Islamic Occult Sciences: Astrology, Letters, Talismans, Alchemy

The Islamic occult sciences were a family of learned disciplines, astrology, alchemy, talismans, the science of letters, magic squares, geomancy and dream interpretation, that flourished in the Islamic world from the eighth century onward and were often called the "strange" or "hidden" sciences (al-ʿulūm al-gharība, al-ʿulūm al-khafiyya). Practised by court astrologers, physicians, philosophers and Sufis alike, and condemned in part by many jurists, they formed a sophisticated body of theory that, translated into Latin, became the foundation of medieval and Renaissance European magic.

What Were the Islamic Occult Sciences?§

Medieval Muslim scholars inherited from late antiquity a world view in which the heavens influence the earth, hidden sympathies link stones, plants and planets, and words and names have power. Greek, Syriac, Persian and Indian texts on these subjects were translated alongside philosophy and medicine during the Abbasid translation movement (see Islamic Philosophy). Authors writing in Arabic organised the material into sciences with their own principles, terminology and literature, and encyclopaedists such as the Brethren of Purity and, centuries later, the historian Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) gave them a place in their classifications of knowledge.

The Qur'an affirms that magic exists and condemns it, telling of the devils who taught sorcery and of the two angels Harut and Marut (al-Baqara 2:102), and seeking refuge from "the evil of malignant witchcraft" in sura al-Falaq. Jurists therefore drew lines: siḥr, sorcery that harms or relies on devils, was forbidden and in some schools punishable by death, while healing by Qur'anic recitation was permitted. Between these poles lay a contested middle ground of talismans, amulets and divination, where practice was widespread and opinion divided. The spirits to whom some of these arts appealed are described in Jinn and the Unseen in Islam.

Astrology and the Science of the Stars§

Astrology (ʿilm aḥkām al-nujūm, "the science of the judgements of the stars") was distinguished from mathematical astronomy (ʿilm al-hayʾa). Astrologers served at the Abbasid court from the beginning; Muslim chroniclers report that the foundation of Baghdad in 762 was timed by a horoscope cast by astrologers including the Persian Nawbakht and the Jewish Masha'allah. Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (d. 886) wrote the Great Introduction to Astrology and an influential theory of great conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter, which he used to explain the rise and fall of dynasties and religions. Al-Biruni's Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology (1029) is a lucid textbook of the art, written by a scholar who was himself sceptical of many of its claims.

Astrology was criticised on both religious and philosophical grounds. Avicenna wrote a refutation of judicial astrology, and the Hanbali scholar Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350) attacked it at length as incompatible with trust in God. Yet Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal rulers kept chief astrologers into the early modern era, and almanacs and horoscopes remained widely used. The general history of the art is told in Astrology: A Complete Guide.

Alchemy and the Jabirian Corpus§

Arabic alchemy (al-kīmiyāʾ, from which comes the English word) developed Greek and Egyptian traditions into a systematic science. A vast body of treatises was attributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan, said to be a disciple of the Shi'i Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq in the eighth century; since the studies of Paul Kraus in the 1940s most historians date the bulk of the corpus to the late ninth and tenth centuries. The Jabirian writings taught that metals are composed of sulphur and mercury in varying proportions and developed a numerical "science of the balance" to measure the natures in substances. The physician Abu Bakr al-Razi (d. c. 925) wrote a practical Book of Secrets describing apparatus and substances, while the poet-alchemist Ibn Umayl (tenth century) produced allegorical treatises later read in Latin.

The Arabic Book of the Secret of Creation, attributed to "Balinas" (Apollonius of Tyana), contains the earliest known version of the Emerald Tablet. Translated into Latin from the twelfth century, Arabic alchemy became the starting point of the European tradition traced in Western Alchemy.

Talismans, Astral Magic and the Picatrix§

A talisman (ṭilasm, from Greek telesma) was an object, often engraved with figures, letters or seals, made at an astrologically chosen moment to capture the influence of a planet or star. The theory was set out by al-Kindi in his treatise On the Rays, which survives in Latin, and by the Sabian scholar Thabit ibn Qurra (d. 901) in a work on images. The most comprehensive manual is the Ghāyat al-ḥakīm, "The Goal of the Sage", known in Latin as the Picatrix. Composed in al-Andalus, probably in the mid-eleventh century, and long misattributed to the astronomer Maslama al-Majriti, it combines Neoplatonic and Hermetic philosophy with detailed instructions for planetary images, prayers to the planets and recipes drawn from Nabataean and Sabian sources. It was translated into Spanish and then Latin at the court of Alfonso X of Castile in the 1250s, and its influence on European astral magic was profound.

Talismanic practice also took less learned forms: amulets containing Qur'anic verses and divine names, engraved seal rings (often associated with the Seal of Solomon), bronze "magic-medicinal bowls" inscribed with verses and figures, from which water was drunk for healing, and Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal "talismanic shirts" covered with the whole Qur'an, the names of God and magic squares, worn under armour. Such objects survive in museum collections and are now an important subject of research, discussed more widely in Amulets and Talismans.

The Science of Letters and Magic Squares§

The science of letters (ʿilm al-ḥurūf), sometimes called sīmiyāʾ, treated the twenty-eight letters of the Arabic alphabet as the elements of creation. Each letter has a numerical value in the abjad system, and letters were linked to the elements, the planets, the lunar mansions and the divine names; the mysterious letters that open some suras of the Qur'an were a favourite subject of speculation. Comparable ideas in Jewish tradition are discussed in Gematria. Ibn Arabi gave the letters a central place in his metaphysics, while the Hurufi movement founded by Fadlallah Astarabadi (executed 1394) built a whole religious system on them.

The most famous lettrist author is Ahmad al-Buni (d. 1225), to whom the Shams al-maʿārif, "The Sun of Knowledge", is attributed; research has shown that the large version printed today was compiled largely after his death from his works and later material. Lettrist manuals teach the construction of awfāq, magic squares in which every row, column and diagonal adds to the same total, filled with numbers or letters and related to planets or divine names. The simplest, the three-by-three square, gave rise to the protective word budūḥ, formed from the letters of its corner numbers. In the fifteenth century lettrism became, as recent scholarship has shown, a prestigious "occult philosophy" at Timurid and Ottoman courts.

Geomancy, Dream Interpretation and Bibliomancy§

Geomancy (ʿilm al-raml, "the science of the sand") generates sixteen figures from random marks made in sand or on paper and interprets them through a chart of houses. It appears in Arabic by the ninth or tenth century and passed into Latin in the twelfth, as described in Geomancy: A Complete Guide. Dream interpretation (taʿbīr al-ruʾyā) enjoyed religious prestige, since a hadith calls the true dream a part of prophecy; manuals circulated under the name of the early Basran scholar Ibn Sirin (d. 728), though their attribution is doubtful. Divination by opening the Qur'an or the poems of Hafiz at random (fāl) was widely practised, and Safavid and Ottoman artists produced magnificent illustrated Fālnāma, "books of omens", in the sixteenth century. Shi'i tradition also knew the jafr, a secret book of knowledge ascribed to the Imams. For the general field see What Is Divination?.

Legitimacy, Criticism and Transmission to Europe§

Islamic attitudes to these sciences were never uniform. Philosophers such as Avicenna accepted natural explanations of some marvels while rejecting astrology's claims; theologians feared that belief in stellar causes compromised God's sole agency; and Ibn Khaldun, in the Muqaddimah, described sorcery, talismans and letter magic in detail while judging them forbidden or futile. At the same time, many of their practitioners were respected scholars and Sufis who regarded the arts as a means of reading the signs of God in creation.

From the twelfth century, translators in Toledo and elsewhere rendered Arabic works on astrology, alchemy, geomancy and talismans into Latin. Abu Ma'shar, al-Kindi, Thabit ibn Qurra and the Picatrix thus became authorities for Albertus Magnus, Marsilio Ficino and Cornelius Agrippa, whose Three Books of Occult Philosophy draws on this inheritance. Historians such as Liana Saif have shown how deeply European "occult philosophy" depended on these Arabic sources.

Frequently asked questions§

Is magic forbidden in Islam?§

Sorcery (siḥr) that harms others or involves devils is condemned by the Qur'an and by all the schools of law. Scholars differed over talismans, amulets and astrology: many forbade them, while others permitted protective writings that use only Qur'anic verses and God's names.

What is the Shams al-Ma'arif?§

The Shams al-maʿārif is a large Arabic compendium of letter magic, magic squares and divine names attributed to Ahmad al-Buni (d. 1225). Modern research has shown that the widely printed version was largely assembled after his time, and the work has a reputation as a forbidden book in many Muslim communities.

What is a wafq?§

A wafq is a magic square in which the numbers or letters of each row, column and diagonal add up to the same total. In Islamic lettrism such squares were linked with planets and divine names and inscribed on amulets, bowls and talismanic shirts.

Sources and further reading§

• Picatrix: A Medieval Treatise on Astral Magic — Anonymous, trans. Dan Attrell & David Porreca, 2019
• Magic and Divination in Early Islam — Emilie Savage-Smith (ed.), 2004
• Islamic Occultism in Theory and Practice — Liana Saif, Francesca Leoni, Matthew Melvin-Koushki & Farouk Yahya (eds.), 2021
• The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy — Liana Saif, 2015
• The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History — Ibn Khaldun, trans. Franz Rosenthal, 1958
• The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology — al-Biruni, trans. R. Ramsay Wright, 1934
• Science, Tools & Magic — Francis Maddison & Emilie Savage-Smith, 1997