Ghayat al-Hakim / Picatrix

The Goal of the Wise. Here it is!

Ritter's critical Arabic text of this, the most important grimoire of magic ever written! Born in Muslim Spain, from the pen of al-Majriti, this is the grandfather of all classic European grimoires.

A crucial manual of astrological magic. The black sheep of the European Renaissance, a revolution placing Man at the centre of the Universe, able to forge his own destiny by manipulating nature.

۩  Arabic with German footnotes, facsimile PDF eBook, 13 Megabytes, 432 pages - £14.50

Buni - Shams al-Ma'arif al-Kubra

The Sun of Great Knowledge.

This is the leading text of Islamic Occultism, written by the mysterious Cabbalistic Sufi Ahmad al-Buni. This work is about the Secrets of the Asma Al-Husna (the 99 “Excellent Names” of God), the mysteries of the Huruf Muqatta’at of the Qur’an (the enigmatic letters appearing at the start of some chapters), and it discusses the influence exercised by the sun, moon and stars at the time of preparing prayer-charts or phylacteries. There is a great deal on magic squares, numerology, alchemy, amulets, many formulae for day-to-day use, and much more.

The Shams al-Ma’arif rivals the Picatrix in importance. Most of the "time-tested" books on sorcery in the Muslim world are simplified excerpts from the Shams al-Ma’arif. Both the Picatrix and the Shams al-Ma’arif were probably a model for H. P. Lovecraft’s Necronomicon. More intriguing, perhaps, is the similarity between some of the symbols in the Shams al-Ma’arif and the veves of the Voodoo tradition.

۩  Arabic, bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 96 Megabytes {large}, 529 pages - £7

Asrar-i Qasimi

Secrets of Qasim.

This is a Persian treatise on the 5 Occult Sciences, the initials of which form an acrostic of "Kulluhu Sirr" ("All Of It Is Mystery"): 

Kimiya (alchemy)

Limiya (talismanic magic)

Himiya (spellcrafting / subjugation of souls)

Simiya (letter magic / producing visions)

Rimiya (conjuration, trickery)

The author was Husayn ibn Ali al-Kashifi (d. 910 AH / 1504 CE), also known as al-Wa'iz al-Bayhaqi. The date of composition was 907 AH / 1501 CE.

The Asrar-i Qasimi (Farsi) and the Shams al-Ma’arif (Arabic) are archetypal Occult Science literatures from the lands of Islam. According to the colophon, this book is the first complete copy that is also in the right order.

۩  Farsi, facsimile PDF eBook, 64 Megabytes, 110 pages - £7

Kitab / Rasa'il Ikhwan as-Safa

The Book / Epistles of the Brethren of Purity.

The Encyclopædia of the "Freemasons of Basra"! A bumper pack consisting of the 1887-8 Arabic edition from Bombay, plus 3 English translations of the "Debate of the Animals" found in the 22^nd epistle.

The Kitab (“book”) or Rasa’il (“epistles”) of the Ikhwan as-Safa is a vast Arabic encyclopædia of some 52 epistles. This great treasure house of Sufic, Gnostic thought occupies a place in the first rank of Arabic literature. Showing the compatibility of the Islamic faith with other religions and intellectual traditions, the authors of this encyclopædia drew upon Indian, Babylonian, Persian, Hellenistic and Judæo-Christian sources.

It is said that the members of the Ikhwan as-Safa, or “Brethren of Purity” (the common rendering of their name) formed a sort of Masonic Lodge long before Freemasonry existed. They lived in the Lower Mesopotamian river port of Basra, debating on literature, religion, philosophy and science. Apparently, this is the mysterious “Book P” of the Golden Dawn order. The appellation “Brethren of Purity” could also be the inspiration behind the “White Brotherhood” of the New-Age movement.

Could the “king-bee, monarch of the flies” in the English translations of the political debate between man and animals also given here, have been the inspiration for William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies”, another political story?

۩  Arabic (bookmarked) plus a section translated thrice into English (fully bookmarked), zipped facsimile PDF eBook, 205 Megabytes {massive}, 1,289 pages (Arabic) plus 439 pages (English) - £10

Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary

(Wafayat al-A'yan wa Anba' Abna' az-Zaman)

"Obituaries of Eminent Men and History of the Sons of the Epoch", trans. Baron De Slane.

"... one of the most important aids to the study of biographical and literary history" - Carl Brockelmann.

This colossal work is a fantastic anthology of the lives of saints and sinners, mystics and scientists, usurpers and rulers, false prophets and theologians, historians and philosophers, geographers and calligraphers, etc., revealing the kernel of the innermost secrets of each person's life. As one of our top publications, this must not be missed.

Ibn Khallikan created this monumental work between 1256 - 1274 CE, continually improving it with marginal notes. This was the first general biographical lexicon, not confined to groups of persons or geographical places as had been common since the 9th Century CE. It contains in alphabetical order the lives of the most celebrated persons of Muslim history and literature, excepting the Prophet, the first 4 Caliphs, the other Companions and their immediate students.

Of enormous scope, it has always been considered a work of the highest importance for the civil and literary history of the Muslim people. The great majority of the heroes of its thousands of pages hail from Baghdad and its wonderful, intact Oriental past. Later Arabic historians filled their pages with extracts from this work. Arabic rhetoricians, grammarians, and compilers of anecdotes have taken choice passages from it. Baron De Slane describes this work as "the acme of perfection".

۩  English, bookmarked, zipped facsimile PDF eBooks, 4 volumes, 276 Megabytes {massive}, 2,766 pages - £14

Biruni - Chronology of Ancient Nations & Their History

(Athar al-Baqiyah fi al-Qurun al-Khaliyah)

Also known as Existing Monuments / Vestiges of the Past.

Compiled at the court of Qabus ibn Washkamir in Jurjan, 390-1 H / 1000 CE by the great Muslim polymath Abu Rayhan al-Biruni when he was in his late twenties. Here, Biruni discusses ancient history and geography. He combined literary and historical sources of mediæval sects and nations with astronomical lore about their calendars, feasts, and astronomical parameters used in their rituals. He discussed the Earth’s rotation on its axis and its flatness. He initiated the rules of geodesy. He made accurate calculations of latitude and longitude (plus other geodetic measurements) and observed the same. He made considerable contributions in the fields of physical and economic geography. He mentions the Holy Fire, which descends in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Easter Saturday, now as then (one of the religious events celebrated by both Muslims and Christians). Though not his first work, this book represents the summation of Biruni's researches up till that time.

۩  English, fully bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 23 Megabytes, xvi, 464 pages - £3

Mas'udi - Meadows of Gold & Mines of Gems, Volume 1

(Muruj al-Dhahab wa Ma'adin al-Jawahir)

Fine historiography by the Imam of Historians, the Arab Herodotus, the Muslim Pliny.

Completed in 947 CE, this historical encyclopædia explores the social and literary history, theology, geography, climatology, etc. of many lands. In an absorbing manner, Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Mas'udi relates to us of his personal contacts with the Jews, Christians, Persians, Indians, and there is a mine of information on the pagan Viking Rus, the Khazars, the Alans, the Chinese, and more.

An historian of the new school of al-Dinawari and al-Yaq'ubi, al-Mas'udi favoured a continuous narrative instead of the hadith-style chain-narrative of al-Tabari. Despite the title, this was Aloys Sprenger's only English translation, there was no "Volume 2".  

۩  English, fully bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 20 Megabytes, lxxii, 464 pages - £4.75

Job of Edessa - Book of Treasures

The Encyclopædia of Philosophical and Natural Sciences as taught in Baghdad about 817 CE.

Translated by Alphonse Mingana, the Assyrian theologian and collector of manuscripts.

The text and the translation of an important work by the Nestorian Christian philosopher, Job of Edessa (b. about 760 CE, fl. 817 - 832. Edessa is the modern Sanli Urfa ["Glorious Urfa"], south Turkey). In the forefront of the phalanx of the translators of Aristotle and Galen, our author stands as one of the earliest figures involved in the Golden Age of Islamic Civilisation, initiated by the Abbasid Caliphate (e.g. via that celebrated institute, the House of Wisdom). What marks the present work as one of the best to come down to us from that era, is its completeness.

۩  English translation plus Syriac text, bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 101 Megabytes {large}, xlviii, 470 pages - £3.50

Kitab al-Bakurah

(Kitab al-Bakurah al-Sulaymaniyah fi Kashf Asrar al-Diyanah al-Nusayriyah)

An important source for the study of Nusayrism in modern times.

Offshoots of the Isma'ilis, Nusayris represent the remarkable cult of Alawism, the Asian Mystery crystallised c. 970 CE in the da'wah of the disciple of the Bab of the 11th Shi'i Imam Hasan al-Askari. This work provides a description and refutation of the Nusayri religion according to Sulayman Efendi al-Adhani (b. 1834), a Nusayri of Adana (south Turkey) who apostasised to Christianity.

۩  Arabic, facsimile PDF eBook, 8 Megabytes, 119 pages - £4

Kitab Alnoqat Waldawair

(Also transcribed as Kitab al-Nuqat wa al-Dawa'ir)

The Book of Points and Circles.

This is a manual of Druze doctrine, illustrated with diagrams. With an introduction by Dr. Christian Seybold.

۩  Arabic with German introduction, bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 6 Megabytes, xv, 96 pages - £4

Rabbi Bachye ibn Paquda - Duties of the Heart

(Kitab al-Hidaya ila Fara'id al-Qulub)

The 11th Century Spanish Rabbi's primary work.

This is a summarised version of the complete work. The work in full was divided into 10 chapters, each representing a "gate", or a specific Sufi virtue that Ibn Paquda explicated, which would lead to the Sufi prayer ideal of divine union with God. Taken over from the Sufis, these gates presaged the 10 Sephirot of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life (Otz Chaim). Ibn Paquda based his representation of these 10 levels of closeness to God on the Sufi al-Makki's (d. 996 CE) Qut al-Qulub, the first comprehensive manual of Sufism.

۩  English, fully bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 5 Megabytes, 59 pages - £1.50

Ibn Sina - A Compendium on the Soul

Avicena's offering to the Prince.

Translated from the Arabic original by Edward Abbott van Dyck.

A rare work of the illustrious Transoxanian polymath, Ibn Sina ("Avicena" / "Avicenna", as he is known in Europe). Islamic philosophy, imbued as it is with theology, distinguishes more clearly than Aristotelianism the difference between essence and existence. Avicena's metaphysical works demonstrate that he leaned more toward a philosophical comprehension of metaphysics than one grounded in theology. In his Compendium on the Soul, he prioritises Universal Science (Being-as-such and First Philosophy) over theology. The philosophy of Avicena, particularly that part relating to metaphysics, owes much to Aristotle and to al-Farabi.  

۩  English, bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 8 Megabytes, 94 pages - £3

Dabistán-i Mazáhib

(variously transcribed as Dabestan, -i Mazahab, al-Mazaheb, etc.)

The School of Religous Doctrines.

A monumental work on the religions of India composed in the 17th Century CE. The index itself is 62 pages. The original 1843 English translation by Shea & Troyer. Includes huge amounts of text omitted in later republications. Appended is the Persian-language 1809 Calcutta edition.

۩  English plus a Farsi edition, English translation fully bookmarked, zipped facsimile PDF eBook, 329 Megabytes {massive}, 4 volumes, 1,962 pages - £10   

Qazwini - Zoological Section of the Nuzhatu-l-Qulub

A fabulous bestiary, rich with medicinal uses and other lore.

Hamdullah Mustawfi bin Abu Bakr al-Qazwini (b. about 680 H / 1281-2 CE, fl. around 1330-1340 CE), was a financial officer under the regime of Abu Sa'id the Mongol Il-Khan. He got the epithet "al-Mustawfi" through his grandfather, who was an accountant (Mustawfi) in Iraq.

This is an engrossing trip into mediæval Persian zoology. Animals are classified as being of the land, sea or air. A paragraph is devoted to each animal, arranged in alphabetical order (Arabic). The Persian name is sometimes given, and often also the Turki and Mongolian equivalents. Then attributes such as the qualities of the animal's flesh, medical uses, and occasionally the magical uses, are also given. The work gives a conspectus of the zoological science of the time.

۩  English translation plus Arabic text, bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 21 Megabytes, xix, 227 pages - £3.50

Ibn Tufayl - Hayy ibn Yaqzan / Bent el-Khass

"Living Son of the Vigilant" / "The Awakening of the Soul".

"In which is demonstrated by what Methods one may...attain the Knowledge of things NATURAL and SUPERNATURAL".

Translated from the Arabic original by Simon Ockley and edited by Edward Abbott van Dyck.

This intense philosophical tract, which also surveys the major thinkers of the age besides making its own hypothesis in the form of a kind of "novel", was widely read, and came to inspire the British author Daniel Defoe to write his Robinson Crusoe.

Appended is a very rare work in French and Arabic called La Légende de Bent El Khass / "The Legend of Bent el-Khass" (not by Ibn Tufayl).    

۩  English, French & Arabic, bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 25 Megabytes, 84 pages - £1

Beha ud-Din - The Life of Saladin

(Also transcribed as The Life of Salah ud-Din Ayyubi)

An epic history from the Crusades.

This translation of a mediæval Arabic manuscript recants the history of the Third Crusade on Levantine soil, when an entire continent descended upon one Caliphate which had scanty natural resources for self-defence. From the comfort of your study room, relive the copious atrocities of the Crusaders, who were rarely knights in shining armour. Take relief in the chivalry of the Saracens, and that of the occasional Crusading knight.

There are remarkable battle descriptions here, for example where outnumbered Saracen armies won virtually unscathed, where the superior genius of a teenager lifted a siege, where a mighty Eurasian Mamluk with many notches on his belt got ambushed by several wary Crusaders, but escaped when his summary executioner missed and severed an assistant executioner's hand instead. All this against the backdrop of Islamic camaraderie and generosity, figureheaded by the leader of the Muslim armies, the Sultan Salah ud-Din.

From an age when chivalry was the order of the day!

۩  English, fully bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 28 Megabytes, xx, 420 pages - £3

Lassy - The Muharram Mysteries Among the Azerbaijan Turks of Caucasia

An anthropological study from Finland.

This book portrays Shi’ism in a microcosmic version of the Islamic world – Azerbaijan – where Caucasian, Persian, Arab and Turkic cultures intermingle, all in the context of one of the most important events in the political history of Islam – the Martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali.

Note the parallel between the Passion of Husayn and the Hollywood blockbuster The Last Samurai!

۩  English, fully bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 12 Megabytes, iv, 284 pages - £4

History of the Afghans / Makhzan-i Afghani

(Also known as Makhzen-i Afghani, Maghzan-e-Afghani, etc.)

Bernhard Dorn's superior translation, from the original Persian, not the French.

In the triangle-shaped, hilly country divided between Afghanistan and Pakistan lives the world's largest tribe, numbering over 30 million, variously called Afghans, Pathans, Pashtuns or Pakhtuns. This classic work about Afghan history, fertile with its kings and saints, traces the descent of the Afghan tribes as far back as Patriarch Abraham, Prophet Jacob, King Saul and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.

Today, ever more western historians and researchers are taking keen interest in the past of Khorasan and its people. This book is a storehouse of genealogical and biographical data on the men who symbolise Afghanistan as a vivacious nation of warriors and poets.

۩  English, fully bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 21 Megabytes, Pt. 1: v, 184 pages, Pt. 2: viii, 131 pages - £4.50

Rihlat Ibn Jubayr

The Arabic text of the "Travels of Ibn Jubayr".

Michael Jan de Goeje's 2nd edition (revised).

Ibn Jubayr al-Kenani was an Hispano-Arab geographer, traveller and poet, and the best-known travelogue writer of Spain. This work gives a highly detailed and graphic description of the places he visited during his pilgrimage across the Mediterranean to Makkah and back (1183-1185 CE), having also taken in parts of Iraq, Egypt and Syria, including Jerusalem, Acre, Damascus, Mosul and Baghdad. His Rihlat was one of the most important travelogues in Arabic.  

۩  Arabic with English introduction, bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 45 Megabytes, 416 pages - £2

E. G. Browne - A Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the University of Cambridge

A brimming catalogue of Persian MSS in Cambridge University Library.

Published in 1896, this valuable reference work describes some 343 manuscripts in the library of Cambridge University. This is Browne's first catalogue.

۩  English, fully bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 39 Megabytes, xl, 471 pages - £4

E. G. Browne - A Hand-List of the Muhammadan Manuscripts in the Library of the University of Cambridge

Edward Granville Browne's first Muhammadan MSS catalogue on the world-famous collection of Cambridge University.

Hard truth: an uncatalogued manuscript collection is of little use to the scholar!

Published in 1900, this valuable reference work gives brief descriptions of some 1,422 acquisitions made by Cambridge University. The Hand-List was compiled by Edward Granville Browne (1862-1926), an Orientalist and professor of Arabic at Cambridge University, England. The MSS here described are for the most part in Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Urdu or Hindustani, with a few in Pushto, Punjabi, Eastern Turki, etc.

۩  English, fully bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 27 Megabytes, xvii, 440 pages - £4

E. G. Browne - A Supplementary Hand-List of the Muhammadan Manuscripts in the Libraries of the University & Colleges of Cambridge

Browne's second and final complete catalogue of Muhammadan MSS in Cambridge.

Published in 1922, this valuable reference work gives brief descriptions of some 1,577 acquisitions made since the previous Hand-List was published. The MSS here described are for the most part in Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Urdu or Hindustani, with a few in Pushto, Punjabi, Eastern Turki, etc. The Malay MSS are mentioned only under their class-marks, without title or description. There was one more Browne catalogue after this, completed posthumously by Reynold A. Nicholson (click the About the Cambridge Catalogues link below for more details).

۩  English, fully bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 16 Megabytes, xi, 348 pages - £4

Hankin - Drawing of Geometric Patterns in Saracenic Art

Designs to stimulate the mind.

One of the main characteristics of Saracenic art is its universal employment of geometric patterns, often of amazing complexity. It is surprising that despite the complexity of Saracenic patterns, the geometrical knowledge required for drawing / designing them is small. Anyone who can draw one line perpendicular to another, describe an equilateral triangle, and bisect an angle, is capable of copying these patterns and, with the methods described in this book, of designing new ones!

۩  English, fully bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 15 Megabytes, iii, 25 pages, iii (index), 14 leaves of plates - £2

Sadi's Scroll of Wisdom

The Pand Namah of Shaykh Sadi Shirazi.

This rare book - separate from the widely-available Gulistan and Bustan - is a small volume of poetry embodying precepts which would do no discredit to the philosophy of the 21st Century CE. Concise and elegant, the work is most popular throughout the length and breadth of the Persian-speaking East. In addition to beauty of diction, it is written in a metre which flows in easy cadence, and fixes the words of the poem on the mind. Hence the lines are committed to memory to an extent that is probably not surpassed by any work in the Persian language. Lines from Sadi's poems are still commonly used in conversations by Iranians today.

۩  English, fully bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 2 Megabytes, 63 pages - £1

The Poems of Mu'tamid, King of Seville

A journey into the soul of al-Andalus and its Poet-King.

King Abbad III, al-Mu'tamid 'ala Allah, was the 3rd and last ruler (reigned 1069-1091 CE) of Seville, Spain. He counts as one of the greatest Andalusian poets, and his blood is said to live on in the royal houses of Europe, and elsewhere.  

۩  English, bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 2 Megabytes, 60 pages - £1

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