‬و�هوا �ى و�ترا �ب� و�م�ا �ى و�هي� و �ي� � و�م�� ا‬ ‫�أ ��ع��ة � ش‬
‫ع��ر ح‬
‫ي‬ ‫رب‬
‫أ‬ ‫� ّ �ة ا � �كرر�ة‬ ‫� �ف ق ف � ن ت �ل� ف‬ ‫� ة ف‬
‫� � ر ب��ع��ة �م �م �م ط‬ ‫حرو�� ا �لح�ا ر ل��م‬ ‫��ا �� ا‬ ‫�ر�� وا ح�د و�هو حر� � � ك‬ ‫ا لرط ب�� ح‬
‫ف‬ ‫�ل ّ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ّ‬
‫�ر��‬ ‫ح�ا ر�ة ا �لرط ب��ة ث�لا ث��ة‪} 100‬ا ح‬ ‫ر ر ر ‪ 99‬وا �‬ ‫� � �ه‬ ‫�كرر �ه�ا ��ست��ة ا ح‬ ‫وا ��لي��ا ب��س��ة �م �‬
‫ًح‬ ‫ر� أو ي� ح ع‬
‫�ذ �ل� ف‬ ‫�ر ف��ا �ه ن��ا ف� ك�‬ ‫ا �لرط��ة ا ح�د ف��ا ح� ت‬
‫حرو��‬ ‫��ا ن� ا � �غل��ا �ل� ب� ع��ل� �ه� ه ا‬ ‫ع��ر ح‬ ‫�{‪ 101‬ال� ��ع��ة � ش‬
‫ب‬ ‫ر‬ ‫�ذر‬ ‫و ب و‬
‫ق‬ ‫ين‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫أ‬
‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�‬
‫ة ف‬
‫�خ‬ ‫ا �ل� ر�ة‬
‫حرا وا �لي��بو��س�� ر ج� ��ل��ا �م�� س��م�ا ء ا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى �ه� ه ��ول ا �ل��ل�ه��م ا �ى ا ��س��م ع��لي��ك‬
‫ق ف‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ة تق ق‬
‫و �يف� رواي�� ول ا ��س��م� ت� ع��لي��ك ي�ا ��س��م��س��م�ا ي�ي��ل ا �ل��م�ل�ك ب�ا �ل� �ي� �خ ��ل��ك ��س ّوا ك و ج��ع�ل�ك‬
‫ن ف ن‬ ‫�غ‬ ‫ن ً � ف� � �خ� ّ ت � ن ش � ال � ن ت ّ ت ف‬
‫�� ع�د �ى‪� 102‬ي��م�ا ا ر � � ب� �م��ك ��ا �ى‬ ‫��ك و ��ص��ك م�� ب��ط��ه وح ب��ا ك ا م�ا �ك‬ ‫�ورا يف� ��ل ك‬
‫ّ‬
‫� ا ر�ة‬
‫� �يف� حر‬
‫ح ا ر�ة ا �ل��م �خ‬ ‫ت تز‬
‫حوا ��س�ه و��م�� ج� ب�ر‬ ‫��س��ل��طت��ك ع��ل ‪ 103٢٥٢‬ا ن� ت�ن�ت�ق��م ل� �م ن��ه وت��ه�د �‬
‫ري‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ى‬
‫ن ت�ت ف‬ ‫�ق‬ ‫ف‬
‫ض‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ت‬
‫�را ا ��ل��ا ر�ي�� مع ب��ه�ا ا و�ص�ا �ل�ه و�� ب�� ب��ه�ا ع��لى ��لب��ه و�ب��ط��ه و��ل�‬
‫ق‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ر�ة‬ ‫ط ب��ع�ه وت��ه��ي��ج �ي��ه ح‬
‫ت‬
‫ن ن‬
‫حرك ع��لي��ه ا ��ل�ي��را � وا �ل��ص�د اع و��س�ا �ئر‬ ‫��ة ا �ل�ع��ذ ا ب� ون�ا ر ا �ل��مر ي�خ و�‬ ‫ب��ه�ا �ع��ق��ل�ه وت� ن�� ز�ل ع��لي��ه �م�لا �ئ �ك‬
‫�‬ ‫ن ن‬
‫ح قّ �م ن�� ز ��لت�� ا �ل��م ت��ف��ع��ة ا �ل��م��ق��د ا ا ��ل��ا ��س��ة‬ ‫�‬
‫�‬ ‫ح�� ن‬ ‫�‬
‫�‬ ‫ف�‬ ‫ح قّ ا �ل��م �خ‬ ‫�‬
‫ب‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ك‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ا‬
‫�‬ ‫و‬ ‫� و�م�ا ي��ه �م�� س‬ ‫الا و�ج �اع ب�� ر ي‬
‫� ب��ا ر‬‫� ب��ا �بر�ة ف��ا ر��س�ل�ه روح�ا ن�ي��ة‪� 104‬ه��ذ ا ا ��جل‬ ‫حرا ر�ة ا �ل��م ن��ت��ق��م��ة �م� ن ا � ظل��ل�م��ة ا ��لب��ا �غ ي�� ن� ا �ل��ط�ا �غ ي�� ن� ا ��جل‬ ‫ا �ل�‬
‫�‬
‫ق‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ت ّ‬
‫�ب��ر ا �ل��ط�ا ��غ� و�م��كن�وا و��س��كن�وا �ف� �ج��س��م�ه �م� ن� ع� ا ب� الا ن�ت��ا �م و��س��ل��طوا ع��لى ب�ا ط ن��ه‪105‬‬ ‫ا �ل��م�� ك‬
‫ي‬ ‫ي‬
‫ّ‬ ‫ن‬
‫�� ب� والا ن�ت�ق��ا �م ف��ا �� ا ق��س��م� ت� ع��لي��ك ب�ا �ل��ق�� ّو�ى ا �ل��م��‬
‫حي��ط ا �ل��ط�ا �ل ق� ا �ل�ح� ا �ل��ق��يو�م‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��هر وا � �غل��ض‬
‫ي‬ ‫ّ‬
‫ش‬ ‫� قّ ن‬ ‫ا ��لن�ور ا �ل��م�ؤ �م� ن ا �ل��م��ق��د �م ا �ل��م�ؤ�خ�ر �م��ف��ي�� ض�� الا ن�وا ر و�م�ع��ط الا ��سرا ر وب�‬
‫ح� ا ��ل��ا ر وا �ل��را ر‬ ‫ي�‬ ‫�‬ ‫أ�‬
‫ّ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫قّ‬ ‫� قّ‬
‫�‬
‫� ب� ال� �مر وبح� ا ل�ل�ه ا �لوا ح�د ا �ل��ه�ا ر ا �ج ي��بوا ط�ا �ي�عي�� و�م��سرعي�� لا ��س��م�ا ء ر ب�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ح‬ ‫�و�ك�‬ ‫وا �ل ك‬
‫� ت ن � �ف‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ف‬
‫ح��س ن ‪ } 106‬ا ع��ل �ا ا � ق‬ ‫�ت‬
‫�خ� و�� ن�ي� ا �ل�ل�ه وا ي�ا ك ا لى ط�ا ع��ه ا � حر�‬ ‫�� ب� �م�ع�ه ا ل��م�� و م ي ي‬
‫� �‬ ‫ا �ل�ع�ا �ل��مي�� ن� وت� ك‬
‫ة‬ ‫ح�ا ّ �ة ا �لرط��ة‬

‫ث�لا ث�� ‪.‬‬ ‫حرو�ف� ا �ل‬ ‫ر خ و�م� ن� ا �ل�‬ ‫‪ 97‬ز�ا ئ��د ب��م��خ��طوط��ة ب�ن� ف� ‪ ٢٦٤٧‬ط � � ا �‬
‫ب‬ ‫�ر‬ ‫م �ةوتر يب� ح ع �‬ ‫ة ف‬
‫طوط�� ب�ن�� ‪ ٢٦٤٧‬ا � ب�ل��ا ر د ‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 98‬ز�ا ئ��د ب��م��خ��‬
‫ة ف‬ ‫‪ 99‬خ‬
‫طوط�� ب�ن�� ‪.٢٦٤٧‬‬ ‫� ب��م��خ��‬
‫�غ‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ة‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫�ت‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ة‬
‫� �ا �م�ت�ك�و ب� �م� ن� ��ير ت� �‬
‫�كرا ر‬ ‫�� ب�� وا � ب�ل��ا ر د ا �لرط ب�� و�هو ا �ي��ض‬‫‪ 100‬ز�ا ئ��د ب��م��طوط�� ب�ن�� ‪ ٢٦٤٧‬و�هي� ا �ل��م ك‬
‫�خ‬
‫ح��س�� ال ��ع��ة � ش‬
‫ع��ر‪.‬‬ ‫ار‬ ‫ف��ا �‬
‫ن �ق ب �خ� ب ة �ن ف‬
‫طوط�� ب�� ‪.٢٦٤٧‬‬ ‫‪�� 101‬ا ��ص ب��م�� ‬
‫ة ف‬ ‫ن‬
‫طوط�� ب�ن�� ‪.٢٦٤٧‬‬ ‫‪� 102‬ع ّو �ي� ب��م��خ��‬
‫ن‬ ‫ف� ا ن ا � ن ف ن‬ ‫ة نف‬ ‫ز ئ �خ‬
‫ب� �ولا � ب��د و� ‪.٢٥٢‬‬ ‫‪� 103‬ا ��د ب��م��طوط�� ب�� ‪� ٢٦٤٧‬ل �‬
‫ة‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫‪ 104‬ز�ا ئ��د ب��م��خ��طوط��ة ب�ن� ف� ‪ ٢٦٤٧‬ا �ل��مر�خ ا �ص‬
‫��ص� ب� ع��لى روح�ا ن�ي�� ‪.‬‬‫ح�ا ب� ا � ن�ل��ا ر وا �ل�ع� ا ب� وا �ل��ق��هر وا � ن�ل��‬ ‫�‬ ‫ّ ي‬
‫�‬ ‫ة ف‬
‫طوط�� ب�ن�� ‪�� ٢٦٤٧‬سر‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 105‬ز�ا ئ��د ب��م��خ��‬
‫ة ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�لخ‬
‫طوط�� ب�ن�� ‪.٢٦٤٧‬‬ ‫��م��س ا � ث�ل��ا �ي� ب��م��خ��‬ ‫‪ 106‬ا‬
‫‪Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530‬‬

‫‪518‬‬ ‫‪Varisco‬‬
‫�ذ‬ ‫ف ق‬ ‫أ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬

‫�ر�� ّو�ى ا �ل��ف��ع�ا ل ا ا‬ ‫� ب� ا �ل��مر ي�خ �خ �ا د �م�ه ال� ح�مر و�هو ح‬ ‫�و�ك�‬ ‫الا �ل�� ل�ه و� ق� �هوا �يئ� �ل�ه ك‬
‫�‬
‫ح��ة ال ت��ة‬
‫ا‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬‫�‬ ‫ض�� ت��ه � �مث��ل�ه ا ظ��ه ا �ل��ط�ا ع��ة �ه ن��ه�ا ��ة الا ح�ا د �ه��ذ ه فص��ت��ه �ض �ع�ه � ا �ل�� ف‬
‫ص��‬
‫ي‬ ‫� و� يف� �‬ ‫و‬ ‫وو�ي‬ ‫�ر‬ ‫رب يف�‬
‫� �ل� �ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ش‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ش‬ ‫ف‬
‫�م�ا �تر �ى ا ��ه��م �تر��د وا ع��ل ا � �ه� ا ا �ل�‬
‫حر�� ا �ل��ر�ي�� ل�ه �و �يف� ��صر�ي�� س�ا ئر ا حرو�‬ ‫ك�‬
‫�ت‬ ‫م‬
‫��ه ع��ل �ه��ذ ه ا �ل�� فص��ة ك� ّ ن‬ ‫ت � ّ ة ف�‬ ‫�خ� ّ �ذ‬ ‫ف� ف�‬ ‫لا ن��ه �‬
‫�م�ا ب�ي��ا �يف�‬ ‫كا لا ب� �ا ��ه��م وا �م�ا وا �ص�ه ا ا ا ر د ��ه �ل�ل�م��ح ب�� ا �ك� ب ى‬
‫فق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫��س�ا ع��ة ��س�ع��د �ة ا ن� �م�ز �� ت� ا ��س��م ا � ش‬
‫�رو�� ا �لو��‬ ‫ل��خ��س ا �ل� �ي� �تر�ي�د ا �ل�ع��م�ل �ل�ه �م ح‬ ‫�ج‬ ‫ي و‬
‫ع‬ ‫أ‬ ‫ق‬
‫�خ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬
‫كا � ا ج��م�ل وا �و�ى �يف� ال� ��ع�ا ل و��ول ا ��س��م�� ع��لي��ك ي�ا ��س��م��س��م�ا ي�ي��ل ا �� و �د ا �م�ك‬ ‫�‬
‫ً ف ن ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ا �ع ا ن � ن ا � ل ة ا � ف‬
‫�ر�� الا �ل�� ج��مي��ع�ا ��ا �ي� ا ��س��م ع��لي��ك الا‬ ‫ل��س��لي��ة و�خ �د ا �م ح‬ ‫و و ��ك م�� ل�ع�و�ي�� و‬
‫� قّ � �ف‬ ‫ق‬
‫ح ق �م�ا ا ��س��م� ت� ب��ه ع��لي��ك وب�‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫�‬ ‫�ت‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ق‬ ‫�ت‬ ‫�ت‬ ‫�ت‬
‫ح� حر�‬ ‫�م�ا ��س��م�ع� ��م وا ��ط�ع� ��م و�ه��ي��ج�� م وا ��ل�� م ‪ ٢٥٢‬ب��‬
‫�ذ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ف‬
‫الا �ل�� و�م�ا ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى �ي��ه �م� ن� الا ��سرا ر ا �ل� �ي�‪ 107‬لا �ي��ط��ل ع��لي��ك ا ح�د الا ا �ل�ع�ل�م�ا ء‬
‫ع‬
‫ت‬ ‫�‬ ‫�خ ا � ّ ال �م�ا ا �� ت� ا � ط�ا ع��ة‬ ‫ي�ه�ا �م� ن ا �ل‬ ‫ف‬ ‫� قّ �‬ ‫ا �ل�ع�ا ر ف�ي�� ن� ب�ا �ل�ل�ه وب�‬
‫�‬
‫و م‬‫ك‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ع‬ ‫د‬ ‫ا‬‫�‬‫م‬‫��‬‫�‬‫�‬
‫ل‬ ‫ل��‬ ‫�‬ ‫��‬
‫�ج �ب م ب‬ ‫�و ص ا‬ ‫ح� ا ب�ج��د و�م�ا �� ‬
‫��‬‫�م و�ق�� ّ ع��ل �ذ �ل�ك �م�ا ي�ن��ا ��سب��ه �م� ن الا �ع�م�ا ل والا ف��ع�ا �ن�‬ ‫ا ��لي��ه و��م�ا ا �ق��س��م� ت� ب��ه ع��لي� ك�‬
‫ل ي�ج ح‬ ‫�‬ ‫س ى‬
‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫ب‬
‫�‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ش‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ق‬
‫ع‬
‫� �ل�ه ع��د ا �ل�ع�ل�م�ا ء وا � ا ر د ��ه لا �م�ا ل‬ ‫�‬ ‫�ع�م�ل�ك و�ه� ا و � حر� الا �ل�� ا �ل��م��هور ��سره و ��ض‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬
‫�ّ‬‫�م�ا �ذ�كرن�ا وا ف��ع� ت�ن��ا ل ا �ل��م��ق��صود وا �ل�ل�ه ي��ق��ول ا �ل‬ ‫ف ف‬
‫ي�ه�د �ى ا �ل��س �ب� ي��ل} ‪108‬‬ ‫ح ق� و�هو ��‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ا �ل��ف��س�ا د ��ا ��ع�ل ك�‬
‫]‪[5r‬‬
‫ح��ذر‪٥‬‬ ‫حر�ف� ا ��لب��ا ء ا �ذ ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب��م�ا ي�ت�‬
‫�‬ ‫وا �م�ا ا ��لث��ا ن�ي��ة �م� ن� ا �ل��م ن��ا ز�ل �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا ��لب��طي�� ن� و�هو‪� 109‬ل�‬
‫ف‬ ‫ّ �ذ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ق �ة‬ ‫ت‬
‫�� ب� و�م�ا ت��ق��د �م �كره و�ي��ه ي� ش��ر ب� ا �ل�د وا ء‬ ‫�م ن��ه ب�ا �مر ا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى � ّو روح�ا ن�ي��ة ��ص��ل�� ل�� غل��ض‬
‫ح أ‬
‫�ث ن‬ ‫كا � �أ �ن��ا ء ا �ل�د ن��ا �م�ل ك ال� ض� لا ن� �ه��ذ ا ا �ل �ه �م� ن ا �ل‬
‫�‬
‫ح‬ ‫�ت� ف‬
‫�‬ ‫ا‬
‫�‬‫�‬‫�ل‬
‫و�ج � ل و ي�‬‫ا‬ ‫�ه‬ ‫�‬
‫م‬ ‫�‬ ‫ر �‬ ‫ي و و‬ ‫حرك �ي��ه الا � بر و ب‬ ‫وي‬
‫ة‬ ‫أ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ش‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ّ‬
‫ت‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ش‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ش‬
‫ن‬
‫�و� ��ر��ه�ا ع��لى ��س�� } �ع��ر{‪ 110‬د ر ج� �م��ه�ا �يو�م � ر ب��ع�� م��‬ ‫و�هو و�ج �ه ا �ل��م��س و�ي��ه ي� ك‬
‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ر�ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�ة‬
‫ل��م��س ��س�عي��د الا ا ��ه�ا ح�ا ي�ا ب��س��ة ��ل��س�ع�د �ه�ا و�ش��ر��ه�ا �يف� �ه� ا ا �لو�ج �ه ��ع��م�ل �ي��ه‬ ‫ا� � ا�ش‬
‫بريل و‬
‫ئ‬ ‫ض‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�خ‬
‫��ك‬ ‫حوا �ج�‬ ‫�ل��قل��بول و�ل�ل�د �ول ع��ل ا �ل��م�لوك ع��ل �م�ا �تر��د �م ن��ه�ا و�م�ا �� ص�د �ه�ا �ي��ه ��ا ��ه�ا �� ‬
‫�ق‬ ‫�ق‬
‫ى‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ى‬ ‫ى‬
‫�ذ‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ق‬ ‫�ت�ع��م� �ل�لم�� ّ ة ق‬
‫ح ب�� وا �ل��بول و�ج �ل� ب� ا �ل��لو ب� و�ج � ب��ه�ا ا لى �م�ا ي�ر�ي�د �ل�ك و�ي��ص��ل��ح �ل�ع��م�ل‬ ‫و ل �‬
‫�ذ‬
‫كا ��سي��ر ا �ل� �ه��بيّ��ة وت��د ا ب�ي��ر�ه�ا‬ ‫ح �ك ة‬
‫�مي�� والا �‬ ‫� ا �ل‬
‫�‬ ‫ا �ل��ص ن��ا ع�ا ت‬
‫� ذ ا �� م��خ� ط ط��ة‬
‫‪� 107‬ه �ك�� ب �� ‬
‫ب�‪.٨٩‬‬
‫�خ� و ة ف‬ ‫ق‬
‫طوط�� ب�ن�� ‪.٢٦٤٧‬‬ ‫‪ 108‬ن��ا ��ص ب��م�� ‬
‫ة‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫ة‬ ‫�خ‬
‫� ا ا �ل� � ط ط�� ‪� �� ٨٩‬‬ ‫ذ‬ ‫‪� 109‬ه �‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬
‫ن قك�� ب� ��م�� خ��و ة ب� وب ��م�� خ�� ةح‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬‫��‬‫‪�� 110‬ا ��ص ب�ا �ل��م��طوط�� ب�‪ ٨٩‬و��م��‬
‫ح‬ ‫ب‬
‫‪Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530‬‬

‫ح��ذر �م ن��ه�ا‬ ‫�ي��م ا �ذ ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب��ه�ا ي�ت�‬

‫�‬ ‫�ر�ف� ا ��جل‬ ‫ا ��لث��ا ��لث��ة �م� ن� ا �ل��م ن��ا ز�ل و�هي� �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل��ثري�ا و��ل�ه�ا ح‬
‫�ل��س� �م� م�ا ��ة‬ ‫�ف‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن� ة � ت ة ا �ل� ر�ة‬
‫حرا وا �لرطوب�� وا �ل��برود و��س�ع�د �م��و��س��ط �ج�ي��د �ل� ر و �� ز�ج‬ ‫روح�ا ي�� م��م��ز�ج ��‬
‫��ت��م�ع��ة‬ ‫كا �بر وا ر �ا � ا �ل�د ن�ي��ا وا �ه� ا �ل�ع��ل لا ن� ا �ل��ثر �ا �جم‬ ‫ف‬
‫ي‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ب‬ ‫الا �ش��را �� وا �ل�د �خ�ول ع��لي��ه��م وع��لى الا �‬
‫كا ن الا ��ت��م�ا ��م�ا �ذ� ن�ا � ّ��د ��له�ا م ف� ق � ظ‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�ثر�ة‬
‫�‬‫م‬‫��‬‫�‬‫ع‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫م‬ ‫��‬
‫كر �ج ي و � و � ي ي ّ ل‬ ‫�‬ ‫��‬
‫�‬ ‫ع��‬ ‫�� م� ن� ا �ل��ج�و�م و�ل� �ل�ك � � �ج ع ب‬ ‫ب� ك‬
‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬
‫��م�ل و�ي�د �خ �ل ب��ه ع��لى الا �ش��را �� ا � ح�ا �م�ل�ه ي�ن��ا ل �مرا د ه �م ن��ه��م و�يود ون��ه‬ ‫� �ش�� ه�ا ي�‬
‫ح‬ ‫يف� ر � و‬
‫ق آ‬ ‫�ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�خ‬
‫ن‬
‫�� م��بول� �ع��د‬ ‫كا � ج��ع�� ر ا �ل��بر�م يك‬ ‫��ا �ل��و��ه �ي��م�ا ي�ر�ي�د و�ي��ط�ل� ب� وب��ه �‬ ‫و��طي��عون��ه �ف� ا �مره ولا ي�‬
‫ي‬ ‫ي‬
‫�‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�ق‬ ‫ش‬
‫ا �لر��ي��د و �د �ا ل ب��ه م��ه م�ا ير�ي�د‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬
‫ح��ذر �م ن��ه‬ ‫�ر�ف� ا �ل�د ا ل ا �ذ ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب��ه�ا ي�ت�‬
‫�‬ ‫ا �لرا ب� ‪� 111‬م� ن� ا �ل��م ن��ا ز�ل �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل�د �برا ن� و��ل�ه�ا ح‬
‫ع‬
‫�ذ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ة ةت‬
‫ي�ه�ا �م�ا ي��لي� ق� �م� ن� ا �ع�م�ا ل ا �لرد �ي� وا �ل��س�ا د و�م�ا ي��لي� ق� ب��ه �م� ن� �ل�ك‬ ‫روح�ا ن�ي�� ر د ي�� ع��م�ل ��‬
‫ح��ذر �م ن��ه�ا‬ ‫�‬‫�ر�ف� ا ��ل�ه�ا ء ا �ذ ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب��ه�ا ي�ت�‬ ‫�خ�ا �م��س‪� 112‬م� ن� ا �ل��م ن��ا ز�ل �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا ��ل�ه��ق��ع��ة و��ل�ه�ا ح‬ ‫�‬‫ا �ل‬
‫ن ّ‬ ‫��ة ا �ل��مت�� س��ط��ة �ت�ع��م� ف�� ‬
‫� �د ه‬ ‫ع�� م�� ض‬ ‫�خ�� ض‬ ‫�ل‬
‫ي�ه�ا ا ع�م�ا ل ا � ير و ب‬ ‫ل‬ ‫و‬ ‫حرك‬ ‫روح�ا ن�ي��ة �م��مت��ز�ج ��ة ب�ا �ل�‬
‫� �ف ا �ل ا �ه ��س�ع��د �ة �ت ص��ل�� ا �ل��ف��ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ز ن ة‬
‫ا �ل��س�ا د ��س‪� 113‬م� ن� ا �ل��م ن��ا �ل �م�� ز� �ل�� ا ��ل�ه ن��ع�� و��ل�ه�ا حر� و و و ي� ي �� ح ل�ل‬
‫ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�غ‬
‫� ي�� ن� لا ن��ه ي�� ز�ل �م ن��ه�ا روح�ا ن�ي�� م�عي�� ن�� ع��لى ا �ع�م�ا ل‬ ‫ي� وا �ل��م��ت ب��ا ��ض‬ ‫الا ��ت��م�ا �� ن ا �ل��م��ت��ا ع�د � ن‬
‫ب‬ ‫و �ج ع بي�‬
‫ن‬ ‫ّ‬
‫ا � ص� ا ا �� ا �ل ��ا‬
‫ل�� ل ح و لبر و ��ج ح‬
‫نّ‬ ‫�ذ ن‬ ‫ف‬
‫ق‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل ز�ا ء ا ا � ز�ل ا �ل��مر ب�ا �ل��ذراع ي�� ز�ل‬ ‫ا �ل��س�ا ب� ‪� 114‬م� ن� ا �ل��م ن��ا ز�ل �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل��ذرا و�ل�ه ح‬
‫ّ‬ ‫ع‬ ‫ع‬
‫ظ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�‬ ‫ض‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ل‬
‫�‬‫�‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬
‫ا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى �م��ه�ا روح�ا �ي�� ص�ا ح�� عي�� الا �مرا �� يف� ا �ل�ع�ل �ج �ا � ورب��م�ا �م�� وا �� ب�‬
‫�ق ق ة‬
‫ح��ي�� و�هي�‬ ‫��ا �ف� وط�ل� ب� ا �ل‬ ‫� و�ه� �ج�يّ��د �ة �ل�لا �عت�� ك�‬ ‫� ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ش‬
‫ع��لى �كره ��ح ع��لي��ه ب��ىء �م�� ا �ل��م��ل كو‬
‫�ذ ف ت‬
‫ي‬
‫�ة‬
‫ح�� يف� ج��مي��ع الا �ع�م�ا ل‬ ‫�ص�ا �ل‬
‫ّ‬
‫��لى �م ن��ه‬ ‫ح�ا ء ا �ذ ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب��ه�ا ي�ت�ج�‬ ‫�ر�ف� ا �ل‬
‫�‬ ‫ا ��لث��ا �م� ن�‪� 115‬م� ن� ا �ل��م ن��ا ز�ل �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا ��لن��ثر�ة و��ل�ه�ا ح‬
‫ف أ‬
‫�خ ي��ر �ي�ع��م�ل �ي��ه � ب�وا ب� ا �ل��ف��س�ا د‬ ‫روح�ا ن�ي��ة �غ ي��ر �م�عيّ�� ن��ة ع��ل ا �ل‬
‫�‬
‫ى‬
‫‪� �� ٨٩‬خ� ط ط��ة‬ ‫� ذ ا ا �ل� ��خ� ط ط��ة‬

‫‪.٥٢٨‬‬
‫ب� وب ��م��خ ��و ة ح‬ ‫‪� 111‬ه �ك�� ب� ��م ��و‬
‫‪� �� ٨٩‬‬ ‫� ذ ا ا �ل� م��خ� ط ط��ة‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬
‫ب� وب ��م��خ �� ة ح‬ ‫‪� 112‬ه �ك�� ب� �� و‬
‫‪� �� ٨٩‬‬ ‫� ذ ا ا �ل� م��خ� ط ط��ة‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬
‫ب� وب ��م��خ �� ة ح‬ ‫‪� 113‬ه �ك�� ب� �� و‬
‫‪� �� ٨٩‬‬ ‫� ذ ا ا �ل� ��خ� ط ط��ة‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬
‫ب� وب ��م��خ �� ة ح‬ ‫‪� 114‬ه �ك�� ب� ��م� ��و‬
‫‪� �� ٨٩‬‬ ‫� ذ ا ا �ل� م��خ� ط ط��ة‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬
‫ب� وب ��م�� ح‬ ‫‪� 115‬ه �ك�� ب� �� و‬
‫‪Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530‬‬

‫‪520‬‬ ‫‪Varisco‬‬
‫نّ‬ ‫ف �ذ ّ ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬
‫ا ��لت��ا ��س ‪� 116‬م� ن� ا �ل��م ن��ا ز�ل �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل��طر�� و��ل�ه�ا ح‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل��ط�ا ء ��ا ا ح�ل ا �ل��مر ب��ه�ا ي�� ز�ل‬ ‫ع‬
‫ّ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ة ف‬
‫كا �ل��مت��ق��د �م‬
‫�م ن��ه�ا روح�ا ن�ي�� ع��ل�ه�ا ر د �ى �‬
‫ف �ذ‬ ‫ف‬
‫�ر�� ا ��لي��ا ء ��ا ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب��ه�ا‬ ‫ا �ل��م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل�ع�ا �ش��ر‪� 117‬م� ن� ا �ل��م ن��ا ز�ل �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة �ج��ب�ه��ة و��ل�ه�ا ح‬
‫ف‬ ‫�خ�� ا � ش‬
‫ل�� ّر �ي�ع��م�ل �ي��ه �م�ا ي��لي� ق� ب��ه�ا‬ ‫� ير و‬ ‫ح��ذر �م ن��ه�ا روح�ا ن�ي��ة �م��مت��ز�ج ��ة ب�ي�� ن� ا �ل‬ ‫ي�ت�‬
‫�‬
‫ف �ذ ّ‬
‫��ا �� ا ا ح�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب��ه�ا ت� ن�� ز�ل �م ن��ه�ا‬ ‫�ر�ف� ا �ل ك�‬ ‫ع��ر �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل ز��بر�ة و��ل�ه�ا ح‬‫ح�ا د ��ة � ش‬
‫� ي‬ ‫ا �ل��م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل‬
‫ز ق‬ ‫�ة‬‫روح�ا ن�ي��ة �ص�ا �ل‬
‫ح�� لن��م�ؤ الار�ا � وط�ل� ب�‬
‫[‪]5v‬‬
‫ف‬ ‫ئ‬
‫ي�ه�ا �م�ا ي��لي� ق� ب��ه�ا‬
‫حوا ج� �ي�ع��م�ل ��‬ ‫ا �ل‬
‫�‬
‫�‬
‫ح��ذر �م ن��ه�ا‬ ‫�ر�ف� ا �ل�لا �م ا �ذ ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب��ه�ا ي�ت�‬
‫�‬ ‫ف‬
‫ع��ر �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل��صر��ة و��ل�ه�ا ح‬ ‫ا �ل��م ن�� ز �ل��ة ا ��لث��ا ن��ة � ش‬
‫ي‬ ‫�‬
‫ف‬ ‫�غ‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬
‫روح�ا ن�ي�� م��م��ز�ج �� ل��ل��ي��ر و ي��ره �ي�ع��م�ل �ي��ه �م�ا ي��لي� ق� ب��ه�ا‬
‫نّ‬ ‫�ذ ّ ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫آ‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل��مي��م ا ا ح�ل ا �ل��مر ب��ه�ا ي�� ز�ل‪119‬‬ ‫ع��ر �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل�عو� و��ل�ه�ا ح‬ ‫ا �ل��م ن�� ز �ل�ه ا ��لث��ا �ل� ث�‪ � 118‬ش‬
‫�‬
‫� ل �غ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن ة ت ة �ت‬
‫�و ب� ا �ل ب��حر ا ي��ر‬ ‫ي�ه�ا الا �لرك‬ ‫حرك ��‬ ‫�م ن��ه�ا روح�ا �ي�� م��م��ز�ج �� لا ي�‬
‫ن �ذ‬ ‫ف‬
‫�ر�� ا ��لن�و� ا ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب��ه�ا ت� ن�� ز�ل �م ن��ه�ا‬ ‫ع��ر �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل��س��م�ا ك و��ل�ه�ا ح‬ ‫ا �ل��م ن�� ز �ل��ة ا �ل ا ��ع��ة � ش‬
‫� رب‬
‫ح�ا ن��ة ل �ت�ع ّ�� ن ع�� خ �� ف�� ا ��ع� م� ف��ه�ا �ش�� ء ا �ل� تّ��ة‬
‫رو ي ا ي� لى ير ل ي �� ل ي� ي� �ب‬
‫�ذ‬ ‫ف‬
‫ن‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ن‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل��سي�� ن� ا ا � ز�ل ا �ل��مر ب��ه�ا ت�� ز�ل �م ن��ه�ا‪120‬‬ ‫ع��ر �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا � �غل��ف� ر و��ل�ه�ا ح‬
‫�خ�ا �م��س��ة � ش‬ ‫�‬‫ا �ل��م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل‬
‫� ا �ل�د ن��يو��ة والا �خ�رو��ة ف��ا ف��ع� ب��ه �م�ا �ت ش��ا ء ي�ن�ج�‬
‫��‬ ‫كا ت‬ ‫حر �‬ ‫ح��ة �ت�عيّ�� ن� ع��لى ج��مي�� ا �ل�‬ ‫روح�ا ن�ي��ة �ص�ا �ل‬
‫�‬
‫ح‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ع‬
‫�ع�م�ل�ك‬
‫ّ‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ف‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل�عي�� ن� ا ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب��ه�ا ي� ن�� ز�ل ا �ل�ل�ه‬ ‫ع��ر �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل ز� ب�ا ن�ا و��ل�ه�ا ح‬
‫ا �ل��م ن�� ز �ل��ة ا �ل��س�ا د ��س��ة � ش‬
‫�‬
‫�خ‬ ‫آ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬
‫ي�ه�ا ال� ب�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬
‫� ي��ر‬ ‫��ع�ا لى �م��ه�ا روح�ا �ي�� م��م��ز�ج �� لا يحرك ��‬
‫�ذ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ا �ل��م ن�� ز �ل��ة ا �ل��س�ا ��ع��ة � ش‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل��ف��ا ء ا ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب��ه�ا ت� ن�� ز�ل �م ن��ه�ا‬ ‫ع��ر �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة الاك��لي��ل و��ل�ه�ا ح‬ ‫ب‬ ‫�‬
‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ّ‬
‫��ة ي��ر �م�عي�� ن�� ع��ل ا �ع�م�ا ل ا �ل‬
‫�خ‬ ‫ة‬ ‫�غ‬
‫ي�ه�ا �م�ا ي��ا ��س� ب� �م� ن� الا �ع�م�ا ل‬ ‫� ي��ر ��ا �ع�م�ل ��‬ ‫ى‬ ‫�م�لا �ئ �ك‬
‫‪.٥٢٨‬‬
‫� ذ ا ا �ل� �خ� ط ط��ة ‪� �� ٨٩‬خ� ط ط��ة‬ ‫‪� 116‬ه �‬
‫ك ذ�� ب� ��م��خ ��و ة ب� وب ��م��خ ��و ة ح‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬ ‫�‬ ‫� ا ا ل� ط ط�� ‪�� ٨٩‬‬‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫‪� 117‬ه �‬
‫ك ذ�� ب� ��م��خ ��و ة ب� وب ��م��خ �� ة ح‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬ ‫��‬ ‫�� ا ب�ا �ل��م��طوط�� ب�‪ ٨٩‬و��م��‬‫‪� 118‬ه �‬
‫ك‬
‫ةح‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ة‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬
‫‪� 119‬ه� ا ا ل� ط ط�� ‪�� ٨٩‬‬
‫ن ك�� ب��خ ��م�� ةو ب� ن وب ��م�� خ�� ةح‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬ ‫��‬ ‫‪� 120‬م��ه ب��م��طوط�� ب�‪ ٨٩‬و�م��ه�ا ب��م��‬
‫ح‬
‫‪Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530‬‬

‫�ذ‬ ‫ف‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل��ص�ا د ا ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب��ه ت� ن�� ز�ل �م ن��ه‬ ‫ع��ر �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل��ق��ل� ب� و��ل�ه�ا ح‬ ‫ا �ل��م ن�� ز �ل��ة ا ��لث��ا �م ن��ة � ش‬
‫�‬
‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�خ ّ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬
‫ح�� ل��‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ن‬
‫ي�ه�ا �م�ا ي��ا ��س� ب� �م� الا ع�م�ا ل ا �ل��ص�ا �ل‬ ‫�‬
‫� ي��رك�ل�ه ��ا ع�م�ل ��‬ ‫روح�ا ن�ي�� عي�� ع��ل ا �ل‬
‫ن‬
‫ح‬ ‫�‬ ‫ى‬
‫ز‬ ‫� �ف ا �ل��ق��ا �ف ا �ذ ا ن� ز ا �ل��ق��م ��ه ت��ن‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن ة‬
‫ر ب �ل‬ ‫�ل‬ ‫ا �ل��م�� ز� �ل�� ا ��لت��ا ��س�ع�� ع��ر و ي� م�� ل�� ل��ول�� ل�ه�ا ر� �‬
‫ح‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ش‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�‬ ‫ز‬ ‫�‬ ‫ه‬ ‫�‬ ‫ش‬ ‫�‬
‫آ‬ ‫ن� ة � ت ة ف� ا ت�ت� ف‬
‫ي�ه�ا ب� ش��ء �م� ن� �ث�ا ر ا �ل�د ن�ي��ا‬ ‫حرك ��‬ ‫�م ن��ه روح�ا ي�� م��م��ز�ج �� ل‬
‫ن زّ‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ئ‬
‫ت‬ ‫�ذ ن ز ق‬ ‫ف‬
‫�ر�� ا �لرا ء ا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر ب��ه�ا ي��ل ا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى‬ ‫ع��رو ن� �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا ��لن��ع�ا �م ��ل�ه�ا ح‬ ‫ا �ل��م ن�� ز �ل��ة ا �ل� ش‬
‫�‬
‫ف‬ ‫ّ �ة ّ ت‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬
‫�� م�ا �‬
‫ي�ه�ا‬
‫ح�ا ول ��‬ ‫�‬ ‫�م��ه�ا روح�ا �ي�� م��م��ز�ج �� ط�ا �هر ��ص��ى ا �ل��لو ب� و�� رح ا ��ل��س �ج�ي��د �ل ك�ل‬
‫� ن ا �م ا � ن� ال �خ� �ة‬
‫م�� ور ل�د ي��ا و ا ر‬
‫ف ش ن �ذ ّ‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫ن‬
‫ق‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل��ي�� ا ا ح�ل ا �ل��مر ب��ه�ا‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬
‫ع��رو� و�هي� �م�� ز� �ل�� ا ��لب��ل�د و��ل�ه�ا ح‬ ‫ح�ا د ��ة ا �ل� ش‬
‫� ي و‬ ‫ا �ل��م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل‬
‫ح��ة‬ ‫�خ ف ا ت�ت� ف‬ ‫ي� ن�� زّ�ل ا �ل�ل�ه �ت�ع�ا لى �م ن��ه�ا روح�ا ن�ي��ة �غ ي��ر �م�عيّ�� ن��ة ع��ل ا �ل‬
‫ي�ه�ا ب�رك‬ ‫حرك ��‬ ‫� ي��ر ��ل‬ ‫ى‬
‫�ذ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫ق‬ ‫ز‬ ‫ن‬
‫�ر�� ا ��ل��ا ء ا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر‬
‫ت‬ ‫ع��رو ن� و�هي� �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ��س�ع�د ا �ل� ا � و�ل�ه ح‬ ‫ا �ل��م ن�� ز �ل��ة ا ��لث��ا ن��ة ا ا �ل� ش‬
‫ي و‬ ‫�‬
‫بح‬ ‫ّ‬
‫ل�� ء �م� ن ا �م ا ��د ن��ا ل �م ن�� ف��ع��ة‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ت‬
‫ب��ه ي� ن�� ز�ل ا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى �م��ه روح�ا �ي�� م��م��ز�ج �� لا ��ص��ل�� ور ل ي وا‬
‫ش‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬
‫ح ي‬
‫�ة‬ ‫� ةف‬
‫ي�ه�ا ولا �م�ض�� ّر �م��مت��ز�ج �ه‬ ‫�� ‬ ‫�ل��ل��حرك‬
‫ن زّ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ة‬
‫ق‬
‫�ر�� ا ��لث��ا ء ا ا ح�ل ا �ل��مر ب��ه ي��ل‪121‬‬ ‫ع��رو� �م ن�� ز� �ل�� س�ع�د ب��ل و�ل�ه ح‬ ‫ا �ل��م ن�� ز �ل�� ا ��لث��ا ��لث�� ا �ل� ش‬
‫و‬ ‫�‬
‫ع‬
‫�� ة ف ل � ض ّ �ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬
‫ي�ه�ا وا م��ر‬ ‫�م ن��ه روح�ا �ي�� م��م��ز�ج �� لا ��ص��ل�� ل��ء ولا �م��ع�� ل��ل��حرك�� ‬
‫ن‬ ‫ش‬
‫ح ي‬
‫�خ �ذ‬ ‫� �ف‬ ‫ا� نز �ة ا� ا ة ا� ش ن‬
‫�ل ل��مر ب��ه‬ ‫ق‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ز‬ ‫ن‬
‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ء‬ ‫ع��رو� �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة �س�ع�د ل��س�عود ول�ه ر� �ا‬
‫�‬
‫ل‬
‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ح‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�‬ ‫ل��م�� ل�� لر ب��ع�� و ل�‬
‫ي�ه�ا ج��مي��‬
‫ف‬
‫�� م�عت��د �ل�� ا �ل��ط ب�� ا �ع�م�ل ��‬
‫ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫�ة‬
‫ح�� س�عي��د ا �ل�‬
‫حرك‬
‫ة‬ ‫�‬‫ي� ن�� زّ�ل ا �ل�ل�ه �ت�ع�ا لى �م ن��ه روح�ا ن�ي�� ص�ا �ل‬
‫ة‬
‫ع‬ ‫ع‬
‫� ي��ر‪122‬‬
‫ا �ع�م�ا ا �ل�خ‬
‫ل‬
‫�ذ ّ‬ ‫�خ� ة � � �ف �ذ‬ ‫نز ة‬ ‫ش ن‬ ‫ن ز ة �ل�خ ة‬
‫ا �ل��م�� ل�� ا ��ا �م��س�� و ا �ل�ع��رو� و �هي� �م�� ل�� س�ع�د الا ��بي�� ل�ه�ا حر� ا �ل� ا ل ّا ا ح�ل‬
‫ا � � �ة‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت ّ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ف‬
‫ك��ل�ه�ا وع��لى‬ ‫ح��مود �‬ ‫ي�ه�ا ي� ن�� ز�ل ا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى �م ن��ه�ا روح�ا ن�ي��ة ��عي�� ن� ع��لى الا ��ع�ا ل ل��م��‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��مر ��‬
‫ف‬ ‫ال �ل��ف��ة ا �ل� م�� ّ ة‬
‫ح ب�� وا �ل�ع��ط��‬ ‫ا و ��‬
‫ف �ذ ّ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫قّ‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ا �ل��م ن�� ز �ل��ة ا �ل��س�ا د ��س�� ا �ل� ش‬
‫ة‬
‫� �ا د ��ا ا ح�ل‬ ‫�ر�� ا �ل��ض‬ ‫ع��رو� �م ن�� ز� �ل�� ا �ل��ف� ر ‪ 123‬ا �ل��م��د �م و�ل�ه ح‬ ‫و‬ ‫�‬
‫�خ ّ‬ ‫ع‬
‫ك��ل�ه�ا ف��ا ف��ع� ب��ه�ا �م�ا �تر��د �م� ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫ة‬
‫ا �ل��ق��مر ب��ه ي��ل �م��ه روح�ا �ي�� س�عي��د ��عي�� ع��ل ا ��ع�ا ل ا �ل‬
‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ّ‬‫ز‬ ‫ن‬
‫ي �‬ ‫ل‬ ‫� ي��ر �‬ ‫ى‬
‫ا �ع�م�ا ا �ل�خ‬
‫� ي��ر‬ ‫ل‬
‫ة‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫طوط�� ب�‪.٨٢‬‬ ‫�� ا ب�ا �ل��م��خ��‬
‫‪� 121‬ه ك‬
‫ة‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬
‫�خ‬
‫�‬ ‫�خ‬
‫�‬ ‫ن‬
‫‪�� 122‬م�� ا � ا �� ‬
‫ل‬
‫�‬
‫ة‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫فج يع �خوع ةير ب ��م�� ف ح‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬ ‫‪ � �� 123‬ط ط�� ‪ ٨٩‬ا �ل�� ‬
‫رع ب ��م�� و ب� و رع ب ��م�� ح‬
‫‪Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530‬‬

‫‪522‬‬ ‫‪Varisco‬‬
‫�ذ ّ‬ ‫ف‬
‫�ر�� ا � ظل��ا ء ا ا ح�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب��ه‬ ‫ع��رو ن� �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل��ف� ر ا �ل��م�ؤ�خ�ر و�ل�ه ح‬
‫ا �ل��م ن�� ز �ل��ة ا �ل��س�ا ��ع��ة ا �ل� ش‬
‫ب و‬ ‫�‬
‫ع‬
‫�ذ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ّ‬
‫ح�ا و�ل�� والا ��سب��ا ب� ��ا ��ه��م �ل�ك‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬
‫ي� ن�� ز�ل �م ن��ه روح�ا �ي�� م��م��ز�ج �� م�� ي��ه ا �ل��م��‬
‫ن‬
‫ع‬
‫� �ف� ا � �غل�� ن ا �ذ ا ن� ز ل ا �ل��ق��م ��ه ت� ن�� ز ل �م��هن‬ ‫ش‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ش ن نز‬ ‫نز ة ث نة‬
‫رب �‬ ‫�‬ ‫ي�‬ ‫ا �ل��م�� ل�� ا ��ل��ا �م�� وا �ل�ع��رو� �م�� ل�� لر ��ا ل�ه ر‬
‫ح‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�‬
‫ف‬ ‫ن ة � ن ة حم �ة ّ ة ت ّ‬
‫ي�ه�ا �م��ست��ج��ا ب� والا �ع�م�ا ل‬ ‫��مود طي�� ب�� عي�� ن� ع��لى ط�ل� ب� ا �ل�ع��ل وا �ل�د ع�ا ء ��‬ ‫روح�ا �ي�� ح��س��‬
‫م‬ ‫�ة ف‬
‫ي�ه�ا ن�ا �مي��ة …‬ ‫ح�� ‬ ‫ا �ل��ص�ا �ل‬
‫[‪]7r‬‬
‫ف �ذ ن ز ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ا �ل��ق�� ل ع��ل �م ن�� ز �ل��ة ا � ش‬
‫�ر�� الا �ل�� ا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر‬ ‫ل��رطي�� ن� و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه �ـ�ـ و�ل�ه ح‬ ‫و ى �‬
‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ن‬
‫�خ�� ب�ا �مور ا �ل��س�ا ء �‬ ‫ح�� ي��ص�� م� ن الا �ع�م�ا ل �م�ا � �‬ ‫�‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ش ن‬
‫حرك‬ ‫كا � ي� ص‬ ‫ب�ا �ل��رطي�� و�هو �ا ر �ي� � س ح �‬
‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ة �ذ‬
‫ف‬
‫ط�� و��س��ك‬ ‫�� ا ��ل�� ش‬ ‫�غ‬ ‫روح�ا ن�ي�� ا لى �ل�ك �مت��ص�ل ب�ن� ف��و��س ا �ل��م�لوك و�ي��ه �ي ظ��هر ��‬
‫ي�ه��م ا �ل��ض ب و ب‬
‫��ة �ذ� �� ض‬ ‫� ك � �ذ �ل ت‬
‫ع��ه��م ا ن��ه‬ ‫حرك و كر ب‬ ‫�� ن� ا لى ا ��لن�و�م وع�د �م ا �ل�‬ ‫ح�د ��س ك‬ ‫�م�ا ء ف� �ه� ه ا �‬ ‫كا ن� ت� ا �لح �‬ ‫ا �ل�د �م�ا ء و �‬
‫ّ‬ ‫ي‬
‫ق‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ق ن‬ ‫ن‬
‫��د ر ا �خ �لا ��ه وا � ع�د �م ا ��لن�و�م �يف� �ه� ه ا �لو�� ت� ا و لى و�ي�ل ز��م�ه‬ ‫ي�ر �ى �يف� �و�م�ه �م�ا ي��ف�ز ع�ه و�ي �ك‬
‫ض‬ ‫ش‬ ‫ا �ل��ص��م� ت� �ع� ن� ا �ل ك�‬
‫��لا �م الا ا �ل��ىء ا �ل��ر ور �ى‬
‫[‪]7v‬‬
‫ل�� ّ وا �ل��ف��س�ا د و�م� ن‬ ‫� �ع�م�لاً ف��ا �ع�م� ف��ه ا �ع�م�ا ل ا � ش‬ ‫ا لا � ّ�د �م ن��ه لا �ت�ع��م� ف��ه ��ص ن��ع��ة ا �ذ ا ا د ت‬
‫ّ�‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ل‬ ‫و ر‬ ‫ي‬ ‫و‬ ‫و ب‬
‫حّ��ة ��س د ا ء ا �ل�ل�ه ا �ل��م ف� ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن ز ةل ن ش آ ث‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫و�‬ ‫�وره ��ل��ل و� ب و و‬ ‫��ي��ر ا �ل��س�ا د وب�‬ ‫كا � ��ر�ير� �ك‬ ‫و�ل�د �يف� �ه� ه ا �ل��م�� ل�� ‬
‫�ذ ن ز ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫ن‬
‫�ر�� ا ��لب��ا ء ا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر ب�ا ��لب��طي��‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا ��لب��طي�� ن� و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه �ـ�ـ و�ل�ه ح‬
‫�خ ّ‬ ‫ح��ة �م�عت��د �ل��ة �ت��ص��ل�� ل��م�ا � ن �‬ ‫ح��ط‪ 124‬ف�ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م روح�ا ن�ي��ة �ص�ا �ل‬ ‫تن � ّ‬ ‫ف‬
‫كا � ي��ص‬ ‫�‬ ‫��هو ح�ا ر رط� ب� ��‬
‫ح‬
‫�� م��ا ّ �ص ن��ع��ة‬ ‫ّ ف‬ ‫�ا �م ا �ل �ا ل د ن ا �ل�ن��س�ا ء ت�ن��ص�� ف��ه ا �ل��ط��ل��س��م�ا ت‬
‫كل �‬ ‫� و�ي��ص�� ي��ه �ع�م�ل ا �ل كي �� ي و �‬ ‫و ب ي‬ ‫و�‬ ‫ب ور ر�ج‬
‫�ق‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ح‬
‫�ق‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫ة‬ ‫�غ‬
‫ي�ه�ا ا ب�ت��د ا ء ا �ل�ع�لو�م و��صي��ا �� ا �ل‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ة‬
‫�وا �م وا ��ل�� ش�� وا �لر و�م ور �ا ء‬ ‫�ج ��لي��ل�� ا �ل��م��د ا ر و�ي��ص��ل�� ‬
‫ً ش ً‬ ‫ح‬
‫ح�� ا �ل��ل��خ��ل ق‬‫م‬
‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�د‬‫��‬
‫�‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬‫��‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�د‬
‫��‬‫ع‬‫�‬‫�س‬ ‫�‬ ‫الا �م ا ض� ا ��لت��د ا � �ل�ع�ز ا �ل�ع�د �م� ن �ل�د ف��ه ع�ا ش‬
‫��‬
‫�‬ ‫بوب‬ ‫� ي ر ي‬ ‫وو�و ي‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ر � و وى و‬
‫أ‬ ‫ت‬
‫��ا وا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى � ع��ل‬ ‫و��ع��ف� را ن� و�م��ص��ط ك�‬ ‫�خ ه �ع د ز‬
‫�ور و‬ ‫وب�‬
‫م‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫�ذ‬
‫�ي��م ا ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب�ا �ل��ثري�ا‬ ‫�ر�ف� ا ��جل‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل��ثري�ا و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه�ا �ـ�ـ و��ل�ه�ا ح‬
‫ف‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫ن� ة � ت ة ا �ل� ر�ة‬ ‫� تن � ّ ف‬
‫حرا وا �ل��برود �ي��ص��ل�� ي��ه‬ ‫ح��ط �ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م روح�ا ي�� م��م��ز�ج ��‬ ‫و�هو �م��ب�هرج ا ��جلو�هر ��‬
‫ح‬ ‫�‬
‫�ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬
‫�ع�م�ل ا �ل��ط��ل��س��م�ا � وا ��ع�ا ل �م�ا �ي��ص��ل�� ل�ل��س�ا ء و��د ب�ي��ر الا د و�� ا �ل��ص�ا �‬
‫ل‬‫�‬
‫ح�� ا �ل��م��برء وا �ل��برود‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ح‬‫�ً‬
‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ ‫� ف�ي��ه �ل��ق��ا ء ا �ل��م�لوك و�م ك�‬
‫��ا ��ب��ه��م و�ي��ص��ل��‬
‫� ّ‬
‫�‬
‫ح‬ ‫ح�ا ز�ا ئ��دًا و �‬ ‫حو ن� ر ب�‬ ‫و��ف��ل�� ا �ل��م��س�ا ف�رو ن� ف�ي��ه و�ر ب�‬
‫�‬
‫ح‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ي ح‬
‫‪.٥٢٨‬‬
‫‪� 124‬ن�� ط �� خ� ط ط��ة ‪� �� ٨٩‬خ� ط ط��ة‬
‫ي �ح�� ب ��م�� و ب� و ب ��م�� و ح‬
‫‪Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530‬‬

‫ن‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ً ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ّ ف‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ف�ي��ه ا �لت�� ز� ويج� و�ش��را ء ا ��جل‬
‫كا � �ج�ي��د ا لا ��ه ع�د ل ا �ل��مر د و�‬ ‫كل �م�ا د ب�ر �ي��ه �‬ ‫�وا ر وا �ل��م��م�ا ��لي��ك و �‬
‫�‬
‫�‬ ‫كا ن ��س�ع��دًا �� غ� ض�� ا �ل��ف‬ ‫� � قة �ن � ف‬ ‫م‬
‫ح‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ّل ن ف‬ ‫ش‬
‫�‬
‫�‬‫��‬
‫ب و � و ي � ّ ي ويب � �ج ور‬ ‫�‬ ‫�ه‬
‫��‬‫�‬ ‫�د‬‫ل‬ ‫�‬‫م‬ ‫��‬‫��‬
‫�‬ ‫ا‬‫�‬‫ع‬‫�‬‫ل‬ ‫ا‬ ‫د‬ ‫ا �ل��م��س و � � ع ي � و‬
‫�م‬ ‫ا‬
‫ك‬
‫�‬ ‫�ه‬ ‫��‬‫�‬ ‫��‬ ‫ص‬‫�‬ ‫ا‬
‫�‬‫م‬ ‫�‬
‫ك‬
‫ت‬ ‫� ّ‬
‫حبّ��ة ��سود ا ء وا �ل�ل�ه‬ ‫كا ن� و�‬ ‫�خوره ب��زر ��‬ ‫حي�� ن� وا �ل�ع�ل�م�ا ء وا �م�ا ب�‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬‫� ا ��لت�ق��و�ى و��ع�ا ش�� ا �ل��ص�ا �ل‬
‫ي‬
‫�‬
‫و يح� ب‬
‫ت‬
‫��ع�ا لى ا ع��ل ب�ا �ل��صوا ب�‬
‫ن‬ ‫�ذ ن ز ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫م‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل�د ا ل ا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر ب�ا �ل�د �برا �‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل�د �برا ن� و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه—و�ل�ه ح‬
‫�ة‬ ‫� تن � ّ ف‬ ‫ن‬
‫� �ا ء وا �ل��ف��س�ا د‬ ‫ح��ط �ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م روح�ا ن�ي��ة ت��ف��ع�ل ا �ل�ع�د ا و وا ��لب� �غ��ض‬ ‫ح��س ��‬ ‫ض� �‬ ‫��‬
‫و�هو ا ر ي‬
‫ف‬ ‫ئ‬
‫حوا ج� والا ب�ت��د ا ء ب�ا لا �ع�م�ا ل ولا ت�ن��ص� ب� �ي��ه‬ ‫�ف� الار ض�� ف��ا ح��ذر ف�ي��ه ا �ل��س�ع �ف� ط�ل� ب� ا �ل‬
‫�‬
‫�‬ ‫ى ي‬ ‫ي‬
‫�� ّ الا �ع�م�ا ل ف��ه ر د ��ة ا �ل�ع�ا �ق��ة ولا ��ص��ل�� الا �ف� د ف�� ن‬ ‫�‬ ‫� ةف‬
‫�‬ ‫ل‬ ‫�‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�‬‫ً ل ت ّ� ف‬
‫ي ح ي �‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ي ي‬ ‫ط��ل��س��م�ا وا ��د ب ر ي��ه ��ص��ع�� ب�ا ج�م�ل�� كل‬
‫ش قّ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬
‫ن‬
‫ح��ف� ر الا ب�ا ر و�� الا ��ه�ا ر ولا �ي��ص��ل�� ل��م�ا‬ ‫��ت��م الا ��سرا ر و�‬ ‫�� ز�ه وت� ك‬
‫ف‬
‫ا �ل��مو �ى ود �� ن� ا �ل��م�ا ل وك‬
‫ح‬
‫�خ�ذ لً ا � �خ� ��ذ � ق ش �ّ ن ل ��ل ن‬ ‫كا ن� �م��ذ �مو�ًم�ا م‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫�� وا و ل ب�� ور ل� ل�ك ��ر ر م�ا � ح�و و ب �‬
‫ا‬‫�‬‫�‬ ‫��سو�ى �ل�ك و�م� ن� و�ل�د �ي��ه �‬
‫فّ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫�كر وا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى �هو ا �ل��مو� ق� �ع ن��ه‬
‫� �ف ا � ه�ا ء ا �ذ ا ن� ز ا �ل��ق��م ا � ه��ق��ع��ة‬ ‫فت‬ ‫ن ز ة ق ة �ذ‬ ‫ق‬
‫ر ب� �ل�‬ ‫�ل‬ ‫ا �ل��ول ع��لى �م�� ل�� ا ��ل�ه��ع�� و�ه� ه �ص��ه�ا—و��ل�ه�ا حر� �ل�‬
‫�خ ّ ة ت ّ‬ ‫ن‬
‫�خ‬
‫ح�ا � ا �ل��س��مو�م وا �لا �ط�ه�ا �ا �ص�� ولا ��د ب�ر‬
‫� ت‬ ‫ح�� و��س�ع�د ف��ا �ع�م� ف�ي��ه ب��تر ي�‬ ‫ن �‬ ‫تز‬
‫ل‬ ‫و�هو �م��م�� ج� �م�� س‬
‫ة‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ف��ه ��ص ن��ع��ة ا � ش‬
‫ل��م��س وا �ل��ق��مر ولا � �غ�ر��س �ي��ه �زرع�ا ولا ت��ل��ب��س �ي��ه ث�ي��ا ب�ا �ج �د د ا وح��قل�� ولا‬ ‫ي‬
‫ح ف��ه � ش�� ء �م� ن ا ف��ع�ا ا �ل ح�ا ن��ة‬ ‫ت�ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ق‬ ‫م‬ ‫�غ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ز‬ ‫تت‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬
‫ح‬ ‫� �‬
‫ل رو ي‬ ‫�� و ج� ي��ه �ا � �ل�ك ك�ل�ه ي��ر �مود ا �ل�ع�ا ب�� ولا �رك ي ب �ى �‬
‫ّ‬ ‫�خ �ذ‬ ‫ّ ف‬ ‫قة‬ ‫� ن� حم‬ ‫ف‬
‫��مود ا �ل�ع�ا � ب�� ف� ا �خ�ر�ع�مره و �ف� ا و�ل�ه ��س�ا د وا �ل ب��ور �ل� �ل�ك �عود ن��د‪125‬‬ ‫و�م�� و�ل�د �ي��ه ي� كو‬
‫ن‬
‫ي‬ ‫أ ي‬
‫��ا وا �ل�ل�ه � ع��ل‬ ‫و��لب��ا ن� �ج �ا و�ى و�م��ص��ط ك�‬
‫م‬
‫�ذ ن ز ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫ن ة‬
‫�ر�� ا �لوا و ا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر ب�ا ��ل�ه��ع�� و�هو‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا ��ل�ه ن��ع��ة و �ه� ه � فص��ت��ه�ا—و�ل�ه ح‬
‫ّ‬
‫حّ��ة وا �ل�ع��ط��ف� وا �ل��م د �ة ود �خ�� ن ف��ه �ا �ل�د �خ�� ن‬ ‫ف � ف‬
‫�‬ ‫ب‬ ‫� ي‬ ‫و‬ ‫� ب� ��س�عي��د ��ا ع�م�ل �ي��ه ا ب�وا ب� وا �ل��م�� ب‬ ‫�و�ك�‬‫ك‬
‫ف� �ش �ف‬ ‫ّ‬
‫ت‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�خ‬
‫ح ب��ه��م والا ��ص�ا ل ي��ه ب�ا ��را �‬ ‫حول �‬ ‫كا �بر وا ��س �ي��ه { �‬ ‫وا د �ل �ي��ه ع��لى ا �ل��م�لوك والا �‬
‫�ذ‬ ‫ع‬
‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�ة‬
‫ا ��لن��ا ��س و�م�ع�ا �ش��ر الا �خ�وا � وا ب�ت��د ا ء �ي��ه }‪ 126‬ب�ا لا �ع�م�ا ل ا �ل� �ي�‪� 127‬تر�ي�د �ه�ا وت� ز� ّو ج �ي��ه‬
‫�‬
‫ف‬
‫��ا ر وا � نب� ��‬ ‫�خ ي�� وا �غ� ر��س ف�ي��ه الا ش��ج�‬
‫�ل‬ ‫ش ف �ل‬ ‫ش‬
‫ي�ه�ا‬ ‫وا ��ر ب� ا �ل�د وا ء وا ��تر �ي��ه ا �ج�وا ر وا �ل��م��م�ا ��لي��ك وا � ل‬
‫‪� 125‬ع د �ن ؟ �� م��خ� ط ط��ة ‪ �� ٨٩‬م��خ� ط ط��ة‬

‫‪.٥٢٨‬‬
‫ة‬ ‫ن قو ى ب ��خ ��وة ب� نوبق�� و�خ ح‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬ ‫‪ 126‬ا � � �� ط ط�� ‪� ٨٩‬م�� ‬
‫�� ذ ص ب ��م��خ��و ة ب� و �خول ب ��م��ة �� ح‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬ ‫� ا ا �ل� � ط ط�� ‪� �� ٨٩‬‬ ‫‪� 127‬ه �‬
‫ك�� ب� ��م�� و ب� وب ��م�� ح‬
‫‪Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530‬‬

‫‪524‬‬ ‫‪Varisco‬‬
‫ش‬ ‫ف‬ ‫قة‬ ‫ك ّ �ذ �ل�ك حم‬ ‫ش‬ ‫ف ف‬ ‫زن‬ ‫ت‬

‫��مود ا �ل�ع�ا � ب�� و�م� ن� و�ل�د �ي��ه ع�ا ��‬ ‫كل و�� و��س�ا �ر �ي��ه و�بع وا ��تر �ل‬ ‫ا �ل��ب ن��ا ء وا ��‬
‫�ّ‬ ‫� �ش��هي��دًا وا �ل ب��خ�وره �ل��ذ �ل�ك �قرط� ب�‪ 128‬و��زر ش��ي�� وا �ل�ل�ه ي��ق��ول ا �ل‬ ‫��س�ع��دًا �م�ا ت‬
‫ح ق� وا ��لي��ه‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ي و‬
‫ح‬
‫ا �ل��م�ا لي�‬
‫�ذ ن ز‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫ق‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل�ا �ى }‪ 129‬ا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر‬
‫ز‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل��ذرا و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه—{ و�ل�ه ح‬
‫ف‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ل‬ ‫�‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ع ّ ن تن � ّ‬
‫ح�� و�ي��ص��ل��ح �ي��ه ا لى‬ ‫ب�ا �ل��ذرا و�هو ري�ا �ح� ��س�ع�د �ى �لي�� ح��ط �ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م روح�ا �ي�� ص�ا �‬
‫ي‬ ‫ع‬
‫�‬ ‫�ت‬ ‫�‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�خ‬
‫�‬ ‫ة‬ ‫�‬‫ل‬‫�‬ ‫ع‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�م�ع�ا �ل ة‬
‫ا‬
‫�‬‫م‬
‫و ب ور و �ج ع يف�‬‫��‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا‬‫ال‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�‬‫�‬‫��‬‫�‬
‫ل‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ح‬
‫��‬ ‫ا‬
‫�‬‫ص‬ ‫ل��‬
‫ل �‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ا‬
‫�‬‫م‬‫�‬ ‫ا‬‫ل‬ ‫ا‬
‫�‬‫ب‬ ‫ب مو‬ ‫�‬‫ل‬ ‫ا‬
‫�‬ ‫ع‬‫�‬ ‫�‬
‫ل‬ ‫ا‬
‫�‬ ‫ء‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�د‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬‫و ب‬‫ا‬ ‫ال‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا‬
‫�‬‫�‬‫�� ا رو ي‬
‫�‬ ‫ا‬
‫�‬‫ح‬ ‫ل‬‫�‬ ‫�ج‬
‫�خ �ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن ن‬ ‫ف أ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�� ت‬
‫� ي��ا � و�ي�د �ل ي��ه‬ ‫� ا �ل�ع ب��ا د ا � و��ص�� ي��ه ا �ل��ط��ل��س��م�ا � و��ع��م� �ي��ه � ب�وا � ا ��ل��ا ر �ج�‬ ‫بيو‬
‫ب‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ب‬
‫ً ش ً‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ّ‬
‫ت‬
‫كا � ��س�عي��د ا ر��ي��د ا‬ ‫ع��لى ا �ل��م�لوك وا ��ص�ا ل الا �ش��را �� م� ن� ا ��لن��ا ��س والا �وا � و�م� ن� و�ل�د �ي��ه �‬
‫تّ‬ ‫ّ‬
‫�‬ ‫� قّ‬ ‫�‬
‫ل‬ ‫كا ن ا �ل�ل�ه ��ق‬ ‫�خ ه � ّ ق ض‬
‫�ور‬ ‫�مو ف��ق��ً�ا وب�‬
‫ح� ب� �ر�ي�� وب��زر �� و ي و � و و ي� ى �ب ي ل‬
‫�‬‫�‬ ‫�‬‫س‬‫ل��‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�‬ ‫�د‬ ‫ه‬‫��‬ ‫�ه‬ ‫ح‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ل‬ ‫��‬ ‫�‬
‫ثر�ة‬ ‫� �ذ‬ ‫�ر�ف� ا �ل‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫ح�ا ء ا ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب�ا ��لن�� و�هو ب�ا ر د‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى ا ��لن��ثر�ة و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه�ا �ـ�ـ و��ل�ه�ا ح‬
‫ح�ا ن��ة ت��ف��ع� � ا �ل�ع�د ا �ة ا ��ل� �غ� �ض ��ة‬ ‫� تن � ّ ف‬ ‫�م��مت�� ز� ج ��س�ع�د �م��مت�� ز� ج ب�ن�‬
‫و و ب ��‬ ‫ل يف�‬ ‫ح��ط �ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م رو ي‬ ‫ح��س ��‬
‫أ �‬ ‫�‬
‫�ذ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ة‬
‫وا �ل��ق��طي��ع�� و�م�ا � ��ب��ه �ل�ك و��ص��ل�� ل�ع��م�ل ا �ل��ط��ل��س��م�ا � ا ��ل�ى ��ص��ل�� ل� �ل�ك وا �ل�د ع�ا ء‬
‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ش‬
‫ح‬ ‫ح‬
‫�� ب� ف��لا‬ ‫� �غ �ة ��ل �غ �ة � ش � ن ت�ت� ف‬
‫حرك �ي��ه روح�ا ن�ي��ة ا � �غل��ض‬ ‫و‬ ‫ء‬ ‫ا‬
‫�‬‫��‬‫ح‬ ‫�‬
‫�‬‫ل��‬ ‫ا‬‫و‬ ‫ا‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬‫ب�ا �ل��س��ط ع��لى الا ع�د ا ء وا ل��ط��ا وا ب‬
‫�خ‬
‫ل��م�� ا �ل��ق��م لا ت��د �خ � ع��ل ا �ل��م�ل ك لا ت��د ا ف��ه �ا لا �ع�م�ا ل لا لا ت‬ ‫ن ة ش‬ ‫ت ّ ف‬
‫�‬ ‫ل ى و و ب ي ب‬ ‫��د ب�ر �ي��ه ��ص��ع�� ا � س و ر و‬
‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ك �ذ‬ ‫أ‬
‫كا �‬ ‫�م�ا �كرن�ا و�م� ن� و�ل�د �ي��ه �‬ ‫��م��ور�ة ع��لي��ه�ا لا ن��ه�ا ر د ي��ة �ت��ص��ل�� ل� �ع�م�ا ل ا �ل��ف��س�ا د �‬ ‫ح � ا �ل� ش‬
‫ا �ل�ر ب و‬
‫أ‬ ‫ح‬
‫ت‬ ‫ّ ن‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ق‬ ‫حو��ًس�ا ب�‬
‫�خوره ��س��ط �م ّر و� ش��ر ر�م�ا � وا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى � ع��ل‬ ‫�‬ ‫�م ن��‬
‫�ذ ن ز ق ف ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫م‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ف‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل��ط�ا ء ا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر �ي��ه ��هو‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل��طر�� و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه �ـ�ـ و��ل�ه�ا ح‬
‫ف‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫� � �ت ّ تن � ّ ف‬ ‫ن‬
‫ح��ط �ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م روح�ا ن�ي��ة ت��د ل ع��لى �مث��ل �م�ا ت��ق��د �م و�ي��ق��و�ى ��ع��ل�ه�ا‬ ‫ح��س م��س� ��مر ��‬ ‫�م�ا �ئ� �‬
‫ي‬
‫ل ت� ت ��ئ ف‬ ‫ن ة ل ت �خ ف‬ ‫ً ل ت ّ� ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ف‬
‫��لا ��ص� ب� ي��ه ط��ل��س��م�ا وا ��د ب ر ي��ه ��ص��ع�� وا ��د �ل ي��ه ع��لى ل��م�وك وا �ب��د ي��ه‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ل‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬
‫�‬ ‫�ه‬ ‫�خ� ط��ة‬‫�‬‫ل‬‫�‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�‬ ‫�م��ة لا ت�ت��ل �ق��س��ًم�ا الا ن��ف� ا د ف��ه �خ‬ ‫ك‬ ‫ح‬ ‫ف‬
‫�‬ ‫� ّ �ة ل ت‬
‫وو ى‬ ‫د‬ ‫ر‬ ‫�ل��‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�‬
‫م‬
‫و ر ي ي �‬‫ر‬ ‫��‬ ‫و و‬ ‫�‬ ‫�ه‬ ‫ب�ا ل��مود وا � ل ي‬
‫��‬ ‫�‬
‫م‬ ‫��‬‫�‬‫ع‬
‫�‬
‫أ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ّ‬
‫�خ ه �ع د ن��د‪ 130‬ز‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬
‫و��ع��ف� را � وا �ل�ل�ه � ع��ل‬ ‫�ور و‬ ‫حو��س�ا ب�‬ ‫كا � �م ن��‬ ‫��مي�� الا �ع�م�ا ل و�م� ن� و�ل�د �ي��ه �‬ ‫�ل‬
‫م‬ ‫جع‬
‫‪ 128‬ق�ط �� م��خ� ط ط��ة‬

‫ب� ‪.٨٩‬‬
‫�� ر ب� ب �� و‬ ‫ق‬
‫ة‬
‫طوط�� ب� ‪.٨٩‬‬ ‫‪ 129‬ن��ا ��ص ب��م��خ��‬
‫ة‬ ‫ن‬
‫‪� 130‬ع د � ؟ �� خ� ط ط��ة ‪� �� ٨٩‬خ�‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬
‫و ى ب ��م�� و ب� وب ��م�� ح‬
‫‪Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530‬‬

‫�ذ ن ز ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��ل �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا ��جل‬
‫��ه��ة‬ ‫��ب�ه��ة و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه�ا �ـ�ـ و��ل�ه�ا ح‬
‫�ر�� ا ��لي��ا ء ا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر ب�ا ��جل ب�‬ ‫ى‬
‫�ة‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ن‬
‫�‬ ‫ت‬
‫ح��س و�هو‪ 131‬ا لى ا �ل��ص�لا ح ا �ر ب� ي��ب��د �ى �ي��ه ب�ا �ل��مود والا ع�م�ا ل‬ ‫و�ه� ب�ا ر د �ة �م��م��ز�ج �� ب�‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ت‬
‫ي‬
‫�‬
‫ئ‬
‫ل‬
‫�‬‫�‬ ‫��س�ؤ ا � ت � ّ � ن �ق‬ ‫�‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫�ق ة أ �خ �ذ‬
‫�‬ ‫ا‬
‫� �ا حو ج� و�ي�د وى‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ء‬ ‫ل‬ ‫�‬
‫ا �ل�� ريب�� ل��م� � و ل�د ول ع��لى ل��م�وك و ل م�ا ي��ح��ص�ل م�� ض‬
‫ا‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�‬
‫ف� ا ��لن ق ة � ن � � ن ا ل � � ن‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ف‬
‫��ا �‬ ‫�ي��ه ا �ل�ع�ل�ل ا ��ل�هي�� ن�� وا �ل��م��برء و��ص��ل�� ي��ه ��ل�� م�� م ك‬
‫��ا � ى م ك‬
‫ح‬ ‫[‪]8r‬‬
‫ً‬ ‫�ذ قً‬ ‫ف‬
‫كا ن� ح�ا ��ا ��س�عي��د ا‬ ‫��د ي��د و�ل��ب��س�ه و �م� ن� و�ل�د �ي��ه �‬ ‫�كره ف�ي��ه ت��ف� ��صي�� ا ��جل‬ ‫��ة و�ي �‬ ‫حرك‬ ‫��ا ن�‪ 132‬وا �ل�‬ ‫ا لى �م ك�‬
‫ل‬
‫ز �ف ن ش‬ ‫�خ ة � �خ� � � ّ‬ ‫�� ن ف��ه �� ض‬ ‫ّ ف قً‬
‫ح� ب� الا ��س و��ع�� را � ��عر‬ ‫�كر و �د �ي�ع�� ا ل ب�� ور ل�ه‬ ‫ع�� م �‬ ‫�مو��ا و�ل ك� ي ب‬
‫ق‬ ‫� �ف� ا �ل ك� ف �ذ ن ز‬ ‫فت‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ن ز ة ��خ ت ن‬ ‫ق‬
‫��ا �� ا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر‬ ‫ا �ل��ول ع��لى �م�� ل�� ا ل�ر �ا �‪ 133‬و�ه� ه �ص��ه �ـ�ـ و��ل�ه�ا حر‬
‫ن‬
‫� و ��ص� ب�‬ ‫� ا �ل ح�ا ن��ا ت‬
‫رو ي‬
‫��ا ت‬ ‫�خرت�ا ن�‪ 134‬و�ه� ا �ل ز��بر�ة و�هو ح�ا ّر ي�ا ب�� ي��ص��ل�� ل��م�ع�ا ��جل‬ ‫ب�ا �ل�‬
‫ح‬ ‫س‬ ‫ي‬
‫ل��را ء وا �ل�د �خ�ول ع��لى ا �ل��م�لوك‬ ‫� ع�لا ج ا �ل��م ض�� م�د ا ا �ة ا �ل ز �م ن��ا ا �ل� �� ا � ش‬ ‫ت‬
‫ا �ل��ط��ل��س��م�ا و � ر ى و و � و �بيع و‬
‫ف‬ ‫ق ة ف ت‬ ‫�ف �ذ‬ ‫ف‬
‫وا �لر�ؤ ��س�ا ء و�ي��ص��ل��ح �ي��ه ا �ل��س� ر ا �ل� �ى ي�ر �ى ا ث�ب��ات��ه والا ��ا �م�� ي��ه و��ص��ل��ح �ي��ه الا �ع�م�ا ل‬
‫ف‬ ‫� ً‬ ‫كا ن� م‬ ‫ف‬ ‫��لي��ل��ة ا �ل��ق��د ر و��ص��ل�� ف�ي��ه �ل��ب�� ا ��جل‬
‫ح��بوب�ا �ع ن��د ا ��لن��ا ��س الا ا ن��ه �ي��ه‬ ‫��د ي��د و�م� ن� و�ل�د �ي��ه �‬ ‫س‬ ‫ي‬
‫ا ��جل‬
‫أ‬ ‫ح‬
‫�غ‬ ‫ّ ن‬ ‫ق‬ ‫� ود �ه�ا ن� وا �م�ا ب�‬ ‫ض‬
‫�خوره � ش��ر ر�م�ا �‪ 135‬ح�لولا ي��ر وا �ل�ل�ه � ع��ل‬ ‫�‬ ‫ب��ع�� م �كر‬
‫م‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫ق‬ ‫�ذ ن ز‬ ‫ف‬
‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل��صر��ة و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه�ا �ـ�ـ و��ل�ه�ا ح‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل�لا �م ا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر‬
‫� � ن ال ض� ��لن تن � ّ ف‬ ‫ف‬
‫ح�ا ن��ة‬
‫ح��ط �ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م رو ي‬ ‫� ب� �م��مت�� ز� ج ا ��جلو�هر م�� ار � وا ��ا ر ��‬ ‫�و�ك�‬‫ب�ا �ل��صر��ة و�هو ك‬
‫�‬
‫ض‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ّ ف‬ ‫� ن‬ ‫ت‬
‫كا � �مت��و��س��ط�ا �م� ن� الا �ع�م�ا ل ولا ي��د ب�ر �ي��ه ��ص ن��ع�� ولا �ي�ع�ا ج �ل �ي��ه ا �ل��مر��ى ولا‬ ‫��س�ع�د ��ص��ل�� م�ا �‬
‫�‬ ‫ح‬
‫ح ف‬ ‫ح � ي�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ح�ا ن��ة لا ��د �خ � ع��ل ا �ل��م�ل ك ��ع��م� ف��ه الا ت‬
‫�و ب�‬ ‫��م�ل �ي��ه ا �ل��س�لا ور ك‬ ‫رب و‬ ‫ل‬
‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�‬ ‫رو ي و ي ل ى و وي ل ي‬
‫ح‬
‫�ت ً � ً‬ ‫كا ن� ر د �ى ا �ل��ط ب��ا ي�ن��ف� ر �م� ن ا ��ل��ا ��س و�� ر ا ��ل��ا ��س �م��ه م‬
‫�ف‬ ‫ف‬
‫��ا را‬ ‫ح��ا لا �م ك‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬
‫�‬ ‫ع‬ ‫�خ ي��ل و�م� ن� و�ل�د �ي��ه �‬ ‫ا �ل‬
‫�‬
‫�ذ‬ ‫�ش��ر� ًرا ولا ي�‬
‫�كره وا �ل�ل�ه ا ع��ل ا �ل ب��خ�ور �ل� �ل�ك �ج�و ز� ب� ّوا‬ ‫ع��م �ش�� ّره و�م �‬ ‫حّ��ه ا ح�د �م� ن � ظ‬
‫�‬ ‫ب‬ ‫�‬
‫ي‬
‫ق‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫م‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ق‬
‫ّ‬ ‫ز‬ ‫�‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ز‬
‫�ر� ا �ل��مي��م ا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر ب�ا �ل�عو�ى‬ ‫ا �ل��ول ع��لى �م�� ل�� ا �ل�عوا و�ه� ه �ص��ه�ا �ـ�ـ و��ل�ه�ا ح‬
‫ا � ش �ة‬ ‫ن� ة ت‬ ‫ح�� ت�ن�� ّ ن‬ ‫ت ز �ن�‬ ‫�و�ك�‬
‫ح��ط �م��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م روح�ا ي�� ه��ي��ج ل��هو‬ ‫� ب� ح�ا ر ي�ا ب��س �م��م�� ج� ب� س‬ ‫و�هو ك‬
‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ّ ت‬
‫ح ب�� ل�ل��س�ا ء والا �ج��ت��م�اع ب��ه� ن� و��ص��ل��ح لا ب�ت��د ا ء ��ع�لي��م ا �ل�ع��ل و��ع�لي��م‬
‫ا � �ّة ن‬
‫� �ل�لر�ج �ا ل ل��م��‬ ‫ت� ّ ث‬
‫م‬ ‫و ور‬
‫ة‬ ‫ذ‬
‫طوط�� ب�‪.٨٩‬‬ ‫�� ا ب��م��خ��‬ ‫‪ 131‬ك‬
‫ة‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ث‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ق‬
‫طوط�� ب�‪.٨٩‬‬ ‫‪� 132‬م ن��ول �مر �ا �ي�� ب��م�� ‬
‫�‬ ‫ه‬
‫ة‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬ ‫�خ ��س�ا ن �� خ� ط ط��ة ‪� �� ٨٩‬‬
‫�خ‬ ‫‪ 133‬ا �ل�‬
‫��خر ن� ب ��م��خ ��و ة ب� وب ��م��خ �� ة ح‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬ ‫‪ 134‬ا ل� ��س�ا �� ط ط�� ‪� �� ٨٩‬‬
‫ر � ب�خ��م�� ةو ب� وب ��م�� ح‬
‫طوط�� ب�‪.٨٩‬‬ ‫‪ 135‬ر�م��ص�ا ب��م��‬
‫‪Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530‬‬

‫‪526‬‬ ‫‪Varisco‬‬
‫ف أ‬ ‫ّ‬
‫ح�ا ر ب� �ي��ه ال� ع�د ا ء ولا‬ ‫� ّ�م ف��ا ن��ه لا ي�ن��ا ��سب��ه ولا ي�‬
‫�‬ ‫ح��ج�ر ا �ل��م �كر‬ ‫ك ّ �ش��ى ء ولا ي��د ب�ر ف�ي��ه ��ص ن��ع��ة ا �ل‬
‫�‬ ‫�ل‬
‫� �ة‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬
‫�م ولا ي��د �خ �ل �ي��ه ع��لى ا �ل��م�لوك و�ي��ص��ل�� ا � ت��ل��ب��س �ي��ه الا ث�وا ب� ا ��جل�د ي��د‬ ‫�خ�ا ��ص��م ولا ي�‬
‫�‬
‫ح�ا ك�‬ ‫ي�‬
‫�‬
‫ح‬
‫ح�� س�ع��ة وب�‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫� ن � ف� �ذ�ًا ن‬ ‫ث‬ ‫ف‬
‫�خوره‬ ‫�‬ ‫�و� �ص�ا � ب‬ ‫كا � ا و ا ن�ث�ى ��ا ن��ه ي� ك‬ ‫وت��ف� ��ص�ل �ي��ه الا �وا ب� و م�� ول�د ي��ه كر �‬
‫أ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن �ذ‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫�ل� �ل�ك ��لب��ا � �كر وا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى � ع��ل‬
‫ن �ذ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫م �ذ‬
‫�ر�� ا ��لن�و� ا ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب�ا �ل��س��م�ا ك‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة‪ 136‬ا �ل��س��م�ا ك و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه—و�ل�ه ح‬
‫ا � ا �ة‬ ‫�ة ف‬ ‫نةت ّث‬ ‫تن � ّ ف‬ ‫��‬
‫ح��ط �ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م روح�ا �ي�� ور� ا �ل�ع�د ا و و��س�ا د ل��مر‬ ‫ض� ي�ا ب��س ��‬ ‫��‬
‫و�هو كو�ك� ب� ا ر ي‬
‫� ف‬ ‫ك �ش�� ء � ّ ث‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫قتة‬
‫�كره �ي��ه الا ب�ت��د ا ء ب�ا لا �ع�م�ا ل‬ ‫� ا �ل��ف��س�ا د و�‬
‫ي‬ ‫و�ي��ص��ل��ح �ل�ع��م�ل ا �ل��س��مو�م ا �ل��ا ��ل�� و �ل ي� يور‬
‫ن ن� ّ �ً � ذّ اً �غ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ل�� ا ء ا �ل��م��ق��ا � �ض ة‬ ‫ش‬ ‫� �ة � ن ف ة � ف‬
‫كا � ��م�ا م�ا ك�� ب�ا ير‬
‫��‬ ‫� �� و�م� ن� و�ل�د �ي��ه �‬ ‫ب��‬ ‫�كره �ي��ه ا �ل��بي��ع وا � ر و‬ ‫ا �ج ي��د ا ل��م��ع�� و�ي‬
‫�ل‬
‫ّ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�خ ه � ن �ذ� � ّ‬ ‫��مود ا �ل�ع�ا ق� ب��ة ب�‬
‫ح� ب� ن�ي��ل وا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى ا �ل��م ّو� ق� ب��م ن��ه و�كر�م�ه‬ ‫�ور �لب��ا � كر و‬
‫حم‬
‫ن �ذ ن ز‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫�غ �ف‬ ‫ق‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل��سي�� ا ا ��ل ا �ل��ّ��مر ب�ا �ل�� ر‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة‪ 137‬ا � �غل��ف� ر و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه—و�ل�ه ح‬
‫حّ��ة ا �ل��م د �ة ا �ل ا ح��ة‬ ‫نة ت ّث‬ ‫� تن � ّ ف‬
‫ط �ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م روح�ا �ي�� ور� ا �ل��م�� ب و و و ر‬ ‫ت‬
‫� ب� ري�ا حي� ��ح��‬ ‫�و�ك�‬‫و�هو ك‬
‫ف �ذ ً‬ ‫ت‬
‫ح�ل�ل ب��ه ا �ل��س��مو�م ا �ل��ق��ات��ل��ة وت��د �� ا ا �ه�ا‬ ‫��م ف�ي��ه الا د و��ة و�م�ا �‬
‫�‬ ‫ا �ل��ف��ا ئ��د �ة �م� ن ا �ل��م�ل ك ج�‬
‫ع‬ ‫ي‬ ‫� و وع‬ ‫و‬
‫ت‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ل‬ ‫�‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ح��ج�ر ا �ل��م �‬‫�‬
‫ل‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ف‬
‫و�ي��ص��ل�� ي��ه ��د ب�ي��ر ا �‬
‫�كر�م و ��ع�ا ج� �ي��ه ا �لروح�ا �ي��ا � و��ص� ب� �ي��ه ا �ل��ط��ل��س��م�ا �‬
‫ً‬ ‫ح ّ‬
‫ن ن � �ذ‬
‫حو��س�ا ا‪138‬‬ ‫كا � �م��‬
‫ف‬ ‫ئ‬
‫حر�� وا �ل��ص ن��ا � و�م� ن� و�ل�د �ي��ه �‬
‫ف‬ ‫و�ي�ع��م�ل ف�ي��هك�ل�م�ا �يوا ف� ق� �ذ �ل�ك �م� ن� ��س�ا �ئر ا �ل�‬
‫ع‬
‫�غ‬ ‫ن �ذ‬ ‫� و�خ �د �ي�ع��ة وب�‬
‫�خوره ��لب��ا � �كر لا ي��ر وا �ل�ل�ه ا ع��ل‬ ‫�‬ ‫�م �كر‬
‫ن �إ�ذ ن ز ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫م‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫ز ن‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل�عي�� ا ��ل ا �ل��مر ب�ا �ل� ب�ا �ا و�هو‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل ز� ب�ا ن�ا و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه—و�ل�ه ح‬
‫ح�ا ن��ة‬ ‫� تن � ّ ف‬ ‫�� ر �ا �ح� ��س�ع�د �م��مت�� ز� ج ب�ن�‬ ‫�‬
‫ح��ط �ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م رو ي‬ ‫ح��س ��‬
‫�‬ ‫كو�ك� ب ي ي‬
‫ّ‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ً‬
‫ل�� ّ �ض �د ه ف��ا �ع�م� ف��ه ��م �� ذ � �م� ن �� ف��ه ث� ا �د �د ا ا ص�ا �ت��ه � �ض ة‬ ‫ّ‬
‫� ��ك�ل� ب�‬ ‫ل ي ب و�ج ب� ل�ك و � ل�ب��س ي وب� �ج ي� � ب ع��‬ ‫ا � ش ر و�‬
‫ّ‬ ‫تت ّ‬
‫ئ‬
‫ح��ق��ه ع�ل��ة �يف� �ج��س�د ه �م��م�ا ي��ؤ �ل��م�ه وي�ت��ع� ب� �يف� �بر��ه�ا‬ ‫��لا �م ا �ل��سوء وت��ل��‬ ‫��ل الا ع�د ا ء ف�ي��ه ب� ك�‬ ‫و�� ك�‬
‫ض‬ ‫ن � ً � � � ت �ذ�ً ن ن ث � ن ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫م‬
‫�خوره‬ ‫� وب�‬
‫�‬ ‫�� ي��ه ب��ع�� م �كر‬ ‫كا � ا و ا ��ى ول ك‬ ‫كا ��ه كرا �‬ ‫كا � �س�عي��د ا يف� ج �مي�� حر �‬ ‫و�م� ن� و�ل�د �ي��ه �‬
‫أع‬ ‫ن‬
‫ت‬
‫ب��زر ش��ي�� وب�ا ب�و ج� وا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى � ع��ل‬
‫ح �‬
‫�‬
‫�‬ ‫ل‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬
‫ك‬ ‫ا‬‫ل‬ ‫ا‬
‫�‬ ‫��م‬ ‫�‬ ‫� �ف ا �ل��ف��ا ء ا �ذ ا ن� ز ا �ل��ق‬
‫��‬ ‫ح‬ ‫�ه‬‫�‬
‫ل‬ ‫�ـ�ـ‬ ‫�ه‬‫ت‬
‫��‬ ‫ا �ل��ق�� ع�� م ن�� ز �ل��ة الاك��ل�� ه��ذ مه ف‬
‫ص��‬
‫ر ب يل‬ ‫�ل‬ ‫و ر�‬ ‫�‬ ‫يل و‬ ‫ول لى �‬
‫� ث ف� ا � ا �ة‬ ‫نةت‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ن‬
‫ح��ط �ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م روح�ا �ي�� ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�� م��مت�� ز� ج �م� ن ��س�ع�د و �‬
‫ح�د � ي��ه ل�ع�د و‬ ‫ح��س ��‬ ‫�‬ ‫� �‬ ‫�و�ك� ب‬‫و�هو ك‬
‫‪.٥٢٨‬‬
‫‪ 136‬ا �� خ� ط ط��ة ‪� �� ٨٩‬خ� ط ط��ة‬
‫لبر ج� ب ��م��خ ��و ة ب� وب ��م��خ ��و ة ح‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬ ‫‪ 137‬ا �� ط ط�� ‪� �� ٨٩‬‬
‫�ذ لبر ج� ب�خ��م�� وة ب� وب�خ��م�� ة ح‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬ ‫�� ط ط�� ‪� �� ٨٩‬‬
‫و ب ��م�� و ب� وب ��م�� ح‬
‫‪ 138‬‬
‫‪Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530‬‬

‫� ّ�د ه لا �ت��س�ا ف� ف��ه لا ت�ت�� ز ج لا �ت ش‬ ‫شّ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ا �ل��ف��ت�� ن ا ��ل� �غ��ض ة ت ف‬

‫��تر‪139‬‬ ‫ر ي و � و� و‬ ‫� �� و��ع�ل �ي��ه ا لى ا �ل��ر و �ض و‬ ‫و � وب‬
‫قة‬
‫��مود ا �ل�ع�ا � ب�� ولا‬ ‫�� ّ �ذ �ل�ك �غ�� حم‬ ‫��ا ر ا �ل��م��ث��مر�ة ولا ت�� ا �ل� ف� ك�‬ ‫ا �لرق�� ق ولا �ت �غ�ر��س الا ش��ج�‬
‫ير‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ي�‬
‫ئ‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫زرع زرعت‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ف‬
‫ح ا�‬ ‫� �ا ء ا �ل‬
‫�‬ ‫�م ولا ��ط�ل� ب� �ي��ه ��ض‬ ‫ح�ا ك�‬‫��ا ��ص��م �ي��ه ولا �‬
‫�‬ ‫ت��ف� ��ص� �ي��ه ا �ل� ي��ا � ولا ��ل��ب��س�ه��م ولا �‬
‫�خ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�ث‬
‫أو ج�‬ ‫ف� �ذ ً ن ن ث ن ً ش ً‬
‫ب‬ ‫ل‬
‫ن‬ ‫�ف‬ ‫ز‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�خ ه ف‬
‫�‬
‫ع�� ا � ع د ا ل�ل�ه � ع��ل‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫��ل��‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬‫�‬ ‫كا � ر د ي�ا �م��و�م�ا‪ 140‬ب‬ ‫كا � ا و ا ��ى �‬ ‫و�م� ن� و�ل�د ي��ه �كرا �‬
‫ور ف ل و� �ذ ر ن و قو و ق م‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل��ص�ا د ا ا � ز�ل ا �ل��مر ب�ا �ل��ل� ب�‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل��ق��ل� ب� و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه �ـ�ـ و�ل�ه ح‬
‫ح�ا ن��ة �ت��ص��ل�� م�ا ا ف��س�د ت‬ ‫تن � ّ‬ ‫آ‬
‫�‬ ‫ي‬ ‫رو‬ ‫م‬ ‫�‬‫ح��ط ف�ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل‬ ‫� ب� ��س�ع�د �م� �يئ� رط� ب� ��‬ ‫�و�ك�‬‫و�هو ك‬
‫ح‬ ‫آ‬ ‫ّ‬
‫ا � �ة‬ ‫ش‬ ‫� ا �ل�‬ ‫� لا ت‬ ‫ش‬ ‫ن ز ة تق ة‬
‫حر ب� و�ل��را ء ا �ل�د وا ب� و ل��بي��طر‬ ‫ا �ل��م�� ل�� ا �ل��م��د �م�� و�ي��ص��ل��ح �ل��را ء ا �ل��س�لا ح و‬
‫ال د ��ة‬ ‫ا � ئ ش‬ ‫ف� � ن‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫ا �ل� ث‬ ‫و�ق��ل الا ش��ج�‬
‫حر�؟‪ 141‬وا �را ج� ا �ل�د �اي� وع�ل ج� ا �لب��ه�ا �م و��ر ب� ا و�ي‬ ‫��ا ر وا �ل�زرع و‬ ‫ع‬
‫كا ن� ا ا ن�ث� �ع ن‬ ‫ن ن � ً �ذ�ً‬ ‫�� ة � ن � ف‬ ‫ل‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا �ل��م��سه�ل��ة ا �ل��ف‬
‫كر‬‫�‬‫�‬ ‫م‬‫�‬ ‫ه‬ ‫�د‬ ‫��‬ ‫و ىو‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫كر‬ ‫ا‬
‫�‬‫س‬‫��‬ ‫و‬ ‫ح‬ ‫�‬‫�‬‫��‬‫م‬‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا‬‫ك‬
‫�‬ ‫�ه‬
‫��‬ ‫�‬ ‫�د‬ ‫ل‬
‫و �ج و � و ي‬ ‫�‬
‫م‬ ‫��‬ ‫م‬ ‫ا‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬‫ح‬
‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�د‬ ‫ص‬‫�‬‫��‬ ‫�‬ ‫� و‬
‫ق‬ ‫�خ‬
‫ود �ه�ا ء ب�‬
‫�وره ور� الا �ه��لي��ل��ج‬
‫ف �ذ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫ل�� ة‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل��ق��ا �� ا ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب�ا � ش ول‬ ‫ل��و�ل��ة و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه�ا �ـ�ـ و�ل�ه ح‬ ‫ا �ل��ق�� ل ع��ل �م ن�� ز �ل��ة ا � ش‬
‫و ى �‬
‫ش‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ن‬
‫ح��س ت��‬ ‫ن‬
‫�� س�ع�د �م��ر و� ب��‬ ‫ض‬
‫ح��ط �ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م روح�ا �ي�� م��م��ز�ج �� ع��م�ل �ي��ه �ل��ر‬ ‫�‬ ‫ب‬ ‫�و�ك� ب‬‫و�هو ك‬
‫ف‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ّ‬
‫��د ي��د‬ ‫�كره �ي��ه ت��ف� ��صي�� ا ��جل‬ ‫كا � �مت��و��س��ط�ا �م� ن� الا �ع�م�ا ل و�ي �‬ ‫ح�ل و�م�ا �‬ ‫� �د ه ��ص��ل�� ل��ل�ع��ق��د وا �ل‬
‫�‬ ‫و �ض‬
‫ل‬ ‫ح‬
‫� �ة‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫ف‬ ‫� لا �ت�ع�ا �ل ف��ه ا �ل ح�ا ن��ا ت‬ ‫ف‬
‫� وا �ل�ع�ز �ل��ة �ي��ه وا �لوح�د حم�مود‬ ‫ج� ي رو ي‬
‫ت‬
‫و�ل��ب��س�ه ولا ��ص� ب� �ي��ه ط��ل��س��م�ا و‬
‫تن‬
‫ّ‬
‫�خ ق ش‬
‫�وره ��ر‬ ‫� ذ�� ا بً�ا ن�� ّ��م�ا �ًم�ا ف��ا �ج� ًرا ب�‬
‫م��و�م�ا‪ 142‬ك‬
‫ف� �ذ ً ن ن ث ن ً ش ً‬
‫كا � ر د ي�ا �‬ ‫كا � ا و ا ��ى �‬ ‫ا �ل�ع�ا � ب�� و�م� ن� و�ل�د ي��ه �كرا �‬
‫قة‬
‫ّ‬
‫ا �لر�م�ا ن� و�م��ص��ط ك�‬
‫��ا‬
‫ن ئ‬ ‫�ذ ن ز‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ئ‬
‫ق‬
‫�ر�� ا �لرا ء ا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر ب�ا ��ل��ع�ا �م‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا ��لن��ع�ا �م و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه—و�ل�ه ح‬
‫� �ك� ن‬
‫� ب� �ا ر �ي�‬ ‫و�هو كو‬
‫[‪]8v‬‬
‫ت‬ ‫نة ت ف ق‬ ‫م�� ّ �ف� �م�ض�� ت�ن�� ّ ن‬ ‫ن ش‬
‫ح��ط �م��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م روح�ا �ي�� ص��ى ا �ل��لو ب� و��د �عو ا لى‬ ‫ى‬ ‫��س�عي��د �ي��ر � ر‬
‫ف ت‬ ‫ّ �ة �ل �ظّ‬
‫حوا ل و�ي��ص��ل��ح �ي��ه ��د ب�ي��ر‬ ‫��مود ا �ل�ع�ا �ق ب��ة �ف� ج��مي�� الا �‬ ‫ح�� ا �ل��س�ع�ا د �ة �ه حم‬
‫و‬ ‫و‬ ‫و‬ ‫ا �ل��مود وا �‬
‫ي ع‬
‫ف‬ ‫� ا �ل�ع�ل �م ا �ل��ف��ق��ه��ة ت�ن��ص�� ف��ه ا �ل��ط��ل��س��م�ا ت‬ ‫� ّ�م��ة وت�ت��ل ف��ه ا �ل‬ ‫ن ة‬
‫� و�ي��ب ن�ى �ي��ه‬ ‫�ي و ب ي‬ ‫ح ك�م و و‬ ‫�‬ ‫ى ي‬ ‫ا �ل��ص��ا ع�� ا �ل��م �كر‬
‫‪� 139‬ت ش�� م��خ� ط ط��ة‬

‫‪.٥٢٨‬‬
‫ح‬ ‫تر ى ب �� و‬
‫ة‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬ ‫‪� 140‬م��ي ش��و�م�ا ب��م��خ��طوط��ة ب�‪ ٨٩‬و��م��خ�‬
‫ةح‬ ‫��‬ ‫ب‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬‫��‬‫حرا ب� ب��م��خ��طوط��ة ب�‪ ٨٩‬و��م��خ�‬ ‫‪ 141‬ا �ل�‬
‫ةح‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ة‬ ‫�خ‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬ ‫‪� 142‬م�� م�ا �� ط ط�� ‪� �� ٨٩‬‬ ‫ش‬
‫ي و ب ��م�� و ب� وب ��م�� ح‬
‫‪Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530‬‬

‫‪528‬‬ ‫‪Varisco‬‬
‫��د ي��د‬ ‫��د ي��د ف��ا ن� لا ب�� ا ��جل‬ ‫�ً�ا ا ��جل‬ ‫ف‬
‫��د ي��د و��ص�ل ا �ي��ض‬ ‫ا �ل��ب ن��ا ء وا �غ� را ��س ف�ي��ه ا � �غل�رو��س وا �ل��ب�� ف�ي��ه ا ��جل‬
‫س‬ ‫أ س‬
‫كا ن ا ا ن�ث� ف��ا ��هن‬ ‫ف �ذ�ً‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ث‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ز � ف‬
‫�ل�م ي��ا ل يف� �رح و��سر ور ا لى � � ي�ب��لى �ل�ك ا ��ل�و ب� و�م�� و�ل�د �ي��ه كرا � � و ى‬
‫ن �ذ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ً فّ ً‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ن‬
‫�خوره ��لب��ا � �كر وب��زر ش��ي�� وا �ل�ل�ه‬ ‫�س�ات��ه وب�‬
‫�‬ ‫كات��ه و� ك��‬ ‫�ر �‬ ‫كا ��س�عي��د ا �مو��ق��ا �يف� ج��مي�� ح‬ ‫�و� �م ب��ا ر �‬ ‫ي� ك‬
‫ح‬ ‫ع‬ ‫أ‬ ‫ت‬
‫��ع�ا لى � ع��ل ب�ا �ل��صوا ب�‬
‫م‬
‫��ل �ة‬
‫ل��ي�� ن� ا ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب�ا ب��ل�د‬
‫�ذ‬ ‫� �ف� ا � ش‬ ‫ح‬ ‫�ه‬
‫ل‬‫�‬ ‫�‬
‫ه‬ ‫ا �ل��ق�� ل ع��ل �م ن�� ز �ل��ة ا ��ل��ل�د ه �ه��ذ ه � فص��ت‬
‫��‬
‫� و ر‬ ‫ا—‬ ‫و‬ ‫و ى � ب‬
‫�غ‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن� تن � ّ‬
‫� �ا ء‬ ‫ن‬
‫ح��س ��ح��ط �ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م روح�ا �ي�� ع��م�ل �ي��ه ا �ل�ع�د ا و وا ��لب��ض‬ ‫� ب� ن�ا ر �ى �‬ ‫�و�ك�‬ ‫و�هو ك‬
‫ت ّ‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن تن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ة‬
‫كل ��سوء ولا �ي�ع��م�ل �ي��ه ��سو�ى �ل�ك ��ا ح��ذر ا � ��ص� ب� �ي��ه ط��ل��س��م�ا ولا ��د ب�ر‬ ‫وا �ل��ق��طي��ع�� و �‬
‫ف‬ ‫ع��م لا �ت�ع�ا �ل ف��ه ا �ل ح�ا ن��ا ت‬ ‫�كرّ�م وا ��جل‬ ‫ف�ي��ه ��ص ن��ع��ة ا �ل‬
‫� ولا ت�� ي��ه‬ ‫ج� ي رو ي‬ ‫�و�هر ا �ل� ي و‬
‫ظ‬ ‫ح��ج�ر ا �ل��م �‬ ‫�‬
‫زرع‬ ‫ت‬
‫ف‬
‫كا �بر ولا ت�ت�� ز� و ج �ي��ه‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�خ�ا �ل��ط ف�ي��ه ا �ل��م�لوك ولا ال‬ ‫�س� ًرا ولا �‬
‫�‬ ‫ًع�ا لا �غ� ��ًس�ا لا �ت�ع�ا �ن ف��ه � �ف‬
‫�‬ ‫ى ي‬ ‫�زر و ر و‬
‫�‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫�ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ولا �ت ش��تر �ى ف�ي��ه ا �لر��ي� ولا �ب� ولا ��ل��ب�� ا ��جل‬
‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ق‬
‫��د ي��د ولا �� ص�ل ولا ��ع�لع�م�لا �م�� الا ع�م�ا ل‬
‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫نس ن ً ت ً‬ ‫ن‬
‫ع‬
‫� ن � ف� �ذ�ً ن ن ث ف‬
‫ب��ل و ود ��د‪143‬‬ ‫ع‬‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬‫س‬ ‫��‬ ‫ه‬ ‫�‬
‫�‬ ‫ل‬ ‫م‬
‫�‬
‫�و� م��حو��س�ا ح��ا ا ب ور‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬
‫كا � ا و ا ��ى �ا ��ه ي� ك‬ ‫و م�� ول�د ي��ه كرا �‬
‫ا �ل��ق�� ع�� م ن�� ز �ل��ة { ��س�ع�د }‪ 144‬ا �ل��ذ ا � �ه��ذ ه فص��ت��ه— �ل�ه ح ف ت �ذ ن ز ق‬
‫�ر�� ا ��ل��ا ء ا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر‬ ‫و‬ ‫�‬ ‫بح و‬ ‫ول لى �‬
‫� �م� مت�� ز ت�ن�� ّط ف��ه ا ل ا �ل�ع�ا �ل ح�ا ن��ة ت��ف��ع� ف��ه ا ��ل� �غ� �ض ��ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫ل ي ب ��‬ ‫ح��س �� ج� ح�� ي ى �م رو ي‬ ‫ض� �‬ ‫� ب� ا ر��‬ ‫�و�ك�‬‫ب�ا �ل� ا � و�هو ك‬
‫ت‬ ‫ي‬ ‫بح‬
‫ت�ت� ف‬ ‫� ف � ق‬ ‫ا �ل�ع�د ا �ة ا �ل��ق ط��ع��ة‬
‫حرك �ي��ه ن��ف��و��س ا �ل��م�لوك‬ ‫لو‬ ‫ا‬‫�‬
‫م‬ ‫ع‬
‫�‬‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ال‬ ‫ور و‬ ‫م‬‫�‬ ‫ا‬‫ال‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬
‫ي و ب‬‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ع‬ ‫�ه‬ ‫��‬‫�‬ ‫�د‬‫م‬‫�‬‫�‬
‫ح‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ل‬ ‫و و ي و‬ ‫��‬ ‫و‬
‫ح��ف� ا ��لن��ش‬ ‫�ل‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ش‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫�غ‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬
‫�� ب� وات �ل��س��ط وي� �م ي��ه ا �ل��بي��ع وا �ل��ر�ى الا ا �لر ��ي� و�ي��ص��ل��ح ي��ه ا � ر و �ب �‬ ‫ب�ا �ل��ض‬
‫ا � ف� � ن ت �ت ال � ا � ن � ف� �ذ�ًا ن ا ا ن ث ن‬ ‫�خر ج ف�ي��ه ا �ل‬ ‫وا �ل�زرا ع��ة و�‬
‫كا �‬ ‫كا � و ��ى �‬ ‫�� م ا �سر ر و م�� ول�د ي��ه كر �‬ ‫�خ ب��ا ي�ا و ل�د �اي� و� ك‬ ‫�‬
‫أ‬ ‫�‬ ‫ً‬
‫�خوره �ل� �ل�ك ا �ل�ع�� فص� ر وا �ل�ل�ه � ع��ل‬
‫�ذ‬ ‫حبّ��ا ��ل�ه�ا ب�‬
‫�‬ ‫�ر��ًص�ا ع��ل ا �ل�د ن�ي��ا م‬
‫�‬ ‫كا ح‬ ‫�م ب��ا ر �‬
‫�ذ م‬ ‫ى‬ ‫ي‬
‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫�ر�� ا ��لث��ا ء ا ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب��س�ع�د ب��ل‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ��س�ع�د ب��ل و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه—و�ل�ه ح‬
‫ع‬ ‫ع‬
‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�‬‫� تن � ّ ف‬ ‫�‬‫ت ز �ن‬ ‫�ل‬
‫�‬ ‫ل‬‫�‬
‫� ب� �م��ب�هرج� ا �ج�و�هر و و �س�ع�د م��م�� ج� بح��س ��ح��ط ي��ه ى ل�ع�ا �م روح�ا ي�� ع�ل‬
‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�ه‬ ‫�و�ك�‬ ‫و�هو ك‬
‫قئ‬ ‫ّ‬
‫� يّ��د وا �لرد �ى و�ي��ص��ل�� يف� �ش��را ء ا �لر��ا � ق� وا �ل��م��م�ا ��لي��ك و�ي��ص��ل��‬ ‫� �د ه و�هو ب�ي�� ن� ا ��جل‬ ‫ل�� ّر و �ض‬ ‫ا�ش‬
‫ح‬ ‫ح‬
‫ت ش قّ‬ ‫ن ت‬ ‫نّ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫��م��ا ئ�خ ق‬ ‫ل�� ا ء ا �ل�د ا � ��ص��ل�� ل��م��خ��ا �ل��ط��ة ا �ل� ش‬ ‫ش‬
‫� ا �ل��د �م�ا � ا �ل��س� و�م�ع�ا �ا � ا �ل�زرا ع�ا � و��‬ ‫و ب وي ح‬ ‫� ر‬
‫ن �ع‬ ‫نز ة‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫الا ن��ه�ا ر و�‬
‫كل �ل�ك �م�� الا �م�ا ل و�ي��ص��ل��ح �ل�ل��ه�� وا �ل��سي��را � و �م�ل‬
‫�ع‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ح��ف� ر الا ب�ا ر و�م�ا و�ي ش��ا �‬
‫‪.٥٢٨‬‬
‫‪� 143‬ع د �ن ؟ �� خ� ط ط��ة ‪� �� ٨٩‬خ� ط ط��ة‬
‫ن قو ى ب ��خم�� وة ب� وب ��خم�� وة ح‬
‫طوط�� ‪.٥٢٨‬‬ ‫‪ 144‬ا � � �� ط ط�� ‪� �� ٨٩‬‬
‫�� ص ب ��م�� و ب� وب ��م�� ح‬
‫‪Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530‬‬

‫ن‬ ‫�لً‬ ‫ً‬ ‫ة � ن � ف �ذ�ًا ن ا ا ن ث ن‬ ‫ة‬
‫�خوره ب�ا ب�و ج�‬ ‫�‬‫ح�ا وا �م�ا ب�‬ ‫كا �ص�ا �‬ ‫كا � �م ب��ا ر �‬ ‫كا � و ��ى �‬ ‫الا ��ط�ع��م�� والا ��س��م��ط�� و م�� ول�د �ي��ه كر �‬
‫�‬ ‫أ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫كّ ن‬
‫��مو� وا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى � ع��ل ب�ا �ل��صوا ب�‬ ‫و‬
‫ق‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ن ة م‬ ‫ق‬
‫��ا ء ا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر ب��س�ع�د‬ ‫ز‬ ‫�ر�� ا �ل‬ ‫ت‬
‫ا �ل��ول ع��لى �م�� ل�� س�ع�د ا �ل��س�عود و�ه� ه �ص��ه—و�ل�ه ح‬ ‫ز‬
‫ح�ا ن��ة‬ ‫� � ن ال ض� � � تن � ّ ف‬
‫ح��ط �ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م رو ي‬ ‫� ب� �م��مت�� ز� ج ا ��جلو�هر م�� ار � وا �ل�هوى ��‬ ‫�و�ك�‬ ‫ا �ل��س�عود و�هو ك‬
‫ّ‬ ‫�‬
‫ا � � ّ ة ا � �ة‬ ‫� ال �ع ف �ت ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت��م��‬
‫كا � � ب��ل�ه�ا و��ص��ل�� ج�ل�مي�� ا �م�ا ل ��ا ب��د �ي��ه ب��ع��م�ل ل��م��ح ب�� و ل��مود وب��م�ا‬ ‫حو اث�ا ر �م�ا �‬
‫ح ع‬
‫ف‬ ‫ن� ت ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬
‫� وا ��ص� ب� �ي��ه‬ ‫�ش��ي�� ت� �يف� الا ��ع�ا ل ا �ل��مت��ع��قل��ة ب�ا �ص�لا ا �ل��ق��لو ب� وع�ا ج �ل �ي��ه ا �لروح�ا ي��ا‬
‫�‬ ‫ح‬ ‫ت تّ‬
‫ف‬ ‫�غ‬ ‫ف‬
‫� وا ��ص�ل �ي��ه ب�ا �ل��م�لوك وا �لر�ؤ ��س�ا ء وا رب�ا ب� ا �ل��م ن��ا ��ص� ب� و ي��ر�ه��م وا ��ع�ل �م�ا �تر�ي�د‬ ‫ا �ل��ط��ل��س��م�ا‬
‫ً‬ ‫ّ‬
‫� ن‬
‫حي��‬ ‫� ا �ل��ص�ا �ل‬ ‫� ّ‬ ‫كا ن� �م ب��ا ر � �‬
‫كا يح� ب‬ ‫كا � ا و ا ن�ث�ى �‬
‫� ن � ف� �ذ�ًا ن‬
‫�� ع�م�ل�ك و م�� ول�د ي��ه كر �‬ ‫�م� ن ا ف��ع�ا ل ا �لود ي�ن�ج�‬
‫أ‬ ‫ح‬ ‫�‬
‫�ى وا �ل�ل�ه � ع��ل‬ ‫�خوره �عود و�م��ص��ط ك‬ ‫�‬‫ب�‬
‫�ذ ن ز ق‬ ‫ف �ذ‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫م‬
‫�ر�� ا �ل� ا ل ا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ��س�ع�د الا �خ��بي��ة و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه �ـ�ـ و�ل�ه ح‬
‫ح�ا ن��ة �ت�ع� م� ا �ل��ق ط��ع��ة‬ ‫� تن � ّ ف‬ ‫ن‬
‫ح��ط �ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م رو ي �� ل �� ي‬ ‫�� ر �ا �ح� �‬ ‫�خ� ة �‬
‫ح��س ��‬ ‫ب��س�ع�د الا ��بي�� و�هو كو�ك� ب ي ي‬
‫� �ة‬ ‫�غ‬ ‫ف ن ّ‬ ‫�ت ّ ف‬ ‫� ��ة وا �ل��ف� ر�ق��ة وا �ل�‬
‫كا ن� ت� ي��ر حم�مود‬ ‫حرو ب� ولا ت� ��م �ي��ه الا �ع�م�ا ل ��ا � ت��م� ت� �‬ ‫وا �ل��ف��ت�� ن� وا ��لب� �غ��ض‬
‫ف‬
‫� ولا ت�ن��ص� ب� �ي��ه‬ ‫� ال ا ا �ل ح�ا ن��ا ت‬
‫ارو ح رو ي‬
‫��ا ت‬ ‫ا �ل�ع�ا ق� ب��ة ولا �ت�ع�ا ج �ل ف�ي��ه ا �ل��مرض��ى ولا �م�ع�ا ��جل‬
‫�‬
‫ن‬
‫�‬
‫ك‬ ‫�‬ ‫ث‬‫�‬‫ن‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ا‬ ‫� ن � ف �ذ�ًا ن‬
‫�ه‬‫��‬‫�‬ ‫�د‬ ‫�‬
‫م‬ ‫ا‬‫�‬
‫��‬ ‫م‬ ‫�‬‫��‬
‫س‬‫�‬‫�‬ ‫ل��‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ا‬‫�‬‫��‬‫م‬ ‫�‬‫��‬‫�‬
‫ك‬ ‫ل‬‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ا � ط��ل��س� م�ا ت ل ت�د ّ� ف��ه �ص ن��ع��ة‬
‫�‬
‫ي ي و � و ي كر � و ى ي و�‬ ‫ا‬
‫ك‬
‫�‬ ‫ل‬ ‫��‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ي ي و‬ ‫��‬ ‫�‬ ‫ل�� وا ب ر ي‬
‫�‬
‫�ذ‬ ‫ف ً ّ‬
‫�‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫فف‬
‫�وره �ل� �ل�ك ��لب��ا � �كر و��ل��ل وع��زرو‬
‫ن �ذ‬ ‫��ف��ا رًا وب�‬
‫�خ‬ ‫��ا �ج�را ك‬
‫�ذ ن ز ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫ّ‬
‫� �ا د وا ا ��ل ا �ل��مر‬ ‫�ر�� ا �ل��ض‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل��ف� ر ا �ل��م��ق��د �م و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه �ـ�ـ و�ل�ه ح‬
‫حّ��ة‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ع آ‬ ‫ّ‬
‫ن‬
‫ح��ط �ي��ه ا لى ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م روح�ا �ي�� ع��م�ل �ي��ه ا �ل��م�� ب‬
‫ت‬
‫� ب� �م� �ئ� ��س�عي��د ��‬
‫ي‬ ‫�و�ك�‬ ‫ب�ا �ل��ف� ر ا �ل��م��ق��د �م و�هو ك‬
‫ع‬
‫ّ �ة ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت��كث � ش �ة ف‬
‫�‬ ‫��ا ت‬ ‫�ي��مي��ا و�ل��م�ع�ا ��جل‬ ‫ل��هو �ي��ه وت�� ش��ط ا ��لن� ف��و��س ب�ا �ل��مود و��ص��ل�� لت��د ب�ي��ر ��ص ن��ع��ة ا �ل ك‬ ‫و �ي��ر ا‬
‫ح‬
‫�خ‬ ‫ة‬ ‫� ف� ال ة ��لن ف‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ف�‬ ‫ن ت تن‬
‫ا �لروح�ا �ي��ا � و��ص� ب� ي��ه ا �ل��ط��ل��س��م�ا � وع��لم ا �ل��سي��مي��ا وي ج�مع ي��ه ا د و�ي�� ا ��ع�� و�ي�د �ل‬
‫ا‬
‫ت‬
‫�خوره‬ ‫��مود ا �ل�ع�ا �ق ب��ة وب�‬
‫�‬ ‫كا ن� حم‬ ‫ف‬
‫ح�ل�ل �ي��ه ا �ل��س��مو�م و�م� ن� و�ل�د �ي��ه �‬
‫� ف‬ ‫ف�ي��ه ع��ل ا �ل��م�لوك وا �لر�ؤ ��س�ا ء و �‬
‫أ‬ ‫ى‬
‫ت‬ ‫ن‬
‫ح ب�� سود ا ء و��ع�� را � وا �ل�ل�ه ��ع�ا لى � ع��ل‬‫�ف‬ ‫ز‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫��لب��ا ن� �ذ�كر و�‬
‫� �ف ا � ظل��ا ء ا �ذ ا ن� ز ا �ل��ق‬ ‫ف م‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫ر‬ ‫��م‬ ‫�‬‫��‬ ‫�ل‬ ‫و ر�‬ ‫ح‬ ‫�ه‬
‫ل‬‫�‬ ‫�ـ�ـ‬ ‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �ل��ف� ر ا �ل��م�ؤ�خ�ر و�ه� ه �ص��ت��ه‬
‫ن� ة ت ّ� ف� ال ف‬ ‫تن � ّ ف‬ ‫عآ‬
‫�‬ ‫ل‬‫�‬
‫� ب� �م� يئ� �س�عي��د ��ح��ط ي��ه ى ل�ع�ا �م روح�ا ي�� د ب ر ي��ه ا ��ع�ا ل‬‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ا‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�و�ك�‬ ‫ب�ا �ل��ف� ر ا �ل��م�ؤ�خ�ر و�هو ك‬
‫� �ة ق ة� ت ق ّ‬ ‫ع‬
‫ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ز‬ ‫ق‬
‫ا � �غل� ي��ر �مود ا �ل�ع�ا ب�� م�ا ��د �م ا �ل��ول يف� ا �ل��م��ا �ل ا �ل��ح��س�� و ي�ج �� ب� ي��ه ا حر ب� و�ل��ا ء‬
‫�‬
‫ل‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�‬ ‫ك‬ ‫�‬ ‫م‬
‫ح‬
‫ً‬
‫ح��ج��ا �م��ة وا �ي��ض‬ ‫��س��ك ف�ي��ه ا �ل��م�لوك ا �ل�د �م�ا ء ف��ل�ه��ذ ا �ي��ص��ل�� ف�ي��ه ا �ل��ف� ��ص�د وا �ل‬ ‫�خ�� ص �م �ت ف‬ ‫ا �ل�ع�د و وا �ل‬
‫� �ا‬ ‫�‬
‫ح‬ ‫� �و و‬
‫‪Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530‬‬

‫‪530‬‬ ‫‪Varisco‬‬
‫�لّ‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫� �ع� ن ا ج�ل‬ ‫�؟ ا �ل�ع��ق�� د ا ت‬ ‫�ع�م� ا �ل ن�� ز ف��ا ت‬
‫��م�ا �م‬
‫اح‬ ‫��م�اع �م� ن� ا �ل��س�ا ء وا �لر�ج �ا ل و�ي��ص��ل��ح �ل�د �ول‬ ‫�‬ ‫و و‬ ‫ل �و‬
‫�ً‬
‫�م ك‬
‫��ا را‬
‫� ً ف� � ً‬
‫ح��س�ا �ا �ج را‬
‫ن ن‬
‫كا � �‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ة‬
‫ل��عر وا � ظل��ف� ر و�ش��ر ب� الا د و�ي�� ا ��لن��ا ��ع�� و�م� ن� و�ل�د �ي��ه �‬ ‫�أ �خ ��ذ ا � ش‬
‫و‬
‫أ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�ذ‬ ‫�خ‬ ‫ً‬ ‫�غ ّ‬
‫�وره �ل� �ل�ك ��ل��ل ود ا ر �ص�ي��ى وا �ل�ل�ه � ع��ل‬ ‫�د ا را وب�‬
‫�ذ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫م‬ ‫�ذ‬
‫�ر�� ا � �غل� ي�� ن� ا ا ن� ز�ل ا �ل��ق��مر ب�ا �لر�ش��ا ء‬‫ا �ل��ق��ول ع��لى �م ن�� ز� �ل��ة ا �لر�ش��ا ء و�ه� ه � فص��ت��ه�ا �ـ�ـ و�ل�ه ح‬
‫��م د �ة ا �ل�ع�ا �ق��ة‬ ‫ح��ط ف��ه ا ل ا �ل�ع�ا �ل�م ح�ا ن��ة حم‬ ‫تن � ّ‬ ‫آ‬ ‫ح ت‬
‫ب‬ ‫ي و‬ ‫رو‬ ‫ى‬ ‫ي‬ ‫�‬
‫�‬ ‫�‬
‫��‬ ‫�د‬
‫��‬
‫ي‬‫ع‬‫�‬ ‫�س‬‫�‬ ‫ئ�‬‫�‬ ‫�و�ك�‬
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‫��د د وت��ف� ��صي��ل�ه�ا وا ��لن�ق��ل��ة �م� ن� �م ك�‬ ‫و�ل��ب�� ا �ل��ثي��ا �‪ 145‬ا ��جل‬
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‫كا � ا و ا ��ى وب�وره ح ب�� ا �ل��سود ا ء وا �ل�ل�ه � ع��ل‬ ‫كا �كرا �‬ ‫كا � �م ب��ا ر �‬ ‫وا �لر�ؤ ��س�ا ء و�م�� و�ل�د ي��ه �‬
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‫‪Arabica 64 (2017) 487-530‬‬

Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556
brill.com/arab
In Search of ʿIzz al-Dīn Aydamir al-Ǧildakī,

Mamlūk Alchemist
Nicholas G. Harris
[email protected]
University of Pennsylvania
Abstract
This article attempts to establish basic biographical information about the prolific
Egyptian alchemist ʿIzz al-Dīn Aydamir al-Ǧildakī, more specifically his birth and
death dates and his origin. To this end, the article makes use of and critics manuscripts
and secondary sources in order to untangle probable facts from unsubstantiated as-
sumptions. The result moves closer to identifying the time and place, and thus the
historical context, for an influential alchemist in the medieval Islamic world.
Keywords
Alchemy, manuscripts, mamlūks
Résumé
Cet article tente d’établir les informations biographiques de base sur le prolifique al-
chimiste égyptien ʿIzz al-Dīn Aydamir al-Ǧildakī, en particulier ses dates de naissance
et de mort et son origine. À cette fin, l’article utilise et critique des manuscrits et des
sources secondaires afin de dégager les données historiques les plus probables des pré-
supposés infondés. Le résultat précise l’identification du temps et du lieu, et donc du
contexte historique, de cet alchimiste fondamental dans le monde islamique médiéval.
Mots clefs
Alchimie, manuscrits, mamlūks

532 Harris
ʿIzz al-Dīn Aydamir b. ʿAlī l-Ǧildakī1 (fl. 9th/14th c.), the author of the largest
corpus of alchemical literature produced in the Islamic world after Ǧābir b.
Ḥayyān, remains a shadowy and largely forgotten figure.2 Over two centuries
ago, Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy could write,
As the literary history of the Orientals is little known to us, it will not be
improper here to go into some detail about Eïdémir aljeldéki, the famous
writer and author of a large number of books and treatises on alchemy.3
Al-Ǧildakī’s appointment with Silvestre de Sacy was however something of a

sidelight for the esteemed French scholar. Silvestre de Sacy sought to correct
an error of identification: the author known in Arabic as Balīnās had thitherto
been understood as Pliny the Elder.4 He persuasively argued that Balīnās’ work,
known as the Kitāb Balīnās, was not Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, but rather the
famed Sirr al-ḫalīqa, and that Balīnās was actually (pseudo-)Apollonius of
1 The vocalization “al-Ǧaldakī” has become the de facto accepted form, popularized by Henry
Corbin (see below). However, as we will attempt to show in this article, Corbin’s assertion
about al-Ǧildakī’s origin was almost certainly incorrect, and thus the reason for insisting on
writing “al-Ǧaldakī” is moot.
2 Previous studies of al-Ǧildakī and his writings are few and usually brief: Eric John Holmyard,
“Aidamir al-Jildakī,” Iraq, 4 (1937), p. 47-53; Gotthard Strohmaier, “al-Djildakī, ʿIzz al-Dīn
Aydamir,” EI2; Manfred Ullmann, Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften im Islam, Leiden-Köln,
E.J. Brill, 1972, p. 237-242 and 413; Manuchehr Taslimi, An Examination of the ‘Nihāyat al-Ṭalab’
and the Determination of Its Place and Value in the History of Islamic Chemistry, PhD disserta-
tion, University of London, 1954.
3 Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, “Le livre du secret de la créature, par le sage Bélinous,” Notices
et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale, 4 (1799), p. 108-109: “Comme l’histoire
littéraire des Orientaux nous est peu connue, il ne sera pas hors de propos d’entrer ici dans
quelques details sur Eïdémir aldjeldéki, écrivain célèbre & auteur d’un grand nombre
d’ouvrages & de traités d’alchimie.”
4 E.g. Barthélemy d’Herbelot, Bibliothèque orientale, ou Dictionnaire universel, ed. Antoine
Galland, Paris, Compagnie des librairies, 1697, p. 199, s.v. “Belinas,” and p. 965, s.v. “Ketab
Balinas”; John Uri, compiler of the Bodleian Library’s first catalogue of oriental manuscripts,
Bibliothecæ Bodleiannæ codicum manuscriptorum orientalium, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1787,
I, p. 124, MS 502; even into the 19th century, in Gustav Flügel’s edition of the Kašf al-ẓunūn:
Lexicon bibliographicum et encyclopædicum, Leipzig, Oriental Translation Fund, 1836, II,
p. 48, no 1801.
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

In Search of ʿ Izz al-Dīn Aydamir al-Ǧildakī 533
Tyana.5 Al-Ǧildakī figured into the story only because he wrote a commentary
on another text attributed to Balīnās: the Kitāb al-aṣnām al-sabʿa.6
Ironically, al-Ǧildakī lived, wrote, and died in the 9th/14th century without
a single contemporary witness that has survived until today. The only sources,
before or since Silvestre de Sacy, for the few sketchy facts about al-Ǧildakī are
the manuscripts which bear, or once bore, his name. To add insult to the injury
of al-Ǧildakī’s obscure presence in modern scholarship, and one particularly
vexing to the researcher, a tangle of misinformation now encircles the alche-
mist. Thus, sorting out al-Ǧildakī’s life is a fundamental desideratum for fur-
thering the study of alchemy in the Islamic world, for the occult sciences more
generally, and for trying to deliver what Silvestre de Sacy promised over two
centuries ago: to go into some detail about Aydamir al-Ǧildakī.
It is fundamental because, even if we possessed capable and thorough
research into the content of al-Ǧildakī’s alchemical works,7 any such inves-
tigations would remain historically unanchored. For al-Ǧildakī’s spectacu-
lar alchemical œuvre to be comprehensible and potentially useful for future
scholarship, we need to know (as much as possible) about who he was and
where he came from. In short, we require a context for his alchemical labors,
5 Lucien Leclerc later confirmed Silvestre de Sacy’s conclusion, as did Moritz Steinschneider.
Lucien Leclerc, “De l’identité de Balinas et d’Apollonius de Tyane,” Journal Asiatique, 14, ser.
6 (1869), p. 111-131; Moritz Steinschneider, “Apollonius von Thyana (oder Balinas) bei den
Arabern,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 45 (1891), p. 439-446.
The Sirr al-ḫalīqa contains the earliest known version of the text known as the Emerald
Tablet. An Arabic edition has appeared: Ursula Weisser (ed.), Buch über das Geheimnis der
Schöpfung und die Darstellung der Natur, Aleppo, Institute for the History of Arabic Science
(“Sources & studies in the history of Arabic-Islamic science. Natural sciences series”, 1), 1979,
followed by a partial German translation and study: ead., Das “Buch über das Geheimnis der
Schöpfung” von Pseudo-Apollonios von Tyana, Berlin-New York, De Gruyter (“Ars medica. Abt.
3, Arabische Medizin”, 2), 1980. On the problems of editing this text, see Joel L. Kraemer, “The
Death of an Orientalist: Paul Kraus from Prague to Cairo,” in The Jewish Discovery of Islam:
studies in honor of Bernard Lewis, ed. Martin S. Kramer, Tel Aviv, Moshe Dayan Center, 1999,
p. 213, n. 22.
6 On this work, see Henry Corbin, “Le ‘Livre des sept statues’ d’Apollonios de Tyane,” in
L’Alchimie comme art hiératique, ed. Pierre Lory, Paris, L’Herne (“Bibliothèque des mythes
et des religions”, 3), 1986, p. 61-143.
7 See my forthcoming dissertation Better Religion through Chemistry: ʿIzz al-Dīn Aydamir
al-Jildakī and Alchemy under the Mamlūks, University of Pennsylvania, which deals with the
content of al-Ǧildakī’s œuvre.
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

534 Harris
and to reconstruct it, we must begin with the most basic coordinates: where
and when he lived. To this end, this article will attempt to make headway
into solving three seemingly simple problems: 1) when was al-Ǧildakī born?;
2) when did he die?; and 3) where was he from?
To answer the first question, we will focus on an incidental remark made by
al-Ǧildakī about a work composed in his youth. However, matching his state-
ment to an extant and dated work will turn out to be a fraught business. The
second question revolves around an inquiry into Carl Brockelmann’s entry in
the Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, the death date given there, and its
subsequent diffusion. Lastly, answering the third question requires us to revisit
the position of Henry Corbin who pegged al-Ǧildakī as an Iranian émigré to
the Mamlūk domains.
The Kašf al-asrār li-l-afhām and al-Ǧildakī’s Youth
Al-Ǧildakī noted offhandedly in a late work, the Miṣbāḥ fī asrār ʿilm al-miftāḥ,
that he had composed in his youth a commentary, named the Zahr al-kimām,
on a poem ascribed to a rather obscure poet, a certain Abū l-Iṣbaʿ ʿAbd
al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām al-ʿIrāqī.8 Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa (Kātib Čelebī, d. 1067/1657), as he
recorded in his Kašf al-ẓunūn, had seen al-Ǧildakī’s commentary, but under a
different title:
8 Al-Ǧildakī, al-Miṣbāḥ fī asrār ʿilm al-miftāḥ, MS Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania

Library, LJS 441, f. 29a: […] kamā qāla l-fāḍil al-faylasūf Abū l-Iṣbaʿ ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām
al-ʿIrāqī taġammadahu Llāh bi-l-raḥma wa-l-riḍwān wa-askanahu fasīḥ al-ǧinān fī qaṣīdat
al-nūniyya allatī šaraḥnāhā fī kitābinā l-mawsūm bi-Zahr al-kimām, transl. “[…] just as the
learned philosopher Abū l-Iṣbaʿ ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām al-ʿIrāqī, may God envelop him in
mercy and approval and let him abide in paradise, said in the nūniyya ode, on which we
commented in our book called the Zahr al-kimām;” ibid.: wa-ʿlam yā aḫī annā šaraḥnā hāḏihi
l-qaṣīda fī ʿaṣr al-šabāb fī kitāb sammaynāhu Zahr al-kimām […], transl. “Know, O brother,
that we commented on this ode in the age of [our] youth in a book that we named the Zahr
al-kimām.” Nothing is known of the poet al-ʿIrāqī’s life; his only historical trace is as the
author of this alchemical qaṣīda.
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

The qaṣīda of Ibn Abī l-Iṣbaʿ, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām al-ʿIrāqī, on alche-
my (al-kāf). It rhymes in nūn. It begins: […].9 Aydamir b. [ʿAlī]10 l-Ǧildakī
wrote a commentary on it, and he named it the Kašf al-asrār li-l-afhām,
[written] in Damascus in the year 737[/1336-1337]. It begins: Allāhumma
innā naḥmaduka ʿalā mā alhamta min al-bayān.11
The editors of the more critical new Istanbul edition of the Kašf al-ẓunūn,
probably by accident, excised a line between the pages, thus eliminating
the attribution of the commentary to al-Ǧildakī.12 Additionally Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa
recorded a second, redundant, entry: “The qaṣīda of [ʿAbd] al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām
on alchemy. Al-Ǧildakī wrote a commentary on it, and he named it the Kašf
al-asrār li-l-afhām.”13
9 The poem’s incipit as given by Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa (or as recorded by Gustav Flügel) is corrupt,
and the verse only appears in Flügel’s older edition (see below). The meter should be
basīṭ; cf. the poem’s incipit in Ǧalāl Šawqī, al-ʿUlūm al-ʿaqliyya fī l-manẓūmāt al-ʿarabiyya:
dirāsa waṯāʾiqiyya wa-nuṣūṣ, Kuwait, Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of the
Sciences, 1990, p. 551, who, despite not citing his source, very likely took the couplet as
recorded in Fuʾād Sayyid, Fihris al-maḫṭūṭāt al-muṣawwara, Cairo, Maṭbaʿat al-sunna
l-muḥammadiyya, 1963, III [al-ʿUlūm], part 4 [al-Kīmiyāʾ wa-l-ṭabīʿīyāt], p. 174, who in turn
was describing a photo reproduction of a manuscript in the possession of the Institute of
Arabic Manuscripts. The original is the MS Istanbul, Topkapı, Ahmet III, 2089.2. The poem
as it has been transmitted contains numerous variants, cf. Manfred Ullmann, Katalog der
arabischen alchemistischen Handschriften der Chester Beatty Library, Wiesbaden, Otto
Harrassowitz, 1974, I, p. 74, from MS Dublin, Chester Beatty, 4121B.6, f. 165a.
10 Flügel, or the manuscripts he consulted for his edition, dropped the patronymic. The
Cairo and the old Istanbul editions of the Kašf al-ẓunūn read: Aydamir b. ʿAlī l-Ǧildakī.
Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa, Kašf al-ẓunūn, Cairo, Dār al-ṭibāʿa l-miṣriyya, 1858, II, p. 107; Istanbul, Dār
Saʿādet, 1892-1893, II, p. 223.
11 Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa, Lexicon bibliographicum, IV, p. 518-519, no 9441: Qaṣīdat b. Abī l-Iṣbaʿ ʿAbd
al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām al-ʿIrāqī fī l-kāf wa-hiya nūniyya awwaluhā “Wa-lā lahā l-ḥāfiẓ dastāni
* wa-rīḥ misk al-aġyad al-ǧānī” wa-šaraḥahā Aydamīr b. [ʿAlī] l-Ǧildakī wa-sammāhu Kašf
al-asrār li-l-afhām bi-Dimašq sanat 737 awwaluhu “Allāhumma innā naḥmaduka ʿalā mā
alhamta min al-bayān”.
12 Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa, Kašf al-ẓunūn, eds Şerefettin Yaltkaya and Kilisli Rifat Bilge, Istanbul, Maarif
Matbaası, 1941, II, p. 1328-1329.
13 Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa, Lexicon bibliographicum, IV, p. 542, no 9476; id., Kašf al-ẓunūn, II, p. 1341:
Qaṣīdat [...] b. Tammām fī l-kīmiyāʾ šaraḥahā l-Ǧildakī wa-sammāhu Kašf al-asrār li-l-
afhām. The text has a problem here, marked off by brackets, that probably goes back to
the original. Flügel’s reading of al-ʿIzzī is almost certainly mistaken, as the editors of the
new Istanbul edition, Yaltkaya and Bilge, recognized: id., Kašf al-ẓunūn, II, p. 1341, no 2.
The Cairo (II, p. 231) and the old Istanbul (II, p. 113) editions read al-Ġurar, a byname
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

536 Harris
What is the relationship between the Zahr al-kimām, mentioned by al-

Ǧildakī in his Miṣbāḥ, and the Kašf al-asrār li-l-afhām, perused by Ḥāǧǧī
Ḫalīfa? A commentary bearing the latter title is preserved in a number of
manuscripts. Three Istanbul manuscripts corroborate the information given
by Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa.14 The work proper begins, after the baʿdiyya: “When I arrived
at the city of Damascus in the year 737/1336-1337, I found [there] students of
that is sometimes attached to this poem. Carl Brockelmann has Qaṣīdat al-Ġurūr, which
is either a misprint, a misreading, or a scornful attempt at Teutonic humor. See Carl
Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, Leiden, Brill, 1937-1942, SI, p. 432;
and earlier in the Nachträge to the first edition: id., Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur,
Weimar, Emil Felber, 1898, I, p. 524, which inexplicably was not reprinted or integrated
in the second edition. This byname has freely moved around manuscript catalogues, e.g.
Arthur John Arberry, A Handlist of the Arabic Manuscripts, the Chester Beatty Library,
Dublin, Hodges, Figgis &co., 1964, VII, p. 1, MS 5002; although the actual manuscript does
not carry this byname. It appears that Brockelmann’s only source for the byname Qaṣīdat
al-Ġurar (and not the comical Qaṣīdat al-Ġurūr) is the catalogue of the (then) Khedival
collection in Cairo. However, in the Khedival catalogue we see that the editors explic-
itly cited Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa’s Kašf al-ẓunūn for their provenance information. Fihrist al-kutub
al-ʿarabiyya l-maḥfūẓa bi-l-kutubḫāna l-ḫidīwiyya l-miṣriyya, Cairo, Maṭbaʿat ʿUṯmān ʿAbd
al-Rāziq, 1308[/1890-1891], V, p. 394, MS kīm. 21. This means that the byname, despite its
ability to jump from catalogue to catalogue, is only attested in the Cairo and old Istanbul
editions of the Kašf al-ẓunūn. Problematically, reading Qaṣīdat al-Ġurar ruins the alpha-
betical order of the work, as this entry comes between Qaṣīdat al-Ṭāhiriyya and Qaṣīdat
al-ʿUlwiyya. The editors of the Cairo and old Istanbul editions tried to fix the problem
by changing al-ʿUlwiyya to al-Ġulūwiyya, which preserves the order at the expense of
common sense. However, they were powerless to massage the spelling of the next entry,
al-Qaṣīda l-ʿAyniyya, since Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa included the first verse, unambiguously rhyming
in ʿayn. Yaltkaya and Bilge (ibid.) read Qaṣīdat al-ʿAzīz, which they emended to Qaṣīdat
ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. This is not unreasonable, but it would be a somewhat uncharacteristic mis-
take for Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa, who was typically meticulous to a fault.
14 1) MS Istanbul, Carullah, 2063.4, carrying a tasmiya: wa-sammaytuhu Kašf al-asrār li-l-
afhām at f. 80b; 2) MS Istanbul, Carullah, 2082.7, carrying an identical tasmiya at f. 95a;
3) MS Istanbul, Hacı Mahmud Efendi, 6225, with a matching tasmiya at f. 167b. All three
manuscripts carry an incipit matching the one quoted by Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa. See also the
evidence from MS Istanbul, Topkapı, Ahmet III, 2089, cited in Sayyid, Fihris, III, pt. 4,
p. 174-175, no 82. The Topkapı collection’s catalogue has a perfunctory entry for this manu-
script in Topkapı sarayı müzesi kütüphanesi arapça yazmalar kataloğu, ed. Fehmi Edhem
Karatay, Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum (“Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi yayınları”, 15), 1966,
III, p. 788, no 7153. A variant title is listed in the index (p. 941, Kašf al-asrār, qaṣīda ʿalā
l-iksīr al-aʿẓam, along with an incorrect reference number, no 7253). Fuat Sezgin does not
register this manuscript despite claiming to have cataloged the contents of the Ahmet
III collection himself: “Die Sammlung von III. Ahmet habe ich selbst verzettelt.” Fuat
Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1971, IV, p. 290 and I,
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

the divine wisdom and the sapiential craft wandering in darkness, proceeding
blindly.”15
The Marʿašī Library in Qom holds an undated manuscript (MS 8679, ff. 38b-
61b) entitled Kašf al-asrār li-l-afhām fī šarḥ qaṣīdat ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām.16
Its incipit and other details match those of the Istanbul manuscripts and as
given by Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa.17 The handlist of the Āṣafiyya Library lists another likely
copy (MS kīm. 53.1), whose composition is dated to 737/1336-1337.18
However, the Marʿašī catalogue editor also notes that this commentary
differs from another preserved in the Marʿašī collection: MS 3386.1 (ff. 1b-15b,
dated 1268/1851).19 Entitled simply Šarḥ qaṣīdat Abī l-Iṣbaʿ al-ʿIrāqī, this manu-
script begins: wa-l-ṣalāt wa-l-salām ʿalā Muḥammad wa-ālihi aǧmaʿīn qāla
l-muʾallif raḥimahu Llāh innī ṭālaʿtu kaṯīr min ašʿār ahl al-ṣināʿa […].
It is attributed to ʿAlī b. Aydamir al-Ǧildakī20 and contains commentary on
86 poetic verses, the qaṣīda attributed elsewhere to ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām
al-ʿIrāqī.21 The composer (muʾallif), presumed to be al-Ǧildakī, read the poem,
as the manuscript says, under the littérateur (adīb) Abū l-Qāsim al-Baṭalyawsī22
p. 760. This commentary is undoubtedly al-Ǧildakī’s, as the end of the work contains a
pinax of al-Ǧildakī’s previous works.
15 MS Istanbul, Hacı Mahmud Efendi, 6225, f. 167b: wa-baʿdu fa-innahu lammā kāna ʿām
[737] waradtu ilā madīnat Dimašq fa-waǧadtu ṭullāb al-ḥikma l-ilāhiyya wa-l-ṣināʿa
l-ḥikmiyya sāʾirīn fī l-ẓalmāʾ ḫābiṭīn fī l-ʿašwāʾ; = MS Istanbul, Carullah, 2063, f. 80b. Cf.
MS Istanbul, Carullah, 2082, f. 94b: wa-baʿdu fa-innahu lammā kāna ʿām [737] li-l-hiǧra
l-nabawiyya ʿalā ṣāḥibihā afḍal al-ṣalāt wa-l-salām waradtu ilā madīnat Dimašq ḥarasahā
Llāh taʿālā min al-āfāt wa-ḥulalihā bi-l-barakāt fa-waǧadtu ṭullāb al-ḥikma l-ilāhiyya wa-l-
ṣināʿa l-ḥikmiyya wa-l-ḥīla l-falsafiyya sāʾirīn fī ʿašwāʾ ḫāʾiḍīn fī ġašwāʾ [sic].
16 Sayyed Aḥmad Ḥosayni (ed.), Fehrest-e nosḫe-hā-ye ḫaṭṭi-i ketābḫāne-ye ʿomumi-i Ḥaḍrat
Āyat Allāh al-ʿOẓmā Marʿašī Naǧafī, Qom, Ketābḫāne-ye Āyat Allāh Marʿašī, 1994, XXII,
p. 229-230, no 8679.
17 E.g. date and place of composition.
18 Fehrest-e kotob-e ʿarabī wa fārsī va ordū maḫzune-ye kotobḫāne-ye Āṣafiyye-ye Sarkār-e ʿĀlī,
Hyderabad, Dār al-ṭabʿ-e Ǧāmeʿe-ye ʿOṯmāniyye-ye Sarkār-e ʿĀlī, 1347/1928, III, p. 576-577.
19 Sayyed Aḥmad Ḥosayni (ed.), Fehrest-e nosḫe-hā-ye ḫaṭṭi-e ketābḫāne-ye ʿomumī-e Ḥaḍrat
Āyat Allāh al-ʿOẓmā Marʿašī Naǧafī, Qom, Čāp-e Ḫayyām, 1981, IX, p. 164-165, no 3386.
20 N.b. the reversal of the names.
21 See n. 9 above, for citations from the unpublished poem.
22 It is tempting to identify this figure with Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b.
al-Sīd al-Baṭalyawsī (d. 521/1227). While such an identification is quite possible, Ibn al-Sīd
never had the kunya Abū l-Qāsim. However, there is a biographical notice for an other-
wise unknown Abū l-Qāsim al-Baṭalyawsī: “He resided in Cordoba. He was an upright
šayḫ and was the imām of the Saʿdūn mosque on the eastern outskirts [of Cordoba].
He was a truthworthy copyist, and a great deal of knowledge was penned by his hand.
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

538 Harris
at the grand mosque of Cordoba.23 This revelation raises some chronological

issues. Cordoba fell to the Castilian Ferdinand III in 633/1236, and the grand
mosque of Cordoba thus became the Mezquita-catedral de Córdoba, which
still stands today.24 Assuming that the isnād is true, the composer of the com-
mentary then must have read the poem with al-Baṭalyawsī before 633/1236.
Therefore, al-Ǧildakī, who wrote treatises in the 740s/1340s, cannot possibly be
the author of this commentary.25 More likely, we have here two different com-
mentaries on the same poem, both transmitted confusingly with the title Kašf
al-asrār li-l-afhām.26
He passed away in the year 441 [/1049-1050].” Ibn al-Abbār, Takmila li-Kitāb al-Ṣila, ed.
ʿAbd al-Salām al-Harrās, Beirut, Dār al-fikr, 1995, IV, p. 77, no 217: sakana Qurṭuba wa-kāna
šayḫ ya⁠ʾummu bi-masǧid Saʿdūn bi-l-rabḍ al-šarqī wa-kāna warrāq ṣaḥīḥ al-naql kataba
bi-ḫaṭṭihi ʿilm kaṯīr wa-tuwuffiya sanat 441. On the other hand, Ibn al-Sīd al-Baṭalyawsī was
also resident in Cordoba and was known to have transmitted poetry at the Mezquita; see
Delfina Serrano, “Ibn al-Sīd al-Baṭalyawsī (444/1052-521/1127): De los reinos de Taifas a la
época almorávide a través de la biografía de un ulema polifacético,” al-Qantara, 23 (2002),
p. 86; James Monroe, “Al-Saraqusṭī, Ibn al-Aštarkūwī: Andalusī Lexicographer, Poet,
and Author of al-Maqāmāt al-Luzūmīya,” Journal of Arabic Literature, 28 (1997), p. 5-6.
While Ibn al-Sīd al-Baṭalyawsī is not remembered as an alchemist, a section of his Kitāb
al-Masāʾil wa-l-aǧwiba discusses the possibility of alchemical transmutation. See Serrano,
“Ibn al-Sīd al-Baṭalyawsī (444/1052-521/1127),” p. 89-90. Furthermore, his Kitāb al-Ḥadāʾiq
shows the marked influence of and familiarity with the corpus of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ; see
e.g. Ayala Eliyahu, “Muslim and Jewish Philosophy in al-Andalus: Ibn al-Sīd al-Baṭalyawsī
and Moses ibn Ezra,” in Judaeo-Arabic Culture in al-Andalus, ed. Amir Ashur, Cordoba,
Oriens Academic (“Series Judæo-Islamica”, 1), 2013, p. 55-56.
23 Ḥosayni, Fehrest, IX, p. 164: in qaṣide rā moʾallef nazd-e adīb Abū l-Qāsem b. Sayyed [sic]
Šarīf Baṭalyawsī dar masǧed-e ǧāmeʿ-ye Qorṭobe ḫwānde. It is unclear whether it was the
cataloger who added the name elements b. Sayyed Šarīf. However, cf. Ullmann, Katalog, I,
p. 181, MS 5002, f. 95a: qāla l-muʾallif raḥimahu Llāh qara⁠ʾtu hāḏihi l-qaṣīda ʿalā l-adīb Abī
l-Qāsim b. al-Sīd al-Baṭalyawsī bi-l-masǧid al-ǧāmiʿ bi-madīnat Qurṭuba.
24 Christian Friedrich Seybold and Manuel Ocaña Jiménez, “Ḳurṭuba,” EI2.
25 Manfred Ullmann did not notice the problem. Ullmann, Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften
im Islam, p. 238.
26 Adding to the confusion, Ḥosayni (Fehrest, IX, p. 164, n. 1) adds a footnote which con-
tains a reference to yet another commentary by al-Ǧildakī on this poem, taken from the
Ḏarīʿa of Āġā Bozorg Ṭehrāni Ḏarīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-šīʿa, Tehran, Ketābḫāne-ye Eslāmiyye,
1967, XVIII, p. 19. Āġā Bozorg records a work entitled “Kašf al-asrār wa-hatk al-astār fī šarḥ
al-qaṣīda l-nūniyya fī l-kīmiyā, known as the qaṣīda of Ibn Abī l-Aṣbaʿ [sic], ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz
[b.] Tammām al-ʿIrāqī. Aydamir b. ʿAlī l-Ǧildakī commented on it in Damascus in [the
year] 737/1336-1337. Its incipit is: ‘annā naḥmaduka ʿalā mā alhamta min al-bayān,’ just
as it is mentioned in the Kašf al-ẓunūn. It is divided into chapters with a conclusion. I
have a maǧmūʿa in which the second and third chapters of it are transmitted, as well as
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

This admittedly confusing situation has created a number of problems in

the secondary literature. Fuat Sezgin lists five separate commentaries to ʿAbd
al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām al-ʿIrāqī’s qaṣīda:27
1) al-Ǧildakī’s Kašf al-asrār li-l-afhām;28

2) an untitled commentary attributed to Ifrūzīn (?) b. Maʿmar al-Qābisī;
3) an untitled commentary attributed to Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Dāʾim
al-Qayrawānī;
4) an untitled commentary attributed to Muḥammad b. Tamīm al-Maqāmātī;
5) and an anonymous, untitled commentary.
There is reason to suspect, as we will try to show, that of these five suppo
sedly distinct commentaries (1) indeed represents a commentarial work by
al-Ǧildakī,29 that (2), (3), and (5) represent, in all likelihood, a single anonymous
its conclusion.” Arabic text: Kašf al-asrār wa-hatk al-astār fī šarḥ al-qaṣīda l-nūniyya fī
l-kīmiyā wa-huwa l-maʿrūfa [sic] bi-qaṣīdat Ibn Abī l-Aṣbaʿ [sic] ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz [b.] Tammām
al-ʿIrāqī, šaraḥahā Aydamir b. ʿAlī l-Ǧildakī bi-Dimašq fī [sanat] 737. Awwaluhu: annā
naḥmaduka ʿalā mā alhamta min al-bayān […] kaḏā ḏakarahu fī Kašf al-ẓunūn. Aqūlu:
innahu murattab ʿalā abwāb wa-ḫātima, ʿindī maǧmūʿa yanqulu fīhā ʿan al-bāb al-ṯānī
wa-l-bāb al-ṯāliṯ minhu wa-ʿan ḫātimatihi. The Kašf al-asrār wa-hatk al-astār however
is an alchemical work attributed to ʿAlī Čelebī (9th/15th c.), an important later exegete
of al-Ǧildakī’s; see Ullmann, Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften, p. 242-244; Tuna Artun,
Hearts of Gold and Silver: Production of Alchemical Knowledge in the Early Modern World,
PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 2013. The manuscript in the Marʿašī collection to
which Ḥosayni points as an example of the work that Āġā Bozorg referred to above is MS
1247.2. However, Ḥosayni’s own description of that manuscript belies such an identifica-
tion: Ḥosayni, Fehrest, IV, p. 46-47. The work entitled Kašf al-asrār fī hatk al-astār in MS
1247.2 is a section of ʿAlī Čelebī’s work of similar name (Kašf al-asrār wa-hatk al-astār); the
incipits match. Cf. the incipit recorded in Ullmann, Katalog, I, p. 125-126, from MS Dublin,
Chester Beatty, 4510.1, f. 1.
27 Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1971, IV, p. 290.
Sezgin here is generally following Brockelmann: Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen
Litteratur, SI, p. 432.
28 Sezgin vowels the title Kašf al-asrār li-l-ifhām, but the last word of the title should be vow-
eled afhām, as can be deduced from the word play in the ḫuṭba: lā taliǧu afhāmuhum [i.e.
the ṭullāb al-ḥikma] ġawāmiḍ al-asrār al-falsafiyya wa-lā talqaḥu afkāruhum muqaddimāt
tuʾaddī ilā natāʾiǧ murḍiya […] wa-sammaytuhu Kašf al-asrār li-l-afhām fī šarḥ Qaṣīd ʿAbd
al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām. MS Istanbul, Hacı Mahmud Efendi, 6225, f. 167b.
29 We have already seen above that six manuscripts (nos 14, 16, 18 above) may be securely
identified as exemplars of al-Ǧildakī’s commentary.
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

540 Harris
commentary, and that (4) represents a strange commentary extant in two

manuscripts and that has given rise to some mischief.
Sezgin lists two manuscripts preserved in the Chester Beatty collection; one
he attributed to al-Ǧildakī (MS 4121B.6),30 and one to an anonymous commen-
tator (MS 5002.12). The first, MS 4121B.6, is an incomplete commentary, which
Manfred Ullmann in his catalogue also attributes to al-Ǧildakī.31 The fragment
includes the following incipit: “The composer said, may God have mercy on
him, ‘I have perused much of the poetry of the folk of the craft of alchemy, and
I never saw [anything] more expansive of its principles, nor more elucidating
of its particulars than the poem of the sage, the philosopher Abū l-Iṣbaʿ ʿAbd
al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām al-ʿIrāqī.”32 The fragment is entitled merely Risālat Abī
l-Iṣbaʿ al-ʿIrāqī, and al-Ǧildakī is not mentioned as its composer or indeed at
all. Further, we find an important isnād:
I read this poem under the littérateur Abū l-Qāsim b. al-Baṭalyawsī at

the grand mosque of Cordoba, who said, “I read it under Zarūz [?] b.
Muʿammar al-Fārisī,” who said, “I read it under ʿAbd al-Dāʾim Abī ʿAbd
Allāh33 al-ʿIrāqī in Mayyāfāriqīn, may God protect his countenance.” The
sage al-ḥāǧǧ Muḥammad b. Ašʿab told me that he convened in Egypt with
someone whom he met, and [that] he read [the poem] under him after
30 Sezgin (Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, IV, p. 290) has “Ch. Beatty 4121.7 (ff. 165-210,
12. Jh. H.).” The apparent discrepancy in the position of the fragment within the maǧmūʿa
(i.e. 4121.7 vs 4121B.6) is a matter of convention. According to Ullmann’s description
(Katalog, I, p. 62-63), the maǧmūʿa is composed of two separate manuscripts now bound
together: A (ff. 1-142) and B (ff. 143-200). MS A is a single work (4121.1 = 4121A), while MS
B has nine identifiable fragments (4121.2-10 = 4121B.1-9). The fragment of al-Ǧildakī’s šarḥ
runs only from f. 165a to f. 166b in MS B, not ff. 165-210 as Sezgin relates; in fact, the entire
maǧmūʿa only contains 200 folios. It is also MS 4121A that Ullmann dates approximately
to the 12th/18th century, not MS 4121B.
31 Ullmann, Katalog, I, p. 73-74.
32 MS Dublin, Chester Beatty, 4121B.6, f. 165a: qāla l-muʾallif raḥimahu Llāh innī ṭālaʿtu
kaṯīran min ašʿār ahl ṣināʿat al-kīmiyāʾ fa-lam ara ašraḥ li-uṣūlihā wa-lā awḍaḥ li-fuṣūlihā
min qaṣīdat al-ḥakīm al-faylasūf Abī l-Iṣbaʿ ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām al-ʿIrāqī.
33 The MS is fairly clear, and I read (with Ullmann) abī instead of ibn, although it is tempting
to emend the text nevertheless.
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

having copied it34 from him. This was in the year 400[/1009-1010],35 and
he achieved, without doubt, to tincture silver and gold.36
As we saw above, this isnād signals that the commentary cannot be attributed
to al-Ǧildakī.
The second Chester Beatty manuscript, MS 5002.12, is apparently a complete
copy of the same commentary.37 On the upper edge, as Ullmann reports, in
a hand other than that of the copyist, is the authorial notice: “Said the sage,
Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Dāʾim al-ʿIrāqī.”38 After a unique incipit,
we may read the now familiar opening and the familiar, but variant, isnād:
Abū l-Qāsim al-Baṭalyawsī < Abū ʿAbd Allāh ʿAbd al-Dāʾim al-ʿIrāqī < Abū
l-Iṣbaʿ ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām al-ʿIrāqī.39
34 Ullmann (ibid.) vowels this verb as antasiḫahā, “after I copied it.” I favor here reading
intasaḫahā, “after he copied it.” That is, Muḥammad b. Ašʿab’s reading the poem back
orally after having copied it himself from the anonymous transmitter I take as a complete
transmission circuit, having nothing to do with the composer (muʾallif) of the commen-
tary. The composer’s citation of Muḥammad b. Ašʿab is not part of his isnād or transmis-
sion, but rather it is an anecdotal proof of the poem’s alchemical efficacy.
35 If this year is correct, then it is difficult to imagine how Abū l-Qāsim b. al-Baṭalyawsī
could be identified with Ibn al-Sīd. That is, if the composer (muʾallif) of the commentary
heard the poem from Ibn al-Sīd, this must have taken place roughly between 480/1090-
500/1107, approximately when Ibn al-Sīd was resident in Cordoba. Thus, it is doubtful that
the same person could also have known the ḥāǧǧī Muḥammad b. Ašʿab who, presumably
as an adult, heard the same poem in Egypt a century earlier. No such difficulty arises if
we identify the transmitter with the Abū l-Qāsim al-Baṭalyawsī mentioned above (n. 22
above), who died in 441/1049-1050.
36 MS Dublin, Chester Beatty, 4121B.6, f. 165a: qāla l-muʾallif raḥimahu Llāh qara⁠ʾtu hāḏihi
l-qaṣīda ʿalā l-adīb Abī l-Qāsim b. al-Baṭalyawsī bi-l-masǧid al-ǧāmiʿ bi-madīnat Qurṭuba
qāla qara⁠ʾtuhā ʿalā Zarūz b. Muʿammar al-Fārisī qāla qara⁠ʾtuhā ʿalā ʿAbd al-Dāʾim b.
ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿIrāqī bi-Mayyāfāriqīn, naṣara Llāh waǧhahu wa-aḫbaranī l-ḥakīm al-ḥāğǧ
Muḥammad b. Ašʿab annahu iǧtamaʿa fī Miṣr maʿa man laqiyahu wa-qara⁠ʾahā ʿalayhi baʿda
antasiḫahā minhu wa-ḏālika fī ʿām arbaʿ miʾa wa-annahu kāna wāṣil lā maḥāla yaṣbiġu
l-fiḍḍa wa-l-ḏahab.
37 Ullmann, Katalog, I, p. 180-183. It is unclear why Sezgin attributed MS 4121B.6 to al-Ǧildakī
and MS 5002.12 to “einen anonymen Gelehrten,” since the two represent the same work:
Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, IV, p. 290. Ullmann attributes both to
al-Ǧildakī, who at the time had reason to suspect that this was al-Ǧildakī’s commentary,
but the isnād and the presence of other manuscripts militate against this attribution.
38 Ibid., p. 180; MS 5002.12, f. 94b: qāla l-ḥakīm Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Dāʾim
al-ʿIrāqī.
39 The ḥāǧǧī who allegedly learned the poem in Egypt is here named Muḥammad b. Ašʿaṯ.
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

542 Harris
From the evidence provided by these two manuscripts, Sezgin’s determina-

tion of one belonging to al-Ǧildakī and another to an anonymous commentator
seems hopeless. In addition, there exists a manuscript, now in the Dār al-kutub
al-miṣriyya (MS kīm. 21M.1),40 an undated maǧmūʿa of alchemical content. The
catalogers reported that, on its frontispiece (ṭurra) the commentary carries a
doubtful attribution to Ǧalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) and is entitled Šarḥ
ʿalā qaṣīdat al-ġurar li-Abī l-Iṣbaʿ ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām al-ʿIrāqī.41 Further, al-
Ǧildakī is not mentioned in the manuscript, and the catalogers were forced to
depend on Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa for their identification. Lastly, we find yet further name
variants in the isnād: Abū l-Qāsim al-Baṭalyawsī < Afrūzīn [?] b. Muʿammar
al-Qābisī < ʿAbd al-Dāʾim b. ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿIrāqī < Abū l-Iṣbaʿ ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b.
Tammām al-ʿIrāqī. The commentary in the second Cairene maǧmūʿa (MS kīm.
21A) does seem to carry an attribution to al-Ǧildakī, although it also contains
the familiar isnād. Other manuscripts carry yet more attributions. The MS
Leiden, Or. 2845 is a commentary on ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām al-ʿIrāqī’s poem
40 The shelfmark system employed by the first catalogers of the then Khedival Library has
become somewhat mysterious, and it has undoubtedly caused a number of blunders.
The catalogue, published in seven parts (in eight volumes), divides the collection into
thematic sections (e.g. ʿilm al-ta⁠ʾrīḫ or ʿilm al-ḥisāb). The section containing most of the
alchemical works is the ʿilm al-kīmiyāʾ wa-l-ṭabīʿa, and in subsequent catalogues al-kīmiyāʾ
wa-l-ṭabīʿiyyāt. The fifth volume of the catalogue contains the section on al-kīmiyāʾ
(p. 375-398), including all manuscripts up to MS kīm. 89 (today the collection has over
1 000 manuscripts in this section). However, a curious feature of the catalogue is that
the shelfmarks 1-32 were used twice. For example, MS kīm. 29 signifies two completely
separate books. The new catalogue series unfortunately does not cover a number of the-
matic sections, including alchemy and the natural sciences: Fihris al-kutub al-ʿarabiyya
l-mawǧūda bi-l-Dār, Cairo, Maṭbaʿat Dār al-kutub al-miṣriyya, 1924-1942. Later catalog-
ing contributions for special subject areas, e.g. for medicine or mathematics, have thus
far neglected alchemy and the natural sciences. Previous bibliographical works in this
area by Carl Brockelmann or Manfred Ullmann dispensed entirely with citing shelfmarks
for manuscripts in the Dār al-kutub al-miṣriyya at all, instead referencing the volume
and page of the Khedival catalogue. Fuat Sezgin lists among the commentaries on the
poem of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām al-ʿIrāqī attributed to al-Ǧildakī a Cairene manuscript:
“Kairo V1, 390, 396, kīmiyāʾ 21 (1094 H.).” Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums,
IV, p. 290. Sezgin here has conflated two different manuscripts, despite citing the two
separate pages of entries in the catalogue, undoubtedly because both are maǧmūʿas of
alchemical content, both contain a commentary on the same poem, and both carry the
shelfmark kīm. 21. In order to differentiate between them, I will represent the Maġribī
maǧmūʿa (Fihrist, V, p. 394-395) as MS kīm. 21M and the other maǧmūʿa (Fihrist, V, p. 390-
391) as MS kīm. 21A, since it was written in an ʿādī hand according to the catalogers.
41 Fihrist, V, p. 394. On the byname Qaṣīdat al-Ġurar, see above n. 13.
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

attributed to a certain al-Qābisī.42 The MS Cambridge, Ll. 5.22.1 is another com-

mentary on the poem, attributed to a certain Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Dāʾim
al-Qayrawānī l-Maġribī.43 The names of these “authors” look suspiciously like
the names found in the isnād above.
Two additional manuscripts, both maǧmūʿas, preserved in the Ḥasaniyya
Library in Rabat, also contain commentaries to the poem: MS 11656.33 and
MS 11058.18.44 The first commentary does not carry a title, called simply Šarḥ
qaṣīdat Abī l-Aṣbaġ [sic] ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām al-ʿIrāqī, and without naming
the commentator. This is followed again by the familiar isnād of tradents: Abū
l-Qāsim al-Baṭalyawsī < Qārūn b. Muʿammar al-Fārisī < ʿAbd al-Dāʾim al-ʿIrāqī <
ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Tammām al-ʿIrāqī. However, the Ḥasaniyya holds another man-
uscript (MS 128.1) entitled Zahr al-ākām [sic]45 fī šarḥ qaṣīdat Ibn Tammām,
again attributed to Ǧalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī.46 The manuscript begins, familiarly,
with the claim of the composer (muʾallif) having perused much of the poetry of
the alchemists. This last manuscript demonstrates that the title Zahr al-kimām
(or perhaps al-akmām) exists independently of al-Ǧildakī’s single mention,
42 Petrus Voorhoeve, Handlist of Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the University of Leiden
and Other Collections in the Netherlands, The Hague, Leiden University Press (“Codices
manuscripti (Leiden)”, 7), 1980, p. 270; cf. Jan Just Witkam, Inventory of the Oriental
Manuscripts in the Library of the University of Leiden, Leiden, Ter Lugt Press, 2008, III,
p. 214-215. The variants al-Fārisī and al-Qābisī almost certainly arose due to a scribal error
in the transmission of the isnād, but it is yet impossible for me to determine which one
(or neither) is the original name.
43 Edward Granville Browne, A Hand-List of the Muḥammadan Manuscripts ... Preserved in
the Library of the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1900,
p. 106. Ibn al-Sīd al-Baṭalyawsī’s brother, ʿAlī b. al-Sīd al-Baṭalyawsī, transmitted Abū l-ʿAlāʾ
al-Maʿarrī’s Saqṭ al-Zand on the authority of a teacher named ʿAbd al-Dāʾim al-Qayrawānī;
see Serrano, ibid., p. 83, n. 123. However, ʿAbd al-Dāʾim al-Qayrawānī had the kunya Abū
l-Qāsim, not Abū Muḥammad. See Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā l-Ḍabbī, Buġyat al-multamis fī ta⁠ʾrīḫ
riǧāl ahl al-Andalus, ed. Ibrāhīm al-Abyārī, Cairo-Beirut, Dār al-kitāb al-miṣrī-Dār al-kitāb
al-lubnānī, 1989, II, p. 519-520, no 1131; Abū l-Qāsim b. Baškuwāl, al-Ṣila fī ta⁠ʾrīḫ a⁠ʾimmat
al-Andalus, ed. Baššār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf, Tunis, Dār al-Ġarb al-islāmī, 2010, I, p. 492, no 841.
44 Muḥammad al-Ḫaṭṭābī, Fahāris al-ḫizāna l-Ḥasaniyya bi-Qaṣr al-Malikī, Rabat, al-Ḫizāna
l-Ḥasaniyya, 1986, V, p. 143-144, no 228, p. 144, no 229. No specific data is available for the
second manuscript, said be a copy of the first.
45 The cataloger also calls the work Zahr al-akmām fī šarḥ qaṣīdat Ibn Tammām, which
makes far more sense than Zahr al-ākām. Cf. MS Istanbul, Hacı Mahmud Efendi, 6225.13,
now housed in the Süleymaniye Library, where the library’s handlist names it the Zahr
al-kimām fī šarḥ qaṣīdat Ibn Tammām and attributes it, correctly, to al-Ǧildakī.
46 Al-Ḫaṭṭābī, Fahāris, V, p. 132-133. Cf. MS Cairo, Dār al-kutub al-miṣriyya, kīm. 21M.1 above.
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

544 Harris
but puzzlingly the commentary which follows the title cannot be al-Ǧildakī’s
commentary.47
Before returning to the matter of al-Ǧildakī’s youth, the issue of the strange
commentary attributed to Muḥammad b. Tamīm must be sorted out. It is
known to be preserved in two manuscripts: MS Cairo, Dār al-kutub al-miṣriyya,
kīm. 2648 and MS Tehran, Tehran University, 2025.49 The exact nature of the
commentary is yet to be determined, since both manuscripts claim to be a
commentary on the maqāmāt, not the qaṣīda, of Abū l-Iṣbaʿ ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b.
Tammām al-ʿIrāqī,50 despite the fact that the beginning of the first supposed
maqāma is a verse in the basīṭ meter. The Khedival catalogue’s description
was the source for Brockelmann’s entry, which led Régis Blachère and Pierre
Masnou, with an additional misreading (kīmiyāʾ > qiyāma), to suggest ʿAbd al-
ʿAzīz b. Tammām al-ʿIrāqī as an early pioneer of the maqāma genre.51
To sum up, we have seen that al-Ǧildakī wrote a commentary on ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz
b. Tammām al-ʿIrāqī’s poem in 737/1336-1337 upon reaching Damascus, which
he called the Kašf al-asrār li-l-afhām. In his Miṣbāḥ, al-Ǧildakī recalled that he
wrote such a commentary in his youth, but with the title Zahr al-kimām. A dis-
tinct, anonymous commentary on the same poem has also come down to us,
occasionally bearing the same two titles. Frequently these two commentaries
47 Other manuscripts of the anonymous commentary include: MS Princeton, Princeton

Garrett, 426B.1 (the catalogue incorrectly attributes it to al-Ǧildakī, see Philip K. Hitti,
Nabih Amin Faris & Butrus Abd-al-Malik, Descriptive Catalog of the Garrett Collection of
Arabic Manuscripts in the Princeton University Library, Princeton, Princeton University
Press, 1938, p. 621-622, no 2045); a manuscript recently sold by Christie’s auction house
on Oct. 11, 2013, Sale 9547, Lot 787, attributed to a certain ʿAbd al-Dāʾim b. ʿAbd Allāh
al-Qayrawānī. The manuscript was purchased by Bouwman Oriental Books of Groenekan,
Netherlands and has now been sold (http://bouwmanbooks.com/product/kash-al-asrar).
48 Fihrist, V, p. 384.
49 Moḥammad Taqī Dānešpažuh (ed.), Fehrest-e nosḫe-hā-ye ḫaṭṭī-e Ketābḫāne-ye Markazī
va Markaz-e Asnād-e Dānešgāh-e Tehrān, Tehran, Tehran University Press, 1339/1960, VIII,
p. 641-643.
50 In the Khedival catalogue, he is given the impossible deathdate of 762 [/1360-1361] (Fihrist,
V, p. 384), undoubtedly a conflation with al-Ǧildakī’s erroneous deathdate. Brockelmann,
from the isnād of the anonymous commentary, claims that the poet “blühte im 4. Jahrh.
in Maijâfâriqîn.” Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, Weimar, Emil Felber,
1898, I, p. 524.
51 Régis Blachère and Pierre Masnou, Maqāmāt (Séances) ... avec une étude sur le genre, Paris,
C. Klincksieck, 1957, n. 2. Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila has provided a short, but detailed, exposé
as it relates to the history of the maqāma. Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, “The Early Maqāma:
Towards Defining a Genre,” Asiatische Studien, 51 (1997), p. 596-597; id., Maqāma: A History
of a Genre, Wiesbaden, Otto Harrassowitz (“Diskurse der Arabistik”, 5), 2002, p. 389-390.
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

have been conflated together and confused, both in the manuscript tradition
and by modern scholars. It seems most likely, after having reviewed most of
the relevant manuscript evidence, that al-Ǧildakī meant to refer to the Kašf
al-asrār li-l-afhām, the commentary’s true title, when he referenced it with the
byname Zahr al-kimām. Thus, al-Ǧildakī considered his “youth” (šabāb) to in-
clude the year 737/1336-1337, when he sojourned to Syria. Youth and old age
are slippery and subjective categories, but it is certainly difficult to imagine
that a 8th/14th-century person would consider 30 years old to be still “young.”
Therefore, al-Ǧildakī would not have been born before 707/1307-1308, and
probably not later than 727/1326-1327. If it is likely that al-Ǧildakī was born
within this range of dates, the supposed year of death as 743/1342 is a problem,
since he would have been not older than 36 years. This is a relatively short life
even by 8th/14th-century standards, and one wonders how such a large literary
corpus could have been produced in so short a time.
Al-Ǧildakī’s Death
Brockelmann’s Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur was, and remains, an

epochal publication for the development of Arabic and Islamic studies.
Beginning with the publication of the first volume in 1898, Brockelmann would
spend the rest of his life compiling an annotated list, along with the loca-
tions of any manuscripts then known to him, of every work written in Arabic.
Perhaps inevitably in a project of such massive scope, we would expect to see
gaps and trouble spots. Indeed, Brockelmann was not particularly interested in
the natural or occult sciences. In the hundreds of pages of the Geschichte der
arabischen Litteratur, Brockelmann compiled only about two dozen authors of
works on “Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften” with any detail.52
For al-Ǧildakī, Brockelmann in his characteristically terse manner registered:
“Aidamur b. ʿAlī b. Aidamur al-Ǧildakī ʿIzzaddīn died in 743/1342, according to
52 Toward the end of the second Supplementband, Brockelmann did list in a very perfunc-
tory fashion an additional 60 titles and authors on alchemy and occult sciences seemingly
as an afterthought. Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, SII, p. 1033-1035,
1037-1042. The extent of the lacuna in the Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur can be
glimpsed by reading Manfred Ullmann’s Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften im Islam,
Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1972, and realizing how much material cannot be found in the Geschichte
der arabischen Litteratur.
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546 Harris
others in 762 in Cairo.”53 The deathdate of 762/1360-1361 came from a mistake

in the catalogue of the then Khedival Library in Cairo (now the Dār al-kutub
al-miṣriyya).54 The catalogers of the Khedival collection conflated Aydamir b.
ʿAlī l-Ǧildakī with a Mamlūk amīr named ʿAlī b. Aydamir, who died in Damascus
in 762/1360-1361.55
The other death date of 743/1342 does not strictly speaking have a source.56
Brockelmann misread earlier brief entries on al-Ǧildakī, mistaking the date
743/1342, the composition date of his short treatise al-Durr al-manṯūr and
given as a terminus ante quem of al-Ǧildakī’s activity, for the alchemist’s death
date.57 The stature of Brockelmann’s Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur ef-
fectively both disseminated and cemented the acceptance of a death date of
743/1342 for al-Ǧildakī. However, al-Ǧildakī’s al-Sirr al-maṣūn fī šarḥ Risālat
Biyūn, a commentary on an obscure alchemical treatise, is dated in the ḫuṭba:
“We commented on this treatise in the city of Cairo at the beginning of the
blessed month of ḏū l-qaʿda in the year 744/1343-1344 of the prophetic hiǧra.”58
53 Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, Berlin, Emil Felber, 1902, II, p. 138;
Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1943, p. 173, “Aidamur b. ʿA. b. Aidamur al-Ǧildakī ʿIzzaddīn starb 743/1342,
n. a. 762 in Kairo.”
54 Fihrist al-kutub al-ʿarabiyya l-maḥfūẓa bi-l-kutubḫāna l-ḫidīwiyya, Cairo, al-Maṭbaʿa
l-ʿUṯmāniyya, 1888, V, p. 396.
55 See Ibn Ḥaǧar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina fī aʿyān al-miʾa l-ṯāmina, Beirut, Dār al-ǧīl,
1993, III, p. 30, no 59: ʿAlī b. Aydamir aḥad al-umarāʾ al-ṭablḫānāh bi-Dimašq kāna abūhu
amīr ǧandār wa-naša⁠ʾa huwa bi-l-Qāhira ṯumma quddima Dimašq amīr fī sanat sittīn [i.e.
760] wa-aqāma bihā ilā an māta fī raǧab sanat 762. This conflation was first pointed out
by Charles Rieu in Supplement to the Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the British
Museum, London, British Museum, 1894, p. 535.
56 However, Brockelmann’s French contemporary, Clément Huart, also in 1902 seems to have
made the identical mistake: “ʿIzz-Eddin Aïdemir ben ʿAli ben Aïdémir el-Djildaki, mort au
Cairo en 1342.” Clément Huart, Littérature arabe, Paris, Librairie Armand Colin (“Histoires
des littératures”), 1902, p. 365. Huart also claimed that Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa attributed 84 works to
al-Ǧildakī (ibid.); the correct count is 23.
57 Brockelmann cited a few sources on al-Ǧildakī in the first edition of the Geschichte der
arabischen Litteratur, Berlin, Emil Felber, 1902, II, p. 138, none of which mentions a death-
date for him: Silvestre de Sacy, “Livre du secret de la créature,” p. 108, n. b; Ferdinand
Wüstenfeld, Geschichte der arabischen Aerzte und Naturforscher, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck
und Ruprecht, 1840, p. 150-151; and Lucien Leclerc, Histoire de la médecine arabe, Paris,
Ernest Leroux, 1876, II, p. 280-281. Ironically, two of these sources even chide earlier schol-
ars for inventing a deathdate (740/1339-1340) for al-Ǧildakī.
58 MS Tehran, Tehran Maǧles, 14303.1, f. 2a: wa-šaraḥnā hāḏihi l-risāla bi-madīnat al-Qāhira fī
awāʾil al-ʿašr al-awwal min šahr ḏī l-qaʿda l-ḥarām ʿām [744] min al-hiǧra l-nabawiyya.
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

The Sirr seems to be the latest dated work of al-Ǧildakī, since none of the
manuscripts of al-Ǧildakī’s larger, multi-volume tomes carries a composition
date in the ḫuṭba or the colophon, at least not consistently.59 The hapless
truth is that we will probably never discover when al-Ǧildakī died exactly for
the simple reason that for posterity to know the date of one’s demise, a wil
ling witness is required. Al-Ǧildakī seems to have slipped through the nets of
the chroniclers, biographers, and commentators of his time. Only the copies
of his books survive to bear witness to his existence. This fact is all the more
striking given the glut of prosopographical and historical writing produced in
Egypt during the Mamlūk period. Even so, it seems probable that, given the
number of large works that al-Ǧildakī composed after al-Durr al-manṯūr in
743/1342, his literary activity extended well into the second half of the 8th
century/14th century.
Henry Corbin and al-Ǧildakī’s Origin
Henry Corbin made a point of disabusing his readers of spelling the alche-
mist’s name al-Ǧildakī:
Aydamur al-Jaldaki (the correct vocalization is not Jildaki) was an Iranian

from Jaldak, a town about eighteen kilometers away from Mashhad in
Khurasan. He lived in Damascus, and then moved to Cairo, where he died
between 750/1349-1350 and 762/1360-1361.60
59 A single manuscript copy of the Lawāmiʿ al-afkār al-muḍīʾa (MS London, British Library,
Add. 23418.16) has the anomalous composition date of rabīʿ I, 746/July 1345. Every other
copy of the Lawāmiʿ known to me is dated rabīʿ I, 741/August-September 1340. However,
Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa also reported that al-Ǧildakī’s Lawāmiʿ was composed in rabīʿ I, 746/July
1345. Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa, Lexicon bibliographicum, V, p. 355, no 11285; id., Kašf al-ẓunūn, II,
p. 1576. Further, a single 18th-century manuscript of the Miṣbāḥ (MS Tehran, Tehran
Maǧles, 61833) preserves an anomalous colophon, following the explicit (f. 112a): qad
fariġa taʿlīquhu nahār al-ǧumʿa awwal min šahr ramaḍān min šuhūr sanat [768] wa-l-
ḥamd li-Llāh ʿalā l-tamām awwal wa-āḫir wa-ẓāhir wa-bāṭin. Ramaḍān of 768 AH fell in
the year 1367 CE. Needless to say, if some corroborating evidence could be found, this
dating of the Miṣbāḥ, one of al-Ǧildakī’s last works, would confirm his likely literary acti
vity through the 750s/1350s and into the 760s/1360s.
60 Henry Corbin, History of Islamic Philosophy, transl. Liadain Sherrard, London, Kegan Paul,
1993, p. 331. But Corbin was not always consistent. Earlier in the same book, Corbin once
referred to “the Egyptian amir Aydamur al-Jildaki” (p. 133). Cf. further Henry Corbin, En
Islam iranien: Aspects spirituels et philosophiques, Paris, Gallimard, 1971, II [Sohrawardî
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

548 Harris
Aydamor ibn Abdillah Jaldakī hailed from Jaldak, a town of Khurasan,

about 15 km north of Mashhad. The Persian vocalization is not in doubt,
so we will keep here the form Jaldakī, in preference to the form Jildakī,
adopted by a routine which, we fear, has hardly bothered to find the
location of Jaldak. Our philosopher alchemist sojourned to Damascus
and eventually settled permanently in Cairo, while occupied with the
composition of his books. He died there in 750 (or 761, the date remains
unclear).61
Was al-Ǧildakī really an Iranian from a village called Ǧaldak north of Mašhad?
Corbin unfortunately never provided any argumentation for his assertion,
other than the “Persian vocalization” which was “not in doubt.” A likely source
is ʿAlī Akbar Dehḫodā (1879-1956), who enjoyed fame and praise in 20th-cen-
tury Iran (and beyond) for his massive Persian encyclopedia/dictionary, the
Loġat-nāme. In it, al-Ǧildakī made a brief appearance:
Aydamir b. ʿAbd Allāh or Aydamir b. ʿAlī b. Aydamir Miṣrī or ʿIzz al-Dīn

ʿAlī or ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Aydemir, a sage, known for alchemy. He was
from Ǧaldak, a village two parsangs from Mašhad. He went to Damascus
and Cairo and died in 750 or 762 AH. He composed many works.62
et les Platoniciens de Perse], p. 312-313, spelling the name “Jildaki,” but id., Temple and
Contemplation, transl. Philip Sherrard, London, Kegan Paul, 1986, p. 56, n. 4: “Jaldaki
(a native of Jaldak in the Khurasan, not of Jildak).”
61 Corbin, L’alchimie comme art hiératique, p. 67: “Aydamor ibn ʿAbdillah Jaldakî était
originaire de Jaldak, bourgade du Khorasan, à une quinzaine de kilomètres au nord de
Mashhad. La vocalisation persane ne faisant aucun doute, nous nous en tenons donc à la
forme Jaldakî, de préférence à la forme Jildakî, adoptée par une routine qui, nous le crai-
gnons, ne s’est guère souciée de rechercher l’emplacement de Jaldak. Notre philosophe
alchimiste séjourna à Damas et finit par s’établir définitivement au Caire, tout occupé
par la composition de ses livres. Il y mourut en 750 (ou 761, la date reste imprécise).”
The book Alchimie comme art hiératique was published posthumously in 1986, edited by
Corbin’s student Pierre Lory and then re-published as Le Livre des sept statues in 2003.
The book includes two loose translations drawn from al-Ǧildakī’s Kitāb al-Burhān (v. 2):
his commentary on the Ḫuṭbat al-Bayān attributed to ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and his commen-
tary on (pseudo-)Apollonius of Tyana’s Kitāb al-Aṣnām al-sabʿa. Lory, in an introductory
note (p. 27), mistakenly says that the translations were done from a manuscript in the MS
London, British Museum, 1656; the British Museum’s copy (now at the British Library) of
al-Ǧildakī’s Burhān is MS 1657 = Or. 117.
62 ʿAli Akbar Dehḫodā, Loġat-nāme, eds Moḥammad Moʿin and Sayyed Jaʿfar Šahidi, Tehran,
Tehran University Press, 1993-1994, V, p. 6874b-c: Aydamir b. ʿAbd Allāh yā Aydamir b. ʿAlī
Meṣrī yā ʿEzz al-Dīn ʿAlī yā ʿAlī b. Moḥammad b. Aydamir, ḥakīmī ast fāḍel ke dar kīmeyā
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

Al-Sayyid Muḥsin al-Amīn’s Aʿyān al-šīʿa, the gigantic bio-bibliographical ency-

clopedia for the history of Shiʿism, also, somewhat inexplicably,63 contains an
entry for al-Ǧildakī: “The šayḫ ʿIzz al-Dīn Aydamir b. ʿAlī l-Ǧildakī, the alche-
mist; he passed away in Cairo in the year 762, or some say 750. The nisba Ǧildakī
goes back to Ǧaldak, a village in Ḫurāsān two parsangs from Mašhad.”64
Al-Amīn does cite a number of older sources for his entry, including the
Mirʾāt al-Buldān, an early printed gazetteer in Persian by the Qaǧar minister
and scholar Eʿtemād al-Salṭane, Moḥammad Ḥasan Ḫān (d. 1896).65
Dehḫodā and al-Amīn probably derived their information about the vil-
lage of Ǧaldak from the Mirʾāt al-Buldan.66 If al-Ǧildakī had been a native of a
town outside of Mašhad, born shortly after the turn of the 8th/14th century, we
would expect him to be a Persian speaker, born and raised in a village inside
Ilḫānid controlled territory. Nowhere in his many works is there so much as a
hint that al-Ǧildakī read or understood Persian (or Turkish, for that matter);
his works are all in Arabic, and the works on which he commented were all
in Arabic.
dast dāšte ast. way az mardom-e Ǧaldak dehi dar do farsangī Mašhad bud wa be Demašq
wa Qāhere raft wa be sāl-e 750 yā 762 q[amarī] dar Qāhire dar gozašt. ta⁠ʾlifāt besyārī dārad.
63 Presumably then, al-Amīn took al-Ǧildakī to have been a Šīʿite. By identifying al-Ǧildakī
as an Iranian from outside of Mašhad, Corbin as well, I suspect, was implying tacitly that
al-Ǧildakī was a Šīʿite. Such an assumption about a native of pre-Ṣafavid Iran is prob-
lematic to say the least. Pierre Lory, in the introduction to Corbin’s study of a part of
al-Ǧildakī’s Burhān, in fact raises the possibility of al-Ǧildakī having been a Šīʿite practi
cing dissimulation (taqiyya) in the Sunnī Mamlūk domains. Henry Corbin, “Commentaire
de la Khotbat al-Bayān par Jaldakī,” in L’Alchimie comme art hiératique, p. 28. In addition
to the argument presented below, with a more synpotic view of al-Ǧildakī’s works, such
an identification seems improbable. See my forthcoming dissertation, Better Religion
through Chemistry.
64 Al-Sayyid Muḥsin al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-Šīʿa, ed. Ḥasan al-Amīn, Beirut, Dār al-taʿāruf, 2000,
V, p. 382: al-šayḫ ʿIzz al-Dīn Aydamir b. ʿAlī l-Ǧildakī l-kīmāwī, tuwuffiya bi-l-Qāhira sanat
762 wa-qīla 750. Al-Ǧildakī, nisba ilā Ǧaldak qarya bi-Ḫurāsān ʿalā farsaḫayn min Mašhad
al-Riḍā.
65 Eʿtemād al-Salṭane and Moḥammad Ḥasan Ḫān, Mirʾāt al-buldān-e Nāṣeri, Tehran, Dār
al-ṭibāʿa mubāraka dawlatī, 1877-1879.
66 Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to consult the second volume of the Mirʾāt
al-buldān, which would contain the entry on Ǧaldak. However, Āġā Bozorg Ṭehrāni
confirms the connection in his Ḏarīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-šīʿa, Beirut, Dār al-Aḍwāʾ, n.d., XII, p.
170: ḏakarahu [i.e. al-Ǧildakī] fāḍil al-muʿāṣir [i.e. Eʿtemād al-Salṭane] fī Mirʾāt al-buldān
ʿinda ḏikr Ǧaldak wa-innahā qarya ʿalā farsaḫayn min Mašhad Ḫurāsān, qāla wa-l-ḥakīm
al-fāḍil al-kīmiyāwī mansūb ilayhā.
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550 Harris
His first name, Aydamir, is also a problem. Aydamir is an archly Turkic

name.67 It is not at all inconceivable that there were Turkic-speaking residents
in and around 8th/14th-century Mašhad, but this does not explain why al-
Ǧildakī was occasionally known as al-Miṣrī, the Egyptian,68 and once called
al-Sikandarī, the Alexandrian.69 It is hard to imagine how an émigré from
Ḫurāsān living between Cairo and Damascus would ever have inspired others
to dub him the Egyptian, especially while residing in Egypt. Otherwise, apart
from this one putative instance, Ǧaldakī as a name element denoting an origin
from the village of Ǧaldak does not exist in any pre-modern source.
There is another explanation. Al-Ǧildakī is a name element, a nisba, that
describes something about its bearer’s origin, geographically (al-Baġdādī), or
tribally (al-Layṯī), or occupationally (al-Ṣayrafī).70 The name al-Ǧildakī is clear-
ly a nisba, with the form Ǧildak+ī, “of Ǧildak,” but the problem then becomes
determining what the seemingly meaningless word Ǧildak denotes, if not the
name of an obscure Ḫurāsānī village.
To answer this riddle, we will need to turn to a special and frequently over-
looked corner of Islamic onomastics: the mamlūks. Mamlūk nisbas signified
in a unique way.71 For example, let us examine the Ayyūbid amīr Ǧildak72
67 On the linguistic vagaries of this name, see Karl Foy, “Der Personenname ‫ ا ي��د �مر‬und das
Wort demir,” in Mittheilungen des Seminars für orientalische Sprachen an der Königlichen
Friedrich Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin, 2 (1899), p. 287-293; id., “Zu ‘der Personenname
‫ ا ي��د �مر‬und das Wort demir’,” Mittheilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen an der
Königlichen Friedrich Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin, 3 (1900), p. 216-217. However, it is
not clear, though for our purposes insignificant, whether the underlying Turkic form is
Aydemir or Aydemür. See also Jean Sauvaget, “Noms et surnoms de Mamelouks,” Journal
Asiatique, 238 (1950), p. 40, no 42, who vocalizes the underlying Turkish as ay-dämür.
68 Once Corbin even describes al-Ǧildakī as such: “the Egyptian amir Aydamur al-Jildakī
(d. 743/1342 or 762/1360), who makes frequent reference to Jabir.” Corbin, History of
Islamic Philosophy, p. 133.
69 It is still legible on the damaged title page of MS Paris, BNF, Arabe 6560, book two of
the Miṣbāḥ: […] ʿIzz al-Dīn Aydamir b. ʿAlī b. Aydamir al-Ǧildakī l-Sikandarī taġammadahu
Llāh bi-raḥmatihi […].
70 On nisbas in general, see Annemarie Schimmel, Islamic Names, Edinburgh, Edinburgh
Unviersity Press, 1995, p. 10-12.
71 On Mamlūk names, see David Ayalon, “Names, Titles, and ‘Nisbas’ of the Mamlūks,” Israel
Oriental Studies, 5 (1975), p. 189-232, see esp. p. 191 for the pair ʿIzz al-Dīn + Aydemir.
72 The modern edition of al-Ḏahabī’s Ta⁠ʾrīḫ al-islām wa-wafayāt al-mašāhīr wa-l-aʿlām has
the name voweled as Ǧaldak. It is not clear whether the manuscript tradition carries
the voweling, or whether the editor has added it. Al-Ḏahabī, Ta⁠ʾrīḫ al-islām wa-wafayāt
al-mašāhīr wa-l-aʿlām, ed. ʿUmar ʿAbd al-Salām Tadmurī, Beirut, Dār al-kitāb al-ʿarabī,
1998, XLV, p. 311. The modern edition of al-Ṣafadī’s Wāfī bi-l-Wafayāt also has the voweling
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

Šuǧāʿ al-Dīn al-Muẓaffarī l-Taqawī. His first name (ism), usually Turkish for a
mamlūk, was Ǧildak. His laqab Šuǧāʿ al-Dīn tended to come with the ism as a
pair (although Ǧildak was rare enough as a name that a conventional pairing
never seemed to have emerged). His two nisbas, al-Muẓaffarī and al-Taqawī,
however derived from the name of his master and/or manumitter, in this
case, al-Muẓaffar Taqī l-Dīn ʿUmar (d. 587/1191), the nephew of Saladin and
ruler of Ḥamā. Once the mamlūks become the Mamlūks, i.e. after Baybars al-
Bunduqdārī assumed the sultanate in 658/1260, the unique situation of freed
slaves owning and subsequently manumitting other slaves became a staple of
Mamlūk recruitment. For example, Ḥusām al-Dīn Lāǧīn al-Aydamirī was so
named because his patron was in turn a manumitted mamlūk amīr named
Aydamir.73 If the most common name sequence for al-Ǧildakī is correct, i.e.
Aydamir b. ʿAlī b. Aydamir, then we ought to suspect that he was the son of
a walad al-nās (grandson of a mamlūk) and whose grandfather or father had
served a master named Ǧildak.
Thus, the nisba al-Ǧildakī for a mamlūk means that he was purchased and/
or manumitted by a master whose name was Ǧildak. Ǧildak is an uncommon
but attested Turkic74 name, especially among mamlūk amīrs. The following
list is not in any way exhaustive, but it sufficiently demonstrates the likelihood
that the Mamlūk milieu produced men with the nisba al-Ǧildakī, not to men-
tion the first name Aydamir.
Ǧaldak. Al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi-l-Wafayāt, ed. Šukrī Fayṣal, Wiesbaden, Franz Steiner Verlag,
1981, XI, p. 174; eds Aḥmad al-Arnāʾūṭ and Turkī Muṣṭafā, Beirut, Dār iḥyāʾ al-turāṯ al-ʿarabī,
2000, XI, p. 134-135. The translator of Ibn Ḫallikān’s earlier Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ
abnāʾ al-zamān, William MacGuckin de Slane, however, has Ǧildak. Ibn Ḫallikān, Ibn
Khallikan’s Biographical Dictionary, transl. William MacGuckin de Slane, Paris, Oriental
Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, 1843, I, p. 147-148.
73 Amalia Levanoni, A Turning Point in Mamluk History: The Third Reign of al-Nāṣir
Muḥammad ibn Qalāwūn (1310-1341), Leiden-New York, E.J. Brill (“Islamic history and civi-
lization”, 10), 1995, p. 23.
74 I have not been able to find the name in pre-modern Turkic lexica, e.g. Gerard Clauson,
An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish, Oxford, Clarendon Press,
1972 or László Rásonyi and Imre Baski, Onomasticon Turcicum: Turkic Personal Names,
Bloomington, Indiana University Denis Sinor Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 2007.
Thus, whether the name Ǧildak is of unimpeachable Turkic origin could be disputed, and
indeed there were some Mamlūks of non-Turkish origin in the Baḥrī period. However,
neither the linguistic origin of the name Ǧildak, nor the precise ethnic background of its
bearers, is central to my argument here.
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

552 Harris
a) Šuǧāʿ al-Dīn Abū Manṣūr Ǧildak b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Muẓaffarī l-Taqawī

(d. 628/1231), amīr, governor of Damietta and Alexandria,75 father of (b)
and (c);
b) ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn [b. ?] Ǧildak76 = [?] ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Šuǧāʿ al-Dīn
Abī l-Manṣūr Ǧildak (d. 636/1239), amīr, governor of Damietta,77 son of
(a), brother of (c);
c) Asad al-Dīn b. Šuǧāʿ al-Dīn Ǧildak, appointed wālī l-ṣināʿa in the year
637/1239,78 son of (a), brother of (b);
d) Ǧamāl al-Dīn Abū l-Fatḥ Mūsā b. Yaġmūr […] b. Ǧildak (b. 599/1202-1203;
d. 663/1265), amīr, governor,79 father of (e), cousin of (f);
75 Al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab, eds Naǧīb Muṣṭafā Fawwāz and Ḥikmat Kišlī
Fawwāz, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2004, XXIX, p. 110 (voweled Ǧaldak); Abū l-Fidāʾ,
al-Muḫtaṣar fī aḫbār al-bašar, Cairo, al-Maṭbaʿa l-ḥusayniyya l-miṣriyya, 1325/1907, III,
p. 130; al-Ṣafadī, Wāfī bi-l-Wafayāt, XI, p. 134-135, no 2900; Ibn al-ʿImād, Šaḏarāt al-ḏahab
fī aḫbār man ḏahab, eds ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Arnāʾūṭ and Maḥmūd al-Arnāʾūṭ, Damascus-
Beirut, Dār Ibn Kaṯīr, 1991, VII, p. 223-224 (voweled Ǧaldak); al-Ḏahabī, Ta⁠ʾrīḫ al-islām,
XLV, p. 311-312, no 453. Following the Frankish surrender, al-Malik al-Kāmil appointed Šuǧāʿ
al-Dīn governor of Damietta in 618/1221. Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarriǧ al-Kurūb fī Aḫbār Banī Ayyūb,
eds Ḥasanayn Muḥammad Rabīʿ and Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ ʿĀšūr, Cairo, Maṭbaʿat ǧāmiʿat
al-Qāhira, 1970 [?], IV, p. 100. Francesco Gabrieli, in his translation of the passage, con-
flated Šuǧāʿ al-Dīn with two other amīrs named ʿIzz al-Dīn Ǧurdīk al-Nūrī and Muẓaffar
al-Dīn b. Ǧurdīk, although he may have simply transmitted the conflation already present
in his manuscript source, MS Paris, BNF, Arabe 1702. Francesco Gabrieli, Arab Historians
of the Crusades, transl. E.J. Costello, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984, p. 265.
Šuǧāʿ al-Dīn was also mentioned as a governor of Qūṣ. See Jean-Claude Garcin, Un Centre
musulman de la Haute-Égypte médiévale: Qūṣ, Cairo, Institut français d’archéologie orien-
tale du Caire, 1976, p. 147-148, n. 5.
76 Al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk li-maʿrifat duwal al-mulūk, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭā, Beirut,
Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1997, I, p. 320.
77 Al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab, XXIX, p. 164; al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk, I, p. 346. See also al-Maqrīzī,
A History of the Ayyūbid Sultans of Egypt, transl. Ronald Joseph Callender Broadhurst,
Boston, Twayne (“Library of classical Arabic literature”, 5), 1980, p. 180.
78 Al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab, XXIX, p. 180.
79 Al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk, I, p. 433; Ibn Taġrībirdī, al-Nuǧūm al-zāhira fī mulūk Miṣr wa-l-
Qāhira, ed. Muḥammad Ḥusayn Šams al-Dīn, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1992, VII,
p. 191; id., al-Manhal al-ṣāfī wa-l-mustawfī baʿda l-Wāfī, ed. Muḥammad M. Amīn, Cairo,
Dār al-kutub wa-l-waṯāʾiq al-qawmiyya, 2005, XI, p. 312-314 (voweled Ǧaldak); al-Maqqarī,
Nafḥ al-ṭīb min ġuṣn al-Andalus al-raṭīb, ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās, Beirut, Dār Ṣādir, 1988, II,
p. 112; al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab, XXX, p. 81; al-Yūnīnī, Ḏayl Mirʾāt al-zamān, Hyderabad,
Maṭbaʿat maǧlis dāʾirat al-maʿārif al-ʿuṯmāniyya, 1955, II, p. 230; al-ʿAynī, ʿIqd al-ǧumān
fī ta⁠ʾrīḫ ahl al-zamān, ed. Muḥammad M. Amīn, Cairo, Dār al-kutub wa-l-waṯāʾiq al-
qawmiyya, 2010, I, p. 412-413. See additional sources cited in Garcin, Centre musulman
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

e) Šihāb al-Dīn Abū l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Mūsā b. Yaġmūr […] b. Ǧildak

(d. 673/1274), amīr, governor of al-Ġarbiyya,80 son of (d);
f) Sayf al-Dīn Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿUmar b. Qizil […] b. Ǧildak al-Turkmānī
l-Yārūqī l-Mušidd (b. 602/1206 Cairo; d. 656/1258 Damascus), amīr,81 cou
sin of (d);
g) Šihāb al-Dīn Abū l-Ǧūd Ǧildak b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Fāʾizī l-Rūmī (d. 664/1266),
amīr;82
h) Ǧildak al-Šihābī, who aroused the ire of Sulṭān al-ʿĀdil in the year
575/1179-1180;83
i) ʿIzz al-Dīn Ǧildak b. Ṭuġril, governor of Turbat Ǧām for the Ḫwārizm Šāh
ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad II (r. 596/1200-617/1220), involved with the over-
throw of Ibn Ḫarmīl of Herat in the year 604/1207-1208;84
j) Falak al-Dīn Abū Manṣūr Sulaymān b. Šarwa / Sarwa / Masrūr b. Ǧildak
(d. 599/1202), Sulṭān al-ʿĀdil’s half-brother;85
de la Haute-Égypte médiévale, p. 242, n. 1. His literary patronage was well-known. He

was a source for Ibn Duqmāq’s Kitāb al-Intiṣār, and Ibn Saʿīd al-Maġribī dedicated his
al-Muġrib fī ḥulā l-Maġrib to this Ǧamāl al-Dīn. See Ibn Duqmāq, Kitāb al-Intiṣār li-wāsiṭat
ʿaqd al-amṣār, ed. Karl Vollers, Beirut, al-Maktab al-tiǧārī, [1893], pt. 2, p. 125. Robert
Irwin inexplicably names him “Jamāl al-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Yaghmūr.” Robert Irwin, “Mamluk
Literature,” Mamlūk Studies Review, 7 (2003), p. 10.
80 Ramazan Şeşen, Sultan Baybars ve Devri (1260-1277), Istanbul, ISAR, 2009, p. 299; al-Yūnīnī,
Ḏayl Mirʾāt, III, p. 91; Ibn Taġrībirdī, al-Nuǧūm, VII, p. 212-213 (voweled Ǧaldak); al-Ḏahabī,
Ta⁠ʾrīḫ al-islām, L, p. 123-124, no 101; al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi-l-Wafayāt, VIII, p. 132-133, no 1291;
al-ʿAynī, ʿIqd al-ǧumān, II, p. 137.
81 Al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi-l-Wafayāt, XXI, p. 234, no 233; al-Kutubī, Fawāt al-Wafayāt wa-ḏayl
ʿalayhā, ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās, Beirut, Dār Ṣādir, 1974, III, p. 51-56; al-ʿAynī, ʿIqd al-ǧumān, I,
p. 161-162, 197; Ibn Duqmāq, Nuzhat al-anām fī ta⁠ʾrīḫ al-islām, Beirut, al-Maktaba l-ʿaṣriyya,
1999, p. 244-245, with examples of his poetry. See also Clément Huart, History of Arabic
Literature, p. 121.
82 Al-Yūnīnī, Ḏayl Mirʾāt, II, p. 354; al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi-l-Wafayāt, XI, p. 135, no 2901; al-ʿAynī,
ʿIqd al-ǧumān, I, p. 431-432.
83 Al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk, I, p. 180.
84 Ibn al-Aṯīr, Kāmil fī l-taʾrīḫ, ed. Muḥammad Yūsuf al-Daqqāq, Beirut, Dār al-kutub
al-ʿilmiyya, 2003, X, p. 333-335; al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab, XXVII, p. 153; see also Ibn
al-Aṯīr, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the Crusading Period from al-Kamil fi’l-Ta⁠ʾrikh,
transl. Donald Sydney Richards, Burlington, Ashgate, 2010, III [The Years 589-629/1193-1231:
The Ayyubids after Saladin and the Mongol Menace], p. 128, where he vowels the name
“Jaldik,” and Jürgen Paul, “The Histories of Herat,” Iranian Studies, 33 (2000), p. 114, where
the name is given as “Jaldak b. Toghril.”
85 Al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab, XXIX, p. 12; al-Ḏahabī, Ta⁠ʾrīḫ al-islām, XLII, p. 30 (voweled
Ǧaldak); Ibn Kaṯīr, al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya, ed. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī, Cairo,
Dār Hiǧr li-l-ṭibāʿa wa-l-našr wa-l-tawzīʿ, 1998, XVI, p. 693. R. Stephen Humphreys names
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

554 Harris
k) Artuq b. Ǧildak b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Muqtafawī (d. 606/1210), constable of

Baghdad;86
l) Abū Bakr b. al-ḥāǧǧī Ǧildak al-Mawṣilī (fl. 622/1225) and ʿUmar b. al-ḥāǧǧī
Ǧildak al-Mawṣilī (fl. 623/1226), engravers/metal artisans, presumed to be
brothers;87
m) Abū ʿAmr ʿUṭmān b. Abī Bakr b. Ǧildak al-Mawṣilī (fl. 579/1183),88 hadith
transmitter, cannot be the son of (l);89
n) Sayf al-Dīn Abū Bakr b. Ǧildak, amīr,90 killed during Ayyūbid internecine
warfare in 635/1237 in Damascus.
Of the preceding names, six were Egyptian mamlūks, and two, (a) and (g),
could have had a freedman (ʿatīq) who took the nisba al-Ǧildakī. There are a
few further attestations of the nisba al-Ǧildakī, in addition to our alchemist:
him “Abu Mansur Sulayman b. Sharwa b. Khaldak.” R. Stephen Humphreys, From Saladin
to the Mongols: The Ayyubids in Damascus, 1193-1260, Albany, State University of New York
Press, 1977, p. 431, n. 38.
86 Al-Ḏahabī, Ta⁠ʾrīḫ al-islām, XLIII, p. 199, no 273; al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi-l-Wafayāt, VIII, p. 219,
no 1419.
87 The Boston Museum of Fine Arts holds a candlestick made by Abū Bakr b. Ǧildak, and the
New York Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a ewer made by ʿUmar b. Ǧildak. See Julian
Raby, “The Principle of Parsimony and the Problem of the ‘Mosul School of Metalwork’,”
in Metalwork and Material Culture in the Islamic World: Art, Craft, and Text, eds Venetia
Porter and Mariam Rosser-Owen, London-New York, I.B. Tauris, 2012, p. 11-85, there vow-
eled “Ibn Jaldak”, and David Storm Rice, “Inlaid Brasses from the Workshop of Aḥmad
al-Dhakī al-Mawṣilī,” Ars Orientalis, 2 (1957), p. 317, where Rice conflates Abū Bakr and
ʿUmar together.
88 ʿIzz al-Dīn b. al-Aṯīr, Usd al-ġāba fī maʿrifat al-ṣaḥāba, eds ʿAlī Muḥammad Muʿawwaḍ and
ʿĀdil Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Mawǧūd, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1994, VI, p. 327; IV, p. 90.
89 He ought to be identified with the copyist of a portion of a maǧmūʿa preserved in the
Chester Beatty Library; see Arberry, A Handlist of the Arabic Manuscripts, Chester Beatty
Library, IV, p. 32, no 3849. The short collection of hadiths is dated 579/1183 in Damascus.
90 See the Aḫbār al-Ayyūbīyīn by Ǧirǧis b. al-ʿAmīd al-Makīn. Claude Cahen, “La ‘Chronique
des Ayyoubides’ d’Al-Makīn b. al-ʿAmīd,” Bulletin d’Études Orientales, 15 (1955-1957), p. 143.
See also Ǧirǧis b. al-ʿAmīd al-Makīn, Chronique des Ayyoubides, transl. Anne-Marie Eddé
and Françoise Micheau, Paris, Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (“Documents
relatifs à l’histoire des croisades”, 16), 1994, p. 53.
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

o) a certain al-Ḥusām [= Ḥusām al-Dīn] al-Ǧildakī,91 who founded a public

bath (ḥammām) in the Cairene neighborhood of al-ʿAdawiyya, where it
borders the Zuwayla quarter;
p) Sayf al-Dīn al-Ǧildakī,92 an amīr dispatched as a diplomatic messenger
by Sulṭān Baybars to the Castilian Alfonso X in the year 674/1276;
and, most importantly,
q) ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Ǧildakī, amīr,93 mentioned in a list of mamlūks in the ser-

vice of the new sultan Sayf al-Dīn Qalāwūn (r. 678/1279-689/1290) in the
year 678/1279.
It is probable, though by no means assured, that this last amīr’s name had been
Aydamir, given his laqab, although Aybak would have been just as likely. Could
this amīr of Qalāwūn’s be the alchemist al-Ǧildakī’s grandfather? It is chrono-
logically possible, but such a suggestion must remain purely speculative with-
out further evidence. However, even without positively identifying any of
al-Ǧildakī’s relations, the conjecture that al-Ǧildakī came from a walad al-nās
background in the Mamlūk domains best fits all of the available evidence.94
Conclusion
More complete biographical and historical data about the life of al-Ǧildakī is
the first crucial enterprise in placing this prolific author in his appropriate spa-
cio-temporal milieu. Given the number and mass of his works, it is remarkable
that neither al-Ǧildakī, nor virtually any of his fellow alchemists, warranted
inclusion in the biographical sources of the Mamlūk period. Thus, it is only
through a careful examination of the minutiae of al-Ǧildakī’s surviving works
themselves that the finer points of his name, birthdate, and natal location
91 Al-Maqrīzī, al-Mawāʿiẓ wa-l-iʿtibār bi-ḏikr al-ḫiṭaṭ wa-l-āṯār, Cairo, Maktabat al-ṯaqāfa
l-dīniyya, 1987, II, p. 16.
92 Al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab, XXX, p. 142.
93 Al-ʿAynī, ʿIqd al-ǧumān, I, p. 227.
94 Incidentally, it is not proven that the village of Ǧaldak, mentioned in Eʿtemād al-Salṭāne’s
gazeteer, even existed in the 8th/14th century. A century earlier, the geographer Yāqūt
al-Ḥamawī (d. 626/1229) had no knowledge of such a place. Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī, Jacut’s
geographisches Wörterbuch, ed. Ferdinand Wüstenfeld, Leipzig, F.A. Brockhaus, 1867, II,
p. 99-100.
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

556 Harris
become increasingly evident when set against a Mamlūk background. The

evidence presented above seeks to demonstrate that, contrary to the repeated
assertions in earlier scholarship, al-Ǧildakī’s life likely straddled the majority
of the 8th/14th century, as opposed to only the first half of the century. More
importantly however, al-Ǧildakī was most likely an Egyptian-born descen-
dant of the (largely) Turkic Mamlūk class. The corrective action of this article,
even in its seemingly small scope, is intended to lay a foundation upon which
more pointed and interesting questions may guide future scholarship about
al-Ǧildakī, his craft, his æuvre, and his compatriots.
Arabica 64 (2017) 531-556

Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608
brill.com/arab
Reading the Stars at the Ottoman Court: Bāyezīd II

(r. 886/1481-918/1512) and His Celestial Interests
Ahmet Tunç Şen

Columbia University
[email protected]
Abstract
This study seeks to determine the extent of the patronage of the science of the stars
(ʿilm al-nuǧūm) at the court of the eighth Ottoman sultan Bāyezīd II (r. 886/1481-
918/1512). Throughout the medieval and early modern Islamicate world munaǧǧims
(astronomer-astrologers) offered rulers their expertise in calculating heavenly con-
figurations and interpreting them with a view to predicting future events; here the
Ottoman polity is no exception. In the case of Bāyezīd II, however, the sheer number
of munaǧǧims employed and texts and instruments commissioned by or dedicated to
the sultan unequivocally singles him out and makes it possible to further argue that
his deliberate attempt to personally study and cultivate the science of the stars was
inextricably related to the broader political, ideological, and cultural agendas at the
time. The first part of the article provides statistical evidence on the exceptional na-
ture of Bāyezīd’s patronization of the science of the stars based upon a number of
archival documents, taqwīms (annual almanac-prognostications) and related texts
presented to the sultan. Here a number of key munaǧǧims active at his court will also
* The research for this article, based on my dissertation chapter, was made possible by the
generous grants from the American Research Institute in Turkey and the Social Science
Research Council. I would like to thank Zeynep Çelik Atbaş from the Topkapı Palace Museum
Library, Buket Özdemir from the Archives of the Topkapı Palace Museum, Tahsin Tahaoǧlu
from the Boǧaziçi University Kandilli University Library, and the staff of the Süleymaniye
Library for making manuscripts and archival documents available. A special thanks to Bill
Walsh for proofreading the text and sharing with me his valuable suggestions. I am also
thankful to Christopher Markiewicz, Cornell H. Fleischer, Eva Orthmann, Matthew Melvin-
Koushki, Mohamad Ballan, and the anonymous referees for their insightful comments on
different versions of this study. Needless to say, all shortcomings and errors remain my sole
responsibility.

558 Şen
be introduced. The second part focuses upon Bāyezīd’s own learned interests and in-
tellectual aspirations, and examine the celestial inquiries of the sultan in light of a few
curious archival reports, textual evidence from surviving manuscripts, and testimonies
of his contemporaries.
Keywords
Ottomans, Bāyezīd II, science, astronomy, astrology, alchemy, ʿilm al-nuǧūm,

munaǧǧim, taqwīm, zīǧ
Résumé
Cette étude vise à apprécier l’étendue du mécénat sur la science des étoiles (ʿilm
al-nuǧūm) à la cour du huitième sultan ottoman Bāyezīd II (r. 886/1481-918/1512).
Dans tout le monde islamique médiéval et prémoderne, les munaǧǧims (astronomes-
astrologues) offrirent aux gouvernants leur expertise pour calculer les configurations
célestes et les interpréter en vue de prédire les événements futurs. De ce point de vue,
la politique ottomane ne fait pas exception. Cependant, dans le cas de Bāyezīd II, le
nombre incroyable de munaǧǧims employés, de textes et d’instruments commandés
par ou dédicacé pour le sultan le distinguent clairement et permettent d’avancer que
sa tentative délibérée d’étudier personnellement et de cultiver la science des étoiles
était inextricablement liée à un programme politique, idéologique et culturel plus
large à l’époque. La première partie de l’article donne les preuves statistiques de la na-
ture exceptionnelle du mécénat de Bāyezīd sur la science des étoiles en s’appuyant sur
un certain nombre de documents d’archives, de taqwīms (almanachs-prognostics an-
nuels) et de textes apparentés présentés au sultan. Un certain nombre de munaǧǧims
importants actifs à sa cour y seront également présentés. La deuxième partie se
concentre sur les propres intérêts savants et les aspirations intellectuelles de Bāyezīd
et examine les aspirations célestes du sultan à la lumière de quelques curieux rapports
d’archives, de preuves textuelles provenant de manuscrits et de témoignages de ses
contemporains.
Mots clefs
Ottomans, Bāyezīd II, science, astronomie, astrologie, alchimie, ʿilm al-nuǧūm,

munaǧǧim, taqwīm, zīǧ
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

Reading the Stars at the Ottoman Court 559
Introduction
In šawwāl 894/September 1489, a certain Šukr Allāh Širwānī (d. after 910/1504-
1505) presented the Ottoman sultan Bāyezīd II a compendium of sciences
entitled Riyāḍ al-qulūb, in which he cataloged eight disciplines ranging from
Sufism and ʿilm al-hayʾa (lit. the science of the configuration of the heavens)
to physiognomy and ʿilm al-nuǧūm (lit. the science of the stars).1 In the sec-
tion where he discusses the true meaning and benefit of ʿilm al-nuǧūm, Širwānī
writes:
There is no discipline, save the religious sciences, nobler than ʿilm al-
nuǧūm […]. Rulers and sultans have need of it because incidents like
earthquake, flood, war, famine, plague, and others occur in the sublunary
world due to the influence of the conjunctions, eclipses, and various pla
netary aspects. If one is knowledgeable in this science and closely tracks
these celestial phenomena, one may hope to be secure from all harm.2
Širwānī remained a presence at Bāyezīd’s court until as late as 910/1504-1505.

In addition to his encyclopedic work, he also presented the sultan an astro-
labe of his own original construction.3 In this regard it is no surprise to find
Širwānī insisting on the virtues of the science of the stars in his compendium.
However, Širwānī was not the only figure at the time who saw ʿilm al-nuǧūm as
1 Although Šukr Allāh Širwānī is usually considered to be one of the physicians at the court
of Meḥmed II (r. 848/1444-850/1446, 855/1451-886/1481), the author of this text would seem
to be another Šukrullāh from Širwān. First of all, the author does not include medicine in
his compendium; it is quite unprecedented for an author not to mention his own craft.
Secondly, Ṭāšköprüzāde (d. 968/1561) says in his biographical dictionary that the physician
Šukr Allāh Širwānī who came to the Ottoman lands at the time of Murād II (r. 824/1421-
848/1444, 850/1446-855/1451) passed away during the reign of Meḥmed II, long before Riyāḍ
al-qulūb was composed. See Ṭāšköprüzāde, al-Šaqāʾiq al-nuʿmāniyya fī ʿulamāʾ al-dawlat
al-ʿuṯmāniyya, Beirut, Dār al-kitāb al-ʿarabī, 1395/1975, p. 135.
2 M S Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Ayasofya, 4024, f. 62b: baʿd az ʿulūm-i dīnī hīč ʿilm aʿlā az ʿilm-i
nuǧūm nīst […] wa-muḥtāǧ ilayhi mulūk wa-salāṭin-ast čūn bi-wāsiṭa-i ta‌ ʾṯīr-i qirānāt
wa-kusūfāt wa-sāʾir-i ḥālāt-i kawākib dar ʿālam-i kawn wa-faṣād waqāyiʿ wa-zalāzil wa-ṭūfānāt
wa-muḥārabāt wa-qaḥṭ wa-wabā wa-amṯāl-i ān wāqiʿ mī-šawad. Agar kasī īn ʿilm rā dānad
wa-ān ḥālāt-rā dar yābad wa-riʿāyat nimāyad umīd ki az āfāt sālim mānad.
3 David King, “Two Astrolabes for the Ottoman Sultan Bayezit II,” in Essays in Honour of
Ekmeleddin İhsanoǧlu, ed. Mustafa Kaçar and Zeynep Durukal Abuhusayn, Istanbul, Ircica
(“Studies and sources on the history of Islamic civilisation series”, 13), 2006, I, p. 439-459.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

560 Şen
a noble inquiry. Many contemporary and near-contemporary authors of zīǧs

(astronomical handbooks of tables), taqwīms (annual almanac-prognostica-
tions), and treatises on various astronomical instruments are at pains to high-
light this point in their texts.
There is an established conviction in the current historiography of science
in the Islamic context, exemplified especially in the works of George Saliba,
that from the third/ninth century onwards a clear distinction emerged within
the discipline of ʿilm al-nuǧūm, ushering in the rise of the ʿilm al-hayʾa (which
is often identified as “astronomy” proper) and ʿilm aḥkām al-nuǧūm (which
means the science of the decrees of the stars and is established as “astrology”).4
According to this interpretation, the separation between the two in terms of
both terminology and subject matter was consolidated and principally recog-
nized by later generations of Muslim scholars who almost always appreciated
the former while frowning upon the latter. However, as the work of Širwānī
and many other treatises that I will attempt to touch upon below indicate, the
boundaries among disciplines, particularly among the branches that deal with
the practical application of the celestial knowledge, were not as strict as this
model supposes, at least in works from the late-medieval and early-modern
Turko-Persian cultural zone.5 For instance, many examples of the zīǧ literature
are now usually considered to have served purely astronomical and mathe
matical purposes as state-of-the art mathematical and astronomical works of
their time.6 However, most of the extant zīǧs from the period, such as the Zīǧ-i
Īlḫānī (the Ilkhanid tables), prepared as part of the incomplete observational
4 George Saliba, “Astronomy and Astrology in Medieval Arabic Thought,” in Les doctrines de
la science de l’antiquité à l’âge classique, ed. Roshdi Rashed and Joël Biard, Leuven, Peeters
(“Ancient and classical sciences and philosophy”), 1999, p. 131-164; id., “Islamic Astronomy
in Context: Attacks on Astrology and the Rise of the Hayʾa Tradition,” Bulletin of the Royal
Institute for Inter-Faith Studies, 4/1 (2002), p. 25-46.
5 For a supporting critique see Matthew Melvin-Koushki, “Powers of One: The
Mathematicalization of the Occult Sciences in the High Persianate Tradition,” Intellectual
History of the Islamicate World, 5/1 (2017), p. 127-199, esp. p. 179-184.
6 Edward S. Kennedy, “A Survey of Islamic Astronomical Tables,” Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society, 46/2 (1956), p. 123-177; David A. King and Julio Samsó (with a contribu-
tion by Bernard R. Goldstein), “Astronomical Handbooks and Tables from the Islamic World
(750-1900): An Interim Report,” Suhayl, 2 (2001), p. 9-105. The authors already underline that
the zīǧs could be primarily used to cast horoscopes but also add “there is precious little evi-
dence how these works were used in practice.” For the mathematical properties of ziǧs also
see Benno van Dalen’s collection of articles: Benno van Dalen, Islamic Astronomical Tables:
Mathematical Analysis and Historical Investigation, Farnham-Burlington, Ashgate Variorum
(“Collected studies series”, 1040), 2013.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

program at the Maragha Observatory, or the Zīǧ-i Uluġ Beg (Uluġ Beg’s Tables),
produced at the Samarkand Observatory, include large sections and tables es-
sential for astrological calculations.7 In fact, the zīǧ was an indispensable item
in a munaǧǧim’s paraphernalia as it equipped the munaǧǧim with the required
data to calculate accurately the celestial configuration at a certain moment be-
fore extrapolating astrological interpretations.8 For example, in his Zīǧ-i Īlḫānī
Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274), upon introducing his patrons and peers who
helped him establish the Maragha Observatory and run the observational pro-
gram, straightforwardly indicates the importance of his zīǧ for astrological
applications, saying that it is his hope that munaǧǧims will benefit from his cal-
culations when composing their yearly horoscopes and nativities. Al-Ṭūsī also
highlights the importance of determining the stellar positions with greater ac-
curacy in order to have foreknowledge about plagues, battles, or the length
of any individual’s life.9 In addition to zīǧs, many books on astronomical in-
struments, especially on astrolabes—which were primarily employed, among
other purposes, as a computing device to map out the celestial configuration at
a particular time for a given locality—also have individual chapters on how to
determine the ascendant (ṭāliʿ) and other astrological houses, information cru-
cial for casting horoscopes or preparing annual astrological predictions.10 It is
therefore important that we focus more upon how certain types of knowledge
7 Especially the fourth chapter of the Zīǧ-i Uluġ Beg (Maqāla-i čahārum dar bāqī-i aʿmāl-i
nuǧūmī) is dedicated entirely to the techniques used in horoscopic astrology, including
namūdārāt, firdārāt, or tasyīrāt. In fact, the tables given in the second chapter (Maqāla-i
duwum dar maʿrifat-i awqāt wa-ṭāliʿ-i har waqt) as well as the third one (Maqāla-i siwum
dar maʿrifat-i rawish-i sitāragān wa-mawāḍiʿ-i īšān dar ṭūl wa-ʿarḍ wa-tawābiʿ-i ān) were
also utilized, inter alia, for astrological purposes. See Uluǧ Bey’in Astronomi Cetvelleri =
Zîc-i Uluǧ Bey, ed. Mustafa Kaçar and Atilla Bir, Ankara, Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlıǧı, 2012.
8 Instead of other alternative terminology including “astronomer/astrologer,” or “hea
venly practitioner” as suggested by Robert Westman in his The Copernican Question:
Prognostication, Skepticism, and Celestial Order (Berkeley, University of California Press,
2011), I prefer the transliterated term munaǧǧim as it serves well to establish historical
accuracy and allude to the fluid boundaries between “astronomical” and “astrological”
activities in the premodern Islamicate context. For the zīǧ literature in the Islamicate
context, in addition to the studies cited in fn. 5 also see François C. De Blois, David A. King
and Julio Samso, “Zīd̲ j,̲ ” EI2.
9 Given that al-Ṭūsī’s Zīǧ-i Īlḫānī was one of the most popular and quoted sources in the late
medieval and early modern Islamicate astronomical/astrological literature, it is a great
pity that a critical edition has yet to be produced. My quotations are from a copy at the
Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Or. 24, f. 3a-3b.
10 For the importance of the calculation of ṭāliʿ/horoscopus (ascendant) for astrological pre-
dictions see David King and Toufic Fahd, “al-Ṭāliʿ,” EI2.
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562 Şen
were put into use through different genres by different agents in different his-
torical contexts than assuming a definitive, timeless separation between these
closely interrelated disciplines.
Along with his presentation of ʿilm al-nuǧūm as a noble science for the
benefit of the royal audience, Širwānī’s emphasis on rulers as the primary
beneficiary of celestial knowledge is also worth noting. This leads us to the
question of the role of the royal court in the cultivation of the science of the
stars as well as the patronage of the munaǧǧims. The appeal to the expertise
of munaǧǧims is indeed one of the prevailing themes of court life through-
out the late medieval and early modern era in the entire Eurasian landmass.
Despite the rich literature on the political uses of astrology and its cultural
and intellectual significance in the Renaissance and early modern Eurasian
courts, the patronage of munaǧǧims and the cultivation of astrology in pre-
modern Islamicate court culture have not been systematically explored.11 It is
11 The relevant literature in the European historiography is vast; the following works I
find particularly useful: Monica Azzolini, The Duke and the Stars: Astrology and Politics
in Renaissance Milan, Cambridge-London, Harvard University Press (“I Tatti studies in
Italian Renaissance history”), 2013; Darin Hayton, Crown and the Cosmos: Astrology and
the Politics of Maximilian I, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015. Islamic studies
still lack detailed case studies of the courtly patronage of astrology, yet the following stu
dies are worth highlighting: for the early Abbasid case see Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought,
Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ʿAbbāsid
Society (2nd-4th/8th-10th Centuries), London-New York, Routledge, 1998; Antoine Borrut,
“Court Astrologers and Historical Writing in Early Abbasid Baghdad: An Appraisal,” in The
Place to Go: Contexts of Learning in Baghdād, 750-1000 C.E., eds Jens Scheiner and Damien
Janos, Princeton, The Darwin Press (“Studies in late antiquity and early Islam,” 26), 2014,
p. 455-501. Charles Burnett has briefly remarked upon the role of al-Qabīṣī, one of the noted
munaǧǧims of the third/tenth century, at the court of Sayf al-Dawla, the Hamdanid emir
of Aleppo. See his “Al-Qabīṣī’s Introduction to Astrology: From Courtly Entertainment
to University Textbook”, in Studies in the History of Culture and Science: A Tribute to Gad
Freudenthal, ed. Resianne Fontaine, Ruth Glasner, Reimund Leicht and Giuseppe Veltri,
Leiden-Boston, Brill (“Studies in Jewish history and culture”, 30), 2011, p. 43-69. Petra
Schmidl’s study on the Rasulid sultan al-Ašraf ʿUmar is a welcome contribution to the
patronage of the study of heavens at the court of a Muslim ruler, one deeply interested in
learning the science personally. See her “Magic and Medicine in a 13th-century Treatise
on the Science of the Stars: The Kitāb al-Tabṣira fī ʿilm al-nujūm of the Rasulid Sultan al-
Ashraf ʿUmar,” in Herbal Medicine in Yemen. Traditional Knowledge and Practice, and Their
Value for Today’s World, eds Ingrid Hehmeyer and Hannelore Schönig, Leiden-Boston, Brill
(“Islamic history and civilization”, 96), 2012, p. 43-68. In the Andalusian context, in addition
to the works of Julio Samsó, see especially Miquel Forcada’s prosopographical study on
the astrologers at ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II’s court: “Investigating the Sources of Prosopography:
The Case of the Astrologers of ʿAbd al-Raḥman II,” Journal of Medieval Prosopography, 23
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

true that the major astrological texts of Abū Maʿšar (d. ca 272/886), Māšāʾallāh
(d. ca 200/815-816), al-Qabīṣī (d. 356/967), or Kūšyār b. Labbān (d. 420/1029)
have been edited, annotated, and translated into English or Latin. Yet the
majority of the current scholarly treatment of astrology in Islamic history is
slanted more towards the textual and philological examination of “Arabic” as-
trological “textbooks” produced in the so-called “classical” period of Islamic
history than the historical-cultural and contextual analysis of its deployment
in specific courtly contexts. Hence the study of the astrologically significant
materials other than textbooks produced and circulated in the post-classical
Islamicate world in languages besides Arabic remains a major desideratum.
(2002), p. 73-100. Sonja Brentjes has published important survey studies on the courtly
patronage of the mathematical and ancient sciences in the Islamicate culture, though
she has not particularly examined astrology and the munaǧǧims. The Timurid Mīrzā
Iskandar b. ʿUmar-Šayḫ (d. 818/1415) has received remarkable attention especially from
art historians, thanks to his surviving illustrated horoscope, but the astronomical/astro-
logical activities at his court have yet to be thoroughly examined. For a brief discussion on
Mīrzā Iskandar’s interest in astral sciences see Evrim Binbaş, “Timurid Experimentation
with Eschatological Absolutism: Mīrzā Iskandar, Shāh Niʿmatullāh Walī, and Sayyid Sharīf
Jurjānī in 815/1412,” in Unity in Diversity: Mysticism, Messianism and the Construction of
Religious Authority in Islam, ed. Orkhan Mir-Kasimov, Leiden-Boston, Brill (“Islamic his-
tory and civilization”, 105), 2014, p. 277-306, esp. p. 290-293. Aydın Sayılı’s seminal work on
observatories in the Islamic history sketches the general contours of the late-medieval
and early-modern court culture, but as his primary concern was to demonstrate the scien-
tific achievements of the observatories, his discussion on the courtly patronage of astro
logy remains limited. See his The Observatory in Islam and Its Place in the General History
of the Observatory, Ankara, Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi (“Publications of the Turkish
Historical Society, series 7”, 38), 1960. Salim Aydüz’s work in Turkish on the institution of
the munaǧǧimbāšī (office of the chief court astrologer) in the Ottoman context was an
important contribution for providing a useful inventory of the court munaǧǧims through-
out the course of Ottoman history. However, the vast scope (sixteenth to twentieth cen-
tury) of his study inevitably led to omissions, including several important munaǧǧims
active at the late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Ottoman court. His insistence on
the term munaǧǧimbāšī is also not always historically accurate, especially for the period
prior to the mid-sixteenth century. Moreover, Aydüz unfortunately pays little attention to
the contents of the munaǧǧims’ original writings. See Salim Aydüz, “Osmanlı Devleti’nde
Müneccimbaşılık Müessesesi,” Belleten, 70/257 (2006), p. 167-264; based upon his MA the-
sis, Osmanlı Devleti’nde Müneccimbaşılık ve Müneccimbaşılar, Istanbul University, 1993.
The Mughal court has also attracted the attention of scholars, exemplified in the works of
Eva Orthmann. See especially her “Sonne, Mond und Sterne: Kosmologie und Astrologie
in der Inszenierung von Herrschaft unter Humayun,” in Die Grenzen der Welt: Arabica et
Iranica ad honorem Heinz Gaube, eds Lorenz Lorn, Eva Orthmann and Florian Schwarz,
Wiesbaden, Reichert, 2008, p. 297-306.
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564 Şen
It is beyond the purview of this article to discuss in depth the reasons for
the overall disinsterest of Islamicists in astrological matters and materials, but
it should be noted that the general reluctance in current historiography, espe-
cially in works on the history of science in the Islamicate world, is informed by
the implicit scholarly consensus that “astrological” practices are to be passed
over in silence as part of a strategy to avoid reinforcing Orientalist percep-
tions of the so-called “decline” of the rational sciences in the post-classical
Islamicate world.12
Although astrology and the munaǧǧims in the courtly environment have
not received due scholarly attention in especially the late medieval and early
modern Islamicate context, recent decades have witnessed a flourishing and
promising interest in the role of “occult philosophy” and its penetration of both
courtly circles and trans-regional scholarly networks, especially during the
ninth/fifteenth and the first half of the tenth/sixteenth centuries.13 This period
is sometimes defined as a “Messianic Age” whose intellectual outlook “com-
prehends in its various iterations everything from metaphysics, cosmogony
12 Robert Morrison’s work deserves special mention here for its substantial discussion on
the role of astrology in a late-medieval Islamic scholar’s overall intellectual quests. See
Robert G. Morrison, Islam and Science: The Intellectual Career of Nīẓām al-Dīn Nīsābūrī,
London-New York, Routledge (“Culture and civilization in the Middle East”), 2007, esp.
p. 63-77.
13 One of the pioneering works here is Jean Aubin, “Le mécénat timouride à Chiraz,”
Studia Islamica, 8 (1957), p. 71-88. The rest has been generated mostly within the last two
decades: Cornell H. Fleischer, “The Lawgiver as Messiah: The Making of the Imperial
Image in the Reign of Süleyman,” in Soliman le magnifique et son temps, ed. Gilles
Veinsten, Paris, La Documentation Française (“Rencontres de l’École du Louvre”), 1992,
p. 159-177; id., “Seer to the Sultan: Haydar-i Remmal and Sultan Süleyman,” in Cultural
Horizons: A Festschrift in Honor of Talat S. Halman, ed. Jayne L. Warner, New York, Syracuse
University Press, 2001, I, p. 290-300; id., “Ancient Wisdom and New Sciences: Prophecies
at the Ottoman Court in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries,” in Falnama: The
Book of Omens, eds Massumeh Farhad and Serpil Bağcı, London-Washington, Thames &
Hudson-Freer Gallery of Art, 2009, p. 231-245; Mohammad Masad, The Medieval Islamic
Apocalyptic Tradition: Divination, Prophecy and the End of Time in the 13th Century Eastern
Mediterranean, PhD dissertation, Washington University in St. Louis, 2008; Evrim Binbaş,
Intellectual Networks in Timurid Iran: Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī and the Islamicate Republic of
Letters, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (“Cambridge studies in Islamic civiliza-
tion”), 2016; Azfar Moin, The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam,
New York, Columbia University Press (“South Asia across the disciplines”), 2012; Matthew
Melvin-Koushki, The Quest for a Universal Science: The Occult Philosophy of Ṣāʾin al-Dīn
Turka Iṣfahānī (1369-1432) and Intellectual Millenarianism in Early Timurid Iran, PhD dis-
sertation, Yale University, 2012.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

and physics to numerology, astrology and magic.”14 Without a doubt Islamic

history is replete with periods of millenarian activity and heightened apoca-
lyptic expectations, but the geographical and temporal scope as well as the
impact of the ninth/fifteenth-and tenth/sixteenth-century chapters of this his-
tory are quite unprecedented.15 The unprecedented nature of the select period
derives mostly from the fact that this transitional era following the devolution
of the Abbasid and Chingizid models of rule and preceding the consolidation
of the territorial Muslim empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals pro-
vided a suitable political and cultural environment for messianic movements
to gain a stronger foothold.16 Moreover, the turn of the tenth century Hijra
by 900/1494-1495 also roused among certain social segments expectations
about the imminence of the end of the first Islamic millennium, and thus the
end times.
As Cornell Fleischer and Sanjay Subrahmanyam—two scholars who have
pioneered the study of the tenth/sixteenth-century florescence of messianic
thought in the wider Islamic world—convincingly suggest, these messianic
and millenarian themes circulated throughout a vast geography ranging from
the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, and penetrated both learned and
popular circles.17 This was a period in which “the future was as important as
the past […] and astrology as valuable as history.”18 This millenarian discourse
(or, as Azfar Moin has called it, “the science of the millennium”) encouraged
individuals to speculate with astrological and other divinatory methods to pre-
dict and even initiate the expected cosmic changes.19 Astrological theories and
14 Melvin-Koushki, The Quest, p. 5-6. See also Shahzad Bashir, Messianic Hopes and Mystical
Visions: The Nūrbakhshīya Between Medieval and Modern Islam, Columbia, University of
South Carolina Press (“Studies in comparative religion”), 2003.
15 For a useful historical survey of millennarian and apocalyptic activities see Imagining
the End: Visions of Apocalypse from the Ancient Middle East to Modern America, ed. Abbas
Amanat and Magnus Thorkell Bernhardsson, London-New York, I.B. Tauris, 2002.
16 For the importance of the ninth/fifteenth century in terms of political experimenta-
tion and ideological innovation see John E. Woods, The Aqquyunlu: Clan, Confederation,
Empire, Salt Lake City University of Utah Press, 1999, p. 1-10; İhsan Fazlıoǧlu, “Forcing the
Boundaries in Religion, Politics and Philosophy-Science in the Fifteenth-Century” (paper
presented at the conference Before the Revolutions: Religions, Sciences and Politics in the
Fifteenth Century, Berlin, January 13-15, 2005).
17 Fleischer, “Ancient Wisdom”; Sanjay Subrahmanyam, “Turning the Stones Over:
Sixteenth-Century Millenarianism from the Tagus to the Ganges,” Indian Economic and
Social History Review, 45/2 (2003), p. 129-161.
18 Azfar Moin, The Millennial Sovereign, p. 11.
19 Ibid., p. 9.
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566 Şen
techniques were indeed used as grounds for validating messianic claims and
justifying apocalyptic speculations.20 Muḥammad Nūrbaḫš (d. 869/1464), for
instance, referred explicitly to Ptolemy and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī in his claim to
be the messianic savior (Mahdī).21 The Ottoman sultan Süleymān (r. 926/1520-
974/1566) was feted, based upon astrological and/or lettrist principles, as the
ṣāḥib-qirān (prophesied world ruler, lit. ‘Lord of Conjunction’) and Mahdī
of the end times.22 The ceremonies held at the Mughal court of Humāyūn
(r. 937/1530-947/1540, 962/1555-963/1556) were organized based on astrologi-
cal and cosmological principles.23 However, with few exceptions, most of
these studies use as evidence rather non-technical texts such as popular nar-
ratives and hagiographies, chronicles and verse histories, or legal manuals,
into which astrological concepts, and indeed a broader occult discourse, easily
permeated.24 The actual writings of the munaǧǧims themselves and the nature
20 For the early Islamic use of astronomy in messianic claims see David Cook, “Messianism
and Astronomical Events during the First Four Centuries of Islam,” Revue du monde
musulman et de la Méditerranée, 91-94 (2001) [Mahdisme et Millenarisme en Islam, dir.
Mercedes Garcia-Arenal], p. 29-51. This seems also true for the early-modern European
religious realm. See the articles in Paola Zambelli (ed.), ‘Astrologi hallucinati’. Stars and the
End of the World in Luther’s Time, Berlin-New York, de Gruyter, 1986; id., “Fine del mondo
o inizio della propaganda?,” in Scienze, credenze, occulte, livelli di cultura: Convegno
Internazionale di Studi, Firenze, L.S. Olschki (“Atti di Convegni / Istituto nazionale di studi
sul Rinascimento”, 14), 1982, p. 291-368.
21 Shahzad Bashir, “The Risālat al-Hudā of Muḥammad Nūrbaḵš (d. 869/1464): Critical
Edition with Introduction,” Rivista degli Studi Orientali, 75/1-4 (2001), p. 87-137.
22 In addition to the works of Fleischer cited above see Barbara Flemming, “Sāḥib-ḳırān und
Mahdī: Türkische Endzeiterwartungen im ersten Jahrzehnt der Regierung Süleymāns,”
in Between the Danube and the Caucasus, ed. György Kara, Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó
(“Oriental sources on the history of the peoples of South-Eastern and Central Europe,” 4),
1987, p. 43-62. For the historical assessment of the emergence of the term ṣāḥib-qirān see
Naindeep Singh Chann, “Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction: Origins of the Sahib-Qiran,”
Iran and the Caucasus, 13 (2009), p. 93-110.
23 Eva Orthmann, “Court Culture and Cosmology in the Mughal Empire: Humāyūn and the
Foundations of the dīn-i ilāhī,” in Court Cultures in the Muslim World: Seventh to Nineteenth
Centuries, ed. Albrecht Fuess and Jan-Peter Hartung, London-New York, Routledge
(“SOAS-Routledge studies on the Middle East”, 13), 2011, p. 202-220.
24 Ali Anooshahr also raises a similar criticism in his review of Azfar Moin’s study. See his
review article published in The Medieval History Journal, 18/1 (2015), p. 183-191. It is another
contention of mine that despite the current promising status of the studies on the impact
of messianic claims couched in occult-scientific discourse, one major pitfall in the field is
the tendency to put everything in the same basket without paying the required attention
to the important epistemological nuances between different (occult-)scientific practices.
Especially when astrology is in question, the many different forms of its practice and
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

of their complex relationships with their royal patrons still await thorough
investigation to determine whether the astrological materials produced and
circulated at the time were really informed by, and did further promote, such
messianic and millenarian political ambitions.
The present study helps supply this significant lacuna by describing and
analyzing the range of the patronage of munaǧǧims at the court of Bāyezīd II
(r. 886/1481-918/1512). Bāyezīd II, of course, was certainly not the only Muslim
ruler, let alone Ottoman sultan, who showed a marked interest in the servi
ces of munaǧǧims. Nevertheless, in light of the sheer number of munaǧǧims
employed, texts and instruments commissioned, and the contemporary tes-
timonies as to the sultan’s genuine celestial interests, I argue that the courtly
cultivation of the science of the stars reached an unprecedented level under
Bāyezīd II. To a certain extent, this study applies to the Ottoman context the
question Jean Aubin asked almost five decades ago with specific reference to
the Timurid realm: what do we know about the intellectual character and as-
pirations of a prince?25 I propose that Bāyezīd’s documented interest in per-
sonally studying the science of the stars and patronizing a large number of
astral experts during a period of political uncertainty, fraught constitutional
issues, and a contested cultural environment was part and parcel of his efforts
to establish the Ottoman court, and his own royal person, as the paramount
political and intellectual center of its time.
The Complex Image of Bāyezīd II
The Ottoman historiography that traditionally ranks the reigns of the sul-
tans based on military achievements, territorial gains, and political stability
has largely downplayed the relatively long rule of Bāyezīd in contrast to the
“heroic” reigns of his father Meḥmed the Conqueror (r. 848/1444-850/1446,
855/1451-886/1481), and those of his immediate successors, his son Selīm I
(r. 918/1512-926/1520) and grandson Süleymān. In fact, from the mere per-
spective of military history, Bāyezīd II did expand the Ottoman territory by
conquering various important places such as Kilia, Akkerman, and several
consultation—some purely mathematical/astronomical and others entirely esoteric—

should always be taken into consideration.
25 In his influential article where he asks what modern historians know about the character
of any Timurid prince, Aubin replies in a non-affirmative manner and says that not much
is known about their personal intellectual aspirations. See Aubin, “Le mécénat timouride
à Chiraz.”
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

568 Şen
Venetian enclaves on the coasts of Dalmatia, Albania and Mora. The navy he
constructed is also credited with enabling Selīm’s conquest of the Mamluk
Sultanate.26 However, due to a number of misconstruals, neither current
scholarship nor its more popular offshoots have much favored the period of
his reign and the policies he implemented.27
His so-called “pious” personality is often held responsible in modern
Ottoman historiography for isolating the Ottoman Empire from the cultural
and intellectual achievements attained in contemporary Europe. In that re-
spect Bāyezīd II is usually contrasted to his father Meḥmed II, who is quite
anachronistically labeled an “enlightened” ruler—partly because of his learned
interests and curiosity towards Byzantine tradition as well as other contem-
porary monotheistic belief systems, and partly due to his commissioning of
translations from Greek to Arabic along with portraits by Italian painters.28
Bāyezīd II, by contrast, is condemned for hampering the perpetuation of the
cultural orientations and political ambitions prevalent at the court of his
father. Leonardo da Vinci’s plea to Bāyezīd II to construct a bridge over the
Golden Horn fell on deaf ears, for example, and the sultan sold the paintings
and disposed of Christian relics kept by his father in the palace.29 Bāyezīd II
also allegedly turned down Christopher Columbus when the Genoese
26 On his endeavors to reorganize the Ottoman navy and create a stronger sea force with bet-
ter technology, see Hans Joachim Kissling, “Betrachtungen über die Flottenpolitik Sultan
Bâjezids II (1481-1512),” Saeculum, 20 (1969), p. 35-43; Palmira Johnson Brummett, Ottoman
Seapower and Levantine Diplomacy in the Age of Discovery, Albany, State Unviersity of
New York Press (“Suny series in the social and economic history of the Middle East”), 1994,
p. 89-121.
27 See for instance Selahattin Tansel, Sultan II. Bāyezīd’in Siyasi Hayatı, Istanbul, M.E.B.
Devlet Kitapları Müdürlüǧü, 1966; Vernon J. Parry, “The Reigns of Bāyezīd II and Selim I,
1481-1520,” in A History of the Ottoman Empire to 1730, ed. Michael Allan Cook, Cambridge-
New York, Cambridge University Press, 1976, p. 54-78; Şerafettin Turan, “Bāyezīd II,”
Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi; Feridun Emecen, İmparatorluk Çaǧının Osmanlı
Sultanları, Istanbul, İSAM Yayınları, 2011.
28 For a recent review of the studies that contrast the reign of Bāyezīd II to his father see
Cihan Yüksel Muslu, “Ottoman-Mamluk Relations and the Complex Image of Bāyezīd II,”
in Conquête ottomane de l’Égypte (1517): Arrière-plan, impact, échos, dir. Benjamin Lellouch
and Nicolas Michel, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2013, p. 51-76.
29 Julian Raby, “A Sultan of Paradox: Mehmed the Conqueror as a Patron of the Arts,” Oxford
Art Journal, 5 (1982), p. 3-8; Semavi Eyice, “II. Bāyezīd Devrinde Davet Edilen Batılılar,”
Belgelerle Türk Tarihi Dergisi, 19 (1969), p. 23-30. The Archive of the Topkapı Palace
Museum houses an undated copy of Leonardo’s letter (TSMA E. 6184) showing that he
also proposed to devise for the sultan a number of other things, such as a new kind of
windmill and a sort of pump to empty out the water in the vessels.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

navigator approached him as a potential patron before embarking upon his

costly expeditions.30 Moreover, Bāyezīd II has long been criticized for failing
to take necessary measures against the emerging Safavid threat, with which
his son Selīm was left to deal during both his governorship in Trabzon and
his sultanate in Istanbul.31 One could note further reasons for the scholarly
disdain for the reign of Bāyezīd II, including his inability to achieve a decisive
victory against the Mamluks, and his elimination of Meḥmed II’s favorite son
Ǧem Sulṭān (d. 900/1495) after a long struggle that soon gained an internation-
al character with the involvement of the Pope and several European powers.32
All these reasons have coalesced in contemporary scholarship with an image
of Bāyezīd II as the weakest link in the so-called Ottoman golden age from the
mid-ninth/fifteenth to the mid-tenth/sixteenth century.
Despite the conventional representation of Bāyezīd II’s reign as a failure
on a range of fronts, several cultural and literary historians were aware that
Bāyezīd II was an avid patron of the arts and belles-lettres.33 He is generally
30 As to the dialogue between the sultan and Columbus, there is no contemporary evidence
that could prove Columbus really did approach the sultan; the earliest implied criticism
directed against Bāyezīd for denying Columbus comes from the seventeenth century. The
famous Ottoman traveller and writer Ewliyā Čelebī (d. after 1096/1685) fancifully narrates
in the last volume of his Seyāḥatnāme that, when Columbus and another Spaniard named
Padre informed Bāyezīd of the New World they had recently discovered and advised him
to launch an expedition toward this “virgin” land to take its riches, Bāyezīd allegedly
declined, saying, “Mecca and Medina and this Old World are enough to conquer and there
is no need to go overwhelming distances.” See: Ewliyā Čelebī, Seyāḥatnāme, eds Robert
Dankoff, Seyit Ali Kahraman and Yücel Daǧlı, Istanbul, Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2007, X, p. 267.
31 The available scholarly conviction as to Bāyezīd’s idleness vis-à-vis the emerging Safavid
power is based primarily on the Selīmnāme literature, the earliest examples of which
were produced as early as the later years of Selīm’s reign. The purpose of these works
is to valorize Selīm and single him out as the only member of the Ottoman house that
handled the Safavid problem seriously. However, archival documents from the reign of
Bāyezīd clearly show that Bāyezīd was closely following the Safavid problem and taking
active measures, although he did not initiate an open battle. See Feridun Emecen and
İlhan Şahin, II. Bāyezīd dönemine ait 906/1501 tarihli ahkam defteri, Istanbul, Türk Dünyası
Araştırmaları Vakfı, 1994.
32 Halil İnalcık, “A Case Study in Renaissance Diplomacy: The Agreement between Innocent
VIII and Bāyezīd II on Djem Sultan,” Journal of Turkish Studies, 3 (1979), p. 209-223.
33 İsmail E. Erünsal, “Türk Edebiyatının Arşiv Kaynakları I: II. Bāyezīd Devrine Ait bir
İnamat Defteri,” İÜEF Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi, 10-11 (1981), p. 303-348; Julian Raby and Zeren
Tanındı, Turkish Bookbinding in the 15th Century: The Foundation of an Ottoman Court Style;
Hilal Kazan, XVI. Asırda Sarayın Sanatı Himayesi, Istanbul, Ircica (“İSAR Vakfı yayınları”,
30; “Yıldız Yayıncılık, Reklamcılık yayınları”, 17), 2010; Zeren Tanındı, “II. Bāyezīd’in Sanatlı
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

570 Şen
considered the founding patron of Ottoman dynastic history writing, having

eagerly commissioned the first dynastic histories of Ottoman rule.34 Modeled
in the main on Timurid precedent, the voluminous histories of figures like Idrīs
Bidlīsī (d. 926/1520), who wrote in Persian, and Kamāl Pāšāzāda (d. 940/1534),
in refined Ottoman Turkish, helped not only to construct a prominent place for
the Ottoman house in the universal unfolding of events but also to spotlight
the rule and court of Bāyezīd II as supreme among previous and contemporary
sovereigns, both politically and culturally.35 In addition to his active involve-
ment as patron of the first dynastic histories of the Ottoman house, Bāyezīd II
also lavishly supported a number of poets, calligraphers, and numerous ar-
tisans whom we can document thanks to the invaluable register of gifts and
payments that record in great detail the names of all individuals receiving al-
lowances from the sultan from 909/1503 to 918/1512.36 An equally remarkable
Kitapları,” in Qaṣāyid-i Efṣāḥi der meḍḥ-i Sulṭān Bāyezīd, Istanbul, Sakıp Sabancı Müzesi,
2012, p. 7-33.
34 Halil İnalcık, “The Rise of Ottoman Historiography,” in Historians of the Middle East, ed.
Bernard Lewis and Peter Malcolm Holt, London, Oxford University Press, 1962, p. 152-167;
Victor Louis Ménage, “The Beginnings of Ottoman Historiography,” in ibid., p. 168-179.
35 İnalcık, “The Rise of Ottoman Historiography”; Sara Nur Yıldız, “Ottoman Historical
Writing in Persian, 1400-1600,” in Persian Historiography, ed. Charles Melville, London-
New York, I.B. Tauris (“A history of Persian literature”, 10), 2012, p. 436-502; Vural Genç,
Acem’den Rum’a: İdris-i Bidlisi’nin Hayatı, Tarihçiliǧi ve Heşt Behişt’in II. Bāyezīd Kısmı (1481-
1512), PhD dissertation, Istanbul University, 2014; Christopher Markiewicz, The Crisis of
Rule in Late Medieval Islam: A Study of Idrīs Bidlīsī (861-926/1457-1520) and Kingship at the
Turn of the Sixteenth Century, PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 2015. I would like
to thank Vural Genç and Christopher Markiewicz for sharing their unpublished works
with me.
36 Atatürk Kitaplıǧı Muallim Cevdet O. 71. This voluminous register has been mined by
several scholars for different purposes. In addition to the works of Erünsal and Kazan cited
above see Rıfkı Melül Meriç, Türk Nakış Tarihi Araştırmaları, Ankara, 1953; id., “Bāyezīd
Camii Mimarı, II. Bāyezīd Devri Mimarları ile Bazı Binalar, Bāyezīd Camii ile ilgili husu-
slar, san’atkarlar ve eserleri,” Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Türk ve İslam Sanatları
Tarihi Enstitüsü Yıllık Araştırmalar Dergisi, 2 (1958), p. 4-76. While the records for the first
two years were already made available by Ömer Lütfi Barkan and Mustafa Açıkgöz, the
full transliteration of the entire register has recently been completed by İlhan Gök. See
Ömer Lütfi Barkan, “İstanbul Saraylarına ait Muhasebe Defterleri,” Belgeler, 9/13 (1979),
p. 1-380; Mustafa Açıkgöz, II. Bāyezīd Devri İnamat Defteri (Muharrem-Zilhicce 910/Haziran-
Mayıs 1504-1505), MA thesis, Marmara University, 1996; İlhan Gök, Atatürk Kitaplıǧı M.C.
O.71 Numaralı 909-933/1503-1527 Tarihli İnamat Defteri (Transkripsiyon-Deǧerlendirme),
PhD dissertation, Marmara University, 2014.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

but lesser known aspect of Bāyezīd II’s patronage is his benefaction towards
experts in ʿilm al-nuǧūm.
Bāyezīd II as Patron of ʿilm al-nuǧūm
Before detailing the unprecedented scope of his support for experts in the
science of the stars, it is necessary to briefly sketch the story of munaǧǧims
at the Ottoman courts prior to the reign of Bāyezīd II. Although the earliest
hard evidence of a munaǧǧim in the service of an Ottoman ruler only dates
to the first half of the ninth/fifteenth century, it does not strain credibility to
assume that there were munaǧǧims around the ruling party from its early days,
given the frequent use of the expertise of the munaǧǧims at the courts of other
dynasties before the Ottomans, including, for instance, the Seljuqs of Rum and
several other Anatolian principalities.37 The tasks munaǧǧims were expected
to fulfil are not clear, though it appears they provided, as experts in different
applications of the science of the stars, a number of services, ranging from
measurement of time for daily prayers and calculation of days on the basis
of various calendrical systems to astrological counseling and determination
of auspicious moments to initiate an imperial enterprise. The most important
textual tool of a practicing munaǧǧim was the taqwīm (annual almanac-prog-
nostication), which was composed and presented to the court around the time
of the turning of the new year (taḥwīl-i sāl-i ʿālam) with the spring equinox
in March (i.e. Nawrūz).38 The modern connotations of the word taqwīm—
meaning calendar in modern Turkish and Persian—are usually misleading as
they give the false impression that these annual ephemeral pieces were com-
posed solely for calendrical purposes.39 Calendrical information did indeed
occupy a greater amount of space in each taqwīm, but these annual ephemeral
texts were geared towards tabulating the positions of the sun, moon, and pla
nets (taqwīm al-kawākib) during the course of the year, and then propounding,
37 Osman Turan, Türkiye Selçukluları Hakkında Resmi Vesikalar: Metin, Tercüme ve
Araştırmalar, Ankara, Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevı (“Turk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları VII.
Seri”, 32), 1968, p. 174. There is an extant taqwīm (MS Süleymaniye, Nuruosmaniye, 2782)
written in the year 773/1371-1372 by a certain Zayn al-Munaǧǧim b. Sulaymān al-Qūnawī,
who must have been close to the court of Eretna, as the internal evidence suggests.
38 The history of the taqwīm in the pre-modern Islamicate world is yet to be written. For a
useful general overview see Michael Hofelich and Daniel Martin Varisco, “Taḳwīm,” EI2.
39 See for instance Stephen P. Blake, Time in Early Modern Islam: Calendar, Ceremony, and
Chronology in the Safavid, Mughal, and Ottoman Empires, New York, Cambridge University
Press, 2013; Salim Aydüz, “Osmanlı Devleti’nde Müneccimbaşılık Müessesesi.”
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

572 Şen
based upon the calculated planetary positions, astrological predictions as to

the fortunes of the upcoming year.
While the oldest extant example of the taqwīm genre in the Ottoman realm
dates to the later years of the reign of Meḥmed I (r. 816/1413-824/1421), the
earliest taqwīm featuring the autograph of a munaǧǧim is from the reign of
Murād II (r. 824/1421-848/1444, 850/1446-855/1451). In 843/1439, a certain
Ibrāhīm b. šayḫ al-munaǧǧimīn wa-l-rammāl, better known as Ibn al-Ǧamāl,
presented the sultan with a taqwīm in Persian in which he conveyed his as-
trological predictions as to the fortunes and mishaps of the upcoming year.40
There are also few available taqwīms from the time of Meḥmed II, yet none
of them bears an autograph that could enable us to identify the name of a
munaǧǧim at his court. There are contemporary literary sources that refer to a
group of munaǧǧims around Meḥmed II whom he would consult to designate
the auspicious time for important military expeditions or the construction of
imperial buildings. One of these sources is Cardinal Isidoro (d. 1463), the Greek
metropolitan of Kiev who, as an eyewitness to the siege of Constantinople,
says in one of his letters that Meḥmed asked his “Persian” munaǧǧims to desig-
nate the auspicious time to start the siege.41 A similar story may also be found
in the Ottoman sources. Ṭursun Bey (d. after 896/1491), for example, recounts
that the munaǧǧims calculated an auspicious moment for the construction of
the fortress in the Bosphorus before the siege of Constantinople, but he does
not specify their ethno-geographic affiliations.42 Ǧem Sulṭān also appears to
have developed an interest in the science of the stars toward the end of his life.
In an astrological work (Miftāḥ al-nuǧūm) composed in Turkish and presented
to the prince in the year 874/1479, its author Yaḥyā b. Ḥusayn Yaḥyā says that
he used to annually deliver a taqwīm to Ǧem Sulṭān who eventually became
curious about the science of the stars and requested a book simple enough to
teach him the basics of it.43
Despite the sources’ allusions to a number of (Persian) munaǧǧims at the
court of Meḥmed II, the archival records from the period tell a different story.
40 M S BN Pers 367, f. 2a. The earliest extant taqwīm produced for an Ottoman ruler was
crafted in the year 824/1421 for Meḥmed I. For the transliteration of its chronology sec-
tion, see Nihal Atsız, Osmanlı Tarihine Ait Takvimler I: 824, 835 ve 843 tarihli takvimler,
Istanbul, Küçükaydın Matbaası, 1961, p. 8-57.
41 Quoted in Agostino Pertusi, La caduta di Costantinopoli, Milano, Fondazione Lorenzo
Valla (“Scrittori greci e latini”), 1976, I, p. 75.
42 Tursun Bey, Tarih-i Ebü’l-Feth, ed. Mertol Tulum, Istanbul, Istanbul, Baha Matbaası, 1977,
p. 44.
43 M S Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Revan, 1704, f. 4b.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

There is not much available in terms of archival documents from the time of
Meḥmed II, though a relatively detailed payroll book from the year 883/1478
lists the names of palace personnel, including the munaǧǧims. Contrary to
what is depicted by literary sources, there is only one munaǧǧim, Mawlānā
Kūčak, who was receiving 10 aspers daily, which is equal to the pay range of
a messenger or a gatekeeper but significantly lower than a falconer or story-
teller.44 Mawlānā Kūčak is listed in the register under the loosely defined mu-
tafarriqa corps, which also hints that there was not a designated unit for the
munaǧǧims within the nascent bureaucracy of the time.45
By the time of Bāyezīd II, however, the number, the status, and the salaries
of the munaǧǧims had significantly changed. Another payroll book—which
must have been drafted sometime between 906/1500 and 917/1511, according
to internal evidence—lists six munaǧǧims that receive in sum 6 068 aspers
monthly, making an average daily salary of a court munaǧǧim 33,7 aspers.46
Unfortunately the list does not specify the names of these munaǧǧims, yet ca
talogs them as an individual unit (ǧamāʿat-i munaǧǧimīn) under the monthly
salaried palace personnel (mušāhara-ḫūrān) rubric.47 The famous register of
allowances that covers the last decade of the reign of Bāyezīd II also corrobo-
rates the information given in the payroll book. According to this voluminous
register, at least twenty different names are recorded as munaǧǧims, muwaqqits
(time-keepers) or other individuals presenting the court with a taqwīm. Within
these numerous names, at least five of them are listed under mušāhara-ḫūrān
rubric. Based upon these two registers, it is possible to deduce that there were
five or six munaǧǧims permanently employed at the court of Bāyezīd II.
In terms of the number of munaǧǧims who found stable employment at
the Ottoman court, Bāyezīd’s reign supersedes not only those of his prede-
cessors but also those of his successors. For example, a register from the year
920/1514 during the reign of Selīm documents that the unit of court astrologers
(ǧamāʿat-i munaǧǧimīn) was composed of four munaǧǧims, but unfortunately
44 Ahmed Refik, “Fatih Devrine ait Vesikalar,” Tarih-i Osmani Encümeni Mecmuası, 8-11/49-62
(1335/1919), p. 1-58.
45 For the mutafarriqa corps see İsmail H. Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devletinin Saray Teşkilatı,
Ankara, Atatürk Kültür, Dil ve Tarih Yüksek Kurumu, 1984, 428-431; Tayyib Gökbilgin,
“Müteferrika,” Milli Eǧitim Bakanlıǧı İslam Ansiklopedisi.
46 T SMA D. 9587, also quoted in Ömer Lütfi Barkan, “H. 933-934 Tarihli Bütçe Cedveli ve
Ekleri,” İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası, 15/1-4 (1953-1954), p. 309.
47 For the mušāhara-ḫūrān status see Linda Darling, “Ottoman Salary Registers as a Source
for Economic and Social History,” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin, 14/1 (1990), p. 13-33.
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574 Şen
their names and salaries are not specified.48 Another pay register from the
first decade of the reign of Süleymān lists three munaǧǧims under the rubric
of the monthly salaried palace personnel, each receiving 15, 14, and 10 aspers
daily respectively.49 It is also worth noting that all three of these munaǧǧims,
Sayyid Ibrāhīm b. Sayyid Munaǧǧim,50 Isḥāq Munaǧǧim, and Sinān Munaǧǧim,
had started their careers at the court of Bāyezīd II. Other archival documents
from the later periods of the reign of Süleymān also confirm that the number
of court munaǧǧims was never greater than three, and as evinced by both ar-
chival sources and contemporary literary testimony of figures like ʿĀšiq Čelebī
(d. 979/1572), the number even dropped to two through the end of Süleymān’s
reign.51
Table 1 The list of court munaǧǧims and other individuals who present taqwīms to Sulṭān
Bāyezīd from 909/1503 to 918/1512.
Name Status Occasions Allowances Special Active years

for receiving received for occasions
allowances presenting
taqwīm
Mawlānā mušāhara- ≥ 33 ≥8 1 for the loss 909/1503-

Sayyid ḫūrān of his son 918/1512
Munaǧǧim
Mawlānā mušāhara- ≥ 18 N/A 1 for his 909/1503-
Mīrim ḫūrān wedding 918/1512
Čelebī expenses,
2 times for
his wife’s
consumption
Ekleri,” p. 313.
Ekleri,” p. 323.
50 While it is clearly written in the document as Ibrāhīm, his son, who started his tenure as
one of the court munaǧǧims under Bāyezīd II, is recorded in the voluminous gift register as
Ismāʿīl. This raises the question as to whether he had two sons employed at Bāyezīd’s court.
51 Aydüz, “Osmanlı Devleti’nde Müneccimbaşılık Müessesesi”; Aşık Çelebi, Meşa‌ʾirü’ş-
Şuara, ed. Filiz Kılıç, Istanbul, Suna ve İnan Kıraç Vakfı, 2010, III, p. 1398.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608


taqwīm
Sinān b. mušāhara- ≥ 12 ≥5 N/A 909/1503-

Munaǧǧima ḫūrān 918/1512
Yūsuf b. mušāhara- ≥8 ≥3 1 for Haǧǧ 911/1505-
ʿUmar ḫūrān expenses 918/1512
al-Sāʿatī
Ardašīr b. mušāhara- ≥ 5 ≥5 N/A 911/1505-
Malik Ḥasan ḫūrān 918/1512
Salmān-i unspecified ≥ 9 ≥8 N/A 909/1503-
ʿAǧam 916/1510
munaǧǧim
Sayyid son of ≥8 ≥5 N/A 909/1503-
Ismāʿīl b. Sayyid 918/1512
Sayyid Munaǧǧim
Munaǧǧim
Isḥāq unspecified ≥ 8 ≥5 N/A 911/1505-
munaǧǧim 918/1512
ʿAlī student of ≥3 ≥3 N/A 912/1506-
Mīrim 916/1510
Čelebī
Murād time-keeper ≥2 ≥2 N/A 911/1505-
muwaqqit at Edirne 912/1506
Bāyezīd
Mosque
Complex
Muḥammad sword- ≥2 ≥2 N/A 911/1505-
b. Ḫiḍr bearer 912/1506
Mīrzā Beg chief food ≥2 ≥2 N/A 914/1508-
taster of 916/1510
Šāhzāda
Aḥmad
Mawlānā mudarris at ≥1 ≥1 N/A 913/1507-
Sinān aka Bursa 914/1508
Qāḍī-yi Sultaniya
Baġdad madrasa
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576 Şen
Table 1 The list of court munaǧǧims and other individuals (cont.)

taqwīm
ʿAbd munaǧǧim ≥ 1 ≥1 N/A 915/1509-

al-Raḥmān of Šāhzāda 916/1510
Aḥmad
Muḥammad unspecified ≥ 1 ≥1 N/A 918/1512
b. Qāḍī-yi
Uskūb
Muḥammad unspecified ≥ 1 ≥1 N/A 918/1512
b. Qāḍī-yi
Galībulī
Raǧab student of ≥ 1 ≥1 N/A 918/1512
Sayyid
Munaǧǧim
Mawlānā unspecified ≥ 1 ≥1 N/A 909/1503-
Šams al-Dīn 910/1504
a While it is true that in the Ottoman textual culture the names Sinān and Yūsuf were often
used interchangeably for individuals named as Sinān al-Dīn Yūsuf, it is more likely that these
Sinān and Yūsuf b. ʿUmar al-Sāʿātī are two different individuals, maybe even brothers as the
sons of a certain ʿUmar who is referred to in the register sometimes as muwaqqit, sometimes
as muʾaḏḏin, and sometimes as munaǧǧim. For example, in the relevant entries from the
month of ḏū l-ḥiǧǧa in the year 916/March 1511, Sinān’s name is recorded as the one given
500 aspers on the 25th of that month for the taqwīm he presented whereas Yūsuf apparently
received his customary 500 aspers on the 29th.
Although we have at our disposal substantial sources to statistically sketch the

astrological patronage of Bāyezīd II in the last decade of his reign, we are not
that fortunate for the first two decades of his rule. Nevertheless, we can glean
information about the munaǧǧims around the court during his early years
from the taqwīms and related treatises presented to the sultan. These sources
also help us flesh out these rather dry statistical facts and provide insights into
the nature of the personal relationships established between the sultan and
their munaǧǧims.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

One of the most important munaǧǧims during the early phases of his
reign was Ḥusām b. Šams al-Dīn al-Lāhiǧānī al-Gīlānī, better known as Ḫiṭābī
Munaǧǧim al-Ḥusaynī.52 Ḫiṭābī has yet to be the subject of an in-depth study
and the references to his life in the available bio-bibliographical sources along
with few other works are rather discordant. Some of those studies assert, as his
name suggests, that Ḫiṭābī was the son of Šams al-Dīn al-Lāhīǧī (d. 912/1506?),
the renowned disciple of Muḥammad Nūrbaḫš and the famous commentator
on Šabistarī’s (d. 740/1340) popular mystical treatise Gulšan-i rāz.53 The appeal
to astronomical-astrological principles within Nūrbaḫšī circles, exemplified
in the work of Muḥammad Nūrbaḫš himself, does indeed suggest the possibil-
ity that Ḫiṭābī could have been Šams al-Dīn al-Lāhīǧī’s son. But we simply do
not have decisive evidence to this effect, neither in Šams al-Dīn al-Lāhīǧī’s own
writings, including his collection of poems, nor in the studies that briefly men-
tion his life.54 The major bio-bibliographical source on the history of Ottoman
astronomy and astrology lists a mid-ninth/fifteenth century copy of a com-
mentary by al-Ṭūsī on pseudo-Ptolemy’s Kitāb al-Ṯamara (aka Centiloquium),
a seminal astrological work, as copied by Šams al-Dīn al-Lāhīǧī.55 Nonetheless,
this promising piece of evidence does not turn out to be true, as the colophon
of the book clearly reads that the copy was drafted in the year 854/1450 by a
certain Ismāʿīl b. Yūsuf Lāhīǧī.56
52 In the copies of his works that I have been able to examine, he writes his name without a
šadda, although he puts šadda for other words where necessary. Hence, his pseudonym
should be al-Ḫiṭābī, not al-Ḫaṭṭābī as suggested in Osmanlı Astronomi Literatürü Tarihi/
History of Astronomy Literature during the Ottoman Empire, ed. Ekmeleddin İhsanoǧlu,
Istanbul, Ircica (“İlim tarihi kaynakları ve araştırmaları serisi”, 7), 1997, I, p. 63-64. There
is yet further confusion among other studies such as that of Babinger who thinks the
author’s name is al-Ḫiṭāyī. This last proposition cannot be true, as al-Ḫiṭābī explicitly says
in the chronology section of his taqwīm that the calculation of the munaǧǧimān-i Ḫiṭāy
as to the age of the universe is different from the calculation of the munaǧǧiman-i mā, by
which he is presumably referring to the astrologers from Īrān-zamīn.
53 Ibid.
54 Barāt Zanǧānī (ed.), Dīwān-i ašʿār wa rasāʾil-i Šams al-Dīn Muḥammad Asīrī Lāhīǧī, šāriḥ-i
Gulšan-i rāz, Tehran, Muʾassasah-i Muṭala‌ʾat-i Islami-i Dānišgāh-i Mak Gīl, 1357/1978;
Bashir, Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions.
55 Osmanlı Astroloji Literatürü Tarihi ve Osmanlı Astronomi Literatürü Tarihi/History of
Ottoman Astrology Literature and Supplement to the History of Ottoman Astronomy
Literature, ed. Ekmeleddin İhsanoǧlu, Istanbul, Ircica, 2011, I, p. 13-14.
56 M S Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Reisülküttab, 572, f. 222a. Ṭāšköprüzāde, the major source for
the lives of ninth/fifteenth and tenth/sixteenth century Ottoman scholars, mentions a
certain preacher named Mawlānā Ḥusām from Gīlān, who is known as Dallākzāda and
who was an expert in Qurʾān recitation. Ṭāšköprüzāde, al-Šaqāʾiq al-nuʿmāniyya, p. 205.
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578 Şen
In a recent study on an astronomical treatise composed by Ḫiṭābī in

Istanbul in the year 887/1483 and presented to Sulṭān Bāyezīd, it is argued with-
out any convincing proof that Ḫiṭābī is the same person as Sayyid Munaǧǧim, a
relatively noted figure from the early Timurid context.57 Sayyid Munaǧǧim is
known as the author of astronomical and astrological works, including Risāla-i
Šakl-i muġnī wa-ẓillī and Latāʾif al-kalām fī aḥkām al-aʿwām.58 As the contents
of these two works indicate, Sayyid Munaǧǧim flourished in the Timurid realm
in the first decades of the ninth/fifteenth century. In the latter work, which
eventually became a popular textbook for judicial astrology, he explicitly men-
tions his personal observation of the solar eclipse that occurred in the year
803/1400 before the Battle of Ankara (804/1402) between the Ottomans and
Timurids.59 He also clearly writes his real name in these works as “Muḥammad
al-Ḥusayn, al-madʿū bi-Sayyid Munaǧǧim.” On the contrary, in the copies writ-
ten by Ḫiṭābī, all of which date to the late ninth/fifteenth century, he writes
his name either as Ḥusām b. Šams al-Dīn al-Ḫaṭīb al-muštahir bi-Ḫiṭābī al-
Gīlānī al-Lāhīǧānī or Ḫiṭābī Munaǧǧim al-Ḥusaynī. He never identifies him-
self as Sayyid Munaǧǧim. Given that Sayyid Munaǧǧim from the Timurid
realm was active at the turn of the ninth/fifteenth century and had a name
documentedly different from that of Ḫiṭābī Munaǧǧim al-Ḥusaynī, who served
Given that Ṭāšköprüzāde does not ever mention any activity of his as to the science of the
stars, it is highly unlikely that Dallākzāda and Ḫiṭābī were the same individual. Yet, the
major bio-bibliographical sources on the history of Ottoman astronomy (i.e. History of
Astronomy Literature during the Ottoman Empire) and astrology literature (i.e. History
of Ottoman Astrology Literature and Supplement to the History of Ottoman Astronomy
Literature) combine these two strands of information and falsely introduce a person
named Dallākzāda l-Ḫiṭābī l-Lāhiǧānī l-munaǧǧim al-Gīlānī.
57 Mortaza Somi and Mohammad Bagheri, “Risāla-i tašrīḥ al-ālāt fī ša‌ʾn al-imtiḥānāt az
Sayyid Munaǧǧim Ḥusaynī,” Mīrāṯ-i ʿIlmī-i Islam wa-Iran, 2/1 (1392/2013), p. 181-205.
I would like to thank Prof. İhsan Fazlıoǧlu for bringing this article to my attention.
58 Sayyid Munaǧǧim, whose name was Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn, presented this work on 25
ramaḍān 837/30 April 1434 to Uluġ Beg. See MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Yazma Baǧışlar,
1362. I am grateful to Abdurrahman Atçıl for sharing the digital copy of this manuscript
with me. As for the Laṭāʾif al-kalām fī aḥkām al-aʿwām, I have examined a handful of
copies, the earliest of which date back to the late sixteenth century. In the text itself,
Sayyid Munaǧǧim refers to the year 824/1421 as the date he chose to designate the ascen-
dant for the year. In all these copies his name is written as “Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn
al-madʿuww bi-Sayyid (al-)Munaǧǧim.”
59 M S Istanbul, Boǧaziçi University Kandilli Observatory Library, 310, f. 30b. Also see
S. Mohammad Mozaffari, “The Effect of Astrological Opinions on Society: A Preliminary
View,” Trames, 16/4 (2012), p. 359-368.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

Bāyezīd II as late as ca 900/mid-1490s, it seems highly unlikely that the two

could be the same individual.
Who, then, was Ḫiṭābī l-Munaǧǧim al-Ḥusaynī? He does not give us many
clues to go on when writing about his family, teachers, and peers. He only
refers in his treatise on a newly developed astronomical instrument (Risālat
Tašrīḥ al-ālāt) to a certain Sayyid Rukn al-Dīn Āmulī (d. after 860/1456) as his
teacher, whom we know composed a treatise on the astrolabe (Risāla-i Panǧāh
bāb) and the Zīǧ-i ǧadīd-i Saʿīdī.60 Although the zīǧ of Rukn al-Dīn Āmulī did
not obtain much popularity among the munaǧǧims in the Ottoman lands du
ring the period in question, Ḫiṭābī praises it as one of the three most preferred
zīǧs of the time next to the Zīǧ-i Īlḫānī and the Zīǧ-i Uluġ Beg.61 Ḫiṭābī himself
prefers to base his calculations on it when drafting annual astrological predic-
tions in taqwīm form. For example, in preparing the annual astrological pre-
dictions he presented to Bāyezīd II in the year 894/1489, Ḫiṭābī calculated the
planetary positions and the astrological houses on the basis of the data given
in his teacher’s zīǧ.62
It is not certain when exactly Ḫiṭābī came to the Ottoman realm. Certain
notes from his writings suggest that he first tried to enter the service of Bāyezīd II
while the latter was still governor in Amasya before he approached Sulṭān
Meḥmed II by the later 870s/1470s. One of his earliest works is a treatise on
philosophy (ʿilm al-ḥikma) called Ǧāmiʿ al-qismayn that he composed hastily
in the year 884/1479-1480 in Tokat (in northeastern Anatolia, close to Amasya)
and dedicated to prince Bāyezīd.63 As the title of the work suggests, Ḫiṭābī
60 Aydın Sayılı, The Observatory in Islam, p. 212-216. In his treatise on astrolabes (Risāla-i
panǧāh bāb), Rukn al-Dīn clearly says that the “fruit” (ṯamara) and ultimate reward of
studying natural-philosophical (ʿulūm-i ḥikmī) and mathematical sciences (ʿulūm-i
riyāḍī), including hayʾa, handasa, and ḥisāb, is to be able to make astrological judgments
(ʿilm-i aḥkām) and accurately measure the time. For Rukn al-Dīn, this relies upon the
ability to observe the celestial objects, calculate the mean motions of planets (istiḫrāǧ-i
taqwīm-i kawākib), and designate the ascendants of the hour (ṭawāliʿ-i sāʿat). See Rukn
al-Dīn Āmulī, Risāla-i panǧāh bāb, MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Ayasofya, 2667, f. 2a-2b.
61 Somi and Bagheri, “Risāla-i tašrīḥ al-ālāt,” p. 183: wa-l-ān zīǧātī ki dar akṯar-i mamālik
ʿamal karda mī-šavad yakī zīǧ-i īlḫānī-st […] wa-dīgar zīǧ-i ḥaḍrat-i mīrzāy-ī Uluġ Bīgī
[…] wa-dīgar dū zīǧ-i Saʿīdī wa-Karīmī az ān ḥaḍrat-i ustādī Sayyid Rukn al-Milla wa-l-Dīn
Āmulī.
62 M S Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Baǧdat, 310.
63 Al-Ḫiṭābī, Ǧāmiʿ al-qismayn, MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Ayasofya, 2414M, ff. 19b-20a:
muḥarrir-i īn suṭūr wa-muqarrir-i īn mazbūr […] Ḥusām b. Šams al-Dīn al-Ḫaṭīb al-
muštahir bi-Ḫiṭābī al-Gīlānī […] ʿaǧālat al-waqt-rā dar tārīḫ-i sana-i 884 hiǧriyya dar baldat
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580 Şen
reviews therein the two broad philosophical disciplines: mathematical sci-

ences (ḥikmat-i riyāḍī) and natural sciences (ḥikmat-i ṭabīʿī). More precisely,
he first elaborates on ʿilm-i nuǧūm and, like Šukr Allāh Širwānī, delves into a
strictly astrological discussion, laying out the qualities and indications of the
twelve astrological houses. For him, ʿilm-i nuǧūm, which is more exalted than
medicine (ʿilm-i ṭibb), is a useful and divine knowledge that helps human be-
ings understand the impact of the motions of the celestial objects on the sublu-
nary world, guard against harm and destruction—as ordered in the Qurʾān—,
and learn about the divine decree with respect to their personal lives.64 He
then proceeds to medicine and details diseases as well as the required medica-
tion for remedying each.
Ḫiṭābī most likely traveled to Istanbul by the end of the year 884/1479.
In December of that year, he completed and dedicated to Meḥmed II his long
commentary on Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s popular almanac treatise Risāla dar
Maʿrifat-i taqwīm, better known as Risāla-i Sī faṣl. Although Ḫiṭābī says that
his main objective in writing this commentary is to make the concepts and the
terminology used in al-Ṭūsī’s text more comprehensible to beginners in this
science, he later reveals his real desire is to attract the benevolence of Sulṭān
Meḥmed II.65 In fact, al-Ṭūsī’s treatise—originally a short introduction on the
nature of the planets, the characteristics of the signs of the zodiac and the in-
fluences of different planetary positions—was already one of the most popular
texts of the genre among the would-be munaǧǧims in the Ottoman realm and
Turkish translations of the work started to appear as early as the late eighth/
fourteenth century.66 Moreover, Ḫiṭābī composed his work in Persian, which
was not the first preference among students in the Ottoman lands. In this re-
gard Ḫiṭābī’s claim to have composed a text that would be helpful for novices
does not sound quite realistic. That the work is preserved in a single copy and
al-muwaḥḥidīn Ṭūqāt […] bi-ḥasab-i wasīla-i idrāk-i saʿādat-i taqabbul-i turāb-i sudda-i
rafīʿa-i pādišāh wa-pādišāhzāda-i […] Sulṭān Abū l-Muẓaffar Bāyezīd […] ta‌ʾlīf kard.
64 Ibid., f. 23b: har čand az taqdīr wa-qaḍā imkān-i ḫurūǧ nīst ammā bi-muʾaddā-i “wa-lā
tulqū bi-aydīkum ilā l-tahluka” wa-šarr-i iḥtirāz wāǧib-ast wa-bi-qadr-i wasʿ saʿy lāzim ča
faḥwāy-i “laysa li-l-insān illā mā saʿā”-rā išārat hamīn-ast wa-īn maʿnā bi-ṣūrat nayāyad illā
az idrāk-i natāyiǧ-i ḥarakāt-i aǧrām-i samāwī yaʿnī sayr-i aǧrām-i mustanīra dar aqsām-i
aǧsām-i mustadīra wa-ān dawāzdah dar dawāzdah-ast ki az ṣuwar-i zāyiǧāt-i ṭawāliʿ
maḥsūs mī-šawad ki īn maʿnā-ra iṣṭilāḥ-i ahl-i šarʿ ṣūrat-i taqdīr ḫwānand.
65 Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Risāla dar Maʿrifat-i taqwīm, MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Ayasofya, 2809,
f. 3b: tā wasīla šawad bar dāʿī-i muḫliṣ-rā bi-taqbīl-i turāb-i ʿataba-i rafīʿa wa-talṯīm-i raġām-i
sudda-i manīʿa […] al-sulṭān b. al-sulṭān al-sulṭān Muḥammad b. al-sulṭān Murād ḫān.
66 Aḥmad-i Dāʿī, Muḫtaṣar fī ʿilm al-tanǧīm wa-maʿrifat al-taqwīm (Risāle-i sī faṣl), eds
T. N. Gencan and M. Dizer, Istanbul, Boǧaziçi Üniversitesi Kandilli Rasathanesi, 1984.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

found only among the books at the palace library also proves that it did not
enjoy much circulation among the author’s contemporaries. Thus, there is little
doubt that the aim of Ḫiṭābī’s Persian commentary on al-Ṭusī, which is much
longer than the latter’s text, was rather to show off his impressive knowledge
and thereby secure the support of Meḥmed II. He must have attained his desire,
for immediately after he composed a voluminous horoscope for Meḥmed II,
a royal copy of which was produced in the year 885/1480 by the imperial cal-
ligrapher and bookbinder, Ġiyāṯ al-Dīn al-Muǧallid al-Iṣfahānī.67
Ḫiṭābī seems to have secured his place in Bāyezīd II’s entourage after the
latter’s immediate accession upon the death of Meḥmed II in 886/1481. In the
end of 887/January 1483 he presented the new sultan, whom he described as
being, among other things, wise and knowledgeable in sciences celestial and
terrestrial (ʿārif al-maʿārif al-ʿulwiyya wa-l-sufliyya), a copy of his Risālat Tašrīḥ
al-ālāt, together with an instrument for celestial observation.68 As Ḫiṭābī
states in his treatise, the major objective of the work and the accompanying
instrument is to test the accuracy of the three most preferred zīǧs of the time.
According to his calculations, he expects two conjunctions to happen in that
year: the first between Mars and Jupiter, and the second between Saturn and
Mars. Along with these two conjunctions, he also expects two full lunar eclip
ses to occur that year. However, as he says, the calculations based upon the
Zīǧ-i Saʿīdī and the Zīǧ-i Uluġ Beg were significantly different from those rely-
ing on the Zīǧ-i Īlḫānī.69 Ḫiṭābī adds that as part of his research he completed
in Istanbul a solar observation and identified a solar eclipse that occurred in
šaʿbān-ramaḍān 887/October 1482.70 While the fact of his solar observation in
Istanbul by the late 880s/early 1480s is important in its own right, his underta
king to ensure the accuracy of astronomical data is even more significant, since
67 M S Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Yeni Yazmalar, 830, f. 264a. It is not the
purview of this study to introduce the contents of this horoscope. For more details,
see chapter 5 of my unpublished dissertation, Astrology in the Service of the Empire:
Knowledge, Prognostication, and Politics at the Ottoman Court, 1450s–1550s, PhD disserta-
tion, University of Chicago, 2016.
68 His remarks in the text hint that he also presents the sultan with an instrument for celes-
tial observation: har āyina ālāt-i mawʿūd-rā bi yumn-i dawlat-i qāhira-i ḥaḍrat-i pādišāhī
bi-itmām rasānīda wa-kayfiyyat-i aʿmāl wa-waḍʿ-i ān-rā darīn risāla mašrūḥ [wa] masṭūr
sāḫta šud. Al-Ḫiṭābī’s reference here to al-maʿārif al-ʿulwiyya wa-l-sufliyya seems to be
related to the classification of theoretical philosophy (al-ḥikma l-naẓariyya) into sciences
that deal with the knowledge of celestial (ʿulwī) spheres (i.e. the quadrivium) and those
that study the changes in the elemental sublunary (suflī) world.
69 Somi and Bagheri, “Risāla-i tašrīḥ al-ālāt,” p. 183.
70 Ibid., p. 196.
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582 Şen
accurate astronomical data was exactly what practicing munaǧǧims needed

for precision in the time measurement required for astrological predictions.
Ḫiṭābī does not divulge in his Risālat Tašrīḥ al-ālāt which of these three zīǧs
he personally favors as a practicing munaǧǧim, but as mentioned earlier, he
did rely on the Zīǧ-i Saʿīdī in composing the taqwīm for the year 894/1489. Only
one taqwīm has survived that was indisputably penned by Ḫiṭābī Munaǧǧim.
While it is not the aim of this article to discuss in detail the political as well
as social uses of the taqwīm genre in the early modern Ottoman context, we
should note that taqwīms were instrumental in shaping, expressing, and even
manipulating public opinion.71 True, the majority of astrological predictions
propounded in taqwīms are generic and more often than not hackneyed; but
it is the ceremonial nature of taqwīms—in terms of both their production and
presentation—that endowed them with a certain propaganda value. There is
no surviving archival or pictorial evidence prior to the eleventh/seventeenth
century as to the munaǧǧims’ presentation of taqwīms to the sultan or the ru
ling elites, but the fact that their presentation essentially coincided with the
coming of the new solar year (Nawrūz) and accompanying ceremonies hints at
the symbolic value attached to the taqwīms. Taqwīms also seem to be generally,
though not always, the products of collective effort, with lavishly gilded frames
and beautifully colored diagrams. In most cases we have only one copy of a
taqwīm for each year; therefore the taqwīm prepared by court munaǧǧims was
probably not put into circulation outside the palace. However, for certain years
we have at least three different extant taqwīms, which clearly indicate that
court munaǧǧīms did not have a monopoly on the composition of taqwīms for
the sultan. The gift register from the last decade of Bāyezīd II’s reign confirms
this last point, for in a given year different individuals might be given allow-
ances on different dates in view of the individual taqwīms they submitted.
If taqwīms were not in wide circulation among the reading public, to what
extent could they function as propaganda tools? The propaganda value of the
taqwīms stems from two interrelated aspects. First, the astrological predic-
tions expressed in the taqwīms may have been intended to articulate, and thus
emphasize, certain political and social tensions of the time around the court.
At times they demonstrably succeeded in manipulating the decision-making
process of the ruling party. The close reading of annual astrological predictions
in tandem with contemporary chronicles and historical narratives reveals
that the astrological interpretations and forecasts of the munaǧǧims in their
71 For a brief discussion of the political significance of taqwīms in the Ottoman case see
Fleischer, “Ancient Wisdom,” esp. p. 235-236.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

taqwīms were taken quite seriously, to the extent that campaigns were called
off or battles were initiated on the basis of their annual reports.72 Moreover,
that the phraseology of the astrological predictions in taqwīms was occasional-
ly imitated by contemporary poets and littérateurs provides valuable evidence
suggesting that the discourse produced by the taqwīms was indeed dissemina
ted among the wider public, presumably orally rather than in written form.73
Table 2 Extant original taqwīms composed during the reign of Bāyezīd II.
Year Author Dedicatee Language Zīǧ used
894/1489 Ḫiṭābī Bāyezīd II Persian Rukn al-Āmulī’s

l-Ḥusaynī tables
895/1490 Unspecified Bāyezīd II Persian Uluġ Beg Tables
895/1490 Unspecified Bāyezīd II Persian The Verified Ilkhanid
Tablesa
897/1492 Unspecified Bāyezīd II Persian Uluġ Beg tables
900/1495 ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Bāyezīd II Persian Ilkhanid tables
Mawlānā
900/1495 Unspecified Bāyezīd II Persian Unspecified
901/1496 Ḥamza b. ʿAbd Bāyezīd II Persian The Verified Ilkhanid
al-Karīm Tables
902/1497 ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Bāyezīd II Persian Ilkhanid tables
Mawlānā
902/1497 Ḥamza b. ʿAbd Bāyezīd II Persian The Verified Ilkhanid
al-Karīm Tables
902/1497 Nūr al-Dīn b. Bāyezīd II Persian The Verified Ilkhanid
Ḥamza Tables
72 This discussion is also beyond the confines of this short article. For detailed examples see
chapter 4 of Şen, Astrology in the Service of the Empire.
73 For example Ḏātī (d. 953/1546), one of the most prominent poets during the reign of
Bāyezīd II, composed a burlesque almanac to express his satirical opinions on approxi-
mately 400 different anonymous people in a way reminiscent of the remarks of the
munaǧǧims’ in their taqwīms. See Fuad Köprülü, Kayıkçı Kul Mustafa ve Genç Osman
Hikayesi, İstanbul, Evkaf Matbaası, 1930, p. 6-7; Mehmed Çavuşoǧlu, “Zati’nin Letayif’i II,”
Türk Dili ve Edebiyatı Dergisi, 22 (1977), p. 143-161. I would like to thank Michael Sheridan
for bringing these studies to my attention.
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584 Şen
Table 2 Extant original taqwīms (cont.)

Tables
903/1498 Unspecified Bāyezīd II Turkish Unspecified
Tables
Tables
Tables
Tables
Tables
Tables
909/1504 Salmān-i ʿAǧam Bāyezīd II Persian Uluġ Beg Tables
Tables
Tables
911/1506 Unspecified Selīm b. Persian Uluġ Beg tables
Bāyezīd
913/1508 Qāḍī-yi Baġdād Bāyezīd II Persian Uluġ Beg tables
Tables
Tables
915/1510 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Aḥmed b. Persian The Verified Ilkhanid
Bāyezīd II Tables
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916/1511 Yūsuf b. ʿUmar Bāyezīd II Persian The Verified Ilkhanid

Tables
Tables
a After al-Ṭūsī’s death in 672/1274 the astral experts at both the Maragha observatory and
elsewhere kept working on rectifying the celestial data provided by the Zīǧ-i Īlḫānī and pre-
paring its new editions. One of them was Šams al-Dīn al-Wābkanawī (d. 720/1320), who pro-
duced the Zīǧ-i muḥaqqaq-i sulṭānī (The Verified Ilkhanid Tables) by the turn of the eighth/
fourteenth century. It is not certain, however, whether the Verified Ilkhanid Tables cited
frequently in different Ottoman taqwīms always refer particularly to al-Wābkanawī’s work.
Given that the Ottoman palace library, whose catalogue was prepared in 908/1502-1503,
lacks a copy of al-Wābkanawī’s zīǧ, at least some of those “Verified Tables” cited in contem-
porary Ottoman taqwīms might be referring to the different later editions of the Ilkhanid
tables rather than to al-Wābkanawī’s work. On al-Wābkanawī, see S. Mohammad Mozaffari,
“Wābkanawī’s Prediction and Calculations of the Annual Solar Eclipse of 30 January 1283,”
Historia Mathematica, 40 (2013), p. 235-261; Jamil Ragep, “New Light on Shams: The Islamic
Side of Σὰμψ Πουχάρης,” in Politics, Patronage, and the Transmission of Knowledge in 13th–15th
Century Tabriz, ed. Judith Pfeiffer, Leiden-Boston, Brill (“Iran studies”, 8), 2013, p. 166-180.
Secondly, and more importantly, taqwīms served as tools for bolstering royal
claims and promulgating these claims among the elite audience attached to
the court. The astrological predictions in taqwīms are always biased in favor of
the sultan, typically highlighting his unmatched strength, perseverance, and
well-being regardless of actual historical circumstances. The taqwīm dated
917/1512 is probably the most explicit example of such propaganda attempts.
In this taqwīm, written just before Bāyezīd II would lose his life after years of
fierce struggle with his sons for the throne, the anonymous munaǧǧim(s) can-
not help but praise Sulṭān Bāyezīd, strongly asserting in several places that the
sultan will be resolute and long-seated upon his throne.74 These auguries may
74
M S Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Revan, 1711, f. 193a: dalālat kunad […] bar
ḫulūd-i salṭanat wa-imārat wa-tazāyud-i ḫašmat wa-kāmrānī wa-taḍāʿuf-i muknat wa-daw-
lat wa-šādmānī-i ḥaḍrat-i pādišāh-i Islām-panāh […] wa-rāsiḫ wa-ṯābit būdan bar sarīr-i
salṭanat wa-kāmrānī […] bar taḫt-i dawlat wa-sarīr-i salṭanat mustaqīm al-ḥāl wa-kāmrān
buwand […] ḥaḍrat ḫallada ẓillahu dar taḫtgāh-i ma‌ʾlūf ṯābit wa-rāsiḫ buwand […] wa-dar
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586 Şen
well have been mere wishful thinking or meant to console the losing party, as
the fortunes of the munaǧǧim more or less depended on those of his patron.
Nevertheless, given the fact that each and every taqwīm producer aimed pri-
marily at representing his patron (i.e. the reigning sultan) as the single most
fortuituous and victorious ruler of the era, the production of a higher num-
ber of taqwīms in a given period inevitably increased a ruler’s opportunity to
persuade his elite audience of the astrologically validated superiority of his
ruling persona.
To return to the taqwīm of Ḫiṭābī for Bāyezīd II for the year 894/1489, he
immediately begins by eulogizing Bāyezīd II on the occasion of the coming
of the new year and expresses his good wishes to the sultan, whom he hails
as the “caliph of the All-merciful, shadow of divine affection, strengthener of
the world and religion, succour of Islam and all Muslims, glory of kings and
sultans, victorious over his enemies by help of the Beneficent King.”75 He desig-
nates, based upon his computations utilizing his teacher Rukn al-Dīn’s tables,
that the revolution of the year will take place on Thursday night, 9 rabīʿ al-āḫir
894/12 March 1489. He then enumerates the important astrological indicators
and begins lengthy predictions on the fortunes of the sultan. According to
his predictions, the glory and majesty of the sultan will remain untarnished,
and his health and temperament balanced. The sultan will show sympathy
to his subjects and bring civil order under his full control, but at times, es-
pecially during the winter, he will be anxious on account of his enemies and
opponents. Ḫiṭābī then proceeds to elaborate on the fortunes of his subjects
from various sectors, including viziers, dervishes, scholars, and many others.
His judicium for the year ends, as usual, with predictions as to incidences of
disease, meteorological conditions, crops and prices, and wars and battles.
He then draws two tables for the horoscopes of the upcoming year: one on
the basis of the Chinese-Uighur animal calendar and the other on the basis
of his calculations using the astronomical tables. Then comes the section on
the monthly elaboration of the calendrical information and accompanying
astrological judgments. It is worth noting that the predictions he expresses
in the monthly sections of his taqwīm focus more on possible skirmishes and
battles between Turks (atrāk), Arabs (aʿrāb), and Kurds (akrād). It would not
niṣf-i aḫīr-i sāl az baʿḍ-i mufattinān wa-ahl-i fitna wa-šarr-i fitna-hā wa-fasad-hā ba-ẓuhūr
āyad ammā ʿāqibat taskīn yābad wa-dawlat wa-iqbāl wa-amwāl wa-ḫadam wa-ḫašam
ziyāda ba-ḥuṣūl paywandad.
75
M S Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Baǧdat, 310, 4a: ḫalīfat al-raḥmānī ẓill-i
ʿawāṭif-i ḥaḍrat-i subḥānī muʿizz al-dunyā wa-l-dīn muġīṯ al-islām wa-l-muslimīn šuǧāʿ
al-mulūk wa-l-salāṭīn al-manṣūr ʿalā l-aʿdāʾ bi-nuṣrat al-malik al-mannān.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

be farfetched to relate these remarks to the repercussions of the then-ongoing

Ottoman-Mamluk confrontation. Taking all these elements into consideration,
Ḫiṭābī thus closely follows in his taqwīm the standard scheme and conventions
of the genre.
The taqwīm of Ḫiṭābī is the earliest of around 30 surviving almanacs that
were solely dedicated to Bāyezīd II. In certain years such as 904/1499 or
909/1504 we have at least three different, original taqwīms drafted by separate
munaǧǧims. It is beyond the scope of this study to compare the contents of
those different taqwīms from a single year, but we can safely say that although
these taqwīms have substantial differences generated by the use of different
zīǧs, the predictions they make attest to their common “sultanocentrism” and
intention to promulgate Bāyezīd’s divinely validated rule through a rich impe-
rial titulature.
In terms of the number of extant taqwīms, the court of Bāyezīd II once
again considerably outstrips those of his predecessors and successors. There
are fewer than eight extant taqwīms that were produced in the 30-year reign
of Meḥmed II, and no more than five for that of Selīm I. The time of Süleymān
is also not significantly different, as the number of surviving taqwīms from
his 46 years of rule (926/1520-974/1566) seems to be no more than 18.
The disproportionate ratio of extant taqwīms could be just a matter of pre
servation; however, as we will see in more detail, the higher number of taqwīms
is clearly the product of Bāyezīd II’s keen personal interest in astral sciences,
such that contemporary scholars often considered it a lucrative business and
even a career opportunity to dedicate to him a taqwīm and/or a relevant astro-
logical/astronomical text. One good example is Qāḍī-yi Baġdād, who decided
to approach Bāyezīd II for the first time in the year 913/1508 by presenting him
with a taqwīm.76 As also manifest through the famous gift register, besides
those court munaǧǧims whose primary task was to prepare the annual astro-
logical predictions, there were around 15 extra-courtly agents who received
allowances in return for the taqwīms they presented. For Bāyezīd II the annual
predictions expressed through taqwīms were so important that, as we will see
in more detail below, the failure of a court munaǧǧīm to report his forecasts
was sufficient reason to dismiss him from service.
Although many of the court munaǧǧims and those aspiring to that status
received the benevolence of Bāyezīd II whenever they presented him with a
76 The unique copy of this taqwīm is available in London, British Library, Or. 6432, ff. 26b-
52b. The famous register of gifts and payments also records his name as the recipient of
1,500 aspers on April 25, 1508 for his debut presentation of the sultan with his taqwīm. See
Atatürk Kitaplıǧı Muallim Cevdet O. 71, p. 263.
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588 Şen
taqwīm, there are two important figures whose relationships with the sultan
were demonstrably of a special character. The first one, who is unhelpfully
named in the register as simply Sayyid Munaǧǧim, seems to have had a status
superior to all the other court munaǧǧims. Unlike many others, he was not
only rewarded whenever he presented a taqwīm; in certain years, he received
payments and/or robes of honor on four or five different occasions, most of
which are unfortunately not specified.77 On several occasions (again unspeci-
fied) he was even paid 7 000 aspers, almost equal to the payscale of provincial
governors and other servants of higher rank. The amounts he received when
he presented a taqwīm were also always higher than other munaǧǧims. Where
he was given 1 500 aspers, the payscale of others ranged between 500 and
1 000 aspers. Moreover, he was once presented a garment on the occasion of
the loss of his son, suggesting that he must have had a close relationship with
the sultan, for it was usually Bāyezīd’s closest companions who received gifts
upon such occasions of death or marriage.
Apart from the information gleaned from the gift register, we know next to
nothing about Sayyid Munaǧǧim, which makes his personality all the more
intriguing. Although he was an important courtier of the sultan, as indicated
by the amounts and occasions of the gifts he received, none of the biographi-
cal sources or contemporary narratives mention his name, with the exception
of a single waqf record, dated 894/1489, documenting his estates in the Eyüp
neighborhood of Istanbul.78 The lack of contemporary information as to an
important courtier of a sultan suggests that sayyid munaǧǧim was rather the
epithet, not the real name of the person in question. It should be recalled that
the proper name of the Timurid sayyid munaǧǧim was Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn.
In a similar vein, in his surviving autobiographical piece, the munaǧǧim of
Bāyezīd’s eldest son Aḥmed in Amasya, describes his master from Shiraz as
the chief of the munaǧǧims (sayyid al-munaǧǧim).79 Therefore what sayyid
munaǧǧim stands for was likely a label attributed at different times to different
munaǧǧims either by themselves, their peers, or the court, whose prestige and
erudition were deemed superior to their contemporaries. There were other epi-
thets as well frequently deployed by astral experts in the eighth/fourteenth and
ninth/fifteenth centuries, such as šams al-munaǧǧim used by al-Wābkanawī
77 Atatürk Kitaplıǧı Muallim Cevdet O. 71, passim.

78 Ömer Lütfi Barkan and Ekrem Hakkı Ayverdi, İstanbul Vakıfları Tahrir Defteri: 953 (1546)
tarihli, Istanbul, Baha matbaası, 1970, p. 155.
79 M S Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Ayasofya, 3635, f. 3a.
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or ʿimād al-munaǧǧim adopted by Maḥmūd b. Yaḥyā l-Ḥasan al-Kāšī, the

author of the famous Mīrzā Iskandar horoscope.80
Could the Sayyid Munaǧǧim active at the court of Bāyezīd II through the
end of his reign be Ḫiṭābī himself? There is a slight possibility that the two
were the same, for the waqf record about Sayyid Munaǧǧim that dates back to
894/1489 establishes at least that the two were active at the same time. Yet, we
should also keep in mind that Ḫiṭābī never refers to the epithet in the surviving
copies of his original texts, so we cannot easily assume their identity in the
absence of new and conclusive evidence.
Next to this Sayyid Munaǧǧim, the other important expert in ʿilm al-nuǧūm
who had a very special status at the court of Bāyezīd II was Mīrim Čelebī
(d. 931/1525). He is a relatively better-known figure due to his descent from Mūsā
Qāḍīzāda-i Rūmī (d. after 844/1440) and relation to ʿAlī Qūšǧī (d. 879/1474), the
two leading figures of the ninth/fifteenth-century mathematical-astronomical
school of Samarkand.81 Thanks to his ancestral prestige, as early as the early
890s/late 1480s Mīrim started to receive a salary as a member of the zawāʾid-
ḫūrān class, peculiar to the sons of the prestigious ʿulamāʾ families.82 Upon
completing his madrasa education likely in the late 890s/early 1490s, he star
ted teaching at several mid-level madrasas in Bursa and Edirne. Around this
time, he was called by Bāyezīd II to be his private tutor and instruct him in the
80 On šams al-munaǧǧim, see the works of Mozaffari and Ragep cited above. For ʿimad
al-munaǧǧim see Fateme Keshaverz, “The Horoscope of Iskandar Sultan,” Journal of Royal
Asiatic Society, 2 (1984), p. 197-208. Interestingly, one of the taqwīms composed in plain
Turkish in the year 937/1531 and dedicated to Sulṭān Süleymān was signed by another
selfproclaimed al-sayyid al-munaǧǧīm from Tokat (northeastern part of Anatolia), whose
actual name was apparently Ibn Sayyid Tāǧ. MS Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum Library,
III. Ahmed, 3497, f. 3a. Given the fact that one specific register of payments from the early
920s/late 1520s lists the son of Sayyid Munaǧǧim at Bāyezīd II’s court as the then chief
munaǧǧim, we can safely argue that by the time this Ibn Sayyid Tāǧ composed his alma-
nac, the sayyid munaǧǧim at Bāyezīd’s court must have already passed away. All things
considered, the chief (i.e. sayyid) munaǧǧim during the last decade of Bāyezīd II’s reign
must have been an individual different than those so styled at the Timurid realm or the
time of Süleymān.
81 See İhsan Fazlıoǧlu, “Mīrim Čelebī: Maḥmūd ibn Quṭb al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad
ibn Mūsā Qāḍīzāde,” in The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, dir. Thomas A.
Hockey, New York, Springer, 2007, p. 788-789. For Qāḍīzāda and ʿAlī Qūšǧī, see F. Jamil
Ragep, “Qāḍīzāda al-Rūmī: Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Mūsā ibn Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd al-Rūmī,”
in ibid., p. 942; İhsan Fazlıoǧlu, “Qūshjī: Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad
Qushči-zāde” in ibid., p. 946-948.
82 Ömer Lütfi Barkan, “Ayasofya Camii ve Eyüp Türbesinin 1489-1491 yıllarına ait Muhasebe
Bilançoları,” Istanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası, 23/1-2 (1962-1963), p. 358.
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590 Şen
athematical-astronomical sciences (al-ʿulūm al-riyāḍiyya).83 It is not certain

m
when exactly the student-tutor relationship between the two began, but we
have evidence that from ca 900/mid-1490s onwards Mīrim was in close pro
ximity to Bāyezīd II. As documented by a catalogue record of a private auction
held in the 1990s, Mīrim Čelebī even produced two annual almanac-prognosti-
cations, one for the year 900/1495, the other for the year 904/1499.84 Although
not listed in the voluminous gift register, another minor payment register cor-
roborates that he once received 1,000 aspers for a taqwīm he presented in the
early tenth/sixteenth century.85
Around the year 904/1499, Bāyezīd asked Mīrim Čelebī to write a commen-
tary on the Uluġ Beg tables to clarify its ambiguous points. In the introductory
passages of his commentary, Mīrim outlines the attempts of his own master
Ḫwāǧa ʿAṭāʾ Allāh (d. 886/1481) and of his grandfather ʿAlī Qūščī, who tried to
compose an expositional work on the concepts and parameters mentioned in
the original Uluġ Beg tables.86 In his dedication remarks, Mīrim lavishly prai
ses Bāyezīd II, among other ascriptions, as the most perfect and enlightened of
the caesars of the world, as powerful as Alexander, who orders the affairs of the
world according the rule of Farīdūn and the precepts of Plato, and as the mes-
sianic saviour of the end times (mahdī-yi āḫir-i zamān).87 He repeats similar
remarks in other parts of the text where he identifies Bāyezīd as the pādišāh
of the inhabited world and the prophesied world ruler (ṣāḥib-qirān).88 Similar
titulature is used in his works on astronomical instruments he composed and
presented to the sultan in the first decade of the tenth/sixteenth century. For
instance, in his work on the uses of the sine quadrant, Mīrim expresses his
gratitude toward Bāyezīd II who is, as he puts it, chief among prophesied
world rulers (wāsiṭa-i ʿiqd-i ṣāḥib-qirānī) and the messianic savior of the end
times (mahdī l-raḥma fī āḫir al-zamān).89 Even though Mīrim does not elabo
rate in his works on the astral grounds of the titles he ascribes to Bāyezīd, his
83 Ṭāšköprüzāde, al-Šaqāʾiq al-nuʿmāniyya, p. 198.

84 I found this information at http://www.islamicmanuscripts.info/reference/books/Sothe
bys-19941019/Sothebys-19941019-109-128.pdf. Unfortunately, both of these taqwīms are
now in private collections and thus not accessible for research.
85 Topkapı Palace Museum Archive D. 9600.
86 M S Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Ayasofya, 2697, f. 2a-2b. This Ḫwāǧa ʿAṭāʾ Allāh must be the
Mawlānā ʿAṭāʾ Allāh Kirmānī whom Ṭāšköprüzāde introduces as an expert in taqwīm and
zīǧ. See Ṭāšköprüzāde, al-Šaqāʾiq al-nuʿmāniyya, p. 135.
87 M S Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Ayasofya, 2697, f. 2b: akmal wa-aʿqal-i qayāṣira-i ʿālam-i Ḏū
l-qarnayn-šawkatī ki ba-ḥukm-i Farīdūnī wa-ḥikam-i Aflāṭūnī asbāb-i ǧihāngīrī sāḫt.
88 Ibid., f. 263b.
89 M S Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Hazine, 1760, f. 40b.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

resort to these concepts as a close companion of Bāyezīd and a prominent

expert of astral sciences is quite telling as to the extent of the discussion on the
vocabulary of sovereignty in the late ninth/fifteenth and early tenth/sixteenth
century Ottoman context.90
The entries of the voluminous gift register covering the period 909/1503-
918/1512 likewise show that Mīrim must have been a close companion to the
sultan, as Bāyezīd sponsored his wedding in 911/1505 and later gave Mīrim’s wife
several items of clothing as a gift in the year 915/1510.91 Idrīs Bidlīsī, a nother
contemporary courtier of Bāyezīd II, also acknowledges the great esteem in
which Bāyezīd II held him.92 Further evidence for Mīrim Čelebī’s close connec-
tion to Bāyezīd II is the fact that during the pro-Selīm rebellions in the capital
in late 917/1511 he was among those individuals who were targeted by the pro-
Selīm factions, along with the chief military judge Muʾayyadzāda (d. 922/1516),
the chancellor Tāǧīzāda Ǧaʿfar Čelebī (d. 921/1515), and the chief physician Āhī
Čelebī (d. 930/1524), on the grounds that they supported Bāyezīd’s favorite son
Aḥmed against Selīm.93
In addition to the taqwīms, the commentary on the Zīǧ-i Uluġ Beg, and the
works on various astronomical instruments, Mīrim Čelebī composed at least
two treatises on two specific fields of astrology, namely elections (iḫtiyārāt)
and interrogations (masāʾil). Although the surviving copies of these works
have no colophons that could help us reconstruct the dates of their composi-
tion, Mīrim likely compiled them after the reign of Bāyezīd II, as they do not
include dedications to the sultan. In fact, Mīrim’s astrological works are geared
more towards practicing astrologers who needed to advance their skills in the
relevant techniques. In his work on interrogations (Ta‌ʾṯīrāt dar masāʾil), for
instance, Mīrim handles all possible questions a customer might ask a practi
cing munaǧǧim. In so doing, Mīrim shows his vast knowledge of the subject and
frequently cites such names as Vettius Valens (Valis), Hermes Trismegistus, and
Māšāʾallāh as the major authorities on this science. Moreover, he encourages
90 On the debates on the vocabulary of sovereignty in the post-Timurid realm see
Christopher Markiewicz’s dissertation, which finds it to have significant receptions in
the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth century Ottoman political and intellectual context:
Markiewicz, “The Crisis of Rule,” esp. p. 311-341.
91 Atatürk Kitaplıǧı Muallim Cevdet O. 71, p. 159: inʿām bi-Mawlānā Mīrim Čalabī barāy-i
ḫarǧ-i ʿurs-i ḫūd fī 26 minhu (i.e. 26 ǧumādā l-āḫira 911/24 November 1505); ibid., p. 368:
ʿādat-i būġča-i zawǧa-i Mīrim Čelebī fī 10 minhu (i.e. 10 ḏū l-qaʿda 915/19 February 19 1510).
92 Vural Genç, Acem’den Rum’a: İdris-i Bidlisi’nin Hayatı, Tarihçiliǧi ve Heşt Behişt’in II. Bāyezīd
Kısmı (1481-1512), p. 880: bi-ṣuḥbat-i maǧlis-i humāyūn az sāʾir-i ʿulamā mumtāz-ast.
93 Çaǧatay Uluçay, “Yavuz Sultan Selim Nasıl Padişah Oldu II,” İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat
Fakültesi Tarih Dergisi, 7/10 (1954), p. 117-142, esp. p. 120-121.
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592 Şen
his readers to consult authoritative texts in this discipline such as Qaṣrānī’s

(fl. probably in the eighth/ninth century) Kitāb al-Masāʾil for further reading.
He also mentions astrolabes and quadrants as major tools in the practicing
munaǧǧim’s toolkit, and argues that one of the most important reasons for
inaccurate predictions on the part of munaǧǧims are defects in these instru-
ments that impair their accuracy.94
Bāyezīd II as Student of ʿilm al-nuǧūm
Up to this point I have tried to sketch the extent of Bāyezīd’s patronage of the
munaǧǧims based primarily upon archival salary registers, taqwīms, and related
treatises of select names presented to the sultan. There are still other sources,
however, that shed light upon the sultan’s deep interest in the science of the
stars. The private correspondence between Bāyezīd II and his munaǧǧims as
well as other contemporaries, albeit somewhat limited, adds to the image of the
sultan as a dedicated observer of heavenly configurations. Indeed, the Archive
of the Topkapı Palace Museum, the main repository of pre-nineteenth-century
loose documents (awrāq), such as copies of letters, imperial orders, petitions,
and other records, house a small amount of reports and memos written by
the munaǧǧims and other diviners at court. In this regard, a student of early-
modern Ottoman history particularly interested in the practical and political
uses of astrology during the ninth/fifteenth and tenth/sixteenth centuries is
not as fortunate as the historians of contemporary European courts, who have
at their disposal a richer body of documenti astrologi.
The scarcity of confidential astrological and similar writings in the Ottoman
archives, at least for the period in question, may lead one to think that the role
of the munaǧǧims and/or other diviners should not be overstated. However,
one should always keep in mind the oral nature of astrological counseling.
This phenomenon has already been discussed in the relevant European histo-
riography, which has found that astrological predictions were often expressed
verbally; astrologers were in close proximity to their patrons, so written
explanations might turn out to be dangerous in the hands of rival factions.95
94 M S Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Baǧdatlı Vehbi, 2005, f. 10a: dar maʿrifat-i čīz-hā ki ḫaṭā dar
masāʾil az ān-ǧihat wāqiʿ mī-šawad wa-ān čahār-ast awwal ḫaṭā dar masāʾil bi-sabab-i ḫaṭā
dar ālat […] čūn usṭurlāb wa-rubʿ mī-bāšad.
95 Azzolini, The Duke and the Stars, p. 4. Carey also points to the fact that most of the horo-
scopes are written only as tables, without accompanying explanations, which were pro
bably expressed on the spot. See Hilary M. Carey, “Astrology at the English Court in the
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

In fact, the same concern is also found in a few surviving Ottoman documents.
For example, in his letters in which he forecasts certain political issues of the
time based upon his expertise in geomancy, Ḥaydar-i Rammāl (geomancer),
the key diviner at the court of Süleymān, reminds the sultan that his predic-
tions should be communicated orally.96 On one such occasion, the geomancer
reiterates à la Mission Impossible that his document should be destroyed im-
mediately after reading.97 In that sense, it is not at all surprising that we find
few private predictions in the archives for the period in question. There are
extant, nevertheless, two curious petitions from the time of Bāyezīd II attes
ting to his relationship with his munaǧǧims as well as to his great interest in
hearing their calculations and interpretations.
In the first document, which is undated but located in the folder of the writ-
ten communications from the time of Bāyezīd II, the anonymous munaǧǧim
asks in Persian for the sultan’s sympathy and forgiveness because, as he admits,
he has recently failed to present him with a taqwīm.98 He raises two reasons for
his recent inattentiveness. Firstly, he says, his attention has lately been focused
on medicine rather than astrology. Secondly and more strikingly, the anony-
mous munaǧǧim maintains that as he becomes older and death draws near,
it excites more grief and uneasiness to deal with the stars, especially with the
judicium (aḥkām). In the last part of this petition the anonymous munaǧǧim
desperately pleads with the sultan to reemploy him in his service.99
Besides showing quite intriguingly that some of the practicing munaǧǧims
had deep suspicions about the epistemological validity and religious permis-
sibility of their own craft, the petition is a clear proof that Bāyezīd II inquired
after, and waited impatiently for, the astrological counseling of his munaǧǧims.
Since failing to produce the annual astrological predictions in a timely man-
ner potentially entailed a munaǧǧim’s loss of position, Bāyezīd II must have
deemed the standard astrological counsel a quite serious matter indeed.
Later Middle Ages,” in Astrology, Science, and Society: Historical Essays, ed. Patrick Curry,
Woolbridge, Boydell Press, 1987, p. 41-56.
96 Fleischer, “Seer to the Sultan,” p. 295.
97 M S Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum Archive, E. 1698: saʿādetlü sulṭānımıñ mürüvvetiniñ
āsārından şöyle ricā iderüm ki rıżā-yı ḥaqq içün bu ġarīb-i bī-kes ve bī-ḥāmīniñ aḥkām remi-
llerimi bir kimesneye göstermeyüb muṭālaʿa qıldıkda nihān ve maḥv idesüz ki bir kimesne
aḥvāle muṭṭaliʿ olmaya.
98 M S Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum Archive, E. 10159/145: dar īn ayyām muyassar našud
ki bi-istiḫrāǧ-i taqwīm mašġūl šawad.
99 Ibid.: az čand ǧihat yakī az ištiġāl bi-muṭālaʿa-i ṭibbiyya ammā māniʿ-i kullī ān-ast ki īn
kamīna-rā waqt-i irtiḥāl nazdīk-ast wa-ištiġāl bi-nuǧūmiyyāt siyyamā bi-aḥkām-aš must-
alzim-i qasāwat-i qalb-ast.
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594 Şen
In the second petition, another undated document from the same folder,
likely written by the same munaǧǧim based on similar language and handwri
ting, the anonymous munaǧǧim says that, to the best of his knowledge, the
Zīǧ-i Uluġ Beg, Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s Taḥrīr al-Maǧisṭī and a sizeable astrolabe
as well as the horoscopes of the exalted sultan and his sons Qorqud and Aḥmed
are located in the imperial treasury (ḫizāna).100 The anonymous author of the
petition asks for these books and the instrument to be given to him for his use,
and adds that if the horoscopes are not available he can produce new ones if
he is told the birth dates of the sultan and his sons.101
How did this anonymous munaǧǧim know that the books and the tools he
requested were in the imperial treasury? Perhaps he heard it from one of his
peers who had found an opportunity to work there; or perhaps he had access
to the catalogue of the royal palace library produced in the year 909/1502-
1503 by the chief librarian, ʿAṭūfī (d. 948/1541), assuming that the anonymous
munaǧǧim wrote his petition after this date. Indeed, ʿAṭūfī’s inventory, which
lists the names of around 5 700 volumes and 7 200 titles in various branches of
knowledge housed in the imperial treasury, indicates that the items requested
in the petition, apart from the horoscopes of Qorqud and Aḥmed, were avai
lable at the time in the imperial palace library.102
ʿAṭūfī’s inventory is particularly rich in terms of those works belonging to
the Islamic corpus astronomicum and corpus astrologicum. In addition to nu-
merous copies of several important works on the planetary theory and the
tradition of ʿilm al-hayʾa, such as al-Ṭūsī’s Taḏkira and Taḥrīr al-Maǧisṭī, Quṭb
al-Dīn Šīrāzī’s (d. 710/1311) al-Tuḥfa l-šāhiyya, and Qāḍīzāda’s commentary on
Čaġmīnī’s Mulaḫḫaṣ, which are not the particular concern of this paper, the
library houses, among other things, the following: at least 14 copies of al-Ṭūsī’s
Risāla-i Sī faṣl and its commentaries as well as its Arabic translations, 12 co
pies of the Zīǧ-i Īlḫānī corpus, including the later editions and commenta
ries such as Zīǧ-i Ḫāqānī of Niẓām al-Dīn Nīsābūrī (d. 729/1328-1329), eight
copies of the Zīǧ-i Uluġ Beg and contemporary commentaries including that
written by Mīrim Čelebī, nine copies of the (pseudo-)Ptolemy’s Centiloquium
(Kitāb al-Ṯamara) and its Persian translations, five copies of Abū Maʿšar’s
100
M S Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum Archive, E. 10159/6.
Ibid.: kitāb-i zīǧ-i Uluġ Begi wa-kitāb-i Maǧisṭī wa-usṭurlāb-i tām bā-ṭāliʿ-i ḥaḍrat-i ʿālam-
101
panāhī bā-ṭāliʿ-i mawlūd-i sulṭān Qurḫūt wa-ṭāliʿ-i mawlūd-i sulṭān Aḥmad dar ḫizāna
būda amr farmāyand ka badīn kamīna badahand wa-agar ṭāliʿ-hā maʿlūm nabāšad tārīḫ-i
wilādat-hā taslīm nimāyand tā baʿd az istiḫrāǧ kayfiyyat-i ṭāliʿ-i har yak-rā čunānča az
dalāyil-i nuǧūmī maʿlūm šawad ba-ʿarḍ rasānīda šawad.
102
M S Budapest, Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Török, F 59.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

various treatises including that on historical conjunctions, and many other

key texts, including the Kitāb al-Tafhīm of al-Bīrūnī (d. ca 442/1050),103 Kūšyār
b. Labbān’s Muǧmal al-uṣūl fī aḥkām al-nuǧūm (aka Kitāb al-madḫal fī ṣināʿat
aḥkām al-nuǧūm),104 al-Qaṣrānī’s Kitāb al-Masāʾil,105 and Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s
(d. 606/1209) al-Iḫtiyārāt al-ʿAlāʾiyya, favored particularly by those interested in
the techniques of interrogations and hemerology. The inventory also lists the
horoscopes of Mīrzā Iskandar Sulṭān b. ʿUmar Šayḫ (d. 818/1415), Meḥmed II,
and Ǧem Sulṭān, in addition to that of Bāyezīd II.
One of the striking characteristics of the inventory, at least for the section
on books about astronomy and astrology, is the number of treatises and copies
produced contemporaneously. In addition to almost all the works of Ḫiṭābī
l-Ḥusaynī and Mīrim Čelebī that are written before 908/1502-1503, the library in-
cludes the Zīǧ-i Muǧmal of Mawlānā Kūčak which he had presented Bāyezīd II
in the early 880s/late 1470s in Amasya106; the treatise of Munaǧǧim Bālī (d. after
886/1481) on quadrants and that of Afazāda (fl. late ninth/fifteenth century) on
astrolabes, both dedicated to the sultan;107 and an anonymous commentary
103 See al-Bīrūnī, The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology by Abu’l-Rayḥān
Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī, transl. Robert Ramsay Wright, London, Luzac, 1934.
104 See Kūšyār b. Labbān, Kūshyār ibn Labbān’s Introduction to Astrology, ed. and transl.
Michio Yano, Tokyo, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (“Studia culturae Islamicae”, 62),
1997.
105 Not much is known about this third/ninth-century astrologer, but given that there are
four copies in the palace library of his Kitāb al-Masāʾil and that Mīrim Čelebī particu-
larly cites him in his own treatise, al-Qaṣrānī’s text was an important part of the Ottoman
astrological canon. Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī also refers to him among other astrological autho
rities from the early Abbasid period. See MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye Library, Baǧdatlı
Vehbi, 2005, f. 47b: īn qadr dar maʿrifat-i aḥkām kifāyat bāšad wa-agar kasī ziyāda az īn
ḫwāhad ba-muḫtaṣar-i Qaṣrānī ki bi-masāʾil-i Qaṣrānī mašhūr-ast murāǧaʿat nimāyad.
106 M S Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Revan, 1713. There is a possession statement
on the title page demonstrating that the copy was in the possession of Muʾayyadzāda by
ramaḍān-šawwāl 881/January 1477. Mawlānā Kūčak dedicated the book when Bāyezīd was
still a governor in Amasya. Kūčak still identifies him as the “pole of the orb of prosperity”
(quṭb falak al-iqbāl) and as a great ruler who is illuminated with the knowledge of the
most exalted sciences, which are, as he says, the religious sciences, ʿilm al-hayʾa, and ʿilm
al-nuǧūm.
107 For Munaǧǧim Bālī’s treatise see MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Ayasofya, 2588. Bālī also refers
to Bāyezīd’s pietistic and learned interests in his dedication remarks by defining him as
“key to the treasury of spiritual matters” (kilīd-i dar-i ganǧ-i maʿānī) and “diver in the sea
of the sciences of reality” (ġawwāṣ-i baḥr-i ʿulūm-i ḥaqīqī). For Afazāda’s treatise see MS
Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Ayasofya, 2641. In line with the general contemporary attitude
to ʿilm al-nuǧūm, Afazāda touches upon the importance of this knowledge for pietistic,
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

596 Şen
(titled Miʿyār-i āftāb) on al-Ṭūsī’s treatise on the use of astrolabes that was pre-
sented to the sultan in the year 896/1490-1491.108 Though not particularly cited
in the inventory, ʿAbd al-Salām al-Muhtadī also presented in ḏū l-ḥiǧǧa 908/
June 1503 his Maʿrifat ḥaqīqat mawḍūʿat al-kawākib, which he translated from
Hebrew upon the sultan’s personal request (bi-talqīn al-sulṭān).109 Interestingly,
however, none of the taqwīms, even those bearing the seal of Bāyezīd II, are
listed in the inventory. Although the reasons for their omission in the catalo
guing of the imperial library are not clear, the ephemeral nature of the taqwīms
might have resulted in their being perceived differently than regular books.
The anonymous munaǧǧim’s request to borrow materials from the treasury
and ʿAṭūfī’s inventory raise two questions: to what extent was this library a
working one, and what can the library’s inventory tell us about Bāyezīd’s own
reading preferences? As the second petition clearly shows, the munaǧǧims
had access to the books and tools stored in the treasury. That the inventory
includes a number of treatises and copies presented to Bāyezīd II when he
was in Amasya as the governor, like Mawlānā Kūčak’s Zīǧ-i muǧmal or Ḫiṭābī’s
Ǧāmiʿ al-qismayn, also suggests that Bāyezīd II must have carried those books
from his court in Amasya to the imperial palace. Yet we cannot assume that
each and every book that bears his seal and is thus listed in the inventory of
the royal library was actually read by the sultan himself. There are, however,
several copies in manuscript libraries that have, in addition to the standard
oval seal of Bāyezīd II, inscriptions on the title pages indicating that the book
in question was the personal possession of the sultan (ṣāḥibuhu l-sulṭān
Bāyezīd ḫān). Among these books personally possessed and likely studied by
Sulṭān Bāyezīd II are a number of astrological and astronomical works such as
al-Ṭūsī’s Sī faṣl and the Zīǧ-i Īlḫānī,110 a treatise on the use of astrolabes titled
Lubāb al-usṭurlāb, ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Balḫī’s Kitāb Madḫal aḥkām al-nuǧūm, an
introductory work on the general principles of astrology, a maǧmūʿa including
astronomical, and astrological purposes. He also points to calculating planetary positions

(taqwīm-i kawākib) and the ascendants (ṭawāliʿ) as being among the primary operations
one can carry out with the astrolabe. In his dedication remarks to Bāyezīd, he refers to
him as ṣāḥib-qirān and praises his unique knowledge of prophetic wisdom (al-mutafarrid
bi-l-ḥikma l-luqmāniyya).
108 See MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Ayasofya, 2677.
109 See MS Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum Library, III. Ahmed, 3495, f. 88a: fa-qad naqala
hāḏihi l-risāla min al-ʿibrānī ilā l-ʿarabī l-ʿabd al-ḥaqīr ʿAbd al-Salām al-Muhtadī bi-talqīn
al-sulṭān abbada Llāhu dawlatahu.
110 I would like to thank Zeren Tanındı, who notified me of the Zīǧ-i Īlḫānī copy that has
Bāyezīd’s possession marks and is now housed in the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum in
Bursa.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

(pseudo-)Aristotle’s Risālat al-Ġālib wa-l-maġlūb—a treatise, popular espe-

cially among taqwīm writers, on a prognosticative technique as to the outcome
of a battle between two parties—, and another maǧmūʿa consisting of several
treatises on astronomical instruments.
Did Bāyezīd study these texts while Mīrim Čelebī was teaching him the
mathematical sciences (al-ʿulūm al-riyāḍiyya), or is it rather the case that
Bāyezīd II would have read them alone, if read them he did? Unfortunately,
the copies do not include useful marginalia or other meta-textual evidence
that could shed light on how Bāyezīd himself studied these texts. Mīrim’s own
works also do not yield any clues about this aspect of the story. Nevertheless,
that these books bear marks of the sultan’s desire to keep them on hand for his
personal consultation still suggests Bāyezīd’s reading tastes. Besides this physi-
cal evidence, moreover, there are also a number of contemporary testimonies
that reveal the nature of his reading preferences and intellectual aspirations.
The most intriguing of these contemporary testimonies to Bāyezīd’s genu-
ine interest in the study of heavens, as well as in alchemy, is an anonymous
letter located in the archives of the Topkapı Palace Museum.111 In this undated
letter that casts light upon the learned interests of the sultan, the anonymous
author, who speaks in the idiom of a highly self-confident and assertive Sufi
shaykh using alchemical jargon, writes that he recently heard the Ottoman sul-
tan Bāyezīd was sinking his teeth into learning ʿilm al-hayʾa, along with another
formidable branch of ʿilm-i ḥikmat which he does not identify.112 In his opinion,
however, Bāyezīd lacks acumen and his attempts to master these sciences were
made solely on the basis of personal experience (taǧriba). It is the author’s
desire to remind the sultan, whom he characterizes as a zealous servant in the
path of Islam, of the transitory nature of life and the insignificance of worldly
possessions.113 He then says that he has decided, in accordance with the por-
tents in his dream, to send Bāyezīd one of his disciples to inculcate in him his
real essence. The training should continue, the shaykh argues, until Bāyezīd
attains the spiritual stage that his disciple has already reached at the hands
of the master. Once Bāyezīd reaches that stage, then he, the author, will write
111
M S Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum Archive, E. 6172.
Ibid.: malik-i memleket-i Rūmiyye kim Āl-i ʿOs̱māniyeden Sulṭān Bāyezīd’dür şöyle istimāʿ
112
olundı ki ṣanʿat el-heyʾete ve bir ḥikmete ki ḥikmeti muhībdür ṭālmış ammā tecrübe
ṭarīqiyleymiş vuqūf yoġimiş.
Ibid.: benim üzerime lāzım oldu ki anā şefqat idub tenbīh eyleyem […] metāʿ-i dünyā qalīldür
113
biz bundan raḥīl üzerineyüz istiḫāre itdüm ḫayr şunda gördüm ki şākirdlerimden birini
gönderem vara anā māddesin taʿlīm eyleye.
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598 Şen
a type of talisman for the sultan to help him gain access to secrets.114 Finally,
in explaining why he absents himself from Bāyezīd’s presence and rather pre-
fers to send his disciple to train the sultan, the author says that he is afraid of
interacting with the sultan, and argues further that wise men should refrain
from consorting with rulers, for the ruler may abuse the knowledge imparted
because they are not like wise men.115
Besides providing evidence for how relationships between Sufis and sultans
were initiated and negotiated, and alluding to contemporary discussions on
competing epistemologies of knowledge, this letter clearly shows that Bāyezīd’s
preoccupation with different branches of the ḥikmat tradition like the science
of the stars and alchemy was well attested to in his own time by contemporary
figures. The way the anonymous author uses the concept of taǧriba (experi-
ence) is also worth pondering. Although this concept has various connotations
in medieval Islamic thought, it is usually associated among Sufi circles with a
special, intuitive mode of knowing.116 However, the author of this short report,
despite speaking with a strong Sufi tone, belittles it, as this is, as far as he has
heard, how Bāyezīd is accustomed to studying ʿilm al-hayʾa and the other for-
midable branch of ḥikmat left unspecified. What the author means by the term
taǧriba thus seems to be related to a kind of knowing based not on intuition or
personal inspiration, but rather on bookish learning, observation, and perhaps
even empirical study.
As to such a culture of observation and experiential knowledge, a Jewish
physician at the court of Bāyezīd II provides captivating details. Around the
year 905/1500, Moses ben Judah Galeano, or Mūsā Ǧālīnūs, a Jewish physician
at the court of Bāyezīd II who had devised a spring-wheeled robot and com-
posed an astronomical book while he was in Istanbul in the sultan’s service,
compiled a Hebrew-language compendium of knowledge entitled Taʿallumot
ḥoḫmah (Puzzles of Wisdom). In this treatise, Galeano examines several
114 Ibid.: (şakird) benden gördüǧi mertebeye dek tedbīr eyleye ol mertebeye vāṣıl olıcaq banā
iʿlām eyleye ben bir remz yazam ki kāşif ola […] tā ki ṭarḥ-i iksire ṣāliḥ ola.
115 Ibid.: pūşīde olmaya ki eger andan qorqmasam Allāh rızāsiyçün taʿlīm itmekden ben kendüm
varurdum ammā ḥekīm olan imtināʿ ider ḥākime musāḥebet eylemekden, ḥākim kendü gibi
ḥekīm olmaz.
116 On the role of taǧriba in medieval epistemological discussions in the Islamicate world,
see Jules J. Janssens, “Experience (tajriba) in Classical Arabic Philosophy (al-Fārābī-
Avicenna),” Quaestio, 4 (2004), p. 45-62; Miquel Forcada, “Ibn Bājja on Medicine and
Medical Experience,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 21 (2011), p. 111-148; Dimitri Gutas,
“The Empiricism of Avicenna,” Oriens, 40 (2012), p. 391-436; Tzvi Langermann, “From
my Notebooks: On Tajriba/Nissayon (“Experience”): Texts in Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, and
Arabic,” Aleph, 14/2 (2014), p. 147-176.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

errors and fallacies in the fields of various branches of knowledge including

medicine, astronomy, and mechanics, and relates first-hand episodes about the
courtly and scholarly culture around the sultan. Thanks to the fascinating stud-
ies of Tzvi Langermann and Robert Morrison on Galeano and his Taʿallumot,
we know that in the presence of Bāyezīd II were performed various types of
operations, especially alchemical ones.117 In one such episode, an alchemist
received the attention of the sultan after promising him that he can turn lead
into gold. While the alchemist was conducting his operation, the rabbi Samuel
Abulafia, one of the chief Jewish refugees from Spain at Bāyezīd’s court, asked
Galeano to pass the sultan a note from Abulafia stating that the performance
of the alchemist was a fraud. Upon reading the rabbi’s note Bāyezīd finally
perceived his trickery. The alchemist then took his own life, drinking a lethal
poison in the bathhouse.118
Mūsā Ǧālīnūs is not the only contemporary who pointed to Bāyezīd II’s
interest in alchemy and mechanics, not to mention astronomy and astrology.
Andrea Gritti (d. 1538), the famous Venetian merchant and statesman who
spent much of his early life in Istanbul and had close ties with the high-ranking
members of the Ottoman court, writes in one of his reports to the Venetian
senate that the sultan takes delight in the arts of mechanics and alchemy. He
adds that Bāyezīd is considered a very learned person in astrologia and theo-
logia, and that he studies these disciplines ardently.119 It should also be noted
that, as Tuna Artun has demonstrated, Bāyezīd II is frequently praised in the
eleventh/seventeenth-century Ottoman alchemical literature as both a patron
of alchemy and a practicing alchemist in his own right.120 Although Artun ar-
gues that the image of Bāyezīd as an alchemist was most probably invented
in later Ottoman alchemical literature, that it was this sultan who was sin-
gled out for this purpose rather than another is most likely due to the fact his
alchemical interests were witnessed in his own lifetime by several indepen-
dent observers.
117 Tzvi Langermann, “From My Notebooks: A Compendium of Renaissance Science:

Taʿalumot Ḥoḵmah by Moses Galeano,” Aleph, 7 (2007), p. 285-318; id., “From My Notebooks:
Medicine, Mechanics and Magic from Moses ben Judah Galeano’s Taʿalumot Ḥoḵmah,”
Aleph, 9/1 (2009), p. 353-377; Robert Morrison, “An Astronomical Treatise by Mūsā Jālīnūs
alias Moses Galeano,” Aleph, 11/2 (2011), p. 385-413; id., “A Scholarly Intermediary between
the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Europe,” Isis, 105 (2014), p. 32-57.
118 Langermann, “From My Notebooks,” p. 311-314.
119 Marino Sanuto, I diarii, ed. Federico Stefani, Venezia, F. Visentini, 1881, V, p. 458.
120 Tuna Artun, “Bāyezīd-i Kimyai: Osmanli Kimya Metinlerinde Sultan II. Bāyezīd,” Journal
of Turkish Studies, 39 (2013), p. 181-186.
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600 Şen
Another contemporary testimony to Bāyezīd’s learned interests comes

from one Ibn al-ʿUlayf (d. 926/1520), a noted poet living in Mecca, who had
visited Istanbul and presented the sultan a qaṣīda long before he composed in
Mecca a chronicle eulogizing the virtues of the Ottoman dynasty generally and
Bāyezīd II specifically.121 In this chronicle, he details the scholarly character
of Bāyezīd II and identifies the sciences the sultan endeavored to learn. Ibn
al-ʿUlayf states that in addition to various branches of the religious sciences,
including hadith and jurisprudence, Bāyezīd II was also interested in the sci-
ence of the celestial spheres (ʿilm al-falak) and distinguished himself in the
science of the stars (ʿilm al-nuǧūm) as well as geomancy (ʿilm al-raml).122
It is difficult, however, to find similar remarks by contemporary “indig-
enous” Ottoman chroniclers and historians, who spend most of their time
describing military achievements and internal political events, and rarely talk
about personal and cultural aspects of court life. Nevertheless, in the works
of Idrīs Bidlīsī and Kamāl Pāšāzāda, who quite frequently employ astral imag-
ery and celestial metaphors in their narratives, it is possible to find anecdotal
evidence as to the sultan’s taking counsel of his munaǧǧims before embarking
upon a campaign or beginning construction of an imperial complex.123 Such
anecdotes, of course, are not peculiar to his reign. However, Bāyezīd’s reign
is unique in the sense that his tenure is the first—and as far as we know, the
last—time in Ottoman history that two different astrolabes were constructed
for and presented to a sultan.
As mentioned briefly in the introduction to this study, the first of these as-
trolabes, now preserved at the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo, was devised
by Šukr Allāh Širwānī and presented to the sultan in the year 910/1504-1505.
Although David King speculated on the name of the deviser but could not
reach a decisive conclusion due to a paucity of information on Šukr Allāh
Širwānī, the inscription on the astrolabe, idiosyncratically in Persian, clearly
reads as “devised and constructed by Šukr Allāh, the sincere one from Shirvan
121 M S Istanbul, Süleymaniye Library, Fatih, 4357. For his qaṣīda to the sultan see Şükran
Fazlıoǧlu, “Mekkeli Şair İbn el-Uleyf’in Sultan II. Bayezid’e Yazdıǧı Kaside,” Divan: İlmî
Araştırmalar, 11 (2001-2002), p. 163-181.
122 M S Istanbul, Süleymaniye Library, Fatih, 4357, f. 33b: naẓara fī ʿilm al-falak wa-baraʿa fī
maʿrifat ʿilm al-nuǧūm wa-l-raml.
123 See İbn Kemal, Tevarih-i Al-i Osman 8. Defter, ed. Ahmet Uǧur, Ankara, Türk Tarih
Kurumu, 1997, passim: “melik-i melek-manẓar dārü’l-mülk-i Qosṭanṭinden sāʿat-ı saʿd ve
vaqt-i meymūnda çıkub […]”; “Hz. Pādišāh-ı ḫilāfet-destgāh mübārek sāʿat ve fīrūz-demde
maḥrūse-i Bursa’dan göçüb […]”; “Buyurulan ḥiṣarların bināsı mühimmātını ve bennāsını
ve ālātını iḥżār idüb ol mübārek maṣlaḥata şürūʿ itmeǧe sāʿat-ı saʿd iḫtiyār idüb bünyādını
qazdılar.”
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(muḫliṣ-i Širwānī).”124 A year later, another expert in astronomical devices from

the lands of Rum, one al-Aḥmar al-Nuǧūmī l-Rūmī, constructed an astrolabe
and presented it to Bāyezīd II. Unfortunately, their names are not recorded in
the voluminous register of payments as recipients of the sultan’s benevolence
in return for the instruments they devised. Nor is it clear what their intentions
were in presenting the sultan their astrolabes. Nevertheless, that these indi-
viduals decided to devise astrolabes to present to Bāyezīd as gifts is reflective
of the range of Bāyezīd’s celestial and intellectual interests.
Contextualizing Heavenly Pursuits at Bāyezīd’s Court
The sources adduced thus far on celestial inquiries at the court of Bāyezīd II
provide strong evidence that the unprecedented extent of the cultivation of
ʿilm al-nuǧūm during his reign was intimately related to his personal intellec-
tual aspirations. Two major questions, however, remain unaddressed. First,
what might be the reasons for Bāyezīd’s genuine and documented interest in
this particular branch of knowledge? Secondly and more importantly, what
can we say about the implications of his deliberate attempts to cultivate
ʿilm al-nuǧūm?
As regards the first question, ruling elites habitually relied on munaǧǧims
and similar experts of prognosticative sciences during the medieval and early-
modern eras. Therefore, it is difficult indeed to find Bāyezīd II’s support of
munaǧǧims extraordinary. The practical benefits of employing munaǧǧims by
nature included, among other things, their service of interpreting the short
and long-term political and military decisions through astrological reasoning.
Besides, the royal patronage of munaǧǧims also mattered for its significance
as a political instrument, and even a powerful medium of propaganda.125 This
has dual implications: on one hand, munaǧǧims’ interpretation of wordly
events on astrological grounds and their sycophantic remarks for the reigning
sovereign full of heavenly metaphors, touting him as the supreme one among
others certified by celestial portents, endowed the ruling party with irrefut-
able divine significance and recognition. On the other hand, the support given
for a specific group of “scientific” experts helped the sovereign easily dissemi-
nate his own image as a generous patron of knowledge. If the patron was also
interested in studying the science itself, then it was even possible for him to
124 King, “Two Astrolabes,” p. 447.

125 See especially Darin Hayton’s book on the uses of astrological knowledge for imperial
propaganda during the reign of the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian I (r. 1493-1519).
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

602 Şen
be acclaimed by his contemporaries as a learned ruler and even the idealized

philosopher-king.126
Bāyezīd II’s interest in the subject itself and his arduous attempts at learn-
ing its different aspects were also not entirely uncommon, especially in the
Islamicate context. The seventh/thirteenth-century Rasulid ruler of Yemen,
al-Ašraf ʿUmar II (r. 694/1295-696/1296), for instance, not only patronized ex-
perts in ʿilm al-nuǧūm but also personally wrote at least two treatises on the
subject, one on the general principles of astrology (Kitāb al-Tabṣira fī ʿilm al-
nuǧūm), and another on the use of astrolabes.127 The second work was writ-
ten as an accompanying text to an actual astrolabe of al-Ašraf ʿUmar’s own
construction.128 He even received iǧāzas from his teachers for skillfully making
astrolabes.
In addition to the Yemeni sultan, the most famous of all the rulers in Islamic
history who showed a marked interest in learning and teaching the science
of the stars is obviously Uluġ Beg (d. 853/1449). He gathered at his court in
Samarkand a number of experts from diyār-i Rūm and Irān-zamīn, including in
the first place Ġiyāṯ al-Dīn Ǧamšīd al-Kāšī (d. 832/1429), Qāḍīzāda-i Rūmī, and
ʿAlī Qūščī, and utilized their efforts to conduct the observations in the newly
established Samarkand observatory and teach the subject at his madrasa. Uluġ
Beg is documented in contemporary sources not only as a patron ruler but
also as an active member of this ambitious scientific venture. In the letters
of al-Kāšī to his father and the iǧāza given by Qāḍīzāda to Fatḥ Allāh Širwānī
(d. 891/1486), Uluġ Beg is often pinpointed as an active participant of the class-
es held on astral and mathematical matters.129 The latter even eulogizes Uluġ
Beg as the “philosopher-king” (al-sulṭān al-faylasūf) of the age.
126 For the political significance of science patronage, particularly the science of the stars,
from the perspective of sovereigns’ image-making in the late medieval and early-
modern context, see Robert Westman, “The Astronomer’s Role in the Sixteenth Century:
A Preliminary Study,” History of Science, 8 (1980), p. 105-147, esp. p. 121-127.
127 Petra Schmidl, “Magic and Medicine.”
128 David A. King, “The Medieval Yemeni Astrolabe in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York,” Zeitschrift für Geschichte der arabisch-islamischen Wissenschaften, 2 (1985),
p. 99-122, with addenda and corrigenda, ibid., 4 (1987/88), p. 268-269, reprinted in id., In
Synchrony with the Heavens: Studies in Astronomical Timekeeping and Instrumentation in
Medieval Islamic Civilization, Leiden-Boston, Brill (“Islamic philosophy and theology”, 55),
2005, II, p. 615-657.
129 Mohammad Bagheri, “A Newly Found Letter of al-Kāshī on Scientific Life in Samarkand,”
Historia Mathematica, 24 (1997), p. 241-256; İhsan Fazlıoǧlu, “The Samarkand Mathematical-
Astronomical School,” Journal for the History of Arabic Science, 4/1-2 (2008), p. 3-68.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

It may be objected here that the intellectual inquiries at the court of Uluġ
Beg and around the Samarkand observatory were not notably astrological in
orientation. It is true that the major representatives of the Samarkand school
such as Qāḍīzāda-i Rūmī or ʿAlī Qūščī were not much involved in the produc-
tion of strictly astrological works, as far as the current level of research on
these two individuals is concerned. Yet neither did their studies on ʿilm al-hayʾa
in any way entail a categorical rejection of astrological premises. Moreover,
as already mentioned briefly, the end product of the observations at the
Samarkand observatory, the Zīǧ-i Uluġ Beg, is replete with information and
data addressed to astrological purposes, especially for casting birth or yearly
horoscopes. Also interesting is the fact that the activities at the Samarkand
observatory were interpreted by some contemporaries, like Ṣāʾin al-Dīn Turka
Iṣfahānī (d. 835/1432)—not coincidentally a patronee of that other Timurid
philosopher-king, Mīrzā Iskandar, and a friend to and correspondent with
Qāḍīzāda himself—, as being responsible for a renaissance of astrology.130
Last but not least, the anecdotes narrated in contemporary sources about Uluġ
Beg’s involvement in geomantic activities in the presence of ʿAlī Qūščī hint at
the commonality of these preoccupations among individuals that have been
strictly defined in modern historiography as enlightened scientists in the nar-
rowest possible sense.131
We do not have conclusive evidence about whether Bāyezīd II ever aspired
to cast himself as a philosopher-king and create a court reminiscent of Uluġ
Beg’s in Samarkand, there welcoming all the major contemporary experts of
the science of the stars from different regions. Yet such an impulse would not
be surprising, considering the admiration for the Persianate, and specifically
the Timurid, legacy in certain areas of Ottoman cultural and intellectual life
at Bāyezīd’s court. It is worth noting here that while most extant Ottoman
taqwīms prior to late-ninth/fifteenth century are in Turkish, almost all sur-
viving ones from Bāyezīd II’s reign are in Persian. Similarly, indicative of this
heightened Persian cultural orientation is Bāyezīd II’s active involvement in
the composition of the first Ottoman dynastic histories, modeled upon specifi-
cally Timurid examples.
Indeed, the dynamics of Bāyezīd’s policy to commission general histories
of the Ottoman House parallel the dynamics of his sustained attempts to cul-
tivate the science of the stars. As Halil İnalcik suggested long ago, Bāyezīd’s
ongoing struggle against his brother Ǧem Sulṭān, which soon turned into an
130 Fleischer, “Ancient Wisdom,” p. 231; Melvin-Koushki, The Quest, p. 64; id., “Powers of One.”
131 Quoted from Ḫwāndamīr (d. ca 942/1535) in Süheyl Ünver, Ali Kuşçi hayatı ve eserleri,
Istanbul, Kenan Matbaası, 1948, p. 17.
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604 Şen
international crisis with the involvement of major European actors, promp

ted the sultan’s use of history writing to influence public opinion. Moreover,
the competition in the east for political and cultural supremacy against the
Mamluks and various political dispensations of the post-Timurid period also
necessitated a reevaluation and recasting of recent Ottoman achievements
as well as Ottoman origins to accord with the claim to a universal Muslim
empire.132 Next to the deployment of history writing and chancellery produc-
tion for influencing public opinion, the expertise of the munaǧǧims in giving
predictive political and military guidance and in “scientifically” validating the
otherwise hyperbolic ideological claims served a clear purpose during this cru-
cial transitional period of the Ottoman polity from a relatively minor regional
actor to a dominant political and cultural power of the era.
As part of these issues of legitimacy, the reign of Bāyezīd II seems to have
welcomed, if not fully adopted, experimentation with the messianic and
apocalyptic discourse that would become particularly popular and well-
developed in the next two decades following the end of his reign.133 The astro-
logical writings of Ottoman munaǧǧims at the time, however, do not appear
to be much influenced by this discourse, with the exception of the works of
Mīrim Čelebī, who at times praises the sultan as the ṣāḥib-qirān (“lord of the
auspicious conjunction”) and Mahdi of the end times. The real source for the
articulation of such claims is rather courtly and semi-courtly historical works,
exemplified by those of Idrīs Bidlīsī, Kamāl Pāšāzāda, and Firdawsī-i Ṭawīl
(d. 918/1512).
Bidlīsī in his Hašt Bihišt singles out Bāyezīd as the messianic renewer
(muǧaddid) of the era, for his “turn” (dawla) coincides with the turn of the
tenth Islamic century.134 He heavily resorts to astrological references when
celebrating Bāyezīd’s rule as the greatest of his age. In eight separate discourses
Bidlīsī explains the underlying reasons of Bāyezīd’s distinguished status, and
in the sixth discourse particularly he offers purely astrological arguments.
For Bidlīsī, Bāyezīd is the ideal sovereign because, according to all capable
munaǧǧims, Bāyezīd’s nativity is supreme in its auspiciousness.135 According
132 İnalcık, “The Rise of Ottoman Historiography,” p. 164.

133 Fleischer, “The Lawgiver as Messiah”; id., “Shadow of Shadows: Prophecy and Politics in
1530s Istanbul,” International Journal of Turkish Studies, 13/1-2 (2007), p. 51-62.
134 Genç, Acem’den Rum’a: İdris-i Bidlisi’nin Hayatı, Tarihçiliǧi ve Heşt Behişt’in II. Bāyezīd
Kısmı (1481-1512), p. 354-355.
135 M S Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Nuruosmaniye, 3209, f. 497b; quoted in Markiewicz, “The
Crisis of Rule,” p. 379: ṭāliʿ-i humāyūn-i sulṭān bi-ittifāq-i munaǧǧimān saʿādatmandtarīn
ṭāliʿ-hā-i šāhān-ast.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

to Bidlīsī, Venus, the planet that signifies the prophethood and sacred law,
rules the ascendant of the sultan. Other important indications related to the
twelve astrological houses also imply for the sultan, as Bidlīsī maintains, no
thing shorter than a steady state of health, strong natural disposition, and just
rule. As Bidlīsī concludes, all of these astrological indications are the signs of
Bāyezīd’s preeminence over other rulers in the world.136
Apart from Bidlīsī, Kamāl Pāšāzāda also quite frequently employs in his
chronicle the term sāḥib-qirān, though he does not necessarily discuss the
astrological reasoning underlying the title.137 Most intriguing in this context
is Firdawsī-i Ṭawīl’s Quṭbnāma, which he composed in 909/1503 as a lengthy
history in verse of the recent Ottoman victory in Lesbos against the Venetians.
Although it is clear that Firdawsī was not among the favorite littérateurs of
Bāyezīd II, partly due to his lack of the necessary elite identity markers (he
preferred to write in plain Turkish), he exerted all his efforts from 893/1488
onwards to catch the attention of the sultan by exploiting Bāyezīd II’s intel-
lectual interests and promoting his rule. Tellingly for our purposes here, the
very first book he dedicated to the sultan was a treatise on astral magic titled
Daʿwatnāma.138 His Quṭbnāma was written with similar intent and served to
celebrate Bāyezīd’s recent achievements. The real significance of the latter text
derives from Firdawsī’s heavy use of apocalyptic imagery with detailed refe
rences to contemporary European powers and his attempts to cast Bāyezīd as
the prophesied ruler and quṭb al-aqṭāb (pole of poles) of the age. The notion
of the “red apple” (kızıl elma) that symbolizes the Ottoman millenarian desire
to conquer Rome is also frequently invoked in the text. Nor is the Quṭbnāma
the only textual evidence for the perpetuation of the “red apple” discourse at
the court of Bāyezīd II. In an anonymous dream report likely written by an
individual from the class of frontier ġāzī-dervishes, the author states that in
his dream he saw the sultan Bāyezīd sitting next to Seyyid Ġāzī, the legend-
ary dervish warrior. Seyyid Ġāzī then turned to the author and said: “Behold,
I have brought Sulṭān Bāyezīd ready for your service. Let him conquer west-
wards unto the red apple and establish the dominion of Islam.”139
136 Ibid.: wa-īn ǧumla-i dalāʾil istiʿlā wa-tafawwuq-i šān-i sulṭānī bar mulūk-i ǧihān wa-sabab-i
ruǧhān-i ū bar ḫuǧasta-ṭāliʿān-i īn dawrān.
137 İbn Kemal, Tevarih-i Al-i Osman 8. Defter, ed. Ahmet Uǧur, passim.
138 Firdawsī, Firdevsi-i Tavil ve Daʿvetname’si: İnceleme, Transkripsiyon, İndeks, Faksimile ve
Mikrofiş, ed. Fatma Büyükkarcı, Cambridge, Harvard Üniversitesi Yakın Doǧu Dilleri ve
Medeniyetleri Bölümü, 1995.
139 M S Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum Archive, E. 10818; also quoted in Selahattin Tansel,
“Yeni Vesikalar Karşısında Sultan İkinci Bāyezīd Hakkında Bazı Mütalaalar,” Belleten,
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606 Şen
As these last two examples suggest, the political ambitions and cultural
aspirations at the court of Bāyezīd II were not only shaped by political, ideo-
logical, and cultural rivalry within the Islamic world but also formed in relation
to contemporary European powers. Although the majority of scholarship on
the reign of Bāyezīd II tends to portray his stance vis-à-vis the political and
cultural dynamics in Europe as anemic and idle, this was simply not the case.
Especially during the first two decades of his reign when the Ǧem Sulṭān affair
turned into an international crisis, Bāyezīd carefully engaged a busy network of
spies and informants who acquainted the sultan not just with the most recent
political developments but also likely with the cultural preferences at major
European courts. One of these courts was clearly that of Matthias Corvinus
(r. 1458-1490) with whom we know Bāyezīd II had established close relations
and exchanged numerous letters based on the principles of “friendship and
good neighborhood.”140 Although the content of this frequent diplomatic cor-
respondence between Bāyezīd and Matthias Corvinus, the ideal Renaissance
monarch of his time, is primarily slanted towards political and commercial
issues, it is safe to assume that these communications also informed the newly
enthroned Ottoman sultan about Corvinus’s court culture, his patronage of
astrologers, and the exemplary Biblioteca Corviniana, which thus might have
served to inspire his Ottoman counterpart to undertake similar pursuits.141
Apart from the ideological implications and political instrumentality of
the royal patronage for munaǧǧims, Bāyezīd II might have also deployed the
27/106 (1963), p. 208: İşte sana Sulṭān Bāyezīdi qoşduq. Al ilet gün bāṭusuna qızıl elmāya
deǧin fetḥ idüb İslām döşeǧin döşesün.
140 Güneş Işıksel, “Friendship and the Principle of Good Neighborhood between Bāyezīd
II and Matthias Corvinus,” in Matthias Corvinus und seine Zeit: Europa am Übergang
vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit zwischen Wien und Konstantinopel, ed. Christian Gastgeber,
Ekaterini Mitsiou and Ioan-Aurel Pop, Vienna, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften (“Veröffentlichungen zur Byzanzforschung”, 27), 2011, p. 33-36. Also
see Tayyib Gökbilbin, “Korvin Mathias (Mátyás)ın Bāyezīd II’ye mektupları ve 1503 (909)
Osmanlı-Macar muahedesinin Türkçe Metni/La traduction des letters de Korvin Mathias
á Bāyezīd II et le texte turc du traité Hungaro-Ottomans de 1503 (909),” Belleten, 87 (1958),
p. 369-390.
141 On Corvinus’s patronage of astrologers and interest in the cultivation of astrological
knowledge see Jean-Patrice Boudet and Darin Hayton, “Matthias Corvin, János Vitéz et
l’horoscope de fondation de l’Université de Pozsony en 1467,” in De Bibliotheca Corviniana:
Matthias Corvin, les bibliothèques princières et l’origine de l’É tat moderne, Actes du collo-
que international de Paris, 15-17 Novembre 2007, eds Jean-Francois Maillard, István Monok
and Donatella Nebbiai, Budapest, Országos Széchényi Könyvtár (“Supplementum
Corvinianum”, 2), 2009, p. 205-213; Darin Hayton, “Expertise ex Stellis: Comets, Horoscopes,
and Politics in Renaissance Hungary,” Osiris, 25 (2010), p. 27-46.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

expertise of munaǧǧims for more tangible and mundane aspects of gover-

nance such as land and maritime navigation. As briefly mentioned above, the
technical know-how of the experts in the science of the stars included, be-
sides astrological estimations, the use of instruments as well as horological,
latitudinal, and longitudinal calculations. The current state of the literature
on the military and maritime history of the Ottomans does not allow us to
draw any firm conclusions about the possibility of interplay between the si-
multaneous buildup of the navy and the cultivation of the science of the stars
at the court of Bāyezīd II.142 However, as studies on the development of the
Portuguese naval technology in the later fifteenth century have suggested,
the knowledge provided by the science of the stars was widely deployed in the
advancement of the nautical sciences.143 That the Ottoman tenth/sixteenth
century produced figures like Muṣṭafā b. ʿAlī l-Muwaqqit (d. 979/1571) or the
admiral Saydī ʿAlī (d. 970/1562), who wrote prolifically on astronomical instru-
ments and mathematical geography, indicates that similar research into the
mutual relationship between the science of the stars and the art of navigation
in the Ottoman context is a major desideratum.144
While space does not permit further discussion of the possible reasons and
motives behind Bāyezīd II’s genuine celestial interests, we may conclude un-
equivocally that the cultivation of the science of the stars at his court con-
tributed in no small measure to the formation of a vibrant intellectual and
scientific culture in Istanbul during the nascent stages of the city’s transfor-
mation into the new imperial center of a new universal empire. Bāyezīd II’s
sustained attempts to support activities related to the science of the stars led
to the emergence of a class of munaǧǧims that would fill necessary cadres in
142 In her recent study, Pınar Emiralioǧlu briefly mentions the works of a few experts in the
science of the stars that became important for navigational purposes in the mid-sixteenth-
century Ottoman world: Pınar Emiralioǧlu, Geographical Knowledge and Imperial Culture
in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire, Farnham-Burlington, Ashgate (“Transculturalisms,
1400-1700”), 2014.
143 Onesimo T. Almeida, “Science during the Portuguese Maritime Discoveries: A Telling Case
of Interaction between Experimenters and Theoreticians,” in Science in the Spanish and
Portuguese Empires, 1500-1800, eds Daniela Bleichmar, Paula De Vos, Kristin Huffine, et al.,
Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2008, p. 78-92.
144 One of the promising studies is Gaye Danışan Polat’s ongoing project on the role of astral
knowledge in tenth/sixteenth-century Ottoman nautical science. See her most recent
article: Gaye Danışan Polat, “A Treatise by the 16th century Ottoman Admiral Seydi Ali
Reis on Rub’-i Müceyyeb (Sine Quadrant),” in Seapower, Technology and Trade—Studies
in Turkish Maritime History, eds Dejanirah Couto, Feza Günergun and Maria Pia Pedani,
Istanbul, Piri Reis University Publications, 2014, p. 337-341.
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608 Şen
the later tenth/sixteenth century and helped to consolidate a rich canon of

astronomical and astrological sources that would define the state of the art
for generations to come. The scholars and texts assembled in Istanbul were
instrumental both in forming and refining the contours of the scientific study
of heavens in the early modern Ottoman world, and in fostering the image of
Bāyezīd II as the most generous, learned, and dominant sovereign of his time,
attractive as a patron to European and Persian émigrés alike.
Along similar lines but in a different context, Maria Mavroudi has convin
cingly shown that the cultural orientation at the court of Meḥmed II was “nei-
ther East nor West, not simply because these labels did not exist in the same
way they do now, but especially because he was only doing what princes before
and after him often did.”145 The same holds even more true for Bāyezīd II. His
eclectic style in crafting his image as a cultured sovereign and his universalist
intellectual aspirations—which entailed an unprecedented embrace of ʿilm al-
nuǧūm, among other royal arts—were encouraging enough to prompt various
learned individuals, ranging from Leonardo da Vinci and Jewish natural philo
sophers from the western Mediterranean to munaǧǧims, poets, and littérateurs
from Īrān-zamīn, to try their fortunes at his court.
145 Maria Mavroudi, “Translations from Greek into Arabic at the Court of Mehmed the
Conqueror,” in The Byzantine Court: Source of Power and Culture, ed. Ayla Ödekan, Nevra
Necipoğlu and Engin Akyürek, Istanbul, Koç University Press, 2013, p. 207.
Arabica 64 (2017) 557-608

Arabica 64 (2017) 609-646
brill.com/arab
Physiognomy (ʿilm-i firāsat) and Ottoman

Statecraft: Discerning Morality and Justice
Emin Lelić
University of Chicago
[email protected]
Abstract
In the tenth/sixteenth century six treatises on physiognomy (ʿilm-i firāsat)—a science

widely considered able to predict inner moral dispositions (aḫlāq-i bāṭina) based on
external appearances (aḥwāl-i ẓāhira)—were written for the Ottoman court. In a world
in which statecraft and politics were ultimately based on questions of morality (aḫlāq),
physiognomy was presented as a particularly useful skill for the Ottoman court due to
its ability to evaluate inner moral character with scientific precision. Based on such
knowledge, a partial conception of justice could be implemented with an instrumental
coating of impartiality. Moreover, men with prized moral qualities could be selected
for the ruling elite. The science also offered the sultan and his court a modus operandi
for attaining self-knowledge and, if combined with moral self-disciplining (riyāḍat), a
way to acquire divine characteristics.
Keywords
ʿIlm-i firāsat, ʿilm-i qiyāfat, Firāsatnāme, Qiyāfatnāme, physiognomy, Ottoman, aḫlāq,

naṣīḥat
Résumé
Au dixième/seizième siècle, six traités de physiognomonie (ʿilm-i firāsat)—une

science largement considérée comme capable de prédire les dispositions morales
intérieures (aḫlāq-i bāṭina), fondée sur les aspects externes (aḥwāl-i ẓāhira)—furent
composés à destination de la cour ottomane. Dans un monde où l’état et la politique
s’appuyaient en premier lieu sur des questions de morale (aḫlāq), la physiognomonie

610 Lelić
se présentait comme une compétence particulièrement utile à la cour ottomane en

raison de sa capacité à déterminer le caractère moral intérieur avec une précision
scientifique. À partir d’une telle connaissance, une conception partiale de la justice
pouvait être appliquée avec un vernis technique d’impartialité. En outre, des hommes
possédant des qualités morales appréciées pouvaient être choisis auprès de l’élite
dirigeante. La science offrait également au sultan et à sa cour un modus operandi
pour atteindre la connaissance de soi et, si elle était combinée avec une autodisci-
pline morale (riyāḍat), un moyen d’acquérir des caractéristiques de l’ordre du divin.
Mots clefs
ʿIlm-i firāsat, ʿilm-i qiyāfat, Firāsatnāme, Qiyāfatnāme, physiognomonie, ottoman, aḫlāq,

naṣīḥat
…
O you who drink the sherbet of firāsat,
You who fashion this pearl of wisdom into an earring,
Know: self-discipline transforms your being,
Piety washes lassitude from your nature;
Wage war upon your nafs
And you will be clean and free from reproach.1
Creator and creation all look upon kings.2
⸪
The Ottoman world in the tenth/sixteenth century was marked by a great
interest in physiognomy or ʿilm-i firāsat, literally the ‘science of discernment,’
also known as ʿilm-i qiyāfat.3 At least six physiognomical treatises were written
1 Qifāyat al-insāniyya fī šamāʾil al-ʿuṯmāniyya, Istanbul, Istanbul Center for Historical Research,
1999, f. 7a.
2 Taʿlīqīzāde, Firāsatnāme, MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Turc 1055, f. 6b.
3 Technically speaking, the science of firāsat (ʿilm-i firāsat) designates what is known as
physiognomy in the Western context. Although in the Ottoman context the term qiyāfat
seems to have carried the same meaning, in fact the science of qiyāfat (ʿilm-i qiyāfat), from
which such titles as Qiyāfatnāme are derived, was a tradition which traced morphoscopic
Arabica 64 (2017) 609-646

Physiognomy ( ʿ ilm-i firāsat ) and Ottoman Statecraft 611
during the tenth/sixteenth century directly for the Ottoman court, five for rei-
gning sultans and one for an incumbent grand vizier. All the physiognomical
treatises dedicated to the Ottoman court stressed that knowledge of physio-
gnomy at court, especially if possessed by the sultan himself, would have a
singularly positive effect on state politics. They succeeded in presenting the
science as a counterpoint to the corruption of the ruling elite, a perennial pro-
blem in Ottoman governance, to which they proposed a solution: a promotion
system monitored by physiognomy.
Every sovereign relied on a ruling elite and an army to (1) enforce justice
within the kingdom, which meant, in practical terms, acting as a check on the
desire of individuals to oppress others, thereby ensuring that everyone was
given their rightful due; and (2) defend the kingdom from outside threats.
Nonetheless, the wholly indispensable Ottoman military-administrative elite
(ʿaskarī) was a double-edged sword, and the weakest link in the Circle of
or genealogical lines and connections. According to Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā, “Qiyāfat-i bašar is a

tradition, by means of which its practitioner (qāyif) can ascertain men’s grandeur of gene-
alogy and nobility by examining (naẓar) them.” Muṣṭafā b. Bālī, Risāla-i Qiyāsat-i firāsat,
MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Nuruosmaniye, 4100, fol. 14a. Bālīzāde furthermore
classifies qiyāfat-i bašar as one of the eight occult sciences (ʿulūm-i ġarība) which resemble
ʿilm-i firāsat. These related disciplines or sciences (ʿulūm) were based on the same principle
of acquiring knowledge of the imperceptible through perceptible signs. Bālīzāde, further-
more, divides ʿilm-i qiyāfat into two parts: 1) tracking genealogy (qiyāfat-i bašar), 2) tracking
traces (qiyāfat-i aṯar). Ibid., ff. 14a-16a. For an introductory work on Ottoman physiognomy
see Ali Çavuşoğlu, Kıafetnameler, Ankara, Akçağ, 2004. For a classic Arabic physiognomi-
cal treatise, see Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Kitāb al-Firāsa: La physiognomonie arabe et le Kitāb
al-firāsa de Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, ed. and transl. Youssef Mourad, Paris, Librairie orientaliste
Paul Geuthner, 1939. Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Kitāb al-Firāsa is one of the principal sources for
two tenth/sixteenth-century Ottoman physiognomical treatises, Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā’s Risāla-i
Qiyāsat-i firāsat and Taʿlīqīzāde’s Firāsatnāme. For an excellent introduction to Islamic phys-
iognomy, based on Arabic sources, see Toufic Fahd, La divination arabe: études religieuses,
sociologiques et folkloriques sur le milieu natif de l’Islam, Paris, Sinbad, 1987, p. 369-417. For
physiognomy in the context of Sklavenkauf, see Ibn Buṭlān, Il trattato omnicomprensivo
sull’acquisto e l’esame degli schiavi, transl. A. Ghersetti, Catanzaro, Abramo, 2001; Hans
Müller, Die Kunst des Sklavenkaufs, nach arabischen, persischen, und türkischen Ratgebern
vom 10, bis zum 18, Jahrhundert, Berlin, Klaus Schwarz (“Islamkundliche Untersuchungen”,
57), 1980. For a number of very insightful article-length studies of the physiognomical tradi-
tion in Antiquity and Islam, through the lens of Polemon’s classic Greek physiognomical
treatise, with the edited Arabic text and an English translation of the same, see Seeing the
Face, Seeing the Soul: Polemon’s Physiognomy from Classical Antiquity to Medieval Islam, ed.
Simon Swain, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007.
Arabica 64 (2017) 609-646

612 Lelić
Justice.4 Because of the great power it successfully arrogated to itself, members

of this elite were often guilty of corruption in the pursuit of their own interests,
oppressing the tax-paying raʿāyā (subjects) and each other in their perennial
upward struggle to the top.5 One of the defining characteristics of a capable
ruler was the ability to select a ruling elite made up of just servants, who, pre-
cisely because they themselves were just, would in turn choose just clients for
their own households and patronage networks. By this means, justice ema-
nating from the person of the sultan reached his subjects, the raʿāyā, at the
bottom of the sociopolitical hierarchy. A sultan who made the proper choices
in the selection of his deputies sat at the top of a just ruling apparatus and
thus a just dawla—the imperial ‘state’ during his reign.6 A sultan incapable of
selecting the right men, however, would inevitably end up with a corrupt and
4 “There can be no royal authority without the military / There can be no military without
wealth / The subjects (raʿāyā) produce the wealth / Justice preserves the subjects’ loyalty to
the sovereign / Justice requires harmony in the world / The world is a garden, its walls are
the state / The Holy Law (šarīʿa) orders the state / There is no support for the šarīʿa except
through royal authority.” Qınālızāde ʿAlī Čelebī (d. 979/1572), Aḫlāq-i ʿalāʾī, ed. Muṣṭafā Koç,
Istanbul, Klasik, 2007, p. 532; translated in Cornell Fleischer, “Royal Authority, Dynastic
Cyclism, and ‘Ibn Khaldūnism’ in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Letters,” Journal of Asian and
African Studies, 18/3-4 (1983), p. 201.
5 The arbitrary use of power by state officials was a continual problem and the greatest dan-
ger to sultanic justice. Contemporary Ottomans, from Prince Korkud to Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī, com-
plained, often quite vehemently, about the violent and oppressive nature of the sultan’s
servants, insubordinate soldiers and corrupt religious judges. See Cornell Fleischer, “From
Şeyhzade Korkud to Mustafa Âli: Cultural Origins of the Ottoman Nasîhatname,” Third
Congress on the Social and Economic History of Turkey, ed. Heath W. Lowry and Ralph S.
Hattox, Istanbul-Washington, Isis Press (“Varia Turcica”, 15), 1989, p. 71. Yet another problem
the sultan faced in his capacity as allocator of rank and status (and thus enforcer of order and
justice) was the need to monitor and prevent infiltration by the raʿāyā into the ʿaskarī estate.
In the Āṣafnāme, Sulṭān Süleymān’s Grand Vizier, Luṭfī Pāšā, voiced vociferous concern about
the growing number of raʿāyā infiltrating the ʿaskarī estate. It was, he thought, a fine practice
to reward qualified members of the raʿāyā with ʿaskarī status, but those unqualified must be
prevented from abusing familial relations to promote themselves to the ʿaskarī estate. Luṭfī
Pāšā, Lütfi Paşa Āsafnāmesi, ed. Mübahat Kütükoǧlu, Istanbul, Edebiyat Fakültesi Basımevi,
1991, p. 41.
6 Dawla is a complex concept, and requires some clarification. Andreas Tietze qualified it as
“the decision-making power of the legitimate head of state as well as of those to whom he
has delegated this power. The phrase din u devlet (religion and state) refers perhaps to the
general climate produced by this power in the community under the aspect of perpetuating
itself,” quoted in Rifaʿat Abou-El-Haj, Formation of the Modern State: The Ottoman Empire,
Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, Albany, State University of New York Press (“Middle east
studies beyond dominant paradigms”), 1991, p. 19.
Arabica 64 (2017) 609-646

oppressive ruling elite and a dawla plagued by injustice. A kingdom without

justice—Islamic political thought and Ottoman physiognomy treatises were
unanimous on this point—could not last.
Physiognomy treatises presented their discipline as a scientifically proven
method for discerning every man’s true nature, and thus a skill particularly
useful for men charged with enforcing justice. Justice meant giving every per-
son their rightful due. Knowledge of physiognomy, especially if possessed by
the sultan, who, in his capacity as the dispenser of imperial offices and func-
tions was the very source of the Ottoman dawla, would ensure the best pos-
sible appointees to imperial offices and thus a just elite. The Circle of Justice
would be preserved and the temptations of avarice and ambition attractive
to the wielders of power rejected by virtue of their righteous moral character.
According to Ḥasan Kāfī l-Aqḥiṣārī’s (d. 1025/1616) famous treatise on state-
craft, Uṣūl al-ḥikam fī niẓām al-ʿālam (Foundations of Wisdom on the Ordering
of the World), the problems of the Ottoman governance system in 1003/1595
could be ascribed to four causes.7 The first cause for the breakdown of order
was negligence in carrying out justice and in implementing proper political
relationships; the reason was that state affairs were not assigned to those
properly qualified to carry them out. The second cause was negligence in
seeking consultation; it was due to the vanity and haughtiness of the grandees
(akābir wa-aʿyān) who declined to consult with scholars and sages (ʿulamā
wa-ḥukamā). The third cause was negligence in administering the army and
maintaining it in a state of preparedness; the reason was that soldiers had no
fear of their officers. The fourth cause, fountainhead to the first three, was
rampant covetousness and insatiable desire for women and reliance on their
counsel.8
Ḥasan Kāfī, like the tenth/sixteenth century physiognomy treatises, ulti-
mately traced everything back to the moral quality of the ruling elite. If its
members fell prey to their animal natures, neglect of their duties followed and
the Circle of Justice began to unravel. The army did not respect such an elite
and the advice of scholars and sages turned into empty words in the face of
such moral depravity. The ultimate result was the breakdown of justice and the
7 At the time of its composition in 1003/1595 the Uṣūl al-ḥikam was received very favorably at
court and has remained a great favorite in studies on Ottoman statecraft. The reason was not
so much its originality of ideas but rather its ability to summarize with such precision what
was considered to be more or less common wisdom. As such, it lends itself very well to our
purposes, in that it provides a lucid and succinct summary of what were thought to be the
major causes of the problems faced by the Ottoman state in the late tenth/sixteenth century.
8 Ḥasan Kāfī l-Aqḥiṣārī, Uṣūl al-ḥikam fī niẓām al-ʿālam, Istanbul, 1285/1868-1869, p. 4-5.
Arabica 64 (2017) 609-646

614 Lelić
loss of legitimacy for the polity governed by such an elite. Ḥasan Kāfī, echoing
the physiognomy treatises, could not have been clearer: “If through negligence
proper attention is not accorded to the traditional method (uslūb),” inevitably
“sedition (fasād) in the kingdom and weakness in governance rear their heads
from all four directions. At that point sovereignty must pass to another.”9
The source of all problems was, ultimately, morality and human char
acter (aḫlāq). It is no coincidence that the standard phrase used to define
physiognomy—“deducing inner moral dispositions (aḫlāq-i bāṭina) from
external appearances (aḥwāl-i ẓāhira)”10—used the same word, aḫlāq, to de-
scribe human character or inner moral dispositions. In a world which centered
politics, and everything else, around aḫlāq, it is not difficult to imagine that
physiognomy played a very important and perhaps even central role.11
Historical Setting
In the year 982/1574 the young prince Murād acceded to the Ottoman throne
as the twelfth Ottoman dynast and the third Murād. In the first years of his
reign, the new sultan was presented with three physiognomy treatises. The
first treatise, simply titled Firāsatnāme, was written in 982/1574 by Taʿlīqīzāde
(d. between 1011/1603 and 1020/1611), at the time a scribe (kātib) in Murād’s prin-
cely household.12 Just over a year later, in 984/1576, another physiognomy trea-
tise, dedicated to Murād III, was composed by Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā (d. 1027/1618),
a high-ranking professor (mudarris) and judge (qāḍī).13 A third treatise, which
9 Ibid., p. 10.
10 Generally, all treatises, with few exceptions, use the same vocabulary. See, for example,
Muṣṭafā b. Bālī, Risāla, f. 4b.
11 The genre of Islamic ethics is known as aḫlāq. The best-known Ottoman aḫlāq text is
Qınālızāde ʿAlī Čelebī’s Aḫlāq-ı ʿālāʾī, written in 1565. Incidentally, there are many parallels
and similarities between Qınālızāde’s Aḫlāq-ı ʿālāʾī and some of the Firāsatnāmes, espe-
cially Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā’s Firāsatnāme, which was written only a decade later and, in fact,
copied whole passages from Qınālızāde’s work.
12 Taʿlīqīzāde, Firāsatnāme, BnF Turc 1055. I am grateful to Christopher Markiewicz for
bringing this manuscript to my attention. For Taʿlīqīzāde, see Christine Woodhead, “From
Scribe to Litterateur: The Career of a Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Katib,” Bulletin (British
Society for Middle Eastern Studies), 9/1 (1982), p. 52-74; Erhan Afyoncu, “Talîkîzâde Mehmed
Subhî’nin hayatı hakkında notlar,” The Journal of Ottoman Studies, 21 (2001), p. 285-306.
13 Muṣṭafā b. Bālī, Risāla. For Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā, see al-ʿAṭāʾī, Ḥadāʾiq al-ḥaqāʾiq, in Aḥmad
b. Muṣṭafā Ṭāšköprüzāde, Şakaik nuʿmaniye ve zeylleri [= Šaqāʾiq al-nuʿmāniyya fī ʿulamāʾ
al-dawla l-ʿuṯmāniyya], Istanbul, Çağri Yayınları, 1409/1989, II, p. 620. See also Muṣṭafā
Arabica 64 (2017) 609-646

became the famous Šamāʾilnāme (Book of Features), was commissioned by

Sulṭān Murād upon his accession and completed by the šehnāmeǧi Sayyid
Luqmān (d. 1010/1601?) in 987/1579.14 This raises the question: how to make
sense of a physiognomical efflorescence at the imperial court in the last quar-
ter of the tenth/sixteenth century?
Murād III’s proclivity for the “rare and strange” is well known and has been
commented upon.15 His interest in the esoteric or occult is, furthermore,
attested to by his own composition of a dream book, the Kitāb al-Manāmāt
(Book of Dreams),16 and his commissioning of translations from Arabic
books on the occult, such as the Maṭāliʿ al-saʿāda wa-manābiʿ al-siyāda (The
Ascensions of Felicity and Sources of Sovereignty).17 The Maṭāliʿ al-siyāda
b. Bālī, Risāla-i Qiyāset-i firāset / Ilm-i firāset. Yüzler Hāli Söyler, ed. Ramazan Sarıçiçek,
Istanbul, Büyüyenay Yayınları, 2014.
14 The full title is Qiyāfat al-insāniyya fī šamāʾil al-ʿUṯmāniyya (Human Physiognomy: On
the Features of the Ottomans). Facsimile published as Kıyâfetü’l-insâniyye fî şemaili’l-
Osmâniyye, Human Physiognomy of the Features of the Ottomans, Istanbul, Istanbul
Center for Historical Research, 1998. For a recent study of the Šamāʾilnāme, see Emine
Fetvaci, “From Print to Trace: Ottoman imperial Portrait Books and their Western-
European models,” Art Bulletin, 95/2 (2013), p. 243-268. For the commissioning of the
Šamāʾilnāme, see Christine Woodhead, “Murād III and the Historians: Representations
of Ottoman Imperial Authority in late 16th-Century Historiography,” Legitimizing the
Order: The Ottoman Rhetoric of State Power, eds Hakan Karateke and Maurus Reinkowski,
Leiden-Boston, Brill (“The Ottoman empire and its heritage”, 34), 2005, p. 91; Nurhan
Atasoy, “Nakkaş Osman’ın padişah portreleri albümü,” Türkiyemiz, 6 (1972), p. 2-15. For
art historical studies, see Julian Raby, “From Europe to Istanbul,” in The Sultan’s Portrait:
Picturing the House of Osman, ed. Selmin Kangal and Priscilla Mary, Istanbul, Işbank
(“Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları”, 463; “Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları”, 64), 2000,
p. 136-219; and Gülrü Necipoğlu, “The Serial Portraits of Ottoman Sultans in Comparative
Perspective,” in The Sultan’s Portrait, p. 22-61.
15 Al-ʿAṭāʾī, Ḥādāʾiq al-ḥaqāʾiq, in Ṭāšköprüzāde, Şakaik nuʿmaniye ve zeylleri, II, p. 395;
quoted in Emine Fetvacı, Picturing History at the Ottoman Court, Bloomington, Indiana,
Indiana University Press, 2013, p. 43. Even Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī, at one point (1584), “pander[ed]
shamelessly to Murād’s keen interest in popular esotericism” by composing treatises on
numerology (ilm-i jafr) and mysticism. Cornell H. Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in
the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Āli (1541-1600), Princeton, Princeton University
Press (“Princeton studies on the Near East”), 1986, p. 111, 152.
16 Kitābü’l-Menāmāt: Sultan III. Murad’ın rüya mektupları, ed. Özgen Felek, Istanbul, Tarih
Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2014. See also Özgen Felek, Re-Creating Image and Identity: Dreams
and Visions as a Means of Murād III’s Self-Fashioning, PhD dissertation, University of
Michigan, 2010.
17 Falnama: The Book of Omens, eds Massumeh Farhad and Serpil Bağcı, London-Washington,
Thames & Hudson-Freer Gallery of Art, 2009, p. 217; Fetvacı, Picturing History, p. 36, 43.
Arabica 64 (2017) 609-646

616 Lelić
wa-manābiʿ al-siyāda is a compilation of esoteric treatises and charts on

astrology, physiognomy, dream interpretation (taʿbīr), marvels and wonders
literature (ʿaǧāʾib), and various divinatory techniques.18 Keeping in mind
that the hiǧrī millennium in 1591 coincided with Murād’s reign (r. 982/1574-
1003/1595), the heady combination of apocalyptic fervor and the sultan’s parti-
cular interest in the occult would seem a sufficient explanation for such great
interest in the occult science of physiognomy at the Ottoman court during
Murād III’s reign.
Yet Ottoman fascination with physiognomy far exceeded one sultan’s inte-
rest in the arcane. It is true that Murād III was presented with three physio-
gnomy treatises and during his reign the Šamāʾilnāme—one of the most widely
disseminated and influential dynastic histories at the Ottoman court, which
was used to educate officials of the state and the imperial household—was
written in the form of a physiognomy treatise.19 But both Murad’s predeces-
sor Selīm II (r. 974/1566-982/1574) and his successor Meḥmed III (r. 1003/1595-
1012/1603) were presented with a physiognomy treatise, as was one of Sulṭān
Süleymān’s (Murād III’s grandfather, r. 926/1520-974/1566) grand viziers.20
While there does seem to have been an intensified interest in the science
during Murād III’s reign, his reign was certainly not the genesis of a specifically
Ottoman physiognomy, nor even the beginning of the connection between
the science and the Ottoman court. Rather, physiognomy was a long-standing
18 Muḥammad b. Amīr Ḥasan al-Suʿūdī, Book of Felicity, Barcelona, Moleiro Editor, 2007.
For more information see Barbara Schmitz, Pratapaditya Pal, Wheeler M. Thackston and
William M. Voelkle, Islamic and Indian Manuscripts and Paintings in the Pierpont Morgan
Library, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, 1997.
19 The Šamāʾilnāme is essentially a physiognomy treatise expanded into a dynastic history of
the House of ʿOṯmān. It opens with a physiognomy treatise proper, followed by a discus-
sion of each sultan’s reign, personal appearance, characteristics and personal portrait.
Copies of the book were owned by grand viziers and used in the harem for the education
of royal princes and edification of royal women. Necipoğlu, “The Serial Portraits,” p. 44.
20 Süleymān’s Grand Vizier Ibrāhīm Pāšā also received a physiognomy treatise, composed in
938/1531 by Šaʿbān Sivriḥiṣārī. Šaʿbān Sivriḥiṣārī, Firāsatnāme, MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye
Kütüphanesi, Nuruosmaniye, 4099. Selīm II was presented with a physiognomy trea-
tise (Qiyāfatnāme) by Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos. Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos, Qiyāfatnāme, MS Çankırı,
Çankırı Il Halk Kütüphanesi, 8 Hk 321. For a reference to Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos’ Qiyāfatnāme,
see Bursalı Mehmed Tahir, Osmanlı müellifleri, Istanbul, Matbaa-yı Āmire, 1914, II, p. 49
(s.v. Niğdeli Visālī). Niğdeli Viṣālī composed Wasīlat al-ʿirfān, also a physiognomy trea-
tise, for Meḥmed III in 1003/1595. Ibid., p. 49. Two Ottoman physiognomy treatises were
written by certain mašāʾiḫ during Süleymān’s reign and three more were written, also
by mašāʾiḫ, in the early seventeenth century. Earlier (pre-Süleymānic) and many later
Ottoman treatises exist. There are also many anonymous, undated treatises.
Arabica 64 (2017) 609-646

natural-scientific tradition in the Ottoman world on which subject Ottoman

treatises were composed both before and after the reign of Murād III.21
The tenth/sixteenth century does, however, mark an intensified physiogno-
mical presence at the imperial court.22 Other sources, aside from physiognomy
treatises, indicate that a physiognomical consciousness did indeed exist at the
Ottoman court and, more widely, at other levels of Ottoman society as well.
Intellectually, physiognomy was recognized by Ottomans as a legitimate natural
science.23 Socially, Ottomans at all levels engaged with the science, in cultural
productions both courtly and popular.24 Many Sufis were especially interested
in physiognomy.25 Knowledge of physiognomy was thought to be indispen-
sable in the purchase of slaves.26 Administratively and militarily, physiognomy
was employed as part of the dewširme selection mechanism, especially its
21 For a list of known Ottoman physiognomy treatises see Muṣṭafā b. Bālī, Risāle-i qiyāset-i
firāset / ʿIlm-i firāset. Yüzler Hâli Söyler, ed. Ramazan Sarıçiçek, Istanbul, Büyüyenay
Yayınları (“Psikoloji”, 1), 2014, p. 46-51.
22 In fact, Ottoman physiognomy must be seen as a royal science—although not exclusively
so—as evidenced by the fact that much, if not the majority, of the Ottoman physiog-
nomical corpus was composed for the Ottoman court, and particularly for reigning sul-
tans. In the tenth/sixteenth century five firāsat treatises were written for sultans—one
for Selīm II, three for Murād III and one for Meḥmed III—and one for Süleymān’s Grand
Vizier Ibrāhīm Pāšā (in office 929/1523-942/1536).
23 See below, and Ṭāšköprüzāde, Miftāḥ al-saʿāda wa-miṣbāḥ al-siyāda, Hyderabad, Dāʾirat
al-maʿārif al-niẓāmiyya, 1910-1911, p. 272-274; id., Mawḍūʿāt al-ʿulūm [Mevzuat ül-ulum],
Istanbul, 1313/1895-1896, I, p. 502-504; Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa (Kātib Čelebī), Kitāb Kašf al-ẓunūn ʿan
asāmī l-kutub wa-l-funūn, Istanbul, Maṭbaʿat al-ʿālam, 1310/1892-1893, II, p. 72. Both writers
included physiognomy (ʿilm-i firāsat) in their divisions of the sciences.
24 For popular culture see, for example, Aslı Büyükokutan, “Dalaman (Muğla) yöresi
kadınlarının bedensel özelliklerle ilgili yorumları,” presented at Maramara Üniversitesi
Türkiyat Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi, 4-5 April, 2007; Abdulkadir Erkal,
“Kıyafetnameler üzerine,” A.Ü. Türkiyat Araştırmaları Enstitüsü Dergisi, 13 (1999). For ʿilm-i
firāsat in popular literature see Şahmurat Arık, “Ahmet Midhat Efendi’nin Romanlarında
Kıyafet Ilminin Tesirleri”, Istanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyar Fakültesi Türk Dili ve Edebiyatı
Dergisi, 30 (2003), p. 43-60.
25 For Sufism and physiognomy, see Amil Çelebioğlu, “Kıyāfe(t) Ilmi ve Akşemseddinzāde
Hamdullah Hamdī ile Erzurumlu Ibrāhim Hakkı’nın Kıyāfet-nāmeleri,” Eski Türk Edebiyatı
Araştırmaları, (1998), p. 225-262.
26 See Müller, Die Kunst des Sklavenkaufs; Nur Sobers-Khan, “Firāsatle naẓar edesin:
Recreating the Gaze of the Ottoman Slave-Owner at the Confluence of Textual Genres,”
in Well-Connected Domains: Towards an Entangled Ottoman History, ed. Pascal Firges,
Leiden-Boston, Brill (“The Ottoman empire and its heritage”, 57), 2014.
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618 Lelić
most elite segment, the selection of palace pages.27 Politically, according to the
Ottoman physiognomy treatises, physiognomy was indispensable to any ruler,
as well as his ruling elite, because it was presented as the mechanism par excel-
lence for assigning the right men to the right tasks and positions—the very
heart of the Islamic concept of justice. Physiognomy also introduced an occult
dimension into court life and, if properly employed, could be presented as a
vehicle for transforming the imperial court into a nexus between the heavens
and its subjects.
Definitions of Physiognomy (ʿilm-i firāsat)
At its most fundamental, as noted, physiognomy “consists of inferring the

inner character (aḫlāq-ı bāṭina) from the exterior state (aḥwāl-ı ẓāhira).”28 In
other words, it is a technique for extrapolating concealed truths based on
outward hints and prior knowledge of the meaning of those hints. Throughout
Islamic history, physiognomy was considered a legitimate science.29 Ibn Sīnā’s
(d. 428/1037) authoritative classification of the sciences, for example, placed
physiognomy amongst the natural sciences.30 Ibn Sīnā divided philosophy
(ḥikma) into two branches, speculative and practical. Speculative knowledge
seeks certainty and aspires to the truth. Practical knowledge seeks true opinion
27 This is suggested by a number of sources, including Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī, both in his Kunh
al-aḫbār [Künh ül-ahbar] and in his Mawāʿid al-nafāʾis fī qawāʿid al-maǧālis [Mevā’idün-
nefā’is fī ḳavāʿidi’l-mecālis]. Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī, Künh ül-ahbar, Istanbul, Taqwīmḫāne-i Āmire,
1277/1860-1285/1868, V, p. 9-15; id., The Ottoman Gentleman of the Sixteenth Century:
Mustafa Āli’s Mevāʾidü’n-Nefāʾis fī Ḳavāʿid’l-Mecālis, “Tables of Delicacies Concerning the
Rules of Social Gatherings,” transl. Douglas Scott Brookes, Cambridge, Department of Near
Eastern Languages and Civilizations-Harvard University (“Sources of Oriental languages
and literatures”, 59; “Turkish sources”, 51), 2003, p. 15-16, 167-168. It is furthermore con-
firmed by the anonymous author of Qawānīn-i yeničeriyān in his prescription for selecting
dewširme recruits. See Qawānīn-i Yeniçeriyān-i Dergāh-i Ālī, in Ahmet Akgündüz, Osmanlı
kanunnāmeleri ve hukukı̂ tahlilleri, İstanbul, Fey Vakfı, 1990, IX, p. 138-139. Sir Paul Rycaut,
the seventeenth century British consul, mentions that the Ottomans did indeed employ
physiognomy in their selections of palace pages, who were trained to join the imperial
military-administrative elite. Paul Rycaut, The History of the Present State of the Ottoman
Empire, London, 1686, p. 46.
28 Muṣṭafā b. Bālī, Risāla, f. 7a. For comparison, see Šaʿbān Sivriḥiṣārī, Qiyāfatnāme, MS
Nuruosmaniye 4099, f. 4a.
29 For an historical overview of physiognomy’s scientific classification see Antonella
Ghersetti, “Physiognomy and Medicine in Islamic Culture,” in Seeing the Face, p. 285-287.
30 Ibn Sīnā, Fī aqsām al-ʿulūm al-ʿaqliyya, in Tisʿa rasāʾil fī l-ḥikma wa-l-ṭabīʿiyyāt, Cairo, 1908.
Arabica 64 (2017) 609-646

and aspires to the good.31 Speculative philosophy was further subdivided into
metaphysics, mathematics and the natural sciences (ʿilm-i ṭabīʿī). The natural
sciences were then sub-divided into the following:32 1. medicine (ṭibb), 2. astro-
logy (nuǧūm), 3. physiognomy (firāsat),33 4. oneiromancy (taʿbīr), 5. celestial
magic (ṭilasmāt),34 6. natural magic (nīranǧiyyāt),35 7. alchemy (kīmiyāʾ). The
commonly shared paradigm that unifies these seven natural sciences is the
acquisition of “knowledge of the imperceptible based on the perceptible.”36
Ibn Sīnā’s classification of physiognomy as a natural science was gene-
rally accepted and reproduced in Islamic classifications of the sciences.37
The Egyptian physician Ibn al-Akfānī (d. 749/1348), who himself composed a
physiognomy treatise,38 in his encyclopedia Iršād al-qāṣid ilā asnā l-maqāṣid
(Guide for those Aspiring to the Most Elevated Ends), classified physiognomy
31 Ghersetti, “Physiognomy and Medicine,” p. 285.

32 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines: Conceptions of
Nature and Methods Used for Its Study by the Ikhwān Al-Ṣafāʾ, Al-Bīrūni, and Ibn Sīnā,
London, Thames and Hudson, 1978, p. 215.
33 Physiognomy itself was often paired with a number of related sciences. The unifying fac-
tor, as with the natural sciences more generally, was the ability to penetrate, with the
help of signs, behind the veil of appearances to reach hidden truths. These traditions or
sciences (ʿulūm) included amongst others: chiromancy (ʿilm al-asārīr), examining birth-
marks and beauty spots (al-šāmāt and al-ḫayalān) and observing the shoulder-blades
(al-naẓar fī aktāf). The aforementioned examples, which tended to be of a divinatory
nature, were, according to one of the major Arab authors on ʿilm al-firāsa, not terribly
useful. The ancient Arabs had, however, also developed three disciplines likewise related
to physiognomy: the very sophisticated discipline of discerning morphoscopic or gene-
alogical lines and connections (ʿilm al-qiyāfa), dowsing (al-riyāfa), and examination of
foot-prints, or tracking (ʿilm al-ʿiyāfa). See Šams al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Dimašqī, al-Siyāsa
fī ʿilm al-firāsa, Cairo, Dār zāhid al-qudsī, 1983, p. 10-11.
34 Drawing celestial forces down upon terrestrial ones. Nasr, An Introduction, p. 215.
35 Employing terrestrial forces to produce effects that appear as supernatural. Ibid.
36 Ghersetti, “Physiognomy and Medicine,” p. 285. They differ, however, in the object of their
discernment. Only medicine and physiognomy focus specifically on the human body and,
for the most part, on the present. Physiognomy does have a divinatory dimension, which
is neither consistently included nor excluded in Ottoman treatises, although generally
ignored. The other natural sciences are focused on different types of objects and generally
deal with the future.
37 Ghersetti adds that “we may conclude that, although its [physiognomy’s] status tended
to falter wherever it touched on the sphere of divination, the position of firāsa in the
taxonomy of Arabo-Islamic sciences remained essentially stable.” Ibid., p. 287.
38 Ibn al-Akfānī, Ikmāl al-siyāsa fī ʿilm al-firāsa, MS Istanbul, Ayasofya, 3782. See also
Şükran Fazlıoğlu, “Ibn el-Ekfānī’nin Ikmāl el-siyāse fī ilm el-firāse adlı eseri,” http://www
.ishanfazlioglu.net/Sukran_Fazlioglu.
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620 Lelić
(ʿilm al-firāsa) as an applied natural science.39 This particular classification

was followed and reproduced by Ṭāšköprüzāde (d. 968/1561), who in turn was
followed by Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa (d. 1067/1657), both of them composers of the major
Ottoman classifications of the sciences. Thus, physiognomy’s status as an
acknowledged natural science in the Ottoman world was practically written
in stone. Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa quoted directly from Ṭāšköprüzāde’s Miftāḥ al-saʿāda
in the opening to his entry on physiognomy in the Kašf al-ẓunūn: “The com-
poser of the Miftāḥ al-saʿāda counted it [physiognomy] amongst the applied
natural sciences (furūʿ al-ʿilm al-ṭabīʿī).”40 Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa himself saw no rea-
son to disagree and added the standard definition for physiognomy: “It is a
science through which is known the moral character of men based on their
outward appearance.”41 This was followed with a short list of the major autho-
ritative treatises on the subject. Incidentally, no Ottoman treatises were listed,
although many had been written by the seventeenth century. Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa
thought it sufficient to list the most authoritative Arabic, and one Persian, phy-
siognomy treatises.
Ṭāšköprüzāde did indeed classify physiognomy as an applied natural
science.42 However, he divided it into two parts (qism). The first type of firā-
sat was acquired through experience (taǧriba), “because experience demons-
trates that some external cases (umūr-i ẓāhira) indicate internal moral
dispositions (aḫlāq-i bāṭina).”43 This type of firāsat was within the sphere of
physicians (ḥukamā) and was classified as an applied natural science.44 While
Ṭāšköprüzāde does not otherwise name the first type of firāsat, some of the
Ottoman firāsat treatises classified it as firāsat-i ḥikmiyya, or philosophical
physiognomy. They further defined it, in line with Ṭāšköprüzāde’s definition,
as a science that is learned and mastered through study and experience. More
precisely, Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā explained that “through judicial and decisive
observation, it is possible to perfect this [type of] firāsat through [a combina-
tion of] practice and instruction on the one hand, and the study and learning
of books and treatises on the other.”45 Because this is the type of firāsat that
39 His particular list of applied natural sciences is as follows: human medicine, veterinary
medicine, physiognomy (ʿilm al-firāsa), oneiromancy, astrology, magic, the science of tal-
ismans, white magic, alchemy, and agriculture. Jan Just Witkam, De egyptische arts Ibn
al-Akfānī (gest. 749/1348) en zijn indeling van de wetenschappen, Leiden, Ter Lugt, 1989,
p. 48; cited in Ghersetti, “Physiognomy and Medicine,” p. 286.
40 Ḥāǧǧī Ḫalīfa, Kitāb Kašf al-ẓunūn, II, p. 72.
41 Ibid.
42 Ṭāšköprüzāde, Miftāḥ al-saʿāda, p. 273; id., Mawḍūʿāt al-ʿulūm, I, p. 358.
43 Id., Miftāḥ al-saʿāda, p. 273; id., Mawḍūʿāt al-ʿulūm, I, p. 358.
45 Muṣṭafā b. Bālī, Risāla, f. 13a.
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can be mastered through the study of treatises, Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā added

that his own treatise was composed precisely for the teaching of firāsat-i
ḥikmiyya.46
Ṭāšköprüzāde did name the second type of firāsat: both he and the Ottoman
firāsat treatises call it firāsat-i šarʿiyya.47 The definitions of this second type
of firāsat in Ṭāšköprüzāde’s Miftāḥ and some of the physiognomy treatises,
especially Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā’s treatise, are quite similar. It is worth quoting the
major parts of Ṭāšköprüzāde’s definition because it is this second type of firā-
sat that adds a more esoteric dimension to physiognomy and introduces the
possibility of using physiognomy as a vehicle for self-knowledge and conse-
quently self-transformation, as will be discussed below.
The second part is firāsat-i šarʿiyya. Its origin is the light of certainty (nūr
al-yaqīn), which is attained by means of purifying the soul (tazkiyat al-
nafs) from corrupt moral characteristics and polishing the heart (taṣfiyat
al-qalb) from vices, until one sees with the light of God (nūr Allāh) and
God, glorified and exalted is He, becomes the sight with which one sees
and the hearing with which one hears.48
It is clear that firāsat-i šarʿiyya is a divinely inspired gift, which endows

the favored recipient with the divine characteristics of sight and hearing.
Ṭāšköprüzāde then continues with the Qur’anic verse, “Indeed, from God
nothing is hidden in the earth nor in the heavens” (Kor 3, 5), and adds that in
relation to that very verse the Prophet said, “Beware the firāsa of the believer
(muʾmin), for he sees with the light of God.”49 The implication here is rather
immense. Just as nothing can be concealed from God, neither on earth nor in
the heavens, so too nothing is hidden from the firāsa (discerning gaze) of the
believer, who sees with the light of God. In other words, possession of firāsat-i
šarʿiyya leads to omniscience.
Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā wrote that firāsat-i šarʿiyya endows its possessor with
such insight into men’s hearts that it reveals every person’s “moral level and
manners, what is concealed and apparent.”50 However, he also added that it
cannot be acquired through study—by “examining all the sensory signs, nor
46 Ibid.
47 Ṭāšköprüzāde, Miftāḥ al-saʿāda, p. 274; id., Mawḍūʿāt al-ʿulūm, I, p. 358; Muṣṭafā b. Bālī,
Risāla, f. 7a.
48 Ṭāšköprüzāde, Miftāḥ al-saʿāda, p. 273; id., Mawḍūʿāt al-ʿulūm, I, p. 359. The reference here
is to the well-known hadith.
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622 Lelić
by assessing the marks of the body”—as is possible with the first type of firāsa,
firāsat-i ḥikmiyya. To the contrary, firāsat-i šarʿiyya is strictly the preserve “of
the chosen prophets and the sagacity (kiyāsa) of the Muslim saints.” This is
because “mankind is not capable of attainment and perfection with effort and
practice [alone].” Rather, “the munificence (faḍl) of God selects ‘whom He
wills. And God is the possessor of great bounty’ (Kor 3, 74).”51 What Bālīzāde
Muṣṭafā means here is that effort and practice were not sufficient by them-
selves, although, as Ṭāšköprüzāde explains, it was an absolutely necessary
prerequisite. In fact, Ṭāšköprüzāde laid out guidelines for the path leading to
firāsat-i šarʿiyya, which consisted of two parallel and interdependent practices:
vigilant attentiveness (murāqaba) to one’s states (aḥwāl) and breaths (anfās)
on the one hand, and abstaining from small and large sins (al-maʿāṣī) on the
other. Ṭāšköprüzāde further described it as cultivating the moral qualities and
manners of the Prophet (al-aḫlāq al-nabawiyya, al-ādāb al-muṣṭafawiyya).52
The rest, as Bālīzāde made clear, was in the hands of God.
The most basic and defining aspect of any physiognomy treatise is a list
of protasis and apodosis, which pairs specific aspects of physical appearance
with inner characteristics.53 Some Ottoman treatises remained, in fact, strictly
limited to the protasis-apodosis list. Others added related sciences, such as
chiromancy (usually with drawings) and zoological physiognomy. Yet other
Ottoman treatises felt comfortable extending physiognomy far beyond its
strict limitations of protasis and apodosis between physical features and moral
character to include predictions of general behavioral patterns and appea-
rances based on ethnicity, gender, ancestry, age and climate.54 The spirit of
physiognomy, which in its essence provided guidelines for the study of man’s
51 Ibid., f. 7a.

53 To give an example, taken at random, which establishes a connection between a per-
son’s hue and aspects of inner character: “A reddish hue is a sign of quick-bloodedness /
A dusky tint signifies good judgment.” Ḥamd Allāh Ḥamdī, Qiyāfatnāme, MS Istanbul,
Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Baǧdatlı Vehbi, 2162, f. 1b. Some, like the first, may appear
rather logical, while others, such as the latter, do not seem to follow an immediately
apparent logic. There is, however, a particular type of logic behind it that is based on
humoral theory. On humoral theory and Ottoman physiognomy see Emin Lelić, “ ‘The
greatest of tribulations’: Constructions of Femininity in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman
Physiognomy,” in Xenophobia in Pre-Modern Ottoman Lands, Bloomington, University of
Indiana Press, forthcoming.
54 This is particularly the case with Muṣṭafā b. Bālī’s Risāla-i Qiyāsat-i firāsat and Taʿlīqīzāde’s
Firāsatnāme, both written for Sulṭān Murād III and both based on Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s
Kitāb al-Firāsa.
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true character based on physical appearance, was expanded to include other

aspects which could play a role in the shaping of men and their character. In
an empire which, by the tenth/sixteenth century, had expanded so swiftly as
to encompass an enormously diverse range of subjects, a codified system for
evaluating and making sense of the peoples they ruled over must, naturally,
have been welcomed at the imperial court.
Some Historical Motivations for Ottoman Physiognomy
The connection between physiognomy treatises and the Ottoman court

afforded both sultans and viziers on the one hand, and the composers of the
treatises on the other, a way to serve their particular needs and interests. The
imperial court used physiognomy to create an image of sagacity and saint-
liness for the person of the sultan. Some of the treatises were surely more than
mere imperial propaganda; their scholarly tone and intellectual sophistication
suggest that they were responding to a genuine interest in physiognomy. Still,
the possibility of imperial propaganda, which was meant to announce the sul-
tan himself as a master physiognomer (ṣāḥib-i firāsat), must not be excluded.
The treatises generally suggest that the people who have attained to the
level of firāsat-i šarʿiyya are the spiritually elect and, according to the above-
mentioned prophetic tradition, endowed with divine characteristics; that is,
they see with the light of God.
Mastery of physiognomy, or even a serious interest in learning physiognomy,
signaled that a ruler knew every person’s true nature and thus could be expec-
ted to make the best possible choices in ordering society and, more specifi-
cally, in selecting his elites. But it also signaled a ruler who was enlightened or
well along the path to enlightenment, through his mastery of physiognomy. As
Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā explained, “because not everyone has a share of the divine
lights, and not everyone is worthy of the exalted gift of firāsat-i šarʿiyya,” the
first type of physiognomy, firāsat-i ḥikmiyya, which could be learned through
study and experience, was a necessary substitute.55 Such scientific mastery,
however, was not so different from divinely inspired firāsat, the discerning
gaze that pierces to the depths of every man’s soul and is the mark of God’s
favorites. Ultimately, the result was the same—knowledge of every person’s
true character. The only difference was that one was the result of rigorous
scientific training, while the other came through divine inspiration.
55 Muṣṭafā b. Bālī, Risāla, f. 2b.
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624 Lelić
The physiognomy treatises were quite clear on where their science stood in
the Islamic spiritual universe; the masters of firāsat were the inheritors of the
prophets:
Some learned men have proclaimed the following gradation of human

souls: the most excellent souls are the souls of the prophets (nufūs-i
anbiyā), peace be upon them; following them the souls of the saints
(nufūs-i awliyā), may God protect their secrets; following them the souls
of those who have mastered firāsat (nufūs-i aṣḥāb-i firāsat); follow-
ing them the souls of those who have mastered qiyāfat (nufūs-i aṣḥāb-i
qiyāfat).56
Thus, a successful image of a sultan as master of firāsat introduced the pos-

sibility that he was, in fact, a direct spiritual successor to the Prophet, and as
such was arranging state affairs based on insights coming from the divine light
of firāsat.
At the same time, the composers of the treatises were presenting the impe-
rial court with a type of Fürstenspiegel or “mirror for princes.” They were teach
ing the sultan the science of physiognomical discernment, which was to aid
the new sovereign in knowing every person’s true nature and thus to better
implement justice by assigning to each their due place.57 The benefits of
physiognomy for a ruler were well known and oft-cited in pre-Ottoman and
Ottoman texts.58 The importance of such knowledge was that it endowed its
56 Ibid., f. 8a.

57 “Justice means putting things in the places where they belong.” Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī, Muṣṭafā
ʿĀlī’s “Counsel for Sultans” of 1581, ed. and transl. Andreas Tietze, Vienna, Verlag der
Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (“Forschungen zur islamischen Philologie
und Kulturgeschichte”, 6; “Denkschriften Ö sterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Philosophisch-Historische Klasse”, 137), 1979-1982, I, p. 17.
58 For example, pseudo-Aristotle, in the Secret of Secrets (Sirr al-asrār), a classic Islamic
Fürstenspiegel text, counseled Alexander the Great that “it is a very appropriate and prof-
itable thing to every prince that he knows the science of physiognomy by which he may
know by sight, which manners and dispositions every man will have naturally.” Pseudo-
Aristotle, The Secret of Secrets (Secreta Secretorum), transl. Linda K. Kerns, Lewiston,
Edward Mellen Press, 2008, p. 101-102. The tenth/sixteenth-century Ottoman scholar
Ṭāšköprüzāde (d. 968/1561), in his treatise on rulership, listed ten characteristics which
a successful ruler was expected to possess, the tenth being that the ruler observe his sub-
jects and the affairs of his kingdom with a physiognomical gaze (an yanẓar bi-l-firāsa).
Ṭāšköprüzāde, Asrār al-ḫilāfa, MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Veliyuddin, 3275,
f. 119a.
Arabica 64 (2017) 609-646

holder with the ability to know every person’s rightful place in the social order
with scientific precision—the very definition of Islamic justice.59
In tandem with Fürstenspiegel or advice for princes (naṣīḥat) literature, the
physiognomy treatises spoke directly to the sultan’s moral character (aḫlāq);
they established a correlation between it and the moral character prevailing in
his dawla, the imperial ‘state’ during his reign. The precise extent to which the
sultan’s moral character was thought to have a causal effect on state affairs is
not always easy to gauge.60 The least point on the gradation of interconnected
ness, according to the physiognomy treatises from this period, and contem-
porary Ottoman thought, was that a ruler’s carnal soul or lower ego (nafs-i
ammāra), if undisciplined, would lead to abuses of power and authority.61 The
negative effects of an undisciplined carnal soul increased in proportion to the
power concentrated in a person—an absolute monarch was in danger of being
absolutely corrupt and ruining his dawla. Powerful members of the ruling elite,
if driven by negative character traits, could wreak havoc and, if left unchecked
by the ruler, ultimately destroy the empire.62
59 Šams al-Dīn al-Dimašqī (d. 727/1327), the author of an Arabic physiognomy treatise, was
very clear about the potential role of physiognomy in ordering society: “The science
[physiognomy] serves to regulate social relations thanks to the knowledge it provides
about characters,” quoted in Ghersetti, “Physiognomy and Medicine,” p. 301. For more
on al-Dimašqi see Douglas Morton Dunlop, “al-Dimas̲h̲qī, S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh
Muḥammad b. Abī Ṭālib al-Anṣārī al-Ṣūfī,” EI2.
60 Classical Islamic political thought did indeed establish a direct connection between the
ruler’s moral state and his kingdom’s state of affairs. In short, an enlightened ruler will
understand justice, which essentially means ordering things properly, and he will know
how to implement justice in the kingdom. It is also worth noting Cornell Fleischer’s inter-
pretation of precisely how Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī, an Ottoman who lived in the late tenth/sixteenth
century, understood this connection: “Except in certain instances of policy decision, Āli
does not perceive the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm to be a strictly
causal one; as often as not the connection is indirect, psychological, or symbolic, a func-
tion of the moral dimension of historical process.” Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual,
p. 303.
61 For Ottoman understandings of the carnal soul, especially its relation to the body and
human personality, see Dror Zeʼevi, Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the
Ottoman Middle East, 1500-1900, Berkeley, University of California Press (“Studies on the
history of society and culture”, 52), 2006, p. 22-24.
62 Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī notes, for example, that “Sokollu had more power than was right for him
to possess, but the temptation to abuse his authority was tempered by education and a
moral sense that prevented him from transgressing the spirit of Ottoman ideals of state-
craft.” Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual, p. 306.
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626 Lelić
Taʿlīqīzāde counseled that the sultan must have the best moral character,
better than any of his subjects: “The best moral character (aḫlāq) of all mortals
must be that of kings. That is, in the world, the moral character (aḫlāq) of the
kings must be more praiseworthy than that of any man.”63 Thus, unsurprisingly,
physiognomy treatises, like contemporary naṣīḥat literature,64 circled almost
endlessly around the problem of the carnal soul (nafs-i ammāra) and pre
scribed varying combinations of wisdom (ḥikmat) and self-disciplined battle
(riyāḍat) against its lower urges. Contemporary Ottoman warnings of “decline”
in the later tenth/sixteenth century, which carried a heavy moral tone, did not
fail to mention the increasing dominance of the carnal soul in the imperial
palace as one of the causes, if not the major cause, of Ottoman decline.65
I suggest that physiognomy treatises proposed the science of physiognomy
itself as a way of disciplining the carnal soul—all that was required was to turn
the discerning, physiognomical gaze upon oneself. True control over the carnal
soul, according to esoteric teachings, led to spiritual enlightenment. In short,
physiognomy treatises propagated two royal applications for their science:
one, to discern the true nature of others and based on that knowledge assign
ing to each and every subject the most appropriate place in society; and two,
to discern one’s own carnal soul so as to better be able to overcome it through
self-discipline, with the ultimate goal of reaching spiritual enlightenment.
Such a ruler was indeed the nexus between creator and creation.66
Physiognomy and Governance
The tenth/sixteenth-century physiognomy treatises generally embraced the

classical Islamic theory of society, which at its most basic describes man as
social and political by nature (madanī l-ṭabʿ) and as predisposed towards social
63 Taʿlīqīzāde, Firāsatnāme, f. 7b.

64 For Ottoman naṣīḥat literature, see Pál Fodor, “State and Society, Crisis and Reform, in
15th-17th Century Ottoman Mirrors for Princes,” in Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum
Hungaricae, 40/2-3 (1986), p. 217-240; Douglas A. Howard, “Genre and Myth in the Ottoman
Advice for Kings Literature,” in The Early Modern Ottomans: Remapping the Empire ed.
Virginia Harris Aksan and Daniel Goffman, Cambridge-New York, Cambridge University
Press, 2007, p. 137-166.
65 For revisionist arguments regarding late tenth/sixteenth century Ottoman decline, see
for example, Cemal Kafadar, “The Question of Ottoman Decline,” Harvard Middle Eastern
and Islamic Review, 4/1-2 (1997-1998), p. 30-75; Fleischer, “From Şeyhzade Korkud,”
p. 67-77; Howard, “Genre and Myth,” p. 137-166.
66 Taʿlīqīzāde, Firāsatnāme, f. 6b.
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cooperation and organization with fellow men for the sake of common sur-
vival.67 This is in fact listed by most of the physiognomy treatises as the first
rational proof (dalālat-i ʿaql) for physiognomy.68 According to the Qiyāfatnāme
of Šaʿbān Sivriḥiṣārī, written in 937/1531 for the Grand Vizier Ibrāhīm Pāšā (d.
942/1536), man’s social nature stems from the very root (ʾ.N.S) of the word
human (ins), which, with a small vowel change yields the meaning intimacy
and sociability (uns):69
It is human nature to be close to and inclined towards the company of

others. No human can separate himself from intermixing with other
humans because the word human (insān) is derived from sociability
(uns). Men are called insān because of their familiarity with one another.
[…] It is, furthermore, known that man’s subsistence (maʿāš) and well-
being (maṣlaḥat) is not possible without socializing and cultivating rela-
tions with those of his kind. It is also not possible without the presence
of lords and other chiefs (begler wa sāyir āʿyān) and certainly not without
their elites (muṣāḥibler).70

68 All treatises begin with transmitted proofs (dalālat-i naql), starting with references to
physiognomy or the term firāsat itself in a non-technical sense in Qurʾānic verses, in
the Prophetic tradition, and in anecdotes about the Prophet’s companions and Islam’s
other great, saintly personages—the most commonly cited anecdotes being about
ʿUmar b. al-Ḫaṭṭāb, who was said by the Prophet to possess divinely inspired firāsat, and
about Imām al-Šāfiʿī, who seems to have acquired knowledge of physiognomy through
study. The treatises then go on to list rational proofs (dalālat-i ʿaql). They unanimously
list the need for human coexistence with fellow men as the first proof. The second proof
is usually the fact that the true nature of trained animals, such as horses and falcons,
can be discerned from their appearance. It follows from this that the same must be
possible for human beings, who share the same basic limbs with animals and are, fur-
thermore, the crown of creation. The third proof, not listed in all treatises, adds that
physiognomy functions on the same premises as medicine (ʿilm-i ṭibb)—both discern
underlying causes based on signs apparent on the physical body. Thus, for example,
Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā adds that “the foundation of this science [of physiognomy] is sup-
ported by the natural sciences” and whatever “criticism is directed towards this science
[of physiognomy], that same criticism may also be directed at the science of medicine.”
Muṣṭafā b. Bālī, Risāla, f. 6a.
69 Šaʿbān Sivriḥiṣārī’s physiognomy treatise was written with the endorsement of Ibn Kemāl
(d. 942/1536), the great Ottoman šayḫ al-islām at the time.
70 Šaʿbān Sivriḥiṣārī, Qiyāfatnāme, f. 9a-9b.
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628 Lelić
According to Šaʿbān Sivrihiṣārī, it is not just the inborn yearning for social
intercourse with other humans that leads people to live together in society;
social cooperation is a necessity for individual survival. However, once social
organization is introduced, continues Šaʿbān Sivrihiṣārī, men who are going to
rule over others must exist. It follows that social hierarchy is just as intrinsic to
human nature as is the yearning for intimacy and mutual cooperation.
A slightly later physiognomy treatise, written by Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos for
Sulṭān Süleymān’s son and successor, Sulṭān Selīm II, reaffirms this theory
exactly, using identical language: “It is known that without association and
cooperation with fellow men, man’s subsistence (maʿāš) and well-being
(maṣlaḥat) is impossible. It is also impossible without lords (begler) and cer-
tainly without their elites (muṣāḥib).”71 Men must live together if they are to
survive. If they are to survive living together, a ruling elite is necessary. That
ruling elite is made up of lords and other grandees.
When, following their instinct, people do come together to form a society,
an inevitable problem emerges—not all men are good; now, however, the
good, the bad and those in between are forced to depend on each other for
subsistence and well-being. Those men who are slaves to their animal nature
or carnal soul, and who according to the received wisdom of the time make up
the majority of mankind, are bound to violate the rights of others in pursuit
of their own desires and thus fill society with injustice. Hence, a restraining
influence becomes an absolute necessity. This restraining influence is a system
of rules (tadbīr), which must be enforced by the power and authority of a lord
or ruler, whom the treatises mention in the same breath as man’s proclivity for
social co-existence. This is the meaning of royal authority.72
Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā in his physiognomy treatise also refers to the necessary
cooperation between men for the sake of their common survival: “Mankind is
social by nature (madanī l-ṭabʿ) and the perdurance of the line of the sons of
Adam has been facilitated with the cooperation and assistance of communi-
ties. It is for this reason that some excellent scholars have said that the word
71 Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos, Qiyāfatnāme, f. 4b. It was written about thirty years after Šaʿbān
Sivriḥiṣārī’s Qiyāfatnāme, and in many parts appears to be a condensed version of the
same. There is no doubt that Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos had, to say the least, consulted Šaʿbān
Sivriḥiṣārī’s work for his own composition. I am grateful to Melike Türkdoğan for gra-
ciously sharing her copy of the manuscript with me.
72 For another example on Ottoman political thought, which follows the same general out-
line, see Tursun Beg’s Tārīḫ-i Ebü’l-fetḥ. Tursun Beg, The History of Mehmed the Conqueror,
transl. Halil İnalcık and Rhoads Murphey, Minneapolis-Chicago, Bibliotheca Islamica
(“American research Institute in Turkey. Monograph series”, 1), 1978; summarized in Fodor,
“State and Society,” p. 221-222.
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insān (human) is derived from the word uns (intimacy).”73 Yet, he also divides
men into different types and groups:
While some men expend their energy in the way of attaining excellence
and perfection (takmīl-i faḍāyil wa-kamālāt), others spend their days and
nights with the acquisition of handicrafts and trades most suitable to
their disposition and character (fıṭrat wa-istiʿdād). All that is necessary
can be found and whatever happiness any soul desires is existent without
end. The workshop of the material universe is a prosperous place and the
marketplace of existence will endure until the Day of Judgment and be
crowded with human beings. As dictated by necessity, [among] the indi-
viduals of mankind—existing as things always have—the chief and the
vizier, the great and the poor, associate with their peers.74
Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā begins with the same theme of man as social by nature and
man’s proclivity for social co-existence as a necessity for his survival. The world
is described as a marketplace or workshop and a fundamental distinction
amongst human beings is introduced based on their relation to the market-
place that is the material world. Some men, according to Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā,
get caught up in this worldly life and expend all their energies towards real-
izing their worldly vocation by learning to play the role most suited to their
disposition;75 others strive for an excellence and perfection that lies beyond
the marketplace of material existence. The fundamental division is thus made
on the basis of spiritual enlightenment. Governance and rules, whose purpose
is to restrain men’s animal natures from their natural tendency to oppress their
fellow men, are applicable only to those who have chosen the material world
over spiritual excellence and perfection.76

74 Ibid.
75 If the market symbolizes the whole material universe, then trade or handicraft must also
be read metaphorically as any possible vocation, not only that of artisans and merchants
but also kings, soldiers, peasants, etc.
76 Men of excellence and perfection have by definition overcome their animal souls.
Interestingly, physiognomy too is no longer applicable to the spiritually enlightened.
The anecdote about Socrates and the physiognomer or master of firāsat demonstrates
best physiognomy’s inapplicability to enlightened men. Although the characters often
change—in the Ottoman and Islamic texts it is usually Plato and not Socrates—the point
of the anecdote remains the same. The physiognomer discerns evil proclivities (usu-
ally stupidity and lechery) in Socrates’ appearance. Initially no one can believe such a
thing about a man who is the living model of excellence and virtue. Socrates, however,
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630 Lelić
The marketplace of the world is large and prosperous enough, continues

Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā, for everyone to fulfill their destiny by finding the role in life
most fitting for their disposition and through it perpetual happiness. Society,
by its very nature, is stratified into a hierarchy of “trades” or worldly roles, each
of which fulfills a particular function. Social stratification, it seems, is deeply
rooted in the disposition and character (fiṭrat wa-istiʿdād) of the individuals
who make up a society. If every person pursues the vocation dictated by his
disposition, the division of labor in the marketplace of the world will sort itself
out automatically. Physiognomy, with its ability for direct and accurate dis-
cernment of men’s true dispositions and characters, is presented as a safeguard
to the automatic sifting mechanism based on inborn dispositions. If anyone
transgresses the natural order of things, by assuming a role not befitting their
inborn disposition, a ruler who has knowledge of physiognomy will immedia-
tely recognize the transgression. Given the requisite power and authority, such
a ruler will be able to unmask the transgressor and assign him a more appro-
priate role, thereby enforcing true justice.
Morality in Governance
The next step prescribed in the physiognomy treatises, after having estab-
lished man’s social nature and stratified society into rulers and subjects, is to
introduce another dimension: morality. Morality has already been mentioned
in the context of the necessity for a ruling elite, whose function is to restrain
the aggressive and oppressive desires of men’s animal natures from destroy-
ing each other and thereby destroying society. This does not do away with evil
men, however, nor does it preclude the grave danger of men with vile inborn
dispositions infiltrating the ranks of the ruling elite. In such an event, the
system as a whole becomes perverted and oppression institutionalized, so to
speak. The physiognomy treatises are particularly invested in precluding such
a possibility.
Immediately following the statement that human society cannot func-
tion without lords and their elites, Šaʿbān Sivriḥiṣārī continues by depicting
a combination of physical features which betoken a character so malevolent
that it merits comparison to a venomous viper, adding that there is a great
confirms the reading but adds that he has overcome such proclivities through wisdom
and self-discipline.
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range of unsavory human characteristics which one must guard against.77 Such
awareness, continues Sivriḥiṣārī—in a very interesting comment on the early
years of Süleymān’s reign78—is of the utmost importance because “especially
amongst the men of this age, loyalty and trustworthiness have become scarce
and betrayal, deceit, trickery, envy and evil have become abundant.”79 The only
way to sift through the abundance of men dominated by vile and dangerous
characteristics and find men of good character is through physiognomy: “Thus,
it is most fitting and important for every person to know the science of firāsat
and qiyāfat and through this knowledge to be able to distinguish the good from
the bad.”80
The same point is repeated in Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā’s treatise. Bālīzāde Muṣṭafā
reiterates the opinion that negative character traits predominate in most men,
although unlike some of the other contemporary writers of physiognomy trea-
tises, he does not merely ascribe it to the times he lives in. Rather, he seems
to believe that most men, by nature, tend to resemble animals both in their
actions and their morality (afʿāl wa-aḫlāq). Few are those, asserts Bālīzāde
Muṣṭafā, who devote their time and energy to reaching spiritual perfection
and overcoming their carnal souls (nafs-i ammāra). Most remain prisoners to
their animal nature, whose range of possible manifestations is often compared
directly to the animal world.81 However, through physiognomy every person’s
nature can be discerned very precisely, and in that lies its great utility.
Man is a social being by nature and his social relations with others as well
as his livelihood are made possible through partnership and association
77 The description of a very hairy person with (sky-)blue eyes and a narrow jaw who is com-
pared to a poisonous viper is quoted from Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī’s Ẓāhir al-mulūk. It is also
used in other firāsat treatises as the standard description of a combination of physical
characteristics which signifies the highest concentration of evil.
78 It is worth noting here that this statement, written in the early years of Süleymān’s
reign, puts the idea of the Süleymānic reign as the Golden Age in a new perspective. Cf.
Fleischer, “From Şeyhzade Korkud.”
79 Šaʿbān Sivriḥiṣārī, Qiyāfatnāme, f. 9b.
80 Ibid.
81 Physiognomy does indeed have a very highly developed zoological dimension. Some of
the treatises have whole sections on zoological physiognomy, in which certain appear-
ances are equated with particular animals and by extension with the predominant char-
acteristics of those animals. If the possibility of resemblance to an animal (lion, ape, bull,
etc.) is indeed confirmed in a person’s appearance, then, according to some physiognomy
treatises, a resemblance in character may be inferred. See, for example, the Qiyāfatnāme
of Šaʿbān Sivriḥiṣārī.
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632 Lelić
with those of his kind. Since in the creatures of the world evil and sin are
commonly known, the saying “people are made up of the most varied
types and most are impure” is established. In their actions and moral-
ity most people are on the level of apes. According to the words of the
sages (ḥukamā) […] one must be cautious with people of certain appear-
ances, as one would avoid a venomous viper. It is without a doubt that
this science brings to light every person’s moral state, both good and evil;
its great utility is certain.82
This categorically negative outlook on the world and mankind, however, leads
to a matter-of-fact pragmatism which adopts physiognomy as a sure guide—
perhaps the only guide—for navigating a world filled with predominantly base,
ape-like people. The particularly strongly worded judgment of his fellow men,
in fact, seems to also function as a rhetorical flourish to stress, more effectively,
the importance of mastering physiognomy if one is to successfully navigate
human company. For lords and their elites, who must not only successfully
navigate the many traps of men’s animal natures but must, in fact, govern men
and enforce justice in society, a functional mechanism for discerning human
nature becomes indispensable. An error in character judgment, when com-
mitted by the elite, is potentially not only ruinous to their person but to the
very state which they embody.
Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos, who seems to have relied heavily on Šaʿbān Sivriḥiṣārī for
the composition of his own Qiyāfatnāme, expands slightly on the theme of the
importance of physiognomy, especially for the ruling elite. Reiterating the sen-
timent that “every person is in need of ʿilm-i qiyāfat,” he continues in the same
breath with the above-quoted statement that society’s well-being is “impos-
sible without lords and without their elites.”83 Further following Sivriḥiṣārī’s
lead, Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos lists the same example of a combination of physical
features which mark a person of dangerous and vile character, adding:
Above all, men are of two types: some men are good, trustworthy and
loyal, other men evil, treacherous, deceitful, duplicitous, seditious and
envious. It should be said that in this time the people of evil and treach-
ery are many and loyal and trustworthy men are few, and perhaps lacking
entirely.84

83 Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos, Qiyāfatnāme, f. 7b.
84 Ibid., f. 8a.
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The social situation during the reign of Selīm II was, according to Muṣṭafā b.
Evrenos, alarming. There were hardly any good men left. Even worse and of the
utmost danger to society, evil and treacherous men had infiltrated the ruling
elite, such that the lords themselves possessed the abovementioned vile char
acter traits. In the words of Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos: “The lords (begler) of this time
will offer the world and the kingdom (mamlakat) to the retinue (muṣāḥib) of
another lord (beg) and kill the lord by poisoning him.”85 The imperial fabric
was unraveling. The ruling elite, driven by the vilest characteristics, was fight
ing amongst itself and shamelessly employing treachery and deceit in their rat
race to the top.
It is interesting that although he directly comments on his own time,
Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos uses fairly generic terminology—lord (beg) and elites
(muṣāḥib)—in his critique of current events. Just like his predecessor Šaʿbān
Sivriḥiṣārī, Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos never uses specific titles or names to indicate
precisely in which segment of the elite or with which persons in particular
he thought that the moral corruption had taken root. Although one assumes
that to informed contemporary readers the references would have been clear,
Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos seems more interested in portraying an abstracted image.
Yet, even if his alarm at the state of affairs is ascribed to hyperbole or trope—
especially considering that its general vocabulary is almost identical with
Sivriḥiṣārī’s complaints thirty years earlier, at the beginning of the Süleymānic
“Golden Age”—Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos has gone a step beyond decrying the lack
of loyalty and righteousness amongst his contemporaries. He has called our
attention to the fact that the restraining influence of the absolute monarch
has been removed—a complaint about Sulṭān Selīm II voiced by many other
contemporaries86—and, as a result, the empire’s grandees were ruthlessly
jockeying for primacy in the power vacuum created by the sultan’s absence
from state affairs. Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos’ great fear that the absence of the royal
hand in affairs of state would open the way for precisely such destructive
factionalism amongst the empire’s grandees seemed to be coming true, as
the loyalty of the imperial military, and especially its most elite segments, no
85 Ibid.
86 Sulṭān Selīm II had resigned the reins of government to his Grand Vizier Meḥmed Pāšā
Sokollu, who was building his own, often nepotistically based, power structure within the
empire. Sulṭān Selīm II’s successor Murād III, who resented Meḥmed Pāšā Sokollu for the
power he wielded, was incapable of ousting the powerful Grand Vizier who remained in
power until his assassination.
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634 Lelić
longer attached to the person of the sultan but was being parceled out by the
wealthiest and most powerful grandees.87
Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos presented the problems of his age as a direct conse-
quence of the infiltration by men of the lowest character into the ruling elite.
Predictably, such men were accused of abusing their power and authority
in pursuit of their desires. This caused factionalism and infighting amongst
the elite and paralyzed effective governance—a very concrete problem in
Ottoman society at the time, which other contemporaries were also noticing,
recording and decrying. To strike at the very root of the problem, Muṣṭafā b.
Evrenos proposed the science of physiognomy:
Now, it is required and necessary that the lords (begler) and every person
know ʿilm-i qiyāfat and firāsat, and through this science be aware of every
retainer’s [moral] state. Those who become capable of such discernment
will reject retainers who display [physiognomical] signs (ʿalāmat) of
treachery, villainy, seditiousness, deceit and envy. And they will accept
retainers who display [physiognomical] signs (ʿalāmat) of trustworthi-
ness and loyalty. They will act upon their ability to distinguish good from
bad.88
Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos was interested in physiognomy from one perspective only.

Even when he acknowledged that it might be of benefit to men other than lords,
he was not interested in physiognomy’s many other uses—such as selecting
friends, marriage partners, business partners or buying slaves—which other
treatises do mention. Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos’ interest in physiognomy was stric-
tly confined to the context of governance and, as far as he was concerned, its
usage was best suited to lords with power and authority. Physiognomy helps
such men to select loyal and trustworthy retainers, who will never betray them
for a rival lord.
At this point it is worth recalling that Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos’ Qiyāfatnāme was
specifically dedicated to Sulṭān Selīm II, whom he compares to great men of
the past—“in justice he resembles Nushirvan the Just, in courage he resembles
Rustam-i Zāl, and in his knowledge of firāsat he resembles Abū ʿAlī Sīnā”—and
adds that it is precisely because Sulṭān Selīm II is gifted with justice, courage
87 Baki Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early
Modern World, Cambridge-New York, Cambridge University Press (“Cambridge studies in
Islamic civilization”), 2010, p. 183.
88 Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos, Qiyāfatnāme, f. 7b.
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and knowledge of firāsat that he has composed this treatise for the Sultan.89
The above-quoted advice for the lords and for every person—to use physio-
gnomy in the selection of retainers and elites—is thus addressed, above all,
to the sultan himself. Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos is, in fact, quite explicit about the
specific benefits of physiognomy for Sulṭān Selīm II. He writes that “through
this treatise,” Sulṭān Selīm II “will gain full mastery of and expertise in firā-
sat”; with such knowledge “he will be able to discern, based on their outward
forms and faces, the internal states and realities of his quls,90 elite mounted
units (ʿulūfeǧī), retainers and men of high office (ahl-i manāṣib) and even the
tax-paying subjects (raʿāyā).”91 In other words, mastery of physiognomy will
endow the sultan with full knowledge of not only his complete ruling appa-
ratus—the ʿaskarī estate—but also his tax-paying subjects, the raʿāya. It will
make him the perfect ruler.
The benefits of physiognomy are here presented as being so extensive that
through it the whole empire will be governed effectively and, most impor-
tantly, with justice. Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos elaborates further that a sultan who
has knowledge of physiognomy will recognize each man’s predominant cha-
racter traits and “will thus be able to decide who should be at the head of
state.”92 A long list of recognizable character traits follows—courage, integrity,
seditiousness, deceitfulness, avariciousness, neglectfulness, piety, sinfulness,
etc.—mainly outlining the range of positive and negative qualities that must
be considered when selecting men for positions of authority. “In short,” writes
Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos, the sultan “will have knowledge of every person’s life,
what has befallen them since the day they were born and what will befall
them until the day they die; he will have knowledge of all their qualities and
characteristics.”93
Such precise knowledge of every man’s disposition and destiny would cer-
tainly appear to be of the greatest use to a ruler overseeing the increasingly
enormous governing apparatus required to rule the Ottoman Empire. With the
help of physiognomy, the Sultan would learn to
89 Ibid., ff. 1b-2a.

90 The word qul describes the sultan’s slave army, which encompassed the Janissary corps
and especially the military-administrative elite of the empire, trained in the imperial
palaces.
91 Ibid., f. 2a.
92 Ibid.
93 Ibid., f. 2b.
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636 Lelić
recognize those who are suitable and qualified to occupy the offices of
the vizierate, provincial offices, high state offices, offices of trust and
religious offices. Everyone will be appointed precisely according to their
level. The raʿāyā too will be employed depending on their individual
state. The kingdom will be safe and secure. For the sake of justice, the
raʿāya must be kept safe; only thus can sovereignty permanently endure.94
The essential purpose of the very idea of governance—justice—can thus only

be truly guaranteed if the sultan implements physiognomy in his selections
for imperial offices. He must employ physiognomy to select and appoint men
of courage, integrity and loyalty to state offices in order to ensure the safety
of the kingdom and the permanence of his dynasty’s sovereignty. As is well
known in Islamic political theory, and as Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos reminds Sulṭān
Selīm II, sovereignty cannot last without justice.95 If, however, justice is to be
implemented properly, cautions Muṣṭafā b. Evrenos, the raʿāyā (subjects)—
literally, the flock—must be kept safe in order to be productive. Only the use of
physiognomy can truly ensure that sheepdogs and not wolves are appointed to
protect the sultan’s flock.
Counsel for Sultans

A naṣīḥat text written in the last quarter of the tenth/sixteenth century recom-
mends itself as a particularly useful way for framing our discussion of physiog-
nomy. Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī’s Nuṣḥat al-salāṭīn (Counsel for Sultans), written for Sulṭān
Murād in 989/1581, brings together very eloquently some of the main themes
that have been discussed so far—mainly the confluence of governance and
physiognomy. In fact, in the opening section to the Counsel, Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī rec-
ommends the use of physiognomy (ʿilm-i qiyāfat) in the selection of candi-
dates for high offices. “Justice means putting things in the places where they
belong,” Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī summarizes the standard definition of the essence of
social organization,96 in this quoting “the men of understanding and wisdom,
the owners of intelligence and sagacity,” who applied this maxim specifically
to “persons of rank.”97 ʿĀlī then adds a notably insightful remark, once again
quoting the men of wisdom: “Injustice is buried in the soul: weakness hides
it, strength brings it out.”98 That, too, continued ʿĀlī, “applies to the vezirs […],
94 Ibid., f. 3a.

95 Ibid.
96 Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī, Counsel, I, p. 89.
97 Ibid., p. 17.
98 Ibid.
Arabica 64 (2017) 609-646

to the powerful statesmen, and to most others of whom it is said “those who
belong to the highest ranks” (Kor 20, 75).”99 Thus, according to the men of wis-
dom, whose opinion Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī endorses fully, men’s souls differ in disposi-
tion: some are by nature more just than others.
Furthermore, according to the same wise men, servitude or low rank leaves
no outlet for inherent proclivities towards injustice and oppression; power, on
the other hand, carries with it great temptations, which bring out the worst in
men whose souls are not perfectly just. The dangers of assigning positions of
great importance and power to men whose souls are not pure of injustice are
immense; the injustice in their souls is increased by the degree of their power
and spreads oppression in the world. The connection between internal justice,
within the souls of men of rank and power on the one hand, and external jus-
tice, which leads to prosperity in the land on the other hand is a central theme
in Ottoman political thought. They are inherently linked to one another: the
moral corruption of the ruling elite necessarily leads to the decline of justice
within the land.
It is worth quoting the following paragraph in ʿĀlī’s Counsel in full. It makes
the logical step from establishing that men’s soul have inborn temperaments,
which are either just or unjust, to encouraging the use of physiognomy (ʿilm-i
qiyāfat) in discerning every person’s inborn temperament. Physiognomy
ensures, with scientific precision, that the most appropriate selections to
imperial offices are made by “putting [men] in the places where they belong”:
Indeed, the administrators in commanding positions, who rule over each

and all individuals, high and low, tower over those that are below them
as over the vile world, and obediently show their deference to those of
higher rank, again and again giving the chestnut-color horse of their
concupiscence (nafs-i ammāra) the reins and revealing themselves as
opposed to the serenity of their souls (nafs-i muṭma‌ʾinna) by constantly
promoting to high office the rabble that is in their service. They see no
difference between the Lucifers that refused to honor the sons of Adam
and the men of angelic faces and angel-like character. Perhaps they even
prefer them [i.e. the former] in many ways, in view of [the latter’s] experi-
ence and insight. Closing their eyes to the science of physiognomy (ʿilm-i
qiyāfat), they regard those with detestable faces as more worthy of, and
more qualified for, high office than the men of perfect wisdom and of
engaging, unequaled appearance.100
99 Ibid.
100
Ibid. (emphasis is mine).
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638 Lelić
Although this short passage is pregnant with many allusions and references,
it will suffice here to address some of the main points that bear directly on
the themes discussed thus far. First is the statement that “the administrators
in commanding positions” are slaves to their carnal souls (nafs-i ammāra).101
These same administrators, who have surrendered the reins to their carnal
souls, have precluded the possibility of transcending the level of the carnal soul
and transforming it into the serene or pacified soul.102 Hence, they are stuck
at a morally defective level, which furthermore manifests itself in the lack of
a true sense of discernment regarding human character and human capacity;
they only recognize that which resembles their own qualities, the lowest and
the meanest, and fail to appreciate qualities superior to their own. Or else, if
they do recognize superior qualities they shun them. Either way, the result is
the same: the worst people—the rabble and the Lucifers—are appointed to
the highest ranks and offices.
Because like attracts like, the “administrators in commanding positions,”
who are slaves to their carnal souls, appoint underlings who suffer similar
moral defects. Such underlings easily show obsequious servitude to supe-
riors and oppressive highhandedness to inferiors. Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī suggests that
the reason why the men of angelic character are not chosen for promotion
to high offices by corrupt grandees is because such men possess “experience
and insight” (ḫibrat wa-baṣīrat)—that is, penetrating insight into the true
nature of things. This suggests two interesting implications. Firstly, the men of
angelic faces and angelic character are endowed with a power of insight and
discernment that very much resembles firāsat-i šarʿiyya. Secondly, the admi-
nistrators in commanding positions, who are slaves to their carnal souls, are
made uncomfortable by (and perhaps fear) the discerning gaze of the men of
101 The tripartite division of the soul, which became standard terminology in Islamic phi-
losophy, psychology and Sufism, is drawn from Qurʾānic references. As Corbin puts it,
the lowest soul is the extravagant and imperative soul, nafs-i ammāra (Kor 12, 53) which
commands evil, “the passionate, sensual lower ego.” Then comes the blaming or censori-
ous soul, nafs-i lawwāma (Kor 75, 2), which Corbin likens to self-consciousness and to the
reason (ʿaql) of the philosophers. The last and highest is the serene or pacific soul, nafs-i
muṭma‌ʾinna (Kor 89, 87), which is the true spiritual heart (qalb) and represents the level
at which the soul has reached true enlightenment, such that it can be reunited with its
Lord. The Qurʾān addresses the nafs-i muṭma‌ʾinna in the following words: “O pacified soul,
return to your Lord, accepting and accepted” (Kor 89, 87). Henry Corbin, The Man of Light
in Iranian Sufism, transl. Nancy Pearson, Boulder-London, Shambhala, 1978, p. 66.
102 Serenity or true justice is a reflection of a balanced soul. When all three parts of the soul
are properly balanced—expressed as the virtues of moderation (in the concupiscible
soul), courage (in the irascible soul), and wisdom (in the rational soul)—justice follows.
Arabica 64 (2017) 609-646

such exalted character. Ḥasan Kāfī l-Aqḥiṣārī noted the same aversion amongst
unqualified members of the ruling elite against interacting—through consul-
tation with scholars and sages (ʿulamāʾ wa-ḥukamāʾ)—with men of superior
moral character. In fact, he cited it as the second cause for the breakdown of
the “world order.” Both Ḥasan Kāfī and Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī thought that a remedy to
the neglect of justice, which was perpetrated by unqualified administrators
in commanding positions, was the appointment of, or at least consultation
with, qualified men of refined character. This is, however, made impossible
by the corrupt administrators’ disinclination to expose their carnal souls to
the discerning gaze of such men. Consequently, as commanding positions are
increasingly filled by men who are led by the chestnut stallion of their concu-
piscence, the presence of those who are morally qualified—the men of angelic
faces and angel-like character—decreases in the circles of power.
Another very acute problem was dissimulation, involving the concealment
of one character beneath a veneer of genteel manners and breeding. This
threat was not lost on the composers of some of the physiognomy treatises
analyzed here. Writing for Sulṭān Murād III, Taʿlīqīzāde too believed firmly that
the true felicity of the Ottoman state depended entirely on the sultan’s (and
his ruling elite’s) ability to discern men’s character and make appointments
to commanding offices accordingly. Only when “those who are in pursuit of
felicity begin distinguishing enemies from dear friends will the rights of rank
and might be exalted, and ambushes on dawla and prosperity be removed.”103
The treachery of “those who were elevated” in “rank of state” was notorious,
according to Taʿlīqīzāde,104 who alerted the newly enthroned sultan to beware
the treachery of the men around him. “Inner wickedness,” he warned, “can be
concealed with simulated beautifications” of character.105 Only extreme vigi-
lance in the observation of character, acquired through physiognomical trai-
ning can reveal men’s true natures and save the dawla from the debasement of
rank and destruction of prosperity by evil-doers and avaricious men.106
The idea that physiognomy could discern a person’s true character, hidden
beneath concealments, is at the heart of physiognomy. The immediate rele-
vance of such knowledge is, furthermore, presented as an absolute necessity
103 Taʿlīqīzāde, Firāsatnāme, f. 5a.

104 Taʿlīqīzāde quotes the following verse from “one who has fallen from high state rank,” a
victim of the elite’s treacherous nature: “We thought they were armored brethren, and
they were. But I thought [their] arrows were aimed at the enemy (li-l-aʿādī)—and indeed
they were well-aimed, but at my heart! (fī fuʾādī)” Ibid., f. 5b.
105 Ibid., f. 5a.
106 Ibid.
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640 Lelić
for men in power. The Šamāʾilnāme, for example, states clearly that “it is most
fitting for rulers and scholars (ḥukkām wa-ʿulamāʾ) to master physiognomy
(firāsat),” because “if one considers the essential nature of the science, then
it should also be the case that positive signs [other than that conveyed by
social and political distinction] should predominate in some humans who
are [socially] seemingly inappropriate (na-munāsib).”107 In other words,
physiognomy endows its practitioner with knowledge of every person’s
innermost character, piercing through the trappings of cultivated and affec-
ted manners. One knowledgeable in physiognomy is beyond deception, for the
physiognomical gaze unmasks the truth beneath any artificial disguise.
Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī made it clear to what base ends the rabble and the Lucifers used
their power and influence, and, in the same stroke, he also explains why their
masters, the “administrators in commanding positions” (and even the sultan
himself?), favored such men:
In every country, they are looking for the best.

In the land of Rūm (i.e. the Ottoman Empire), they are looking for
ignoramuses,
For brazen-faced low-class people
who are able to extort money and to pay [for offices].108
The great malaise of the age, according to ʿĀlī, was avarice. The bestial soul, the
true ruler of the contemporary Ottoman elite, was driving “the administrators
in commanding positions” in the great rat race of avarice. Men with equally
flawed souls and willing to throw themselves into the same covetous jockeying
were “again and again promot[ed] to the high offices.”109 They did not shy away
from oppression when it came to collecting money for their avaricious masters.
The victims were ultimately the tax-paying raʿāyā, who were being trampled by
the avaricious chestnut stallions of their elite’s concupiscence.
Physiognomy: A Path to Justice Within and Without
The greatest danger to the smooth turning of the Circle of Justice and thus the
greatest threat to the very survival of the Ottoman dawla, according to both
the Fürstenspiegel (naṣīḥat) and the physiognomy literature of the time, was
107 Qiyāfat al-insāniyya, f. 5b.

109 Ibid.
Arabica 64 (2017) 609-646

moral corruption amongst the ruling elite. Physiognomy treatises and some
Fürstenspiegel texts, such as Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī’s Counsel, counseled the use of phy-
siognomy in the vetting of elites, so that the governance of the Ottoman dawla
might be entrusted to the best of men. Ultimately, however, it was presumed
that at least some persons possessing the requisite power and authority, ideally
the dynast himself, remained morally sound and, with the proper physiogno-
mical training, could replace and regenerate the imperial ruling elite, should
it fall into moral corruption. This begs the question, what if the very fountain-
head of Ottoman functions and offices, the dynast himself, were to fall prey to
moral corruption? Contemporary literature did indeed suggest such a possi-
bility with Murād III and correspondingly, physiognomy treatises, especially
those composed for the same sovereign, proposed a solution for just such a
predicament.
Although the Counsel is free of direct attacks on Murād III’s person, in other
texts Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī made very clear his opinion that Murād III did not control
the reins of his chestnut stallion of concupiscence and was given to avarice.110
Rather than being the exceptional case in a widespread malaise, in ʿĀlī’s opi-
nion, the sultan, whose role it was to be the fountainhead of justice was, in
fact, a fountainhead of avarice and filled his dawla with the ills of oppression
and injustice. Selānikī’s history or Tārīḫ-i Selānikī, yet another contemporary
observation of the state of the empire, very clearly ascribed the major pro-
blems of Murād’s reign to the corruption of the ruling elite but also specifi-
cally to Murād’s inability to control his own carnal appetites (nafs-i ammāra).111
Quoting a mysterious derwīš, who went by the name of Aḥmad, Selānikī wrote:
“He [Murād III] was incapable of and deficient in commanding right and for-
bidding wrong. He was incurably afflicted with addiction to his carnal appe-
tites (nafs-i ammāra); without a cure, he died.”112 This is a striking statement on
many levels, not least considering how keen Murād III was to project an image
110 In the Essence of History, ʿĀlī emphasizes that collecting and saving money had become
the sultan’s greatest passion, even greater than his passion for the Sufi path, of which
Murād III was a well-known devotee and enthusiast. Ironically, the very purpose of the
Sufi path is precisely to overcome the bestial/carnal soul, or, in other words, to pick up the
reins of one’s chestnut-color horse of concupiscence. According to the passage in ʿĀlī’s
Essence of History, “Murad’s only fault of character was his greed for money, which ʿĀlī
explains (facetiously?) as a product of the sultan’s desire to fill the treasury against the
great disorders that astrologers had predicted for the Muslim millennium (1591-92/1000).”
Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual, p. 103, n. 78.
111 Selānikī Muṣṭafā Efendi, Tārīḫ-i Selānikī, ed. Mehmet Ipşirli, Istanbul, Türk Tarih Kurumu,
1989, I, p. 417.
112 Ibid.
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642 Lelić
of himself as a devout traveler on the spiritual path.113 According to derwīš

Aḥmad (Selānikī), by the end of his life, Sulṭān Murād had not moved an inch
on the spiritual path; he was still at the very beginning, the level of the nafs-i
ammāra. Neither was he capable of fulfilling the most basic requirement of
any Muslim, especially one in authority—commanding right and frustrating
wrong.
The veracity and objectivity of such contemporary judgments of Murād III’s
moral character and expertise in governance remains one of the great points
of debate in Ottoman historiography. For our purposes, it is sufficient to note
that within a Weltanschauung which tied politics to morality to the extent that
tenth/sixteenth century Ottoman political thought did, a morally corrupt ruling
elite was alarming enough; a morally depraved sultan could very well spell the
end of the world order which was instantiated by the Ottoman dynasty. The
evidence shows clearly that certain segments did think Murād III’s morality
problematic and for the sake of the world order, which kept them and their
fellow Ottomans safe from the destructive dangers of anarchy, they labored
hard to remedy the sultan’s moral shortcomings. The Fürstenspiegel texts and
the physiognomy treatises of the time had similar goals: to reform the dawla
generally and the moral deficiencies of the sultan specifically, for the two, they
held, went hand in hand.
Towards that end, the physiognomy treatises, especially those penned for
Murād III, stressed another aspect of physiognomy, aside from its use in selec-
ting the right candidates for commanding positions. Physiognomy was simul-
taneously presented as a vehicle for contemplative self-reflection which could
advance the practitioner on the path to self-knowledge and ultimately moral
righteousness and spiritual enlightenment. Taʿlīqīzāde wrote that “one of the
great benefits of this noble science is that it leads one to awareness of one’s
own vices.”114 This is a clear allusion to the path of mastering firāsat-i šarʿiyya,
as outlined by Ṭāšköprüzāde: vigilant attentiveness (murāqaba) to one’s states
and breaths, so that one may better abstain from small and large sins.115 In
short, the first step was rooted in true self-knowledge and, based on that self-
knowledge, disciplined self-control. This was the first move in overcoming
the carnal soul and moving towards the level of the serene soul. As has been
demonstrated with the above-cited examples from Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī and Selānikī—
and many other examples, which make the same point, could easily be
presented—it was thought to be imperative that the sultan and his elites not
113 See Kitāb al-Manāmāt, and Felek, Re-Creating Image and Identity, passim.
114 Taʿlīqīzāde, Firāsatnāme, f. 6a.
Arabica 64 (2017) 609-646

be slaves to their carnal souls, to be morally upright. Otherwise, if they had not
overcome their own carnal souls, injustice was necessarily buried deep within
their souls.116 It was impossible for such persons, who had not attained justice
within, to fill the world with justice without.
The Šamāʾilnāme, which, as has been mentioned, was widely disseminated
and used to educated Ottoman princes and other members of the imperial
household, as well as officials of the state,117 summarized very succinctly the
multifarious benefits of physiognomy. In the introduction to the Šamāʾilnāme
three major benefits of knowing the science of physiognomy are listed. The
first benefit is that “with sound knowledge of this science (ʿilm) any person’s
deportment and manners, perhaps even their craft and occupation can be
determined in detail.”118 The second benefit is that “with knowledge of this
science, besides recognizing a person’s craft, a non-Muslim deceiver who tries
to pass himself off as a Muslim can be detected and exposed.”119 The third
benefit is that “through knowledge of this science, the negative parts of one’s
natural moral disposition (ǧibillat), which will become apparent through
the signs [taught by physiognomy], can be removed with the application of
self-discipline (riyāḍat).”120
The Šamāʾilnāme encouraged the Ottoman ruler Murād III and the grand
viziers,121 to whom the book was also dedicated, to learn the science of physio-
gnomy because it would equip them with the requisite skills for ruling justly.
First, it would furnish them with the ability to know precisely every subject’s
character, occupation, and religion. Based on such knowledge each person, if
they had veered from the social role dictated by their innate disposition, could
be assigned the position most appropriate to them. Neither would unwar-
ranted transgressions between religious roles escape the trained gaze of firāsat;
a non-Muslim posing as a Muslim would be unmasked instantly.122 In short,
knowledge of physiognomy ensured that perfect order would be kept by kee-
ping everyone in their proper place.

117 Necipoğlu, “The Serial Portraits,” p. 44.
118 Qifāyat al-insāniyya, f. 5a.
119 Ibid., f. 6a.
120 Ibid., f. 6b.
121 The book is dedicated to Sulṭān Murād III but also and “especially [to] his grand viziers,
the adorners of the kingdom.” Ibid., f. 3a.
122 The example given in the Šamāʾilnāme is precisely of that sort: a person endowed with the
vision of firāsat unmasks a Christian impostor pretending to be a Muslim. The result has
such an impressive effect on the Christian that it leads him to sincerely embrace Islam.
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644 Lelić
The third benefit of physiognomy was of a more personal nature. It was, in

fact, part of a larger formula for moral transformation, which epitomized the
essence of Islamic esoterism, whose beginning is self-knowledge and whose
final goal is spiritual transformation. The first part, self-knowledge, was ini-
tiated through physiognomy, by acquiring a detailed knowledge of one’s own
natural disposition, vices and virtues included. The second part was the appli-
cation of that knowledge, by learning to overcome one’s moral shortcomings
through self-discipline (riyāḍat). It is, in short, the very same instruction
that Ṭāšköprüzāde prescribed for those aspiring to the divine gifts of firāsat-i
šarʿiyya: “purifying the soul (tazkiyat al-nafs) from corrupt moral characteris-
tics and polishing the heart (taṣfiyat al-qalb) from vices, until one sees with the
light of God (nūr Allāh) and God, glorified and exalted is He, becomes the sight
with which one sees and the hearing with which one hears.”123
Physiognomy was thus presented to Sulṭān Murād III and his grand viziers
both as a way of screening their retinues for moral worth but, perhaps even
more importantly, as a moral mirror in which they could detect very clearly
their own moral defects. Armed with such true self-knowledge, they would be
ready to face the lower desires of their carnal souls and in their battle to over-
come such desires embark on the true path to enlightenment, whose final goal
was seeing creation with the light of God. The expectation from the Ottoman
ruling elite, according to the Šamāʾilnāme, was to enact justice by knowing
every subject’s true nature, occupation and religion and with that knowledge
keeping them in their rightful place in the social hierarchy. The other basis
for just rule, parallel to this intimate knowledge of the empire’s subjects, was
transformative self-knowledge. A just ruler was expected to know himself and
to know his kingdom and to keep perfect order in both.
Conclusion
Ottoman thinkers of the late tenth/sixteenth century perceived their world as

being in a state of decline. But they were confident that the causes behind the
problem could be diagnosed and appropriate remedies prescribed. At the root
of their society’s decline, they found the moral corruption of the ruling elite.
The most logical solution was to select men of sound moral character (aḫlāq) to
positions of authority and power. Physiognomy, a science specifically designed
to discern character, was the very modus operandi through which such men
Arabica 64 (2017) 609-646

could be identified with scientific precision. All that remained was for those
in charge to appoint men with identifiably high moral character to the highest
positions of state. To that very end, treatises on physiognomy were composed
specifically for reigning sultans and incumbent grand viziers. Contemporary
scholars, such as Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī, strongly endorsed the science and its ability to
reform a corrupt government. Unfortunately, the response at court and even
more so the perceived effectiveness of physiognomy, or lack thereof, in stal-
ling moral corruption amongst the elite remains, as of now, a matter of mere
speculation.
What is clear, however, is the very real existence of a tenth/sixteenth-
century Ottoman physiognomical consciousness. Accepted as a real science,
with an occult dimension, it was applied, at least in theory, to statecraft and
presented as a way of resolving the greatest problem facing the empire—the
moral corruption of its elites. Seen within the larger discussions of late tenth/
sixteenth-century Ottoman decline, the above survey of tenth/sixteenth-
century physiognomy treatises demonstrates that during the early years of
Süleymān’s reign, which would later be considered the Ottoman “Golden Age,”
the elites of the time were described in contemporary treatises as being just
as corrupt as their successors would be a few decades later, a period consi-
dered the beginning of Ottoman decline. Even more revealing is the fact that
one treatise, instead of ascribing moral corruption to its own particular period,
took it for granted that it is simply in the nature of most men, excepting the
spiritually enlightened, to succumb to the lower desires of the concupiscent
soul. Yet, continued the same treatise, with the help of physiognomy the best
amongst the morally deficient masses could be recognized and with the proper
training groomed into morally upright enforcers of justice. Power and autho-
rity were best placed in their hands.
The concept of justice was thought to extend beyond the external world
of politics and into the internal world of individual souls. It was particularly
important that men in power, and most important of all, the sultan himself,
first establish justice in their own souls. Otherwise, as Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī pointed
out, if the soul was plagued by injustice, that injustice would manifest itself
in the world in proportion to the individual’s strength. If the Ottoman sultan,
who was the ultimate holder of power and authority, suffered from injustice
within his soul, his kingdom, too, would be filled with injustice. Physiognomy
treatises, especially those composed for Murād III, pointed out physiognomy’s
occult dimension, which could serve as a vehicle for establishing justice within
the soul. Physiognomy’s ability to expose any person’s moral character was pre-
sented as a mirror in which one could discern one’s own moral shortcomings,
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646 Lelić
which were obstacles to internal justice. Thus, a sultan who had mastery of
physiognomy could not but understand the true meaning of justice, for he
simultaneously enforced justice within his soul, by applying physiognomy to
himself in the quest to attain self-knowledge, and throughout his empire, by
employing physiognomy to place every subject in their rightful place, and most
importantly to select the correct offices for his elites.
Arabica 64 (2017) 609-646

Arabica 64 (2017) 647-672
brill.com/arab
Fears, Hopes, and Dreams: The Talismanic Shirts

of Murād III
Özgen Felek
Yale University
[email protected]
Abstract
There is much evidence that Ottoman Turks were interested in talismans and magic.
However, this area has not yet been studied in depth. A few recent studies present
information about material artifacts, but without deep analysis of the use of talis-
mans and magic among Ottoman Sufis. The present study examines talismanic shirts
prepared for the Ottoman sultans, in particular the shirts of Murād III (r. 982/1574-
1003/1595), who was a devout disciple of a Ḫalwatī master, Šuǧāʿ Dede. After a brief
introduction to talismanic shirts prepared for Ottoman sultans, I analyze the motifs,
symbols, and divine words on the talismanic shirts produced for Murād III. I also
explore what insights can be gained when his shirts are read together with his dream
letters that he sent to his spiritual master. Intertextual reading of significant symbols
on Sulṭān Murād’s shirts, when taken in conjunction with his letters, demonstrates
that his shirts are infused with a more complex meaning than is evident at first glance.
Keywords
Ottoman, talismanic shirts, Murād III, dreams, epistles
Résumé
Il existe de nombreuses preuves que les Turcs ottomans s’intéressaient aux talismans
et à la magie. Cependant, ce terrain n’a pas encore été étudié en profondeur. Quelques
études récentes présentent des informations sur les artefacts matériels, mais sans ana-
lyse approfondie de l’utilisation des talismans et de la magie chez les soufis ottomans.
La présente étude examine les chemises talismaniques préparées pour les sultans

648 Felek
ottomans, en particulier les chemises de Murād III (r. 982/1574-1003/1595), disciple

dévot d’un maître Ḫalwatī, Šuǧāʿ Dede. Après une brève introduction aux chemises
talismaniques préparées pour les sultans ottomans, j’analyserai les motifs, les symboles
et les noms divins sur les chemises talismaniques produites pour Murād III. J’explorerai
également ce que l’on peut comprendre lorsque ses chemises sont mises en regard
avec les lettres de ses rêves qu’il envoya à son maître spirituel. La lecture intertextuelle
de symboles significatifs sur les chemises du sultan Murād, lorsqu’ils sont mis en rela-
tion avec ses lettres, démontre que ses chemises sont composées avec une signification
plus complexe que ce qui apparaît au premier coup d’œil.
Mots clefs
Ottoman, chemises talismaniques, Murād III, rêves, épîtres
1 Introduction
At the Ottoman court, a rich collection of artifacts related to talismans and

magic was created to assist in ensuring divine protection. Today, eighty-seven
talismanic shirts are on display at the Topkapı Palace Museum, as well as a
collar, five skullcaps, and ten pieces of cloth. Although a few recent studies
present explanatory information about the material artifacts (i.e. seals with
the names of certain prophets, talismanic caps, shirts, skullcaps, and healing
bowls), they do not provide a deep analysis of the use of talismans and magic
among Ottoman Sufis or of the relationship of these practices to wider trends
in Ottoman culture.
Hülya Tezcan, former curator of the Sultans’ Costumes and Textiles Section
of the Topkapı Palace Museum, published the photographs of the most artistic
and unique talismanic shirts in this collection, including descriptive informa-
tion about them, in 2006 and 2011.1 Tezcan’s work introduces talismanic shirts
made for Ottoman sultans and other members of sultans’ courts, as well as
those prepared for preeminent Islamic figures.
Out of eighty-seven talismanic shirts in the collection, Tezcan provi-
des detailed information about forty-five of these shirts along with their
1 Hülya Tezcan (ed.), Topkapı Sarayı’ndaki Şifalı Gömlekler, Istanbul, Bika Yayınevi, 2006; and
id., Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Koleksiyonundan Tılsımlı Gömlekler, Istanbul, Timaş Yayınları, 2011.
I am very grateful to Hülya Tezcan for her time and help to clarify many questions that I had
regarding Sulṭān Murād’s talismanic shirts through our private conversations.
Arabica 64 (2017) 647-672

Fears, Hopes, and Dreams: The Talismanic Shirts of Murād III 649
photographs. She only definitively or tentatively identifies the owners of

some shirts: Bāyezīd II [?] (r. 886/1481-917/1512), Ǧem Sulṭān (d. 900/1495),
Selīm II (r. 973/1566-982/1574), Murād III (r. 982/1574-1003/1595), Meḥmed III
(r. 1003/1595-1008/1601), Murād IV [?] (r. 1032/1623-1049/1640), Moralı Ḥasan Pāšā
(d. 1116/1713), Naqqāš Ḥasan Pāšā (d. 1031/1622), Uways al-Qarānī (d. 37/657),
and ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Ǧīlānī (d. 561/1166). The other shirts are categorized accor-
ding to the century in which they were made.
Although the inscriptions on these shirts hint at the reasons for their prepa-
ration, little is known about their background. Several intriguing stories about
Sulṭān Murād III, who reigned in the last quarter of the tenth/sixteenth cen-
tury, indicate that the talismanic shirts made for him are particularly signifi-
cant. After a brief analysis of the talismanic shirts prepared in the Ottoman
court, the present paper analyzes Murād III’s talismanic shirts in conjunction
with these stories. Because I was unable to obtain access to the original shirts, I
have used images of them and references in published works to obtain a signi-
ficant sample of symbols, motifs, and inscriptions, which I compare to symbols
and texts in the dream letters Murād III sent to his spiritual master. Rather than
viewing the shirts merely as protective devices, I propose to read them inter-
textually with other artifacts, and to discuss whether or not material culture
can help us better understand the Ottoman sultans’ and elites’ self-perception.
The paper also raises the particular question of whether Sulṭān Murād’s shirts
were infused with a more complex meaning, one reflecting the expectations
and hopes of the Sultan and his subjects, rather than functioning simply to
protect him and bring him good luck.
2 Ottoman Talismanic Shirts
The existence of talismanic shirts in the Ottoman world has been known
for some time.2 Such shirts, which were not unique to the Ottomans, first
appeared at the Ottoman court in the ninth/fifteenth century.3 In the Islamic
2 Orhan Şaik Gökyay first introduced these shirts in a short article in 1977. See Orhan Şaik
Gökyay, “Tılsımlı Gömlekler,” in Türk Folkloru Araştırmaları Yıllığı, Ankara, Kültür Bakanlığı,
Millî Folklor Araştırma Dairesi, 1977, p. 93-113. Nevertheless, these talismanic shirts received
due attention only after the publication of Hülya Tezcan’s works, Topkapı Sarayı’ndaki Şifalı
Gömlekler; and id., Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Koleksiyonundan Tılsımlı Gömlekler.
3 We see these types of shirts, for example, in ancient China and India, and among the
early-modern Safavids as well. See Tezcan, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Koleksiyonundan Tılsımlı
Gömlekler, p. 11-12; see also Rose Muravchick’s “Objectifying the Occult: Superstition and
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650 Felek
tradition, the first instance of a magical shirt is the shirt of Joseph (Yūsuf).
According to tradition, when Joseph’s brothers brought his shirt to their father
Jacob (Yaʿqūb), he rubbed it on his face, and his eyes, which had turned white
and were blinded from excessive weeping, were immediately healed.4 It is not
surprising that Joseph’s shirt has been extensively used in Islamic literature as
a metaphor, particularly in the romances of Yūsuf wa-Zulayḫā.5
Whether or not inspired by Joseph’s shirt, talismanic shirts have been pro-
duced in the Islamic world even up to today in the belief that they possess
power to remedy certain problems.6 In the Ottoman context, however, the ele-
gantly decorated talismanic shirts were available primarily to members of the
court and preeminent Sufi figures due to their high cost of production.
Production of a talismanic shirt required teamwork. Once a Sufi master
decided which Koranic chapters and prayers, along with the appropriate talis-
manic numbers and letters (in particular disjointed or initial letters known
as al-ḥurūf al-muqaṭṭāʿa or ḥurūf al-fawātiḥ),7 should be included, the appro-
priate time, called ašraf sāʿatī, was determined by an astrologer. On the aus-
picious day, a calligrapher and an artist placed these prayers and symbols on
linen shirts coated with alum and egg white to give them paper-like qualities.8
Science in the Study of Islamic Talismanic Shirts” in the present volume. On Thai textiles for
protection, see Susan Conway, Thai Textile, Bangkok, Asia books, 2001, p. 56; on the Lan Na
protective and talismanic dress in Inland Southeast Asian culture from the ancient times
to the eighteenth century, see id., Silken Threads Lacquer Thrones: Lan Na Court Textiles,
Chicago, Art Media Resources, 2002, p. 77-84.
4 The Koran has a full sura titled “Joseph” that narrates the story in detail. In regard to Joseph’s
shirt that granted Jacob his eyesight, see Kor 12, 93: “Yūsuf says: ‘Take my shirt and cast it
over my father’s face so that he regains his eyesight.’ ” I rely throughout on Ahmed Ali’s Koran
translation, with occasional modifications. Al-Qurʾān: A Contemporary Translation by Ahmed
Ali, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993.
5 The story of Joseph and his shirt is a cross-cultural story shared in Abrahamic religious tradi-
tions. For the best-known example of the genre and the story of Joseph’s shirt in the Ottoman
context, see Yaḥyā Bey (d. 990/1582), Menāqıb-i Ḥaḍret-i Yūsuf ʿaleyhi’s-selām we Züleyḫā,
Istanbul, Dividiciyan, 1860’s, p. 186-187.
6 Talismanic shirts are still seen as remedy for some health problems, including an easy birth
and easy post-labor period for pregnant women, success in exams, and help for little children
late in learning to walk. Some of these shirts are sold online.
7 On the disjointed or initial letters, see Alford T. Welch, Rudi Paret and James Douglas Pearson,
“al -Ḳurʾān,” EI2.
8 Tezcan (ed.), Topkapı Sarayı’ndaki Şifalı Gömlekler, p. 35.
Arabica 64 (2017) 647-672

Although the identity of the artists is largely unknown, the symbols on the
shirts give clues as to who might have prepared them. For example, the scor-
pion motif is believed to protect against scorpions and snakes. Since Rifāʿī
artists are known experts in this area, it is assumed that shirts with scorpion
motifs were made by Rifāʿī masters. Yet, there are exceptions. The fact that one
of Sulṭān Murād’s talismanic shirts includes a scorpion motif is known to have
been prepared by the Mawlawī master Sinān Dede indicates that this motif
was not limited to the Rifāʿīs.9
As the Koran declares itself “a remedy for the (doubts) of the heart,”10 it
was, and still is, perceived as “the ultimate cure from all types of illnesses that
attack the body and the heart and from all the calamities of life and death.”11
Furthermore, due to the esoteric meanings ascribed to the Koran, it is believed
that reciting and inscribing certain Koranic verses and letters a prescribed
number of times would assist in reaching the intended goal. These beliefs were
systematized over time and used on talismanic shirts in various combinations
to protect the wearer from evil and evildoers, to disarm enemies, to relieve and
heal psychological problems, or even to call on jinns for help.12 The person
preparing a talismanic shirt was thus expected to know the science of letters
(ʿilm al-ḥurūf, ʿilm al-ǧafr), as well as a variety of other related divinatory and
practical-magical disciplines, such as magic squares (ʿilm al-awfāq), talismans
(ʿilm al-ṭalāsim), omen interpretation (ʿilm al-fa‌ʾl), and Koranic spell magic
(ʿilm al-ruqya).
The surface of a talismanic shirt would be covered in a variety of astoni-
shingly intricate scripts that were meant to be good omens. Certain Koranic
chapters, such as the suras 113 (al-Falaq) and 114 (al-Nās), which are known as
9 Tezcan (ed.), Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Koleksiyonundan Tılsımlı Gömlekler, p. 24.

10 Kor 10, 57. See also Kor 17, 82.
11 Ibn Qayyim al-Ǧawziyya, Healing with the Medicine of the Prophet, ed. Abdul Rahman
Abdullah, transl. Jalal Abual Rub, Riyadh, Darussalam Publishers and Distributors, 1999,
p. 305-306.
12 For the popular use of the Koran as a book of divination, see Sergei Tourkin, “The Use of
the Qurʾān for Divination in Iran,” Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph, 59 (2006), p. 387-
394; Christiane Gruber, “The ‘Restored’ Shīʿī muṣḥaf as Divine Guide? The Practice of fāl-i
Qurʾān in the Ṣafavid Period,” Journal of Qurʾānic Studies, 13/2 (2011), p. 29-55; Dimitrios
Zacharis, Les fabuleux talismans d’É gypte: tout le savoir des grands marabouts, révélations
secrètes du Coran, comment profiter des talismans, le “Bismilla al Rahman al Rahim”, Vaduz,
É d. du Lion d’Or, 1991; Kathleen Malone O’Connor, “Popular and Talismanic Uses of the
Qurʾān,” Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. See also, Constant Hamès (ed.), Coran et talismans:
textes et pratiques magiques en milieu musulman, Paris, Karthala, 2007; id., “L’usage talis-
manique du Coran,” Revue de l’histoire des religions, 218/1 (2001), p. 83-95.
Arabica 64 (2017) 647-672

652 Felek
al-muʿawwiḏatān, “the two (suras) for seeking refuge [in God],” were among the
Koran’s most often utilized chapters. Based on the custom and advice of the
Prophet, tradition holds that reading these two chapters over the sick protects
them and provides healing. It is reported in the hadith collections that, when
the Prophet became sick, he would recite al-muʿawwiḏatān, blow into his cup-
ped hands, and then rub his hands over his body.13 Another commonly seen
Koranic chapters are 36 (Yā-Sīn), recited for protection from and as a remedy
for illness and evil spirits, and 59 (al-Ḥašr, “Mustering”), recited for protection
from jinns and black magic.
Likewise, certain verses can be found on these shirts. The āyat al-kursī (Kor
2, 255), known as the Throne Verse, and āyat al-naẓar (Kor 68, 51-52), were used
as an incantation to ward off the evil eye. These Koranic chapters and verses,
in particular the āyat al-kursī and verses from the sura 48 (al-Fatḥ), were in-
scribed not only on talismanic shirts, but also on the finials of Ottoman flags
from the ninth/fifteenth century onward.14 Key Islamic phrases such as the
basmala (the Arabic phrase meaning “in the name of God”) and the kalimat
al-tawḥīd (the Declaration of Unity, i.e. “There is no god but God”) can also be
found. Furthermore, the shirts have many prayers, al-ḥurūf al-muqaṭṭaʿa (iso-
lated sura-initial letters in the Koran), and many of the asmāʾ al-ḥusnā (the
‘beautiful’ names of God), which were believed to convey spiritual protection
far more powerful than any armor.
These paper-thin shirts often reflected occult practices, as can be seen
from their star-shaped motifs, geometrical shapes, and astrological signs.
They were also enriched with numbers and decorative motifs (e.g. the tulip,
the crescent moon, and cypress trees); the seal of the Prophet Solomon; the
Kaʿba; the sword of ʿAlī; the footprint, the sandal, and the prophetic seal of
the Prophet Muḥammad, and the Qaṣīdat al-Burda, an Arabic poem honoring
the Prophet.15 All these symbols related to the Prophet not only point to the
Ottoman dynasty’s passion for the Prophet and his Companions, but show that
the name of the Prophet was believed to attract Divine protection as well.
Talismanic shirts seem to have retained their attraction at the court
through the entire duration of the empire. The first known shirt belonging to
a member of the dynasty is that of Ǧem Sulṭān, son of Meḥmed II, known as
the Conqueror. It is dated 885/1480, a few years before his escape to Rhodes by
13 See e.g. Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Virtues of the Qurʾān, VI, Book 61, Number 535; and
VI, Book 61, Number 536.
14 See Hülya Tezcan and Turgay Tezcan, Türk Sancak Alemleri, Ankara, Türk Tarih Kurumu
Basımevi (“Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Yayını”, 55), 1992.
15 Tezcan (ed.), Topkapı Sarayındaki Şifalı Gömlekler, p. 33-53.
Arabica 64 (2017) 647-672

ship. We do not know whether he ever wore his talismanic shirt before his tra-
gic death, presumably by being poisoned by Pope Alexander VI, in 900/1495.16
Indeed, it is unclear how often any of these shirts were worn. Although Tezcan
draws attention to indications that some of the shirts were actually worn, the
requirement to respect their Koranic inscriptions would have limited the num-
ber of appropriate occasions for wearing them.
Since we have no information about the owners of most of the shirts, we
cannot know whether or not there were special circumstances which promp-
ted the production of these shirts. As it happens, we know the story behind
the production of only two of these shirts. One (TSM 13/1170) was produced for
Ḥasan Pāšā, who requested that God grant him favor by placing love for him in
the heart of Sulṭān Muṣṭafā.17 The other shirt, the story behind which is only
guessed at, belongs to Murād III. In fact, this shirt is not the only shirt made for
Sulṭān Murād. There are five other talismanic shirts attributed to him.18
3 Sulṭān Murād III’s Talismanic Shirts
As mentioned before, Hülya Tezcan published the photographs of the talis-

manic shirts in the Topkapı Palace Museum twice. Her first book, Topkapı
Sarayıʾndaki Şifalı Gömlekler (Healing Shirts at the Topkapı Palace), appeared
in 2006, and her second, which contains ten additional images, was published
under the title Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Koleksiyonundan Tılsımlı Gömlekler (The
Talismanic Shirts from the Topkapı Palace Museum Collection), in 2011.
Tezcan states that Murād III had three talismanic shirts registered to him.
These three (numbered TSM 13/1164; TSM 13/955; and TSM 13/1135), with their
decorations, parallel a group of similar Ottoman shirts dating from the ninth/
fifteenth and tenth/sixteenth centuries.
TSM 13/1164 is said to have been prepared by Sinān Dede (d. 989/1581), a
spiritual master of the Mawlawiyya order, and both his name and the date
(983/1575) are inscribed on the shirt.19 No detailed information is available
about the second shirt, TSM 13/955. TSM 13/1135 is reported to have been
16 Although it is not clear whether Ǧem Sulṭān was poisoned or not, it is generally believed
that he was. On this matter, see e.g. Haydar Bey, Vâkıât-ı Sultan Cem, ed. Nicolas Vatin,
Ankara, 1977, p. 23; and İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Tarihi, Ankara, Türk Tarih
Kurumu, 1964, II, p. 173-174.
18 Ibid., p. 71.
19 Ibid., p. 67.
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654 Felek
prepared by order of Murād’s mother Nūr Bānū Sulṭān in 990/1582. The label
attached to the shirt states that it is the armor shirt presented to the blessed
sultan upon his visit to the queen mother’s palace in 990/1582.20
Tezcan also states that two more shirts dating from the tenth/sixteenth cen-
tury are registered as Sulṭān Murād’s: TSM 13/1185 and TSM 13/1186, although
she cautions that their materials, styles, and colors are different from Murād’s
other shirts in the collection.21 That is, while there is a possibility that TSM
13/1185 and TSM 13/1186 might have been prepared for Murād III, the lack of
the owner’s name on them and their styles and forms leads Tezcan to classify
TSM 13/1185 shirt as “possibly belonging to Murād,”22 and TSM 13/1186 merely
as “a shirt from the tenth/sixteenth century” without attributing it to a specific
owner.23
Murat Sülün, an expert in Islamic exegesis at Marmara University, pro-
vides a detailed examination of six of these shirts in his essay “Bazı Tılsımlı
Gömleklerin Açılımı” (“Deciphering Some of the Talismanic Shirts”) which
appears in both of Tezcan’s books. He includes another shirt, TSM 13/1165, as a
talismanic shirt of Murād III.24 Tezcan, however, considers this shirt as belon-
ging to Murād IV (r. 1032/1623-1049/1640), not Murād III.25
Therefore, of the six shirts attributed to Sulṭān Murād, only three seem
certainly to have prepared for him: TSM 13/1164; TSM 13/955; and TSM 13/1135.
This being the case, in what follows, I focus first on TSM 13/1164; TSM 13/955;
and TSM 13/1135. After that, I evaluate the other three shirts (TSM 13/1185; TSM
13/1186; and TSM 13/1165) in light of his letters to see if these letters provide
more evidence linking the doubtful shirts to Sulṭān Murād III.
The inscriptions and magic boxes on the talismanic shirts have not yet
been completely deciphered. Sülün deciphers the Koranic verses on six of the
eighty-seven talismanic shirts,26 and Tezcan provides information about the
20 Ibid., p. 71.

21 Ibid., p. 75. Tezcan states that TSM 13/1185 and TSM 13/955 show characteristics of another
talismanic shirt, which consists of an inscription belonging to the Šāḏiliyya order that
emerged in Morocco. This resemblance might suggest a connection to the Šāḏiliyya;
however, it should be kept in mind that the Ottoman sultans welcomed artists and Sufis
from different backgrounds.
22 Ibid., p. 58.
23 Ibid., p. 152.
24 Murat Sülün, “Bazı Tılsımlı Gömleklerin Açılımı,” in Tezcan (ed.), Topkapı Sarayı’ndaki
Şifalı Gömlekler, p. 155-191.
25 Tezcan (ed.), Topkapı Sarayı’ndaki Şifalı Gömlekler, p. 79; id., Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi
Koleksiyonundan Tılsımlı Gömlekler, p. 64.
26 Sülün, “Bazı Tılsımlı Gömleklerin Açılımı,” p. 155-191.
Arabica 64 (2017) 647-672

inscriptions on forty-four of the shirts. The magical numbers, symbols, and

boxes on all the talismanic shirts remain to be deciphered. According to Sülün,
the function of the Koranic verses and prayers on the shirts can be summa-
rized as follows: to trust in God as one’s only friend; to pray and beg God for vic-
tory, salvation, and success; to believe in divinely ordained destiny; to worship
only God; to believe God’s promises for victory; to avoid cowardly behavior on
the battlefield; to believe that infidels will lose and the army of God will win
without fail, regardless of circumstances.27
It is generally assumed that talismanic shirts were prepared to guarantee
sultans’ success in war, as well as for divine protection to avert danger or harm,
but Sulṭān Murād never went to war. In fact, he is reported to have isolated
himself from his subjects. It is related that he did not even leave his palace at
some point. One thus wonders why he might need these shirts.
The preparation of at least three talismanic shirts made for Murād III might
be explained by the general interest in the occult, dreams, astrology, astro-
nomy, and other esoteric matters, which had been increasing from the ninth/
fifteenth century at the Ottoman court.28 His strong interest in magic, astro-
logy, and fortune-telling became clear when he commissioned two copies of
the Maṭāliʿ al-saʿāda wa-yanābiʿ al-siyāda (The Ascension of Propitious Stars
and Sources of Sovereignty), a book on divination and astrology, translated and
adapted from the famous Kitāb al-Bulhān (The Book of Wonderment), a collec-
tion of Arabic divinatory treatises produced in the late 8th/14th century, for
his daughters Faṭma Sulṭān and ʿĀyša Sulṭān. As Bağcı states, the presence of
27 Ibid., p. 189.

28 For a survey of texts on occult sciences produced in the Ottoman world, see Jan Schmidt,
“The Occult Sciences and Their Importance in Ottoman Culture,” Osmanlı Araştırmaları,
23 (2004), p. 219-254. On the preoccupation with occult sciences at the tenth/sixteenth-
century Ottoman court, see also Cornell Fleischer, “Shadow of Shadows: Prophecy in
Politics in 1530s Istanbul,” International Journal of Turkish Studies, 13 (2007), p. 51-62; id.,
“Ancient Wisdom and New Sciences: Prophecies at the Ottoman Court in the Fifteenth
and Early Sixteenth Centuries,” in Falnama: The Book of Omens, eds Massumeh Farhad
and Serpil Bağcı, London-Washington, Thames & Hudson-Freer Gallery of Art, 2009, p.
232-243; id., “The Lawgiver as Messiah: the Making of the Imperial Image in the Reign
of Süleymân,” in Soliman le Magnifique et son Temps: actes du Colloque de Paris, Galeries
nationales du Grand Palais, 7-10 mars 1990, ed. Gilles Veinstein, Paris, Documentation fran-
çaise (“Rencontres de l’École du Louvre”), 1992, p. 159-177; and Ahmet Tunç Şen, “Reading
the Stars at the Ottoman Court: Bāyezīd II (1481-1512) and His Celestial Interests,” in the
present volume.
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656 Felek
portraits of Murād III in both volumes “confirms the sultan’s personal interest
in prognostication and his direct link to the text.”29
Obviously, Murād III’s great interest in the occult was known to many
around him. Not surprisingly, in addition to the Maṭāliʿ al-saʿāda he com-
missioned, he received several books that particularly served his esoteric
interests.30 For example, five years after he was enthroned, he was presented
a physiognomy book entitled the Qiyāfat al-insāniyya fī šamāʾil al-ʿuṯmāniyya
(Human Physiognomy Concerning the Personal Dispositions of the Ottomans)
in 1579. Another physiognomy text presented to him is Muṣṭafā b. Bālī’s
Risāle-i Qiyāset-i firāset (983/1576).31 In fact, physiognomy books were not the
only books he received. At the birth of one of his sons, he was presented the
Farāʾid al-wilāda (Unique Pearls on Birth), which was dedicated to the stars
and signs of the zodiac, by Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī, a tenth/sixteenth-century historian
and bureaucrat. Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī also composed his Mirʾat al-ʿawālim (The Mirror
of the Worlds) in 995/1586-1587 to present to Murād III. After a brief introduc-
tion to the events before and after Ādam’s creation, the text discusses different
ideas about the age of the world, and argues that the end of the world was
approaching.32 Likewise, Ḥusayn Kafawī, an Ottoman scholar, judge, and man
of letters, dedicated two different copies of his Rāz-Nāma (Book of Secrets)
in 993/1585 and 996/1588 to Sulṭān Murād. The text comprises a wide range
of anecdotes on bibliomancy, the art of prognostication through a variety of
texts, in particular the Qur’an.33
Furthermore, the construction of the observatory in Galata during his reign
is also linked to his interest in the occult sciences. Upon his commissioning
the chief astronomer (munaǧǧimbāšī) Taqī l-Dīn b. Maʿrūf to establish an
29 Bağcı, “The Falnama of Ahmed I,” in Falnama: The Book of Omens, p. 72-74.
30 Ibid.
31 On these and other physiognomy books as presented to Murād III see Emin Lelić’s article
in this volume, “Physiognomy (ʿilm-i firāsat) and Ottoman Statecraft: Discerning Morality
and Justice.”
32 The text is available in Mehmet Arslan, “Gelibolulu Ali’nin Hurafelerden Ibaret bir Eseri:
Mir’ātu’l-Avālim,” in id., Osmanlı Edebiyat, Tarih, Kültür Makaleleri, Istanbul, Kitabevi,
2000, p. 393-417. Mehmet Arslan’s article is based on the copy in the MS Süleymaniye,
Reşit Efendi Bl. Nu. 114, ff. 80b-101b.
33 Kefeli Hüseyin, Rāznāme (Süleymaniye, Hekimoğlu, Ali Paşa No. 539), ed. İ. Hakkı Soyak,
Cambridge, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations-Harvard University,
2004. For further information on bibliomancy, see Serpil Bağcı and Massumeh Farhad,
“The Art of Bibliomancy,” in Falnama, p. 20-25.
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observatory,34 Dār al-raṣad al-ǧadīd (“The New Observatory”), the first obser-
vatory of Istanbul, was founded during Murād’s reign in 1579. This institution
was conceived as one of the largest observatories in the Islamic world, includ-
ing a library and a workshop for the design and the production of astronomical
instruments. Although it was quite active under the supervision of Taqī l-Dīn,
it was destroyed in 1580 due to some religious arguments along with political
conflicts.35
In addition to the sultan’s personal interest in the occult, the talismanic
shirts might also suggest hope at the court that the sultan would lead his army
into battle, as his forebears had. Therefore, it is also possible to think of the
shirts as a means to embolden Sulṭān Murād, who was seen as hesitant and
excessively cautious.
All of this is speculative; however, reports by contemporary historians and
travelers about Murād suggest some other reasons that might have lain behind
the preparation of talismanic shirts for him. For example, Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī, one of
our most significant sources for his reign, provides valuable information about
Murād and his reign, including stories regarding his impotency and epilepsy.
According to Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī, Murād encountered two young concubines while
wandering in the garden. His sister, noticing the sultan’s attention, later sent
them as a gift to please him. However, when Murād wished to have sexual
intercourse with them, he was unable to perform.36 As Pečewī (d. 1060/1650),
a later historian, elaborates, when the sultan’s failure reached his mother’s ear,
a grim pall came over the harem, and she immediately blamed her daughter-
in-law, Ṣafiyya Sulṭān, for putting a spell on her son. In the end, the evil magic
was broken by the court physicians, who prepared a remedy for Murād on his
mother’s order.37
34 Taqī l-Dīn was born in Damascus in 932/1526. After having worked as a judge and teacher
at Nablus, Damascus and Cairo, he was appointed chief astronomer in 979/1571-1572.
Thanks to his close relations with many important members of the ulema and statesmen,
he was presented to Sulṭān Murād by the Grand Vizier Sokollu Meḥmed Pāšā.
35 Regarding Taqī l-Dīn b. Maʿrūf and his work in Dār al-raṣad al-ǧadīd, see Sevim Tekeli,
“Istanbul Rasathânesinin Araçları,” Araştırma, 11 (1979), p. 29-44; id., “Takiyüddin’de Kiris
2° ve Sin 1° nin Hesabı,” Araştırma, 3 (1965), p. 123-127; id., “Takiyüddin’in Delos Problemi
ile ilgili Çalışmaları,” Araştırma, 6 (1968), p. 1-9; id., “Takiyüddin’in Sidret ül-müntehası’nda
Aletler Bahsi,” Belleten, 30/ 98 (1961), p. 213-227.
36 Faris Çerçi, Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlı̂ ve Künhü’l-ahbâr’ında II. Selim, III. Murat ve III. Mehmet
Devirleri, Kayseri, Erciyes Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2000, II, p. 229.
37 İbrāhīm Pečewī, Tārīh-i Pečewī, ed. Fahri Çetin Derin and Vahit Çabuk, Istanbul, Enderun
Kitabevi, 1980, II, p. 5.
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658 Felek
This story vividly exemplifies the preoccupation with magic as an instru-

ment for articulating Ottoman sultans’ and elites’ expectations of divine
assistance in certain situations. Tezcan suggests that TSM 13/1135 is the shirt
prepared at Murād’s mother’s request as a remedy for the occurrence of the
impotence narrated in this story.38
Murād III is not only rumored to have struggled with impotency. Muṣṭafā
ʿĀlī also reports rumors about Sulṭān Murād’s having suffered from epilepsy.
Although Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī mentions the sultan’s epilepsy only in a passing com-
ment and states that the soundness of this assertion should not be assumed,
Salomon Schweigger (d. 1622), a German Lutheran theologian and minister
who traveled to Istanbul during Murād’s reign, corroborates the existence of a
rumor about Murād’s epilepsy. Schweigger also mentions that Murād was “pos-
sessed by terrible epilepsy, and therefore preferred a silent, calm life, far from
people’s view.”39
Other than the claims of these two contemporary authors, there is no for-
mal evidence to prove that Murād was epileptic. Nevertheless, it would not be
surprising if this were a royal secret limited to the court at the time. Because
epilepsy is a temporary state of losing of consciousness, the pre-modern
perception of epileptics as being possessed by jinn might have been seen as
a weakness that could undermine the authority of a monarch.40 However,
Murād’s lifelong seclusion from public raises questions about this possibility.
If he were indeed an epileptic, talismanic shirts might have been seen as a
remedy to protect him from this disease.
These are all assumptions based on rumors. However, Murād’s dream let-
ters, which he reportedly sent to his spiritual master, suggest a new perspective
on such stories, as well as on his talismanic shirts. After briefly introducing
the dream letters of Murād, I examine these shirts for insights into his fears,
concerns, and hopes, particularly by reading his dream letters and talismanic
shirts in conjunction with each other.

39 Salomon Schweigger, Sultanlar Kentine Yolculuk, 1578-1581, ed. Heidi Stein, transl. S. Turkis
Noyan, Istanbul, Kitapyayinevi (“Kitap Yayınevi”, 61), 2004, p. 159-160.
40 On the perception of epilepsy and epileptics in early-modern Ottoman world, see Ozgen
Felek, “Epilepsy as a Contagious Disease in the Late Medieval and Early-Modern Ottoman
World,” in Plague and Contagion in the Islamic Mediterranean New Histories of Disease in
Ottoman Society, ed. Nükhet Varlık, Kalamazoo, Arc Humanities Press (“Black Sea World
Series”), 2017, p. 155-177.
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4 Fears, Hopes, and Dreams Reflected in Talismanic Shirts
While we have little access to the inner worlds of most Ottoman sultans,
Sulṭān Murād’s attachment to a Ḫalwatī shaykh provides some insights into his
thoughts. In accordance with the Ḫalwatiyya requirement of regular reports
about a disciple’s mystical experiences and dreams to his spiritual master,
Murād reported these occurrences to Šuǧāʿ Dede in letter form.41 Examining
his records (teḏkeres) and spiritual accounts (i.e. wāqıʿa, ilhām, nidā, and taǧal-
lī) allows us to view not only Murād’s spiritual experiences but also the essen-
tial aspects of his inner world.
Eight-hundred thirty-eight records, which comprise the longer portion of
the Kitāb al-Manāmāt, deal with Murād III’s daily life and inquiries into mys-
tical matters, as well as with political and social affairs. In these letters, one
can observe the bureaucratic burdens, fights among courtiers, palace gossip,
and political ambitions that occurred during his reign. About 1 000 letters in
the second category convey his spiritual experiences, both when he was awake
and asleep.
These different categories of letters portray two different images of Murād.
From his record letters we learn that, to Sulṭān Murād, a devoted Sufi wishing to
withdraw himself from worldly tasks, sultanhood was an unbearable burden:
I wish that the True Reality [God] had not created this poor servant as the
descendant of the Ottomans so that I would not hear this and that, and
worry. I wish I were of unknown pedigree. Then I would have one single
task, and could ignore the whole world.42
He repeats this lamentation in another letter, proclaiming that he wishes that

he was not a descendant of ʿOṯmān, founder of the Ottoman dynasty. Contrary
to some Ottoman chroniclers, who describe Murād as a monarch who greatly
41 These letters were collected in a manuscript entitled Kitāb al-Manāmāt (The Book
of Dreams) in 1001/1592, completed before Sulṭān Murād’s death in 1003/1595. The text
includes 1 858 letters, each labeled with a subtitle. Based on their content, style, tone, and
theme, these letters can be separated into two categories: records (teḏkeres) and spiritual
accounts (i.e. wāqıʿa, ilhām, nidā, and taǧallī). For a detailed examination of the labe
ling system of the letters, see Özgen Felek, Kitābü’l-Menāmāt: Sultan III. Murādʾın Rüya
Mektupları, Istanbul, Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2014, p. 15-39. For another collection of
dream letters from a disciple to a Sufi master, see Asiye Hatun, Rüya Mektupları, ed. Cemal
Kafadar, Istanbul, Oğlak Yayıncılık, 1994.
42 Felek, Kitābü’l-Menāmāt, f. 149r.
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660 Felek
enjoyed the privileges of sultanhood,43 Murād constantly expresses his

dissatisfaction with being a ruler since, to him, “the sultanate is a veil” that
prevents him from reaching True Reality.44 More explicitly, he states, “I have no
need for the worldly sultanate. May anything that distracts me from the True
Reality be turned to dust.”45
The difficulties of ruling an extensive empire, with heavy military, social,
and bureaucratic responsibilities are great under any circumstances, but for
someone like Murād, who claimed no desire for sultanhood, they would have
been overwhelming. In fact, throughout the Kitāb al-Manāmāt, he expresses
the distress caused by all the political and personal fights, conspiracies, and
ambitions for power in the court. The words that he chooses to describe what
bothers him, such as worry (ġuṣṣa),46 misgiving (waswasa/weswese),47 sus-
picion (wahm/wehm),48 fear of deceit (makr),49 magic (siḥr),50 unsettling
dreams (čürük wāqıʿalar)51 and nightmares (qara qura düšler),52 indicate that
he suffered from anxiety and restlessness. He summarizes his mental state in
one letter to his Sufi master Šuǧāʿ Dede by saying, “These days, I am frightened
even of my own shadow.”53
Dreams appear to have been a main cause of worry for Sulṭān Murād. Often,
he complains to Šuǧāʿ Dede about disturbing dreams, which he describes as
“strange and weird.”54 He took seriously not only his own dreams, but also
those of others, regardless of whether the dreams were about him or not. He
writes in one short letter, “I have become helpless due to strangers’ unsettling
dreams.”55 The dreams of one of the dwarves employed for entertainment in
the court, and of a concubine were equally important to him, as he reports to
Šuǧāʿ Dede.56
43 See, for example, Pečewī, Tārīḫ-i Pečewī, II, p. 2-5.

44 Felek, Kitābü’l-Menāmāt, f. 101v.
45 Ibid., f. 58r.
46 Ibid., ff. 159v, 161r, 181r, 198r, 202v, 241r, 242v, 243r, 246r, 251r, 251v, and 252v.
47 Ibid., ff. 243r, 252v, and 258r.
48 Ibid., ff. 220v, 222r, 257r.
49 Ibid., ff. 85r, 187r, 199r, 248v, 250v, and 259r.
50 Ibid., f. 259r.
51 Ibid., f. 243r.
52 Ibid., f. 220v.
53 Ibid., f. 253r.
54 Ibid., f. 199v.
55 Ibid., f. 243r.
56 For Ǧuǧa (Cüce) Naṣūḥ’s dream, see ibid., f. 250v. For the dreams seen by concubines, see
ibid., ff. 221v, 242v, and 252v.
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A dream related to Murād in any way was significant to him. Murād’s

causes of worries and anxiety, however, were not limited to dreams. Since he
is stricken by apprehensions, doubts, suspicions, and rumors as well, he often
prays for relief from compulsions,57 and asks Šuǧāʿ Dede to pray for him to be
relieved of these worries.58 In some letters, he states discomfort because “some
say this, and some say that,” indicating confusion over the conflicting accounts
he has received.59 Not surprisingly, he also takes these types of stories seriously
and becomes quite worried.
The inner politics of the palace seem to have been another source of stress
and anxiety, as he asks for help to be protected from his rivals, who “recite the
Koranic chapter al-Anʿām60 and the Qahriyya61 to eliminate [Murād].”62 It is
not difficult to assume that Murād’s obsession with everything said about him
was known and used by some in the palace to manipulate him. The following
letter clearly demonstrates that those who had certain expectations of him
knew his weaknesses and concerns well. In the letter, he expresses his aversion
to upsetting people and thus being cursed:
O my soul! Someone sent the order: “Immediately release whomever you

have imprisoned, otherwise your body will be harmed by curses.” What
can I do? O my soul, see! The more worried I get, the worse it gets.63
As seen in the letter, his worries and anxieties seem to have been stoked by
certain members of his court to further their own ends.
Furthermore, Sulṭān Murād appears to have shared the concerns of his
mother, who reportedly believed her son to be under the spell of black magic.
He emphasizes that although he is aware that there is no need to worry, his
mind remains unsettled:
O my soul, some people say to us, “They are occupied with black magic
and deceit and [reciting] the names of God [in order to eliminate you].”
57 Ibid., f. 243r.

58 Ibid., f. 252r.
59 Ibid., f. 242v.
60 The Koranic sura 6 (al-Anʿām) gained a talismanic function in time. Regarding this func-
tion and the prayer books dedicated to sura al-Anʿām, see Alexandra Bain, The Late
Ottoman Enʿam-ı şerif: Sacred Text and Images in an Islamic Prayer Book, PhD dissertation,
University of Victoria, 1999.
61 The Qahriyya refers to reciting the divine name al-Qahhār (the Irresistible Subduer).
63 Ibid., f. 223v.
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662 Felek
What would you command on this issue? [People] made spells even
against the Messenger, peace be upon him. How is it possible to remove
it, O my soul? You say it is not logical. Our trust in God is strong, yet the
mind—it becomes disturbed.64
It appears that after being informed by his courtiers that black magic was being
used against him and his bureaucrats, he became highly concerned.65 This sug-
gests that either he was not the only one who took claims and news about
black magic seriously, or some courtiers who knew his sensitivity about black
magic provided him such news to manipulate him and attract his attention.
All these emotional and psychological waves that led him to feel that his
liver was “filled with blood,” and made him wish to end his life,66 would be
read as anxiety, panic attacks, obsession, paranoia, or other signs of mental
illness or instability by modern psychology. In fact, long before modern psy-
chology was developed, mental diseases had been identified in early modern
medical texts as well. When his mother shakes his hand in a dream, Murād
himself wonders whether his situation is melancholia (mālīḫūliyā), which is
defined as “a group of illnesses appearing with various symptoms,” such as
“fear, obsession, and sadness.”67 However, Sufis considered these psychological
issues a spiritual state and grouped them under one title: qabḍ (contraction),
a state of distress.68 Sufis understand this state as a gift from God, a sign that
the Sufi should question himself and focus more on prayer and repentance.
While most modern-day individuals with these complaints seek the help of a
therapist or psychologist, early modern individuals affiliated with a Sufi path
sought help from their Sufi masters. It is therefore not surprising that, in see
king relief from and cures for all these discomforts, adversities, worries, depres-
sions, and distresses, Murād wrote to his Sufi master. Although each disciple
was/is considered a different “case” by Sufi masters, certain remedies, such as
64 Ibid., f., 259r.

65 Ibid., f. 225v.
66 Ibid., f. 241r.
67 Ibid., f. 224v. On mental illnesses in early-modern Ottoman medical texts, see Nil Sari
Akdeniz, “The Classifications of Mental Diseases in the Ottoman Medical Manuscripts,”
History of Medicine Studies, 1 (1986), p. 105-112.
68 The opposite of contraction (qabḍ) is expansion (basṭ), which refers to sudden joy in the
heart of the Sufi. Contraction and expansion are always discussed in conjunction with
each other in Sufi tradition; see Cyril Glassé, The New Encyclopedia of Islam, Lanham,
Rowman & Littlefield, 20013, p. 88-89, 419; and Abū l-Qāsim al-Qušayrī, Al-Qushayri’s
Epistle on Sufism: An Annotated Translation, transl. Alexander Knysh, Reading, Garnet-
Ithaca Press (“The great books of Islamic civilization”), 2007, p. 79-81.
Arabica 64 (2017) 647-672

repentance, reciting the Koran (in particular certain healing chapters), and
visiting the tombs of Sufi masters, were, and still are, recommended to those
with such complaints.
Some Sufi masters also recommended talismanic shirts as remedies for
emotional problems. Even though we have no evidence that Šuǧāʿ Dede, Sulṭān
Murād’s spiritual master, was involved in the preparation of any of Murād’s
talismanic shirts, another Sufi master, the Mawlawī shaykh Sinān Dede, did
prepare a shirt (TSM 13/1164) for Murād in 983/1575. Sinān Dede’s special gift is
interpreted as a sign of his gratitude to the new sultan for the ten new dervish
cells added to his Sufi lodge.69 Although Sinān Dede’s long life enabled him
to see the reign of five sultans in the tenth/sixteenth century from Bāyezīd II
(r. 886/1481-917/1512) to Murād III (r. 982/1574-1003/1595), the fact that he pre-
pared talismanic shirts only for Murād suggests Sinān Dede’s familiarity with
Murād’s fears, concerns about, and interest in talismans.
Earlier in this paper, we mentioned that there are six talismanic shirts
attributed to Sulṭān Murād. All these accounts in the Kitāb al-Manāmāt sug-
gest the main reasons for making more than one talismanic shirt for Sulṭān
Murād. Even though he never led a military campaign where he would need
divine protection most, his psychological and emotional problems as reflected
in his letters give a clue why he and/or people around him might have seen
such shirts as necessary for him.
The shirts registered in Murād’s name are decorated with Koranic chapters,
verses, the names of God, and prayers as well as some motifs and magical num-
bers, following tradition. For example, on the front of TSM 13/1164, prepared by
Sinān Dede, one finds the sura 48 (al-Fatḥ), which continues onto the back of
the shirt; on the right shoulder appears verses 22-24 of the sura 59 (al-Ḥašr), as
follows:
(22) He is God; there is no god but He, the Knower of the unknown and
the known. He is the benevolent. (23) He is God, there is no god but
Him, the King, the Holy, the Preserver, Protector, Guardian, the Strong,
the Powerful, Omnipotent. Far too exalted is God for what they associate
with Him. (24) He is God, the Creator, the Maker, the Fashioner. His are all
the beautiful names. Whatever is in the heavens and the earth sings His
praises. He is almighty and all-wise.
On the left shoulder is inscribed a prayer quoted from verses 285-286 of sura 2
(al-Baqara):
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664 Felek
(285) The Prophet believes in what has been revealed to him from his
Lord, and so do the faithful. Each one believes in God and His angels,
His books and the prophets, and we make no distinction between the
apostles. For they say: “We hear and obey, and we seek Your forgiveness, O
Lord, for to You shall we journey in the end.” (286) God does not burden a
soul beyond its capacity. Each will enjoy what [good] he earns, as indeed
each will suffer from [the wrong] he does. Punish us not, O Lord, if we fail
to remember or lapse into error. Burden us not, O Lord, with a burden as
You did those before us. Impose not upon us a burden, O Lord, we can-
not carry. Overlook our trespasses and forgive us, and have mercy upon
us; You are our Lord and Master; help us against the clan of unbelievers.
Around the neck of the same shirt the āyat al-Kursī (Kor 2, 255) is inscribed.
The āyat al-Kursī is also recommended by the Prophet and is commonly recited
for protection from all types of dangers:
(255) God: There is no god but He, the Living, the Eternal, self-subsisting,
ever sustaining. Neither does somnolence affect Him nor sleep. To Him
belongs all that is in the heavens and the earth; and who can intercede
with Him except by His leave? Known to him is all that is present before
men and what is hidden [in time past and time future], and not even
a little of His knowledge can they grasp except what He will. His seat
extends over heavens and the earth, and He tires not protecting them: He
alone is all high and supreme.
The shared point of these Koranic verses is the emphasis on God as the most
powerful, all-powerful, and all-knowing entity above all others. This strong and
repeated emphasis on God’s power is perceived as a form of protective armor
for those who trust in His power.
The second talismanic shirt made for Murād is TSM 13/955. This shirt is
plainer than the other two, with just a few small medallions on both sides of
its collar. Within these medallions are written the names of the Prophet’s com-
panions who fought at the Battle of Badr in the year 2/624. The Battle of Badr,
which is explicitly mentioned in the Koran, is particularly significant in Islamic
history as a pivotal victory and is often attributed to divine intervention:70
70 For the Battle of Badr, see Ibn Hišām and Ibn Isḥāq, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation
of Isḥāq’s Sīrat Rasūl Allāh, transl. Alfred Guillaume, London-New York-Toronto, Geoffrey
Cumberlege-Oxford University Press, 1955 p. 289-314.
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(123) For God had helped you during the battle of Badr at a time when
you were helpless. So, act in compliance with the laws of God; you may
well be grateful. (124) Remember when you said to the faithful: “Is it not
sufficient that your Lord should send for your help three thousand angels
from the heavens? (125) Indeed, if you are patient and take heed for your-
selves, and the (enemy) come rushing at you, suddenly your Lord will
send even five thousand angels sweeping down.”71
Among the published talismanic shirts, this shirt of Murād’s stands as the only
one with the names of the Badr warriors at his time.
The third talismanic shirt of Murād (TSM 13/1135) is dated 1 muḥarram
990/10 January 1582, eight years after his ascension to the throne. This shirt is
especially striking. A note attached to the shirt states that it is a gift from the
queen mother to her son Murād. According to Hülya Tezcan, this note was pre-
sumably attached to the shirt when Murād’s personal belongings were packed
upon his death.72 The note refers to the shirt as an “armor shirt.” Hülya Tezcan
suggests that this shirt must have been made in response to the stories about
Murād’s being the target of black magic mentioned above.73 The protective
suras, namely 113 (al-Falaq) and 114 (al-Nās), are written in vertical columns,
and the square boxes on both sides of the shirt contain the beautiful names
of God. In the inside columns, we see the Koranic suras 112 (al-Iḫlāṣ) and 36
(Yā-Sīn), believed to protect against magical spells, among other protective
powers, following the Prophet’s suggestions recorded in the hadith.74
What is most noticeable about this shirt is the legendary forked-tongued
sword of the fourth caliph ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, the son-in-law and cousin of the
Prophet. The forked-tongued sword of ʿAlī delicately descends from the collar
of Murād’s shirt. Its hilt is black, and the first four verses of sura 48 (al-Fatḥ,
“Victory”) are written in each gilded fork, suggesting a wish for victory from
God (see figure 1).
This sword, commonly known as Ḏū l-Fiqār, is a famous sword, which the
Prophet is believed to have obtained as booty in the Battle of Badr and pre-
sented to ʿAlī. With the well-known statement, “There is no greater young man
than ʿAlī, and no greater sword than Ḏū l-Fiqār,” often written on it, as the
71 Kor 3, 123-125.

72 I would like to thank Hülya Tezcan for her time and help in clarifying this issue through
our private conversations.
74 See Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Virtues of the Qur’an, VI, Book 61, no 535; and VI, Book 61,
no 536.
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666 Felek
Figure 1 The talismanic shirt reported to have been prepared upon the order of Murād’s
mother Nūr Bānū Sulṭān in 990/1582. TSM 13/1135.
symbolic representation of ʿAlī’s supreme power, the sword is heavily freighted

with symbolic values in Islamic literature—in particular in the heroic narra-
tives of both the Sunni and Shiʿi traditions.75 In the Ottoman tradition, as the
legend goes, the image of Ḏū l-Fiqār was first embroidered on the Janissaries’
battle flags on the order of Orḫān, the second Bey of the nascent Ottoman
Empire from 724/1324 to 763/1361, to place the new corps under the protection
of ʿAlī. Over time, the Janissary banner with the image of Ḏū l-Fiqār became a
sultanic banner as well, symbolic of the sultan’s power and legitimacy.76
Sulṭān Murād’s specific interest in and knowledge of Ḏū l-Fiqār is also clear
from one letter to Šuǧāʿ Dede, where he writes, “ʿAlī’s Ḏū l-Fiqār is in the hand of
75 Eugen Mittwoch, “D̲ h̲ u’l-Faḳār,” EI2. For an examination of the iconographic tradition sur-
rounding Ḏū l-Fiqār in an Ottoman context, see Jane Hathaway, “The Forgotten Icon: The
Sword Zulfikâr in Its Ottoman Incarnation,” The Turkish Studies Association Journal, 27/1-2
(2003), p. 1-14.
76 Ibid., p. 7.
Arabica 64 (2017) 647-672

my lion.”77 When this symbol is examined in conjunction with other symbols

in his dream letters, it gains further meaning. In several of his dream accounts,
ʿAlī is a highly significant warrior figure: Sulṭān Murād reads the heroic stories
about ʿAlī;78 he meets with him together with the other three caliphs Abū Bakr,
ʿUmar, and ʿUṯmān;79 he is congratulated on his sainthood by ʿAlī himself;80 he
follows ʿAlī on his own horse;81 he is granted the sainthood and the holy power
of ʿAlī;82 and eventually, he is himself transformed into ʿAlī, as he writes to
Šuǧāʿ Dede: “In this dream, my shape had turned into that of ʿAlī.”83
Such messages in these dream accounts overlap in an interesting way with
the symbols on the fourth and the fifth shirts (TSM 13/1185 and TSM 13/1186).
Although both shirts are attributed to Sulṭān Murād and their characteristics
are similar to those of TSM 13/955, Tezcan lists them as “possibly” belonging
to Murād III, because the owner’s name does not appear on them.84 TSM
13/1185 reflects a clear interest in the science of the letters.85 Arabic numbers
and (unattached) letters are written on the borders of its sleeves. The lettering
starts with budūḥ, a name commonly associated with the three-by-three “magic
square” (wafq), and sometimes thought to be that of a powerful jinn.86 The
meaning of these letters and numbers on the sleeves remains to be deciphered.

78 Ibid., f. 129r.
79 Ibid., f. 14v.
80 Ibid., f. 13r.
81 Ibid., f. 4v.
82 Ibid., f. 8r.
83 Ibid., f. 33r.
84 Tezcan (ed.), Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Koleksiyonundan Tılsımlı Gömlekler, p. 60.
85 For a brief history of lettrism in the Ottoman realms, see Fatih Usluer, Hurufilik İlk Elden
Kaynaklarla Doğuşundan İtibaren, Istanbul, Kabalcı, 2009, p. 24-26. Regarding the great
occultist and mystic ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī and the ongoing interest in his Miftāḥ
al-ǧafr al-ǧāmiʿ at the end of the 10th/16th century, see Fleischer, “Ancient Wisdom,”
p. 231-244. On the Islamicate science of letters and its history, and the emergence and
maturation of Sufi lettrism, see Matthew S. Melvin-Koushki, The Quest for a Universal
Science: The Occult Philosophy of Ṣāʾin al-Dīn Turka Iṣfahānī (1369-1432) and Intellectual
Millenarianism in Early Timurid Iran, PhD dissertation, Yale University, 2012, chapter
4. In this regard, see also Shahzad Bashir, “The Alphabetical Body: Ḥorūfī Reflections
on Language, Script and the Human Form,” in Religious Texts in Iranian Languages:
Symposium Held in Copenhagen May 2002, ed. Fereydun Vahman and Claus V. Pedersen,
Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab (“Historisk-filosofiske med-
delelser”, 98), 2007, p. 279-292.
86 See Duncan Black Macdonald, “Budūḥ,” EI2. Malik Aksel argues that the symbol for budūḥ
is often understood as an abbreviation for the basmala; however, it is a symbol for an
Arabica 64 (2017) 647-672

668 Felek
On the upper parts of the chest, there are two scalloped medallions. In each
medallion, a prayer is written, “By God, God is the Helper of those who help,”
and the name Muʿīn (“Helper”) is written in black, while the rest is in gold. If
one looks at these medallions upside down, one can see a human face formed
by the arrangement of the calligraphy.87 In the lower part of the front, there are
two eight-cornered stars in which is written “help from God,” an extract from
the verse 48 of sura 48 (al-Fatḥ, “Victory”), and the phrase, “Victory Granted by
God, Victory of God” which invokes Divine help. However, what is most note-
worthy is that the shoulders of TSM 13/1185 contain a calligraphic form known
as aškāl-i ʿAlī (“the shapes [or forms] of ʿAlī”), also known as ʿayn-ı ʿAlī (“the eye
of ʿAlī”). This is a motif designed with the names of Allāh and ʿAlī intertwined,
sometimes including the name of the Prophet Muḥammad as well88 (see
figure 2).
Although it is unclear whether this shirt was made for Sulṭān Murād—and
the motif of aškāl-i ʿAlī was intentionally chosen for his talismanic shirt or not,
it interestingly overlaps with his dreams and other mystical experiences. He
reports not only dreams in which he is himself transformed into ʿAlī, but also
Divine inspirations (nidā) that go beyond waḥdat-i wuǧūd and, at first glance,
could be interpreted as an explicit claim for Divine incarnation (ḥulūl) or uni-
tive fusion (ittiḥād).89 For example, “There is no difference between you and
angel. He states that this is a non-Islamic character. On budūḥ, see Malik Aksel, Türklerde
Dini Resimler-Yazı-Resim, Istanbul, Elif Kitabevi, 1967, p. 39.
87 I thank Fatih Aytekin, a graduate student at Halic University, for pointing out this upside-
down image in this calligraphical form as well as the budūḥ on the sleeves. The combina-
tion of picture and calligraphy was commonly practiced in the early-modern Ottoman
texts and artifacts. On the use and popularity of this artistic form, see Aksel, Türklerde
Dini Resimler. On the calligraphic form of the name of ʿAlī as a human face, see Hamid
Algar, “The Ḥurūfī Influence on Bektashism,” in Bektachiyya: Études sur l’ordre mystique
des Bektachis et les groupes relevant de Hadji Bektach, ed. Alexandre Popovic and Gilles
Veinstein, Istanbul, Isis, 1995, p. 39-43.
88 For a calligraphical form of aškāl-i ʿAlī in a seventeenth-century Koran, see TSMK E. H.
163, f. 396v, published in Tezcan (ed.), Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Koleksiyonundan Tılsımlı
Gömlekler, p. 103. On the calligraphical portrait of ʿAlī, see also Serpil Bağcı, “From Texts to
Pictures: Alī in Manuscript Painting,” in From History to Theology Ali in Islamic Beliefs, ed.
Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, Ankara, Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2005, p. 229-265.
89 For ḥulūl, see Louis Massignon, “Ḥulūl,” EI2. For ittiḥād see Reynold Alleyne Nicholson,
“Ittiḥād,” EI2.
Arabica 64 (2017) 647-672

Figure 2 The talismanic shirt attributed to Sulṭān Murād. It has a calligraphic form known as
Aškāl-i ʿAlī on both sides. TSM 13/1185.
Me,”90 and “O my beloved, you are Me, and I am you. There is no difference
between Me and you.”91
On the back of the same shirt (TSM 13/1185), the names of six significant figures
in Islamic tradition appear in six small circles placed within a larger circle at
the center: Allāh, Muḥammad, and the four caliphs (Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUṯmān,
and ʿAlī) (see figure 2).
Even though one often comes across these names in pre-modern Islamic
texts, there is a particular association of them with the Ḫalwatiyya order, which
indicates a possible tie to Murād because of his affiliation with a Ḫalwatī mas-
ter, Šuǧāʿ Dede.92
We also see this combination of the names of Allāh, Muḥammad and ʿAlī
on TSM 13/1186, the fifth talismanic shirt in our list. Within the circles on each
side of a beige cotton shirt, the name of God (Allāh) is written. Around the
name Allāh, one sees the names of Muḥammad and ʿAlī in an invocation:
90 Felek, Kitābü’l-Menāmāt, ff. 74r, 47r.

91 Ibid., f. 47r. There are many similar mystical experiences reported in the Kitāb al-Manāmāt.
See, for example, ibid., ff. 28v, 40v, 57v, 55v, and 68r.
92 Nurhan Atasoy, Derviş Çeyizi: Türkiye’de tarikat giyim kuşam tarihi, Ankara, Kültür ve
Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (“Kültür Bakanlığı yayınları”, 3044), 2000, p. 89.
Arabica 64 (2017) 647-672

670 Felek
“O Muḥammad, O ʿAlī” (yā Muḥammad, yā ʿAlī). On the back of the shirt, on

the bottom of each side, the name of ʿAlī, in gold, is written four times in
calligraphy.
This juxtaposition of Muḥammad and ʿAlī is particularly striking since
Sulṭān Murād was eventually turned into the prophet Muḥammad in his dream
accounts, just as he had become ʿAlī. Such changes allowed him to establish
himself as the embodiment of the prophet Muḥammad and of ʿAlī in equal
measure:
This morning, I dreamt of myself. I was turned into Muḥammad Muṣṭafā,

may God bless him and grant him peace. It had happened once before
when I was in Manisa in a dream.93
Obviously, it is impossible to be certain that TSM 13/1186 expressed this embodi-

ment, since the owner of the shirt is not identified explicitly. However, the
imagery on these shirts parallels the repeated theme in Murād’s dream letters:
that he is destined by God to unify the Islamic world under his sovereignty.94
As an additional caveat, the specific calligraphic form of aškāl-i ʿAlī or ʿayn-ı
ʿAlī is not unique to this talismanic shirt, and since there is as yet no study on
the use of it in Ottoman material culture, one cannot confidently assert that
this form first appeared in the tenth/sixteenth century. However, by looking at
the published shirts, one can suggest that, it began appearing more often on
talismanic shirts made between the eleventh/seventeenth century, when the
Ottomans began to lose power, and the thirteenth/nineteenth century, when
the empire began to break apart. The form of aškāl-i ʿAlī appears not only on
talismanic shirts, but also in an eleventh/seventeenth-century Koran and on a
talismanic square cloth from the same century.95 In addition to the calligraphic
form of aškāl-i ʿAlī, the motif of ʿAlī’s legendary sword seems to have gained
considerable popularity among talismanic shirts’ producers and purchasers.96
93 Felek, Kitābü’l-Menāmāt, f. 252r.

94 In this regard, for a thorough analysis see Felek, “(Re)creating Image and Identity”; Özgen
Felek and Alexander D. Knysh (eds), Dreams and Visions in Islamic Societies, Albany, State
University of New York Press, 2012, p. 249-272.
95 The images of seven more talismanic shirts with the calligraphical form of aškāl-i ʿAlī in
the Topkapı collection can be also found in both of Tezcan’s books. These shirts are regis
tered as TSM 13/1168 (10th/16th c.); TSM 13/1394 (16th/17th c.); TSM 13/1146 (10th/16th or
11th/17th c.); TSM 24/1771 (11th/17th c.); TSM 13/1142 (11th/17th c.); TSM 13/948 (13th/19th c.);
and TSM 13/1148 (13th/19th c.). In addition to these talismanic shirts, there is also a wall
décor with the form of aškāl-i ʿAlī from the 16th/17th century.
96 The sword of ʿAlī motif appears on the following talismanic shirts: TSM 13/1139 (10th/16th
or 11th/17th c.); TSM 13/1146 (10th/16th or 11th/17th c.); and TSM 13/148 (13th/19th c.). The
Arabica 64 (2017) 647-672

The sixth shirt attributed to Murād is TSM 13/1165, which contains a con-
fusing statement about its owner. On both sides of its upper front, the words
“Murād” and “Your sultanate is protected,” are written in small rectangles with
golden backgrounds. Tezcan argues that the Murād mentioned here must be
Murād IV (r. 1032/1623-1049/1640). Although this shirt follows the same compo-
sitional structure as the other five shirts, according to Tezcan, certain artistic
characteristics, such as the abundance of gold and larger motifs, seem to place
it in a later period. As a result, Tezcan attributes this shirt to Murād IV, who
reigned in the eleventh/seventeenth century. Sülün, on the contrary, considers
it as having belonged to Murād III.97
On TSM 13/1165, in addition to the protective Koranic chapters 36 (Yā-Sīn),
112 (al-Iḫlāṣ), 113 (al-Falaq) and 114 (al-Nās), a specific prayer that is written on
the shirt is particularly noteworthy:
O my God, remove any types of calamity and deceit (makr) from him
who wears this shirt. For the sake of the Noble Koran, protect us from
mistakes; O our Master, protect us from all types of natural disasters and
calamities; O our Lord, protect us from all the malice of sword and spear!98
This prayer is particularly remarkable for its overlap with Murād’s repeated
concerns about and fears of being deceived (makr), as expressed in his dream
letters. On the same shirt, another prayer in the name of Murād is inscribed:
“May God preserve the life, state, monarchy and sultanate of Sulṭān Murād
Ḫān, son of the sultan, who destroys sinners and rebels.”99
Although Tezcan argues, on the basis of this shirt’s artistic characteristics
that the Murād mentioned here must be Murād IV, as Sülün states, these lines,
when taken together with the letters of Murād III, suggest a stronger link to
Murād III than to Murād IV, who appears to have been more interested in
alchemy.100
significance of the increased occurrence of this specific calligraphic form and its relation
to the passion for and interest in ʿAlī, who has been one of the most heroic figures in the
Islamic tradition, requires thorough research to determine its relation to the social, politi-
cal, economic, and military challenges that the Ottoman Empire faced.
97 Tezcan (ed.), Topkapı Sarayı’ndaki Şifalı Gömlekler, p. 79; id., Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi
Koleksiyonundan Tılsımlı Gömlekler, p. 64.
98 Ibid., p. 167.
99 Ibid., p. 161.
100 I am grateful to Murat Sülün for sharing his insights with me on this issue in our pri-
vate conversations. On Sultan Murād IV and his interest in metallic transmutation, see
Tuna Artun, Hearts of Gold And Silver: The Production of Alchemical Knowledge in the Early
Modern Ottoman World, PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 2013, chapter 1.
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672 Felek
5 Conclusion
The occult sciences remained significant and prestigious for many centuries in
the pre-modern world. Ottoman elites and courtly members also maintained a
long-term interest and investment in them, and the talismanic shirts on exhibit
in the Topkapı Palace Museum today offer visible and tangible evidence of this
interest. With their delicate, rich decorations and complex inscriptions, these
shirts, which are far more than mere decorative objects, shed light on multiple
aspects of early modern Ottoman elite ideology.
The overall goal of this article has been to raise questions that open up
new paths for research on talismanic shirts. To this end, I have examined six
shirts attributed to the tenth/sixteenth century Ottoman sultan Murād III to
demonstrate the complex ways in which magic and religious belief are woven
together by their practitioners. To date, the scholarship available on this sub-
ject considers these shirts as protective devices, and it is true that the motifs,
the calligraphic forms, and the symbols on them may lead a viewer to assume
that they were all intended to serve that purpose. However, even though only
three of the shirts discussed above are considered to belong to him, the case of
Sulṭān Murād suggests that the talismanic shirts deserve closer attention, and
that their analysis in conjunction with other materials and texts can open rich
possibilities for research into the self-perception and concerns of Ottoman
sultans and other members of the elite. Obviously, a thorough examination
of all the magic square talismans, numbers, letters, inscriptions, and motifs
on Sulṭān Murād’s shirts will be necessary in order to understand fully the
context in which these shirts were made. However, a careful reading of Sulṭān
Murād’s letters suggests that new perspectives are possible with respect to the
details, artists, patrons, and owners of these shirts. As demonstrated above,
an intertextual reading of these artifacts may in some cases be the only way
to assign their ownership, because of information that sometimes cannot be
found elsewhere.
Arabica 64 (2017) 647-672

Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693
brill.com/arab
Objectifying the Occult: Studying an Islamic

Talismanic Shirt as an Embodied Object
Rose E. Muravchick
University of Delaware
[email protected]
Abstract
Islamic talismanic shirts from pre-Mughal South Asia form a stylistically cohesive sub-
set within the larger corpus of Islamic talismanic shirts from the patrimonial-bureau-
cratic period. These objects have eluded sustained study due, in large part, to their
wide geographical purview and dissimilarity from other period textiles. While these
objects bear some similarities with talismans of smaller shape and disparate media,
their form as garments has yet to be considered as integral to their function. In analy-
zing one of these South Asian shirts, from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, parallels
between the arts of the book and the construction of armor highlight the apotropaic
function of Koranic text when placed on the human body.
Keywords
talismanic shirt, Sultanate India, talismans, bihārī, garments, magic
Résumé
Les chemises talismaniques islamiques de l’Asie du Sud pré-moghole forment un

sous-ensemble stylistiquement cohérent dans le corpus plus large des chemises ta-
lismaniques islamiques de la période patrimoniale-bureaucratique. Ces objets ont
échappé à une étude substantielle en raison, en grande partie, de leur vaste dispersion
géographique et de leur différence par rapport aux autres textiles de la même époque.
Bien que ces objets présentent des similitudes avec des talismans de forme plus pe-
tite et de support différent, leur forme de vêtement n’a pas encore été considérée

674 Muravchick
comme faisant partie intégrante de leur fonction. En analysant l’une de ces chemises
sud-asiatiques, du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Virginie, les parallèles entre les arts du
livre et la construction de l’armure mettent l’accent sur la fonction apotropaïque
du texte coranique lorsqu’il est placé sur le corps humain.
Mots clefs
chemise talismanique, Inde sultanienne, talismans, bihārī, vêtements, magie
Talismanic objects in the Islamic world from the patrimonial-bureaucratic

period1 were thought to have potent agency, yet today, these objects have be-
come static constructions of a fossilized practice loosely defined as “the oc-
cult.” Efficacy, and the systems which allow for that efficacy, hold together a
category of objects with tremendous material and formal variations. The com-
mon Arabic word for talisman (ṭilasm) can be used to describe anything from
statues to rings, scrolls, tablets or garments.2 These varied material instantia-
tions of efficacy in text and object serve to further reinforce the pervasiveness
of belief in the power of words, numbers, and materials that are rooted in an
Islamic cosmic view that holds letters themselves to be sites of power. While the
general category of “Islamic talismans” contains an unwieldy mass of disparate
objects, the specific category of Islamic talismanic shirts contains a relatively
circumscribed and unique set of objects to analyze in terms of this efficacy.
By closely examining one particular Islamic talismanic shirt from South Asia
during the patrimonial-bureaucratic period with an eye to the visual impact of
placing Koranic text on the human form, we can trace the strands of a much
larger system of spiritual protection made material through the visual arts.
The focus of this study is a talismanic shirt held in the Virginia Museum of
Fine Arts (VMFA 2000.9). Little is known about the precise provenance of the
object, but a broad date range and geographic location have been ascribed to
it since its accession by the museum in 2000. The shirt is attributed to ninth/
fifteenth through mid-tenth/sixteenth century South Asia, and is covered in
1 This term, coined by Stephen Frederick Dale, is here preferred over Marshall Hodgson’s
“Gunpowder Empires” given the shared Turkic cultural and political heritage of the Otto-
mans, Mughals, and Safavids. See Stephen Frederick Dale, The Muslim Empires of the Otto-
mans, Safavids, and Mughals, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (“New approaches to
Asian history”), 2009, p. 49.
2 Persis Berlekamp, Wonder, Image, and Cosmos in Medieval Islam, New Haven, Yale University
Press, 2011, p. 120.
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

Objectifying the Occult 675
the entire text of the Koran. In addition to the Koranic text, the shirt is also
inscribed with God’s 99 beautiful names, and is embellished with roundels on
the front and at the shoulders. Precisely what makes this shirt talismanic, in
both its decorative program and physical construction, cannot be properly un-
derstood without careful attention to the nature of the object itself. Objects
like this one, which are at once both garment and talisman, have traveled a
complicated route through Western museums and collections which has shorn
them of much of their lived context.
Wonder and Magic
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European aristocrats and royals

regularly hosted friends and rivals for lavish dinners that ended with bran-
dies, cigars, and the dramatic unveiling of a room or closet full of marvelous
works of art: the Wunderkammer or Kunstkammer. This cabinet of curiosities
was frequently a mixture of the natural, the unnatural, and possibly the super-
natural, including bones, jewels, pots, and paintings.3 Specialist texts from the
same period reproduced similar collecting prerogatives, for both major mu-
seums and individuals, which exploited the ideas of marvel and wonder that
were easily activated surrounding a collection of “magical objects.” The grand
museums of the early twentieth century continued to present collections of
wondrous objects to the public against a backdrop of a nineteenth-century
fascination with magic as both proto-science and proto-religion.4 Sir Ernest
Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge’s Amulets and Magic: The Original Texts with
Translations and Descriptions of a Long Series of Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian,
Hebrew, Christian, Gnostic, and Muslim Amulets and Talismans and Magical
Figures (1930)5 r eproduces, even in its title, this desire to bring together objects
3 The classic representation of this, in painting, is Frans Francken the Younger’s 1620-1625 Kunst-
kammer (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. GG 1048) which depicts a wall of paintings
and aquatic specimens above a table strewn with shells, relics, embroideries, coins and seals.
4 Randall Styers has demonstrated how the European study of magic during this period was
inextricably linked to colonialist projects, and thus how in negotiating the proper boundaries
of the study of magic, scholars were essentially making claims about their own modernity in
opposition to something primitive. See Randall Styers, Making Magic: Religion, Magic, and
Science in the Modern World, New York, Oxford University Press (“American Academy of Reli-
gion reflection and theory in the study of religion series”), 2004.
5 Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge, Amulets and Magic: The Original Texts with Transla-
tions and Descriptions of a Long Series of Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Hebrew, Christian,
Gnostic and Muslim Amulets and Talismans and Magical Figures, London-New York, Kegan
Paul, 2001 (reprint).
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

676 Muravchick
out of context as materials to spark the interest of viewers and collectors alike.
Budge’s text, which grew out of questions that he was asked about the collec-
tion in the British Museum, is an assemblage of descriptions of objects which
fall under the rather amorphous heading of “magical.”6
Recent major museum exhibitions that have included Islamic talismanic
shirts have achieved varying degrees of success when it comes to avoiding the
recapitulation of old habits. Of particular note was the massive 1991-1992 exhi-
bition “Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration” shown in the National Gallery
in Washington. Here, more than 600 objects were amassed, among them an
Ottoman talismanic shirt, in order to present a glimpse of what visual culture
around the world was like in and around the year 1492.7 The resulting effect
on the attendees was similar to that of viewers of a Kunstkammer; one re-
viewer called the show “a trophy-filled extravaganza.”8 Other shows have been
far more successful. The 2009-2010 Freer-Sackler show, “Falnama: The Book of
Omens,” featured another Ottoman talismanic shirt among the objects in an
introductory gallery.9 Unlike the 1492 exhibition, this show had a clear focus on
objects relating to the processes of divination, and the bulk of the exhibition
centered around fālnāma manuscripts from the Ottoman and Safavid courts.
A talismanic shirt from the collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum was used
to fill in the material contours of the larger category of divinatory arts, whose
majority focus was on texts and illuminations.
Those contours are easily fleshed out when the language used to describe
their parameters is as amorphous as magical or talismanic. While significant
holdings of Islamic art objects are often labeled in such fashion, private col-
lectors also play an important role in the connoisseurship of objects from the
Islamic world deemed magical or occult. Two of the largest auction houses in
the world, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, feature regular sales of Islamic and Indian
art filled with a variety of manuscripts, textiles, metalwork, ceramics, and
jewelry. Among these, we find objects given titles like “Islamic Talismanic Shirt”
or “Islamic Qurʾan jama.”10 In much the same way as early Wunderkammern
6 Ibid., p. xiii.
7 www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/exhibitions/1991/exploration.html, accessed 1 October
2013.
8 Michael Kimmelman, “Art view; ‘Circa 1492’: an enormous, magnificent muddle,” New
York Times, 10/20/1991, section 2, page 1, column 1.
9 Massumeh Farhad and Serpil Bağcı (eds), Falnama: The Book of Omens, London-
Washington, Thames & Hudson-Freer Gallery of Art, 2009, p. 82-83.
10 Ǧāma is the Indo-Persian term for a loose shirt or upper-body garment. Since 1990, more
than 15 objects under the classification of “Talismanic Shirt” or “Qurʾan Jama” have been
sold at these two auction houses. Several others are in the collections of smaller dealers
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

placed many different objects in close proximity to each other in order to elicit
the curiosity of elite viewers, contemporary auction catalogues offer a glimpse
of precisely what types of art objects pique the interest of their patrons. The
accompanying catalogue entries provide little more than a brief description of
the object’s appearance, dimensions, and (if known) lists of comparable items
previously sold:
An Ottoman talismanic inscribed cotton under shirt with short sleeves

and rounded neck, open at the front, the front and back inscribed with a
rectangular lattice enclosing finely written sections from the Koran, the
panels divided by red margins meeting at coloured rosettes, a blue roun-
del on each breast with the profession of faith, the lattices within red
dotted borders forming clouds around the names of God, panels below
with rounded terminals with further fine verses from the Koran, lined,
late 16th century (slight creasing, discolouration and damage) 22 in.
(56 cm) high 38 in. (96,5 cm) wide.11
As this description clearly illustrates, it is the mere presence of an inscription

that seems to suggest that this garment be labeled talismanic. The presence
of Koranic text or God’s beautiful names (al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā) seems to be the
definitive indicator that separates this undershirt from other, presumably
not-inscribed, examples. And yet, the relationship between Koranic text and
talismanic function on or for an object of any material is in no way unidirec-
tional: the text is not all that makes the talisman.
The presence of text about an object is likewise often privileged as a source
of definitional information about the object itself. The seemingly com-
plete absence of textual descriptions for talismanic shirts from the Islamic
patrimonial-bureaucratic empires might appear, at first glance, as an impedi-
ment to their significant study. And yet, even those talismanic objects which
are attested to in manuals or books on the science of letters (ʿilm al-ḥurūf),
and auction houses throughout Europe. The total number of Islamic talismanic shirts
sold at auction in the United States and Europe in the last 20 years is likely higher.
11 Christie’s sale 4753 (28 April 1992) Lot 78. Price realized: $ 7 810. A more recent sale from
Sotheby’s (A Princely Collection: Treasures of Islamic Art, 5 October 2010, Lot 42) gives a
more detailed catalogue note that includes a description of comparable objects, both of
which were sold at Sotheby’s as well. In the case of the object sold at Sotheby’s, it com-
manded a significantly higher price ($ 93 018) due to the object’s previous publication
in Geza Fehérvāri and Yasin H. Safadi, 1400 Years of Islamic Art: A Descriptive Catalogue,
London, Khalili Gallery, 1981, no 164.
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

678 Muravchick
such as rings or bowls, rarely have any clear relationship with those written
descriptions.12 Talismans, amulets, and divinatory objects are thus the physical
remnants of a tradition whose contours may never have been clearly articula
ted through prose descriptions in manuscripts. Perhaps in part due to this free-
dom from strict textual attestation, these talismanic shirts in particular have
eluded sustained study as a corpus of unique objects. The creation of effective
talismans of any size or style often presupposes knowledge of the crafting of
magic squares, astrological symbols and their correspondences, the properties
of minerals and gems, the manipulation of letters and numbers, the names of
angels, or efficacious Koranic verses. While the purpose of this special issue as
a whole is to help define the scope of Islamic occult sciences, some, if not all,
of the above enumerated practices fall squarely within such a category. In what
follows, I trace how the appearance of Koranic text, in part highly visible and
in part nearly illegible, on the surface of one particular Islamic talismanic shirt
forms an efficacious protection for the human body.
A South Asian Islamic Talismanic Shirt in the Virginia Museum

of Fine Arts
Surviving examples of Islamic talismanic shirts (maintained in both private

collections and major museums) form a large corpus of objects originally hail
ing from three primary historical and geographical areas: Ottoman Anatolia,
pre-Mughal South Asia, and Qajar Iran.13 A talismanic shirt in the Topkapı
Palace Museum, inscribed with the completion date of 16 muḥarram 885/
March 29, 1480, is the earliest dated shirt currently published, though dated
shirts are not common.14 Among these three primary provenance attributions,
there are significant stylistic variations within all groups with the exception of
those from South Asia. In contradistinction to the Ottoman examples which
are housed almost exclusively at the Topkapı Palace Museum in Istanbul,
12 Berlekamp, Wonder, p. 135-136.

13 In a survey of 95 talismanic shirts completed by the author, 65 were Ottoman, 24 South
Asian, and 6 from Iran. 80% of this group are currently held in museums, with the re-
mainder in private collections. For a complete overview of this corpus of Islamic talis-
manic shirts, including line drawings for 89 of these objects, see Rose E. Muravchick, God
Is the Best Guardian: Islamic Talismanic Shirts from the Gunpowder Empires, PhD disserta-
tion, University of Pennsylvania, 2014.
14 T SM 13/1404. Hülya Tezcan (ed.), Topkapı Sarayı’ndaki Şifalı Gömlekler, Istanbul, Bika
Yayınevi, 2006, p. 59.
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

Islamic talismanic shirts from pre-Mughal South Asia are currently scattered
throughout museums and private collections around the world.15 Notable
exemplars are currently housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,16
the Musée Guimet in Paris,17 and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.18
A preliminary attempt to catalogue this subset of shirts resulted in a total of
17 objects.19 Within this group, there is only one major stylistic distinction—
the shape of the bottom row of text sections. A small number of the shirts
feature rounded lozenge shapes, while most feature pointed, flag-like shapes.
While not all of the examples in this group appear to be of the same exact
size, they are all significantly shorter than the majority of Ottoman talismanic
shirts found in the Topkapı Palace Museum’s collection.20 The seeming unifor-
mity of this sub-group presents the opportunity to examine one object (VMFA
2000.9) closely in the hopes of making broader characterizations for its entire
sub-group, and by extension, the entire corpus of Islamic talismanic shirts.
Close attention to the technical and material aspects of this shirt’s con-
struction reveals many features that are characteristic of all Islamic talismanic
15 For high-quality photographs and some collection information (in Turkish) on these Ot-
toman shirts, see the two recent works of former textile curator at the Topkapı Palace Mu-
seum, Hülya Tezcan: Topkapı Sarayı’ndaki Şifalı Gömlekler, and id., Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi
Koleksiyonundan Tılsımlı Gömlekler, Istanbul, Timaş Yayınları, 2011.
16 M MA 1998.199, in Stefano Carboni, J. Kenneth Moore and Daniel Walker, “Islam,” The Met-
ropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. New Series, 56/2 (1998), p. 12.
17 Guimet Museum MA 5680. This piece is discussed at length in Éloïse Brac de la Perrière,
“Les tuniques talismaniques indiennes d’époque pré-moghole et moghole à la lumière
d’un groupe de Corans en écriture Bihārī,” Journal Asiatique, 297/1 (2009), p. 57-81; photo-
graphs: p. 76-77, 79-80.
18 My thanks to Christiane Gruber for sharing personal study photographs of this shirt for
consultation.
19 Of the 17 currently known shirts of this type, 4 are currently held in private collections.
It is unknown how many additional shirts of a similar type are held in further private
collections that were unavailable for study through photographs or appointment. Those
museums and libraries, not listed above, that are currently in possession of a talismanic
shirt of this pre-Mughal South Asian type include: the Bodleian Library (Ms. Bod. Or.
162a), the Furusiyya Art Foundation (R-785), the Nasser D. Khalili Foundation (TXT 87),
the Tareq Rajab Museum (accession numbers unavailable), the al-Sabah Collection (ac-
cession number unavailable), the Salar Jung Museum (n. 178), and the Victoria and Albert
Museum (accession number unavailable). Fifteen of these shirts are briefly described in a
table in the article of Éloïse Brac de la Perrière (p. 62-63).
20 Many Ottoman examples appear more like caftans in shape, rather than like short upper-
body garments. However, there is significant stylistic variation among Ottoman examples,
as can be seen in the sources listed in note 13.
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

680 Muravchick
shirts, and a few details that seem common only to those found in South Asia.21
The garment measures 63,5 cm by 97,1 cm across the sleeves, making it a rela-
tively small shirt. Dating for this object is still uncertain and there has been
no thorough chemical study of the textile substrate or inks/dyes which might
yield more precise dates. The given dating period (based on the initial assess-
ment by Christie’s)22 is ca 9th/15th-mid-10th/16th century, with the earliest
half of this period seeming very unlikely based on comparisons to other South
Asian examples. The shirt has a significant amount of wear along fold lines
which form rectangles approximately 15 cm × 25 cm. Given the extent of wear
along the rectangle in the lower left of the back area of the garment, this may
be the portion of the shirt that formed the outside of the shirt when folded as
a parcel and thus exposed to the most decay.23
The substrate of the shirt, according to the conservation report, is “cellu-
lose,” indicating either cotton or linen. The overwhelming majority of Islamic
talismanic shirts from all historical periods and geographical regions are also
made of cotton or linen, with cotton being the most common. A few Ottoman
pieces have silk elements, though few if any appear to be made entirely from silk
fabric.24 Given the long history of cotton production in India,25 it is probable
21 For a comparative examination of a small group of these South Asian shirts in European
collections, see Brac de la Perrière, “Les tuniques talismaniques,” p. 62-63.
22 This object was acquired at auction, and thus the information that accompanies the shirt
in its cataloguing entry comes from work undertaken at the auction house.
23 Many talismanic shirts, including the one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection
have similar fold marks. Several Ottoman shirts are preserved alongside their presenta-
tion boxes. TSM 13/1177, a sleeveless garment dominated by an enormous magic square
on the back, retains a presentation box with a label claiming, rather improbably, that the
shirt belonged to the sixth/twelfth-century Persian šayḫ ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Ǧilānī. Tezcan,
Topkapı Saray’ındaki Şifalı Gömlekler, p. 92-95.
24 Examples of garments which contain some elements of silk include a shirt in the Mu-
seum of Turkish and Islamic Arts (TIEM 539) which is attributed to the sultan Selīm II
(r. 973/1566-982/1574), a caftan-style shirt in the Topkapı Palace Museum (TSM 13/1183),
and a sleeveless shirt from the same collection (TSM 13/1142). There are two unusual
Ottoman examples of shirts apparently entirely constructed of silk. The first is a sleeve-
less shirt largely covered in circular arrangements of Koranic text that also features a
small diagram of the Kaʿba over the right pectoral. The second is a 12th/18th-century silk
lampas caftan in red and gold silk, sold at Sotheby’s in 2010 (Sale L10220, Lot 46). This shirt
has four repeating bands of woven inscriptions that include the šahāda and Koranic text.
Woven shirts such as this are relatively late objects and were likely not constructed from
fabrics that were exclusively intended to be used as talismanic garments.
25 Evidence of cotton textile production on the Indian subcontinent has been uncovered at
the Harrapan site of Mohenjodaro. Lallanji Gopal, “Textiles in Ancient India,” Journal of
the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 4/1 (1961), p. 60.
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

that the substrate is cotton.26 By the 11th/17th century, Indian cotton fabrics
(both painted and dyed) were some of the most desirable textiles in the world,
due in large part to the fineness of their hand and the expert dying techniques
of Indian artists.27
While the most famous Indian cotton fabrics from the same period as this
shirt are stamped or dyed textiles, this garment (and all South Asian com-
paranda) are painted textiles. The fabric used is thin and executed in plain
weave, and the entire surface has been treated with a starchy sizing. The com-
position of this sizing is currently unknown. This surface treatment serves two
important functions which ultimately dictate how the text and decoration
must have been applied to the garment. First, the sizing seals the tiny holes
in the weave structure created at the junction between every warp and weft
thread, thus creating a smooth surface over the relatively loose basket-weave
fabric. Second, after application, the sizing dried to a stiff finish, creating a
more rigid surface for the application of ink or paint. This may also have elimi-
nated the need for a frame or stand with which to support the fabric during
its composition.28 The resulting application of ink or paints to the shirt’s sur-
face would not have required any special tools or apparatus, and could have
been completed in much the same way as if the surface was made of rag paper.
This observation is the first of many which seems to place the production of
this object more firmly within the sphere of the arts of the book than the world
of textiles.
26 The primary tests designed to ascertain the difference between these two fibers result in
permanent damage to at least a small section of the garment, making a firm distinction
between cotton and linen impossible at the present. Necessary tests would include either
immersion of a small piece in a sulphuric acid solution, treating an area with an alcohol-
based dye solution to determine the rate of dye absorption, or the application of ammo-
nia. Clara I. Mitchell, “Series of Six Lessons on the Study of Textile Fabrics,” The Course of
Study: A Monthly Publication for Teachers and Students, 1/1 (1900), p. 88.
27 For a general overview of the role of cotton textiles in this period see “Textiles, Metalwork
and Stone Objects,” in Architecture and Art of the Deccan Sultanates, eds George Michell
and Mark Zebrowski, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (“The new Cambridge His-
tory of India”, 1/7), 1999. For examples of how fine Indian textiles played an important role
in poetic and philosophical writings, see Phyllis Granoff, “Luxury Goods and Intellectual
History: The Case of Printed and Woven Multicolored Textiles in Medieval India,” Ars Ori-
entalis, 34 (2004), p. 151-171.
28 Various methods of textile decoration (such as batik, stamping or embroidery) require
the fabric to be stretched within a hoop or a frame so that tension eliminates wrinkles
on the surface and guarantees either even stitches or smooth adherence of dye, paint,
or wax. The application of this starch or sizing agent created a smooth flat surface that
would not have required this apparatus, and might even have become damaged when
held under tension.
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682 Muravchick
The stiffened finish of the shirt’s surface does find parallels in one particular
type of textile construction: cotton ikat. This resist-dyed warp-faced fabric is
common to Central Asia where it is often used in the production of caftans.
The application of a thin layer of egg-white, which is subsequently beaten
into the structure of the woven fabric, produces a subtle sheen that highlights
the pattern produced through the warp-resist dye process. This technical simi-
larity is one of the few connections that South Asian talismanic shirts in parti
cular, and the larger category of Islamic talismanic shirts in general, have with
the wider sphere of textile production. Moreover, regardless of its prevalence
in the finishing of cotton ikat textiles, the application of a sizing or stiffening
surface treatment serves to prevent these particular objects from assuming
their function as garments properly speaking.
As a result of this surface treatment, the finished garment is very rigid which
would have made wearing it both difficult and would potentially damage the
surface of the object itself. Any bending of the fabric would have resulted in
the painted surface cracking or flaking off, and many places on VMFA 2000.9
bear evidence of this flaking. This shirt exhibits considerable wear of this type
in some locations, however there is little wear and no soiling whatsoever along
the side edges or along the underarms. This indicates that the flaking and dam-
age to the painted surface may have occurred due to handling over time (in-
cluding the folding and unfolding of the garment) rather than demonstrating
that the garment was actually worn by an individual for any length of time.
The argument that this shirt may never have been actually worn is further
supported by its construction. The garment is open along both sides and bot-
tom sleeve edges with two braided cotton ties for closures at the ends of the
sleeves. The only sewn seams on the entire garment are those which attach
the sleeves to the body of the shirt, at the shoulders. This type of construction
seems to be common to all of the shirts of South Asian provenance, and some
of those from Iran and Ottoman Anatolia.29 The absence of finished side seams
is noteworthy on two accounts. Firstly, the lack of any seaming, even for the
29 The most famous Ottoman example of this type is the shirt attributed to Ǧem Sulṭān (TSM
13/1404) which appears almost sleeveless and is dominated by a series of magic squares.
The Topkapı Palace Museum’s collection also includes a rare example of a shirt where
closures (in red silk) have been added to the area underneath the left armpit as well as at
the neck. These red silk cords, as well as a small amount of green silk lining, appear to be
later additions, though it is not clear when they were added. While the presence of these
additions does not guarantee that the shirt was ever actually worn, these modifications
imply that an attempt was made to overcome the physical limitations of the object’s form
so that it might accommodate the human body.
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

creation of a hem, indicates that this was not a garment which was intended
to undergo any sustained use. Plain weave textiles fray very easily along edges
which lack a seam or selvage. This fraying can be seen on the bottom of the
back of the sleeves, however minor. Secondly, the lack of side seams or closures
might have made the garment easier to slip on, but very bulky and unwieldy
to wear, particularly underneath a second garment or a set of armor. The shirt
would simply float away from the body, making it impractical for actual wear
for any sustained period.
Before moving on to the decorative program and content of the textual pas-
sages, there is a final technical consideration: the ink or pigments. Some of the
illumination and all of the text on the shirt are applied in a dark brown (nearly
black) ink, while the majority of the decoration uses three colors: red, blue, and
gold. As noted in the conservation report, the gold is either gold paint or gold
leaf. Given the appearance of brushstrokes on the surface in some places,
gold paint seems most likely. The type of pigments for the red and blue paints
are unknown. This color palette, of blue, red, gold, and dark brown is com-
mon in Korans from South Asia rendered in bihārī script.30 Further parallels
between this object and bihārī Korans are evident when the textual elements
and decorative program are examined more closely. Thus, while this object is
commonly referred to as a shirt, the observable details of its production and
its physical limitations as a garment seem to align it most closely with the arts
of the book.
Decorative Program and Textual Components
There are two significant textual components on VMFA 2000.9: the entire text
of the Koran and a list of God’s beautiful names (al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā). These
two textual elements operate in different registers on the shirt and are
executed in different script types. God’s beautiful names, rendered in gold and
30
Bihārī script is described as a Sultanate Indian Kūfī hand that was most often used in
the production of Koran manuscripts. However, several examples of this style survive on
monumental epigraphy from the 9th/15th century in what is now Bengal. This hand is a
flowing, cursive style, marked by thickly rendered letters and often punctuated by floral
decorative forms which Mohammad Y. Siddiq has described as lotuses. See Mohammad
Yusuf Siddiq, “An Epigraphical Journey to an Eastern Land,” Muqarnas, 7 (1990), p. 83-108,
and id., “Calligraphy and Islamic Culture: Reflections on Some New Epigraphical Disco
veries in Gaur and Pandua, Two Early Capitals of Muslim Bengal,” Bulletin of the School of
Oriental and African Studies, 68/1 (2005), p. 21-58.
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684 Muravchick
red ink in bihārī script, form a border around the sleeves and front and back
central panels.31 These names are rendered in gold set on a red dotted ground.
Bihārī script emerged in South Asia in the 9th/15th century and is found in a
large group of Koran manuscripts and individual Koran leaves attributable to
the pre-Mughal Sultanate courts.32 One particular feature of bihārī Korans that
is of note in considering VMFA 2000.9 is the prevalence of gold, outlined script
for the appearance of Allāh within the text of the Koran.33 In fact, there are no
known examples of bihārī script being used in manuscripts of any text other
than the Koran.34
The association between elements of this object and bihārī Korans is further
strengthened by the presence of small rosettes at regular intervals on the front
and back of VMFA 2000.9, which clearly recall verse markers used in those
manuscripts. Even the execution of other decorative details on the surface
of this shirt recalls conventions seen in these bihārī manuscripts. Decorative
verse-group markers (single letters appearing in rosettes or colored circles),
such as one found in a folio at the Aga Khan Museum (AKM 00242), utilize
concentric circles ruled in black and filled with blue or gold pigment. Highly
similar constructions can be seen on the shoulders of VMFA 2000.9, as well as
on the front pectoral roundels, both of which are discussed in depth below.
The appearance of ruled and then painted shapes, as well as the relatively un-
usual choice of bihārī script for highly-visible areas of text, further indicates
that this object is better placed within the study of the arts of the book than of
the study of textiles.
While these technical considerations might place this object within
the manuscript arts, it nevertheless takes the form of a garment, and other
elements of its surface decoration interact with that form in particularly
31 The attribution of this hand and the association between bihārī Korans and the majority
of talismanic shirts from South Asia is the work of Éloïse Brac de la Perrière. As she notes,
the attribution of the hand as bihārī does little to help geographically locate these objects,
given that the Korans in which this style is found all lack complete colophons with a date
and name, let alone any indication of center of production. See Brac de la Perrière, “Les
tuniques talismaniques,” p. 69. For a comprehensive discussion of these bihārī Korans,
see her book L’art du livre dans l’Inde des Sultanats, Paris, Presses de l’Université Paris-
Sorbonne (“Islam”), 2008.
32 A rare, early Koran folio of this type with 13 lines of text in black, blue, and gold, along
with red inter-linear Persian translation, is housed in the collection of the Aga Khan Mu-
seum (AKM 00242).
33 A Koran folio from a 2001 sale at Christies (Sale 6428, Lot 18) displays this feature, as does
another folio sold in 2013 (Sale 8655, Lot 23). Other Korans of this style use either red or
gold to set God’s name apart from the body of the text.
34 Brac de la Perrière, “Les tuniques talismaniques,” p. 73.
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

meaningful ways. The interaction between the placement of textual elements

and the form of the human body is clear in examining the placement of the
most visible bihārī script on this shirt: God’s beautiful names. The inscription
of some of God’s beautiful names on amulets or talismans of a smaller size
was a very common practice, even from an early period.35 Listing all of God’s
ninety-nine beautiful names on a single object was not unprecedented in the
Islamic world, especially with regards to the manuscript arts.36 While a con-
vention has emerged of giving the number of God’s beautiful names as ninety-
nine, there is no single “authoritative” list of these titles, nor has the number of
God’s beautiful names been fixed at ninety-nine.37 This shirt appears to have
a hundred names, with the name al-Rabb added between what are frequently
the eigthty-fifth and eigthty-sixth names, Ḏū l-ǧalāl wa-l-ikrām (the Lord of
Majesty and Generosity) and al-Muqsiṭ (the Just).38
This border of God’s beautiful names begins with the basmala and a general
invocation to God: allaḏī lā ilāh illā huwa ʿĀlim al-ġayb. The enumeration of
this list begins on the back of the right sleeve. The initial invocation is repeated
twice in immediate succession with the addition of a section that reads: wa-l-
šahāda huwa l-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm huwa Llāh allaḏī lā ilāh illā huwa. From this
point forward the list of names begins and wraps around the entirety of the
garment, ending in the same place it began on the back of the right sleeve.
Wrapped around the garment in this way as a continuous strand, the string
of God’s beautiful names recalls the form of the subḥa (alt. tasbīḥ), or prayer
beads that many Muslims use during prayer. These beads can be used to count
rakʿas, and are associated with remembrance of Godʾs beautiful names as ḏikr.
These one hundred beads (ninety-nine plus one for God’s ultimate name) are
repeatedly touched and wrapped around the hands and arms during moments
of prayer and reflection. By displaying God’s beautiful names in a large, ornate
script that is set apart from the (literal) body of the Koranic text, this simple
35 Examples of chalcedony amulets containing groups of 11 or 19 of God’s beautiful names

can be found in the catalogue of the seals and amulets in the collection of the British
Museum; see Venetia Porter, Arabic and Persian Seals and Amulets in the British Museum,
London, The British Museum, 2011, p. 136-137.
36 The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a particularly nice early example of a scroll
manuscript from 5th/11th-century Iran or Afghanistan (MMA 1995.108). The odd dimen-
sions of the scroll (5,5 inches in height) make it slightly too large to have been worn as an
amulet, but indicate some personal rather than monumental function.
37 Both the list of these names, and the number of these names has varied substantially in
various texts. Louis Gardet notes that the first thirteen of these names are attributed in
the Koran, while the remainder are not expressly Koranic; see Louis Gardet, “al-Asmāʾ al-
Ḥusnā,” EI2.
38 All translations of God’s beautiful names are from Louis Gardet.
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

686 Muravchick
list is elevated into a kind of textile tasbīḥ that encircles the body of the wearer.
Thus, while the formal considerations of this object’s appearance seem to link
it ever closer to the production of Koranic manuscripts, its potential protective
functions cannot be understood apart from the body it so clearly references.
The relationship between text and body through the interaction of form
and surface program in this object remains, however, ambiguous, particularly
when the location and orientation of the Koranic text is mapped across its sur-
face. To begin with, the sura al-Fātiḥa appears on the back of the right sleeve
in red ink that is used to inscribe both the name of the sura and the first verse.
It reads: sūrat al-fātiḥa […] wa-l-ḥamd li-Llāh Rabb al-ʿālamīn […].39 Directly
underneath this rubrication, one finds the customary basmala in the minis-
cule script often referred to as ġubārī. Ġubārī, or sometimes ġubār, is a mi
niscule curvilinear hand, used in the creation of secret messages, pigeon post,
and micrography.40 Taking into account the placement of these verses on the
shirt in reference to the human body, the Fātiḥa would appear roughly under
the back of the right arm, somewhere between armpit and elbow. This location
would make the beginning of the text essentially invisible were the garment to
be worn. Moreover, this placement does not correspond to any bodily organ of
major importance; the heart is on the left side of the torso. Thus, the arrange-
ment of Koranic text across the surface of the body seems to have a generic
application, rather than one specific to the intricacies of human anatomy.
Placing particular verses on particular parts of the body does not appear to
have been a priority in the shirt’s design, and the layout of that text must have
occurred prior to the construction of the garment.41 Both sleeves are attached
to the body of the garment with seams. These seams cut directly through text
boxes on both the body panels and the sleeve panels, indicating that the
text must have been applied to the surface before the garment was assembled.
This joining is made even clearer in following the lines of the blue and red bor-
ders around God’s beautiful names which are misaligned severely on both the
39 The section elided here includes letters whose forms are particularly difficult to read and
which do not appear to make a legible word. They are perhaps ʿayn, kāf, sīn, mīm.
40 Adam Gacek, The Arabic Manuscript Tradition: A Glossary of Technical Terms and Biblio
graphy, Leiden-Boston, Brill (“Handbook of Oriental studies. Section one, The Near and
Middle East”, 95), 2008, p. 57. For the relationship between ġubār and the other cursive
Arabic scripts, see Yasser Tabbaa, “The Transformation of Arabic Writing: Part 1, Qurʾānic
Calligraphy,” Ars Orientalis, 21 (1991), p. 123.
41 This is in contrast to other examples where specific Koranic verses seem to have been
placed onto the garment to mimic the placement of armored panels. One particular ex-
ample, at the Library of Congress, features selections from sura 48 (al-Fatḥ) over each
pectoral in the same location one would expect to find either large lamellar plates or
other reinforced structures.
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

front and the back. The entire text of the Koran appears in grid-like pattern of
small boxes, delineated in dark brown and gold rules, proceeding across that
grid from right to left according to the textual, rather than contextual orienta-
tion [see figs 1, 2, and 3]. Thus, the first few suras appear on the right sleeve,
moving from the back to the front of the garment. Next, the Koranic text co
vers the left sleeve, and then resumes on the top front of the left shoulder. On
the front of the garment, the text continues from right to left along each side
separately, even though the shirt itself is not physically cut through the middle.
Somewhat confusingly, the text then jumps (in the beginning of sura al-Qaṣaṣ)
from the bottom right corner of the front to the top right corner of the back
central panel up through the middle of sura al-Mulk.
The bottom of both the front and back panels features a lobed set of text
boxes, which are one of the only distinguishing features among the subset
of South Asian talismanic shirts. These elongated, round-bottomed areas are
irregularly filled with text, with some completely full, some half-empty, and
some filled with small red dots. When viewed as a whole, the location of
Koranic text across the body of this talismanic shirt appears not to follow any
particular pattern or system, nor does it conform to the shape of the human
body. On the contrary, the over-all appearance is haphazard, rushed, and un-
necessarily cramped.
The haphazard appearance of the text of the Koran is further underscored
through a close examination of the use of red ink and sura titles. Following
from the Fātiḥa on the back of the right sleeve appears the text of the first
three suras and the first 140 verses of sura al-Nisāʾ. From here, the text moves
to the front of the left sleeve, breaking all continuity with the form of the shirt.
Interestingly, the first rubricated line that appears on the front of this sleeve is
neither at the top of the text box and nor the beginning of a new sura; it is the
beginning of the sixth ǧuzʾ (1/30 of the Koran): verse 148 of sura al-Nisāʾ.42 This
rubric reads: lā yuḥibbu Llāhu l-ǧahra bi-l-sūʾi (“God does not like the public
utterance of foul words”).43 This rubrication, tied to the oral recitation of the
Koran, raises interesting questions about the scribe or artist behind this object
which cannot be addressed here.
The content of this rubrication does not have any obvious significance
either for its position on the garment (it is nowhere near the mouth) nor for
its selection for rubrication due to content. The uneven rubrication of both
sura markers and small pieces of verses appears throughout the shirt, with no
42 The ǧuzʾ measurement defines manageable sections of Koranic text for memorization
and recitation.
43 All translations of Koranic text given here are from Alan Jones, The Qurʾān, Cambridge,
Gibb Memorial Trust, 2007.
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

688 Muravchick
apparent pattern; some boxes of text have no rubrications (particularly those

containing the very long suras at the beginning of the Koran) while others have
many. The use of red ink, in a significantly larger hand than that of the majority
of the text does not appear to have any correlation to the meaning of the text
rendered in red or to the placement of that text on the shirt. Moreover, there is
no consistency in the marking of individual sura titles. The beginning of sura
al-Aʿrāf is not marked, while the first four words of verse 75 of that sura are ru-
bricated on the back of the left sleeve: qāla l-mala‌ʾu llaḏīna stakbarū (“The no-
tables who were arrogant said […]”) This rubricated text seems both arbitrarily
placed and shortened, so much so that it does not form a complete thought.
These few examples of rubricated text are representative of the remainder of
the garment and demonstrate that the visual distinction served by the pre
sence of red ink seems not to have a consistent application.
Scrutinizing the details of the appearance of Koranic text across this shirt’s
surface indicates that it is the mere presence of the entirety of Koranic text
which imbues this object with protective powers, rather than a specific series
of correspondences between text and body. While a close look at this object
highlights details of its construction and technical composition, there is no
indication that this object was ever, in fact, intended to be examined at such
close range. In stepping back from the garment and perceiving those elements
of its visual program which clearly stand out, many easily recognizable features
of both smaller talismanic objects and elements of armor come into focus.
One particular selection of Koranic text, rendered in significantly larger
bihārī script than any other elements on the surface, is highlighted in a large
cartouche between the shoulder blades on the back of the shirt: fa-Llāhu
ḫayrun ḥāfiẓan wa-huwa arḥam al-rāḥimīn (“God is better as a guardian, the
most merciful of the merciful”).44 These words, from sura Yūsuf, belong to
Jacob, Joseph’s father, who is ever assured of God’s wisdom, justice, and protec-
tion even in the face of tragedy. Versions of this quotation appear on amulets
of smaller size, indicating some generally understood protective function of
their inscription.45 But it is the precise placement of these words on the shirt
which may reveal a closer connection between text and body on this object. In
the story of sura Yūsuf, al-ʿAzīz’s wife (commonly refered to as Zulayḫā) desires
Joseph and attempts to seduce him during a rare moment of privacy shared
between them. When Joseph rebukes her advances, he appeals to God for pro-
tection and Zulayḫā succeeds in grabbing Joseph’s garment (qamīṣ) from the
44 Kor 12, 64.

45 A Fatimid amulet from Fusṭāṭ with the words Allāh ḫayrun ḥāfiẓan was excavated by Ali
Bahgat Bey in the 1920s; see Ali Bahgat Bey, “Les fouilles d’al Foustat,” Syria, 4 (1923), p. 61.
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

back. When confronted about the encounter, the tear on the back of this gar-
ment proves that rather than advancing towards Zulayḫā, Joseph was instead
retreating from her advances. Thus, his qamīṣ is material proof of his chastity,
and God’s safeguarding of his physical body from unwarranted attacks.
This phrase is a clear appeal to God’s protective powers, which are the ul-
timate source of all efficacious talismans.46 But the choice of this particular
phrase from sura Yūsuf and the physical placement that is so evocative of
God’s burhān for Joseph’s innocence serves to reinscribe this object’s impor-
tance as a garment. While the previously discussed areas of red text on the
body of the shirt, either in the form of sura titles or snippets of text, seem to
bear no correlation with the body of the shirt’s wearer, this cartouche is much
more closely linked to the physical form of the human body. Where the text
of the Koran that covers the bulk of the garment is hardly legible (even under
magnification), this quotation is cleanly and largely rendered, making it visible
from some distance. In effect, this area of text, visually set apart from the back-
ground both through the use of borders and in the use of large-format bihārī
script, reads as a large ovoid talismanic medallion.
Building Spiritual Armor
Several elements of the visual program bear similarity to features found on

two types of armor common to South Asia in this period: lamellar armor and
chain mail. In lamellar armor, plates of either metal or stiffened leather are
joined together with ties or rings to create a semi-rigid armor shirt. The overall
visual program on both the front and back of VMFA 2000.9 can be interpreted
as an homage to this lamellar armor, with each panel of Koranic text serving as
an individual plate in a protective shield. Linked together with Koranic verse
markers, these panels underscore the protective quality of Koranic text both
on and off the field of battle. Other elements of this object’s design also recall
visual tropes from the world of armor. The appearance of two front roundels47
with the basmala echoes the appearance of several highly common military
objects including round shields made of leather and metal and reinforced
46 Peter E. Pormann and Emilie Savage-Smith, Medieval Islamic Medicine, Edinburgh, Edin-
burgh University Press (“The New Edinburgh Islamic surveys”), 2007, p. 158.
47 These circular shapes could equally be called rondels as they take the same form as those
circular metal plates affixed to chest plates or under the armpits to add extra protection.
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

690 Muravchick
chest panels.48 These pectoral roundels are rendered primarily in blue and red,
with red, gold, and blue borders. Each contains the same text: the šahāda in a
very elongated hand that is neither the ġubārī style of the Koranic text, nor the
bihārī hand of al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā. Finally, the lobed panels along the bottom
of the front and back of the garment evoke the leather flaps added to many
types of both chainmail and lamellar armor in order to give the wearer greater
mobility.
Surviving examples of armor from both Mughal India and Safavid Iran de
monstrate that even actual shirts of armor could be enhanced through the pre
sence of Koranic text and God’s beautiful names. A 11th/17th-century Mughal
combined plate and mail shirt exemplifies this feature. Here, large rectangular
plates (whose layout and decoration strongly resemble book covers) cover the
chest, along with small elongated plates under each armpit. The remainder of
the armor is chainmail, with each ring stamped with one of God’s beautiful
names.49 While Koranic quotations and God’s beautiful names are the most
common inscriptions found on armor of this type, other invocations have been
used on armor in order to heighten the protection the garment affords. A strik-
ing Safavid example, also at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is made entirely
of mail in steel, copper, and brass rings. The arrangement of these different co
lored metal rings forms some of the names of God, the names of the Prophet’s
family including ʿAlī, al-Ḥasan and Fāṭima, and selections from the Nādī ʿAlī.50
While the roundels over each pectoral can be understood as visual refe
rences to elements on shirts of armor, those over each shoulder contain a more
unusual allusion that draws on the larger science of talismanic protection.
Each shoulder has an identical grouping of three roundels, two in red that read
Allāh and one in blue that reads yā budūḥ! This invocation is a call to the power
of letters themselves, in keeping with the abǧad alpha-numeric system which
48 For numerous examples see Bashir Mohamed, The Arts of the Muslim Knight: the Furu
siyya Art Foundation Collection, Milan, Skira, 2008.
49 M MA 2008.245. This object is dated 1042/1632-1633. Chainmail shirts made of rings
stamped with some form of text are also known from Mamlūk Egypt. A 9th/15th-century
example, auctioned at Sotheby’s in 2011 (Arts of the Islamic World, Lot 318), is constructed
of rings stamped with aphorisms about power and obedience. A similar Safavid exam-
ple, auctioned at Bonhams in 2008 (Islamic and Indian Art, Auction 16221, Lot 305), has
rings stamped simply with the names of the Prophet’s family: ʿAlī, Fāṭima, al-Ḥasan and
al-Ḥusayn.
50 M MA 36.25.57. This object is dated 1232/1816-1817. While none of the known South Asian
talismanic shirts feature non-Koranic extracts of text, there is at least one Ottoman
example (TSM 13/1184) that features inscriptions from a poem in praise of the Prophet
Muḥammad, the Qaṣīdat al-Burda of al-Būṣīrī (d. between 694/1294 and 696/1297).
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

undergirds the creation of magic squares.51 While magic squares are very com-
mon on talismanic shirts from the Ottoman empire, the currently known
talismanic shirts from South Asia lack such features. Instead, nearly all feature
this invocation to the science of letters through the phrase yā budūḥ. This brief
invocation calls attention to the entire tradition of making magic squares, in
particular that of the three-by-three square constructed out of the letters bāʾ,
wāw, dāl, and ḥāʾ.52 Just how these particular four letters were selected from the
field of nine present in the basic three-by-three magic square is still unclear,
but various potent powers have been ascribed to the invocation i ncluding: pro-
tection against stomach pains, invisibility, and a cure for impotence.53
The “word” budūḥ appears with some frequency on smaller objects from
across the Islamic world of this period. One interesting example is a 8th/14th-
century Syrian brass casket.54 Here, budūḥ appears as a kind of seal inscribed on
the top section of the casket’s clasp. The additional inscriptions on the object
(which was made for the timekeeper in the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus)
express a hope for general protection and longevity for the object’s possessor.55
The addition of budūḥ on the clasp safeguards both the contents of the box,
and the box’s owner. The invocation yā budūḥ also appears at the end of a list
of eleven of God’s beautiful names inscribed on a chalcedony amulet in the
British Museum.56
These individual elements that are clearly visible when the shirt is either
unfolded or worn on the body (the shoulder roundels, the chest roundels,
the back cartouche, and al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā) combine with the nearly invisible
51 A literal translation of the invocation would be, “O 2, 4, 6, 8!”, see Adam Gacek, Arabic
Manuscripts: A Vademecum for Readers, Leiden-Boston, Brill (“Handbook of Oriental
studies. Section 1, The Near and Middle East”, 98), 2009, p. 150-151.
52 Pormann and Savage-Smith, Medieval Islamic Medicine, p. 147.
53 Edmond Doutté, Magie et religion dans l’Afrique du Nord, Paris, Maisonneuve-Geuthner
(“La société musulmane du Maghrib”), 1984 (reprint), p. 229, 275, and 295. In his entry for
“Budūḥ” in the EI2, Duncan Black Macdonald likens the inscription of yā budūḥ on letters
and objects to that of yā kabīkaǧ in manuscripts. While the impetus to inscribe protective
text to safeguard an object from harm (in the case of kabīkaǧ against worms) there is no
sensible-world object behind budūḥ (where in the case of kabīkaǧ there is a real renuncu-
lous plant).
54 For a sustained discussion, see Don Aanavi, “Devotional Writing: ‘Pseudoinscriptions’ in
Islamic Art,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. New series, 26/9 (1998), p. 353-358.
55 Several translations of the object’s text have been undertaken by scholars. Multiple
translations are offered in the museum’s online catalogue: http://www.metmuseum.org/
collection/the-collection-online/search/444538, accessed 1 October 2013.
56 1867 12-19 1. Porter, Arabic and Persian Seals, p. 136.
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

692 Muravchick
ġubārī hand of the Koranic text to create a garment whose overall program
appears as a single piece of amuletically enhanced armor. Amplified through
the presence of the entire text of the Koran, this is a talisman which is made to
cover the whole body. Whether that covering was intended to be literal is yet
unknown, given the rigid and fragile nature of the textile. Significant questions
still remain as to the purpose of and audience for the creation of these objects.
As the above foray into a deep analysis of a single object has demonstrated,
Islamic talismanic shirts are best studied between the boundaries of book arts,
textile arts, amulets, and armor. Designating these objects as talismanic solely
through the presence of Koranic text on their surfaces fails to take into full
consideration the visual cues which recall the form of the human body, and
thus the primary object that they are encoded to protect.
Figure 1 VMFA 2000.9 Front Diagram.
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

Figure 2 VMFA 2000.9 Back Diagram.
Figure 3 VMFA 2000.9 Right Sleeve Back Diagram.
Arabica 64 (2017) 673-693

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Arabica 64 (2017) 287-295

Introduction: De-orienting the Study of Islamicate

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/15700585-12341458

law. But all these welcome deconstructions and rehabilitations notwithstand­

Arabica 64 (2017) 287-295

Arabica 64 (2017) 287-295

Arabica 64 (2017) 287-295

history of Islamicate science in particular as an academic field, rendering it

Arabica 64 (2017) 287-295

Arabica 64 (2017) 287-295

practices designed to render them inaccessible to noninitiates; in the mid-

Arabica 64 (2017) 287-295

Arabica 64 (2017) 287-295

Arabica 64 (2017) 287-295

From Ġāyat al-ḥakīm to Šams al-maʿārif: Ways of

In recent years, we have witnessed an efflorescence of research on Islamic esoteric

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/15700585-12341459

Magic, astrology, occultism, natural philosophy, Neoplatonism, Sufism, Abū Maʿšar,

Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

Magie, astrologie, occultisme, philosophie naturelle, néoplatonisme, soufisme, Abū

1 Astral and Natural Magic

Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

(“Micrologus”, 2), 1994, p. 127-144; Mahmoud Manzalaoui, “The Pseudo-Aristotelian Kitāb

Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

Many people thought that astrology is something stumbled upon by

Here, Abū Maʿšar is establishing the epistemological principles of astrology

41 Abū Maʿšar, al-Madḫal, II, p. 4.

Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

of the pneuma flows.47 These do not resemble intelligent entities traditionally

Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

56 Ibid., p. 85.

Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

Saturn Bdīmās Ṭūs Ḥrūs Qbūs Donos/ Ṭāmlis/ Drūs Ṭāhīṭrūs

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Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

supererogatory worship.63 Most famous among them is al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī

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Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

74 Ibid., p. 237-238.

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78 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, On the Natural Sciences, p. 75, 78.

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84 Ibid., p. 37-38, 333.

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Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

Neoplatonism provided the cosmological stratification which can be utilized

97  Ibid., p. 61.

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3 From Mind to Heart

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access cannot be achieved without strict religiosity. Accordingly, salvation

Arabica 64 (2017) 297-345

external purposes, which correspond with metaphysical inquiry and physical/

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“What is īmān?” God’s Messenger replied, “Īmān is to believe in God,

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emancipation, which is localized in the final, innermost constituent of the

117 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmiḏi, Bayān fī l-farq, p. 57-58.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��7 | doi 10.1163/15700585-12341458

law. But all these welcome deconstructions and rehabilitations notwithstand

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��7 | doi 10.1163/15700585-12341459

41 Abū Maʿšar, al-Madḫal, II, p. 4.

56 Ibid., p. 85.

74 Ibid., p. 237-238.

78 Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, On the Natural Sciences, p. 75, 78.

84 Ibid., p. 37-38, 333.

97 Ibid., p. 61.

117 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmiḏi, Bayān fī l-farq, p. 57-58.

125 Al-Ġazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, I, p. 140.

130 Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ, p. 122-125.

138 Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt, I, p. 235-41.

147 Ibid., p. 329-330, 334-335.

160 Ebstein, Mysticism and Philosophy, p. 121 (see also n. 151).

166 Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt, V, p. 345.

176 Id., Mawāqiʿ al-nuǧūm, p. 16-18.

186 Ibid., p. 43.

190 Ibid., III, p. 210-211.

of al-Ġazālī’s ideas on the internalisation of revelatory and intellectual know

205 Ibn ʿArabī, Mawaqiʿ al-nuǧūm, p. 121.

214 Al-Būnī, Laṭāʾif al-išārāt, MS Paris, BnF, Arabe 2658, f. 5v.

219 Ibid., f. 4v.

223 Ibid., f. 6v.

233 Ibid., ff. 53r-55r.

235 Gril, “La science des lettres,” p. 387.

240 Melchert, “Origins,” p. 16.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��7 | doi 10.1163/15700585-12341457