Venus is the gentlest of the seven planets — al-Zuhra, the lesser benefic, the planet of love, beauty, and concord. Her talisman is a square: a seven-by-seven grid of the numbers one through forty-nine, set down so that every row, every column, and both diagonals add to the same total — 175. You make it once, on a Friday in her hour, and you keep it.

Here is what it draws:

  • In a home — affection and ease between the people who live there.
  • In a shop or place of business — calm where there was tension, so people feel comfortable, linger, and come back.
  • Between partners — warmth and reconciliation between two who are already together.
  • Carried on you — more love drawn into your life, and a steadier, warmer presence.

The Radiant Jewels (al-Jawahir al-Lamma’a), the talisman manual of al-Marzuqi, gives the square and its use in a single line: write it in the planetary hour of Venus on a Friday, fumigate it with her incense, and carry it for love, beauty, harmony, and the drawing of good fortune.

Venus at a Glance

Planetal-Zuhra (Venus); in the old foreign names, Nahid and Bidakht
DayFriday
Her hoursthe 1st and 8th hours of the day; the 3rd and 10th of the night
Metalyellow copper, refined like gold
Colourgreen
Naturethe lesser benefic — gentle and warm
SignsTaurus and Libra (her detriment falls in Scorpio and Aries)
Letterzāy (ز)
Square7×7, every line totalling 175
Recitationthe Venusian divine names, 175 times
AngelAnael (Anā’īl)
Governslove, beauty, marriage and reconciliation, music, poetry, the arts

What You’ll Need

A surface. This is written on animal parchment, not paper. The traditional and ideal one is gazelle parchment (raqq al-ghazal) — al-Buni names it for exactly this Venus-on-Friday work in Shams al-Ma’arif al-Kubra. Gazelle isn’t sold today, so what you actually buy is real animal vellum — lambskin, deerskin, or calfskin. Any genuine skin parchment will serve; printer paper will not.

Ink. Saffron, always — these squares are written in saffron, usually loosened with a little rose water and a touch of musk; al-Buni’s own Venus instruction in Shams al-Ma’arif al-Kubra is exactly that — saffron, rosewater, and musk. Grind it from saffron threads with a pinch of gum arabic, or buy saffron ink ready-made. Venus’s colour, green, you carry in the green silk you wrap the finished square in.

A pen. A new reed pen — a qalam — never used for anything else, kept only for this work. The Complete Magic of the Jinn Kings is plain about it: saffron ink and a new reed pen. Suns of Lights says the same — a freshly cut reed, not used for ordinary writing.

Incense. You burn it while you write. The books give several Venus blends, all leaning on rose and musk:

Any of them serves; rose and musk alone are enough. Buy the ingredients as resin rather than sticks where you can — resin holds the scent far better — and burn them on a small electric incense burner, which is the safe way: no open charcoal, no flame. If sticks are all you have, rose or musk sticks will do.

To finish: a tasbih to keep your count, and the green silk above.

The Square

Here is the Venus square. Copy it cell by cell, or use it to check a copy you already have.

Every line — each row, each column, and both diagonals — totals 175.
3039481101928
384779182729
466817263537
5141625343645
1315243342444
2123324143312
2231404921120

The number 175 isn’t arbitrary: the cells hold one through forty-nine, which total 1,225, and 1,225 across seven rows is 175 to a line. That total is Venus’s signature, and it’s why you recite her names that same number of times.

The manuscripts don’t use Western numerals — they write it in Arabic-Indic figures, right to left, the way Arabic runs. The square is identical underneath:

٣٠٣٩٤٨١١٠١٩٢٨
٣٨٤٧٧٩١٨٢٧٢٩
٤٦٦٨١٧٢٦٣٥٣٧
٥١٤١٦٢٥٣٤٣٦٤٥
١٣١٥٢٤٣٣٤٢٤٤٤
٢١٢٣٣٢٤١٤٣٣١٢
٢٢٣١٤٠٤٩٢١١٢٠

Copy whichever you read more easily. More than one valid arrangement of the Venus square circulates in the manuscripts — all of them sum to 175 — so a grid in another copy looking different from this one is normal. If you’d rather build it yourself than copy it, the placement method is in The Source of the Foundations of Wisdom: you start from the right-hand corner and step the numbers through a fixed path.

There is also a lettered form. al-Buni, in Shams al-Ma’arif al-Kubra, draws this square in letters rather than numbers — one Arabic letter to a cell. In abjad reckoning every number is already a letter, so a grid of numbers is also a grid of letters, and writing it that way binds the square to the divine names behind the numbers; Venus’s own letter is zay. It is the same square underneath, and many practitioners treat the lettered plate as the true form. For making and carrying the talisman, the numbers above are what you write. The wider wafq system is covered in Arabic Magic Squares: Not What You Think.

How to Make It, Step by Step

Step 1 — Pick the Friday and the hour

It must be a Friday — Venus’s day — and not just any hour of it, but Venus’s hour.

A planetary hour isn’t sixty minutes. Take the daylight from sunrise to sunset and divide it into twelve equal parts; those are the twelve “hours” of the day, and each belongs to one of the seven planets in a fixed rotation. The first hour of any day belongs to the planet the day is named for, so Friday opens at sunrise with Venus’s hour. The rotation of seven comes back around, so the eighth hour of daylight — the middle of the afternoon — is hers again. If you work at night, the night divides the same way, and Venus holds its 3rd and 10th hours. The Radiant Jewels names all of these, and the full system is laid out in The Planetary Hour System.

A free planetary-hours app will mark Venus’s windows for whatever Friday you pick. A waxing moon is better than a waning one.

Step 2 — Prepare

Wash as you would for prayer, and work somewhere quiet and alone, in clean clothes; white or green suits Venus. Light the incense and let the smoke fill the room before you begin.

Step 3 — Write the square

When Venus’s hour comes, write the square on the parchment in the saffron ink, in one sitting, in the rising smoke. Begin each line with bismillahi al-rahmani al-rahim — “in the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful” — so the work is consecrated as it goes down.

The incense isn’t atmosphere here; in this tradition the fumigation is part of what brings the square alive, so keep it going the whole time you write.

Step 4 — Recite Venus’s names, 175 times

Over the finished square, recite Venus’s divine names 175 times — the square’s own number. The Radiant Jewels sets the count exactly: for Venus, on Friday, recite the Venusian names 175 times.

These are the names of mercy and increase — al-Rahman (the Most Merciful), al-Bari’ (the Maker), al-Mubdi’ (the Originator), al-Basit (the Expander of provision), al-Baqi (the Everlasting), among others. The full Venusian list is in The Radiant Jewels, and what each name means and how to lean on it is the subject of The Clarifier of the Path, which walks the divine names one by one.

Use the tasbih to keep your count, and breathe gently over the square every twenty-five.

Step 5 — Call the angel of Venus

Venus’s angel is Anael — Ana’il. Suns of Lights names him and gives his temperament: graceful and alluring. The words to call him over the square are in the Solomonic grimoire Kitab al-Ajnas. With your hands over the finished square, you say:

Answer me, O ‘Aniya’il the king, and you, O Sam‘iba’il the king, and you, O Sharhiya’il the king — by the right of that which the angels glorified in the sphere of Venus, and by the Names by which God created you.

To recite it in Arabic:

Ajibni ya ‘Aniya’il al-malik, wa-anta ya Sam‘iba’il al-malik, wa-anta ya Sharhiya’il al-malik, bi-haqqi ma sabbahati l-mala’ikatu fi falaki z-Zuhra, wa-bi-l-asma’i llati khalaqakumu llahu biha.

Then the names of Venus’s heaven, the Third — these stay in their sounds, never translated:

بَطَاش طَشُوش طَاش طَشِي أَهِيَا أَهِيَاش هَمَا هَمَا شَاه هِيشُوش صِيمَصَع بَهَا هَشُوش بَشْرَه هِيَا هِيَا مَرَض مَاهَا شَرَه بَجْرَه هَيْهُوش يَقْشُوش

Batash Tashush Tash Tashi Ahiya Ahiyash Hama Hama Shah Hishush Simasa‘ Baha Hashush Bashrah Hiya Hiya Marad Maha Sharah Bajrah Hayhush Yaqshush

And seal it with the praise of God, exactly where Kitab al-Ajnas places it:

Exalted is God, the One, the Subduer, the Singular, the Sole, the Eternal, the King, the Holy, the Peace, the Granter of Security, the Protector, the Mighty, the Compeller, the Majestic. To Him belongs all praise and blessings. There is no god but He, the Living, the Self-Subsisting.

Then say plainly what you have made it for — love and harmony in your home, your work, or your life.

Step 6 — Wrap it and keep it

Fold the square and wrap it in the green silk. The Radiant Jewels says simply to carry it upon your person; you can also set it in the room of a home or a shop you want it to work on.

You make it once. It is not a weekly ritual. If you want to keep the bond warm you can recite Venus’s names over the same square on later Fridays, but you never redraw it. One making; after that you only keep it near.

Venus’s Nature

In The Principles of the Science of Letters, Venus is the lesser benefic, the planet that “pours into the rational soul gladness and joy.” She owns Friday; her metal is copper — The Source of the Foundations of Wisdom is precise that for Venus it is yellow copper, refined like gold, not red. Shams al-Ma’arif al-Kubra sets her in the third sphere, names her in the old tongues Nahid and Bidakht, and gives her the two signs Taurus and Libra. From the lower world she has the appetitive faculty and the subtle arts — grammar and morphology, poetry and music — and her concern is the affairs of women, love and betrothal, beauty, and every pleasing thing. That is why the talisman works the way it does: you are inviting Venus’s own nature — warmth and accord — into a place or a life.

Where Each Part Comes From

The square, the incense, and the count of 175 are in The Radiant Jewels (al-Jawahir al-Lamma’a). Venus’s day, her nature, and the variant incense are in The Principles of the Science of Letters; the yellow copper and the way to build any square from scratch are in The Source of the Foundations of Wisdom. The angel Anael is named in Suns of Lights; the words to call him are in Kitab al-Ajnas. al-Buni’s lettered plate and the fuller nature passage are in Shams al-Ma’arif al-Kubra; the meanings of the divine names are in The Clarifier of the Path.

No single one of these books holds the whole working — the square is in one, the angel’s words in another, the metal and the timing spread across two more — which is the plain reason a serious reader ends up with the shelf rather than one volume.