Kitab al-Ajnas: A Chapter-by-Chapter Guide to the Solomonic Grimoire of Asif ibn Barkhiya

The Kitab al-Ajnas is not a short book. At 362 pages in its first English edition, it is among the longest, densest, and most operationally complete Arabic Solomonic grimoires yet translated into any European language. The title means “The Book of the Races” — a reference to the races or categories of spiritual beings it catalogs and provides methods for working with. Attributed to Asif ibn Barkhiya, the legendary vizier of the Prophet-King Sulayman (Solomon) — whose role in Islamic tradition is explored in Solomonic Magic in the Islamic Tradition — the text is organized around a layered cosmological system that moves from the subtlest spiritual realities downward into highly specific, day-by-day ritual protocols.

Most readers who encounter this book for the first time will want to know what they are holding before they dive in. This is a chapter-by-chapter account of what the text actually contains.

The Author’s Framework: Why This Book Was Written

Before the systematic instruction begins, Asif ibn Barkhiya states his purpose in a preface that frames everything that follows. He is not writing a work of theology or history. He is writing an organized collection of operative benefits — things that work — drawn from the knowledge of authorized practitioners who held fast to sacred law while practicing the science of spirituality.

The preface invokes Moses as a precedent for intensive divine-name practice, describing how the Prophet:

“abstained from food and water, volunteering in reverence and weeping, speaking the Names until he completed the appointed time of his Lord, the Most High. Then the angels descended to him from their lofty ranks from every heaven, for they heard what pertained to them from those Names.” (p. 6)

This is the operational baseline the book assumes: the practitioner who works with these materials is fasting, purifying, and addressing specific divine names that correspond to specific angelic hierarchies. The book is not written for casual reading. It is written to be followed.

Asif also addresses his treatment of the “non-Arabic names” — the barbarous words that appear throughout the text in sequences that are to be recited exactly as written, never translated. He explains them in Arabic terms so that practitioners will not make errors in pronunciation. The translator, John Friend, preserves this principle: barbarous names are transliterated letter-for-letter alongside the original Arabic script.

Part One: The Subtleties (al-Lata’if) — Pages 11–17

The lata’if — often rendered as “subtleties” or “refinements” — are the cosmological background of everything that follows. This section establishes the spiritual architecture that the subsequent operations work within: the structure of the angelic world, the relationship between the divine names and the beings who are governed by them, and the cosmological grounds for the practitioner’s authority.

This is the section a reader needs to understand before the specific protocols of later sections make sense. The angels surrounding the Throne and the Footstool, the archangels Jibra’il and Israfil and their ranks, the beings appointed over the human world — all of this is laid out here, briefly but with enough precision to orient the reader within the system’s logic.

The section is deliberately concise. Asif is not writing cosmological theology; he is providing the operative framework. The practitioner needs to know who is present in the hierarchy before learning how to address them.

Part Two: The Seven Elevations (al-Darajat al-Sab’) — Pages 18–26

The Seven Elevations are spiritual ranks or stations — degrees of operative attainment within the divine-name science. This section maps the vertical structure of the practitioner’s own possible development in relationship to the system being transmitted.

This part answers a question that technical grimoires often leave implicit: what is the practitioner actually trying to achieve, and what does progressive mastery of the system look like? The Elevations provide a structured account of development — not mystical development in a general sense, but operational development within this specific tradition.

Part Three: The Seven Heavens (al-Samawat al-Sab’) — Pages 27–39

The seven heavens of Islamic cosmology are mapped here onto the operative system. Each heaven has its planetary correspondence, its presiding angel, its specific divine attributes, and its relevant operative protocols. This is where the planetary dimension of the Kitab al-Ajnas becomes explicit.

The seven-heaven structure underlies the planetary-king system that follows in Part Six — you cannot properly understand why a given planetary king is approached on a specific day, at a specific hour, with a specific incense and recitation, without understanding what that planet’s heaven contains and what divine attributes are active there.

Part Four: Tried and Tested Remedies (al-Mujarrabat) — Pages 244–362

This section, which despite its numbering appears at the physical end of the book, is the most immediately operational. Al-mujarrabat means “tried and tested things” — operations that have been verified to work, transmitted as practical protocols rather than theoretical systems. The section contains:

Seals for attraction and love
Talismanic operations tied to specific planetary kings
Instructions for engraving copper rings in specific astrological windows
Specific adjurations addressed to named spiritual beings

The love-magic operations in this section are among the most practically detailed in the entire text:

“This is the seal — and its delegation is: Arouse and bring so-and-so to the love of so-and-so! Quickly! Hasten! Now!” (p. 286)

And again, from an operation involving multiple seals:

“Carry out, O servants of these Names and talismans, the attraction, arousal, and burning of the heart of so-and-so to the love of so-and-so!” (p. 287)

These are not symbolic or meditative instructions. They are verbal formulae for delivery — scripted commands addressed to the servants of specific spiritual seals, in language that expects results.

Part Five: The Seal of Mitatrun and His Seven Oaths — Pages 40–59

This is one of the most striking sections for readers coming from the Western Solomonic tradition. Mitatrun — Metatron, the archangel known from Jewish mysticism as the “Prince of the Presence” and the scribe of heaven — appears here as the presiding spirit of a major seal and the subject of seven binding oaths.

The structure of the section is precise: the seal is described geometrically, its angelic governor is named, the divine names that activate its authority are given, and the seven oaths by which the practitioner binds the seal’s servants to compliance are laid out in sequence.

This is significant because Metatron appears rarely in Islamic occult literature — the name is of Hebraic origin and the figure belongs primarily to Jewish mystical tradition. Its presence in the Kitab al-Ajnas is evidence of the text’s antiquity and its roots in the multilingual Near Eastern tradition that predates the religious divisions between Judaism and Islam. The seal’s authority crosses those divisions as if they do not exist.

Part Six: The Planetary Kings and Their Seals — Pages 60–155

Nearly a hundred pages — the longest single section of the book — are devoted to the seven planetary kings, their seals, and the protocols for working with each. This is the operational heart of the Kitab al-Ajnas. For the broader tradition of the seven jinn kings and how they are summoned, see How to Summon the Seven Kings of Jinn.

For each planetary king, the book provides:

The king’s name and the divine attributes associated with his planet
A detailed physical description of his seal, reproduced from the manuscript
The specific incense to burn during operations
The specific ring to be made (material, timing, astrological conditions for engraving)
The invocation formula for summoning the king’s servants
Worked examples of specific operations within the king’s domain

The level of operational specificity is extraordinary. Take the instructions for ring-making for the spirit Khindash:

“If you wish to make this seal, engrave a ring of red copper on Tuesday in the ascendant of Capricorn during the hour of Mars, at the first Friday of the Arabic month. When the engraving is complete and you have washed it with water and salt, make for it a red pouch and perform stellar consecration upon it according to the method of consecrating seals.” (p. 133)

This is a complete protocol: material (red copper), day (Tuesday), astrological condition (Capricorn ascendant), planetary hour (Mars), timing within the lunar calendar (first Friday of the Arabic month), post-production ritual (washing, pouch, stellar consecration). Nothing is left to improvisation.

The number of reproduced seals in this section — taken directly from the Arabic manuscript — makes this section visually as well as textually substantial. Readers who work with talismanic traditions will find the seal reproductions particularly valuable.

Part Seven: The Slab, Carpet, and Secrets — Pages 156–196

This section introduces two specific operative instruments — the Slab (lawh) and the Carpet (bisatt) — that function as the physical foundation for certain operations. The Slab is a writing surface; the Carpet defines the ritual space. Together they constitute the basic setup for the more extended operations that follow.

The “Secrets” component of this section contains operative formulas and protocols that are presented without the full explanatory context given elsewhere — they are “secrets” in the sense that they are transmitted directly as operative knowledge rather than as instruction. This is the format of knowledge that is passed from teacher to student rather than explained to a general reader.

Part Eight: The Twelve Names and Talismanic Operations — Pages 197–243

The Twelve Names section is among the most practically demanding in the book. It presents an extended multi-day recitation protocol keyed to twelve specific divine names, each with its own numerical count to be achieved and its own invocation formula. The schedule is structured around the Islamic prayer times — Fajr, Zuhr, Asr, Maghrib, Isha — and requires sustained practice across multiple days.

The precision of the schedule is remarkable:

“Monday morning: Pray the Fajr prayer, release your incense, and dismiss the resident spirit. Say Biqatrīāl twice, and write Biqatrīāl in the Sand Seal and the number of the Name — 3,424 — in the Secret Seal. Then recite the Name 3,424 times and the invocation 7 times. At Zuhr and ‘Asr, pray, release incense, dismiss the resident spirit, and recite the Name 3,424 times and the invocation 7 times.” (p. 228)

This continues day by day through the week: each day introduces the next Name with its own numerical count, its own prescribed writing in the Sand Seal and Secret Seal, and its own recitation schedule tied to prayer times. By the end of the protocol, the practitioner has accumulated tens of thousands of name-recitations distributed across the days of the week, each Name keyed to a specific angelic intelligence.

The Sand Seal and Secret Seal that appear throughout this section are the two portable operative instruments for this protocol — a temporary seal written in sand (updated daily with each new Name), and a fixed seal on paper kept on the practitioner’s person at all times.

What the Images Show

The Kitab al-Ajnas contains visual reproductions throughout — seals, magic squares, talismanic figures drawn directly from the Arabic manuscript source. This is not decorative. Each seal is an operative instrument: its geometry encodes angelic names and divine attributes in a format designed to be physically produced, carried, or displayed.

The Secret Seal, for instance, is described as bearing the name Jirayul and containing a 3x3 numerical grid with angelic names inscribed on the borders — a compact operative device that the practitioner is instructed to write on paper and keep with them throughout the extended recitation protocols.

For Western readers accustomed to the sigils of the Goetia, these Arabic seals will be immediately recognizable as belonging to the same conceptual family while being clearly different in their specific geometry and the names encoded within them. For a detailed comparison of how the Arabic and Western Solomonic traditions diverge, see Arabic Solomonic Magic vs. the Goetia.

What the Walkthrough Reveals

Reciting a single divine name 3,424 times in one day, at prescribed prayer intervals, with the Sand Seal rewritten each morning and the Secret Seal kept on the body at all times — this is what Part Eight asks of its reader. The practitioner the Kitab al-Ajnas was written for was not browsing. He was someone prepared to fast, purify, memorize angelic hierarchies, engrave copper rings at the hour of Mars under a Capricorn ascendant, and sustain a multi-day recitation protocol demanding tens of thousands of repetitions keyed to specific celestial configurations.

The walkthrough from Part One through Part Eight traces the arc of that preparation: from cosmological orientation, through the seven ranks of spiritual development, through the planetary heavens and their regents, through the practical operations that put all of it to use. The book does not merely catalog — it builds. Each section assumes mastery of the one before it. By the time the reader reaches the Twelve Names and their recitation schedules, the entire architecture — angelic, planetary, talismanic — has been laid down as foundation.

This is what 362 pages of Solomonic instruction looks like when the tradition is intact and the compiler assumes a serious reader. The Kitab al-Ajnas is now available on Amazon in its first English edition.

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