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Shams al-Ma’arif al-Kubrá wa-Lata'if al-‘Awarif

Lil-Shaykh Ahmad ibn ‘Ali al-Buni

Wa-Yalihi Risalat Mizan al-‘Adl fi Maqasid 'Ahkam al-Raml wa-Risalat Fawatih al-Ragha'ib fi Khususiyat 'Awqat al-Kawakib wa-Risalat Zahr al-Muruj fi Dala'il al-Buruj wa-Risalat Lata'if al-'Isharah fi Khasa'is al-Kawakib al-Sayyarah

Ta'lif ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni al-'Adhami

Publisher: al-Qahirah [Cairo]: Muhammad ‘Ali Subayh wa-'Awladuh, 1347 AH [1928 CE]

Please note: the page numbering in this edition sometimes (very rarely) jumps.

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The following summary is based on descriptions given in:

The Catalogue of Arabic & Persian Manuscripts in Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, Patna (1994)

A Wikipedia article on Buni

An article on magic squares

This Sufi work was the most widely read mediæval Islamic treatise on talismans, magic squares and rectangles, and all manner of occult practices. Buni showed how to construct magic squares using a simple bordering technique, but he may not have discovered the method himself. A Latin square, known in Arabic as wafq majazi, is a square containing cells in which each row and each column have the same set of symbols in distinction from a magic square in which there is no repetition. Buni wrote about Latin squares and constructed, for example, 4 x 4 Latin squares using letters from one of the 99 Names of God.

The first magic squares of 5 and 6 appear in the Encyclopædia of the Brethren of Purity, though several earlier Arab scientists (e.g. Jabir ibn Hayan, 103-200 AH / 721-815 CE) also wrote about magic squares. Buni worked with magic squares and believed in their mystical properties. The association of magic squares with astrology and the heavens appears to have originated with the Arabs, from whom the Europeans received the concept of magic squares. In 1300 CE, the Greek Byzantine scholar Manual Moschopoulos wrote a mathematical treatise on the subject of the magic squares. His book builds on the work of Buni who preceded him. Moschopoulos treated the squares in a purely mathematical way in contrast to the mystical ideas of the Arabs. Moschopoulos is considered to be the first European to know of the squares. A mistaken attribution (c. 130 CE) of knowledge to Theon of Smryna has continued to be cited, but the "square" in question is definitely not a magic square, being just a natural square.

This book expounds the mystical secret and supernatural powers contained in the Asma Al-Husna - the 99 “Excellent Names” of God (40 were already declared by Hermes Trismegistus) - and in the Muslim prayers, and supporting the same by philosophical principles. There is a great deal on magic rectangles which reflect the Powers of the Asma Al-Husna and Qur’anic Surahs, and the constituent letters of the rectangles. Our author deals with the mystical allusions contained in the letters of the alphabet (the Huruf Muqatta’at) which head some chapters of the Qur'an. There is information on the Ismi Azam (the most secret Name of God, the Word of Power), the influence exercised by the sun, moon and stars at the time of preparing prayer-charts or phylacteries, the powers and Angels of planets and mastering these, alchemy, amulets, many formulæ for day-to-day use, and much more.

In the book, Buni speaks of the journey which he made from Egypt to Jerusalem, and tells of his having encountered a certain person belonging to the group of Abdal. Muslims, and especially the Sufis, believe that the Abdal form a group of 70 friends of God through whose agency God continues the world in existence. 40 of them live in Syria, the rest elsewhere. Whenever one dies, another takes his place, by Divine Appointment. The general belief is that nobody can identify them. See the Mishkat hadith compilation, chapter 23.

Of Buni’s numerous writings, the Shams al-Ma’arif was the most influential. This book was later banned by orthodox Muslims as heresy, but continues to be read and studied. The Shams al-Ma’arif rivals the Picatrix in importance. Most of the so-called mujarrabat ("time-tested") books on sorcery in the Muslim world are simplified excerpts from the Shams al-Ma’arif. The book remains the seminal work on Theurgy and esoteric arts to this day and Buni’s writings on traditional healing remain a point of reference among Yoruba Muslim healers in Nigeria and other areas of the Muslim world. The Shams al-Ma’arif and its ideas are still current in West Africa.

Both the Picatrix and the Shams al-Ma’arif were probably a model for HP Lovecraft’s Necronomicon. It is probably a source of much of the Jewish Cabbala (more research needs to be done on this – the oldest Jewish Cabbalistic text is the Sefer Yetzirah, and there are mixed editions of this work that could have Arabic influences, the original text has probably been lost). And perhaps more intriguing is the similarity of some of the symbols in the Shams al-Ma’arif to the veves used in the Voodoo traditions. Veves are intricate symbols of the Loas (gods), and are used in rituals. Each Loa has his or her own complex veve, which is traced on the ground with powdered eggshell or cornmeal prior to a ritual.

Could this book, published in the 13th century CE, have inspired the quasi-SufiHurufi movement in the 14th century CE (which today still drives the Bektashi Order and the New Lettrist International)? We think so.

There are 3 different versions of the Shams al-Ma'arif as a manuscript: old, middle and latest version. There are numerous Arabic printed editions of the work. Of the translations, there only appears to be an Urdu translation and a Turkish translation.

● Urdu: Pakistan, 1978.

● Turkish: Istanbul, Seda Yayinlari, 2004 (trans. A. Nihad Fazil Alsan).

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