Kitab al-Ajnas: The Book of the Races

What's Inside Kitab al-Ajnas

• Attributed to Asif ibn Barkhiya, the vizier of King Solomon — names and hierarchies of jinn organized by race and elemental nature.
• The Staff of Moses and its inscription of angelic names, presented as a foundational working instrument.
• Conjuration rites requiring specific planetary alignments, with timing and preparatory conditions for each operation.
• 362 pages in eight parts, with passages in Asif’s voice (“Āṣif ibn Barkhiyā said…”), barbarous names transliterated beside the Arabic script, and the seals reproduced as images from the source manuscript.

Kitab al-Ajnas: The Asif ibn Barkhiya Book of Solomonic Conjuration

Kitab al-Ajnas (also written Kitab al Ajnas, or simply the al-Ajnas book) is a Solomonic grimoire, Arabic in language and Islamic in its prayers, attributed to Asif ibn Barkhiya, the vizier of Prophet Sulayman. This is the first complete English translation of the Asif ibn Barkhiya book: a conjuration book that names the angels around the Throne, the earthly kings of the jinn and the seals by which each is called, set out in eight parts.

Islamic tradition identifies Asif as the one “who had knowledge of the Book” and brought the throne of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon in the blink of an eye, and Arabic grimoires attribute magical books and talismanic knowledge to him. Whatever one makes of the stories of magic books hidden under the throne of Solomon, the al-Ajnas of Asif bin Barkhiya is a book that actually survives in manuscript under his name, and this Arabic grimoire in English translation lets you read it whole.

Inside the Book of the Races, part by part

The contents run as follows: the Subtleties (al-Lata’if), the Seven Elevations, the Seven Heavens, the Seal of Mitatrun and his seven oaths, the Planetary Kings and their seals, the Slab, Carpet and Secrets, and the Twelve Names with their talismanic operations, closing with the tried and tested remedies (al-Mujarrabat) that the manuscript numbers as Part Four. Along the way come the Crown Names, by which higher and lower spirits are summoned, the Thirty-One Names inscribed on the staff of Moses, and the Names by which Joshua son of Nun made the sun stand still. Barbarous names are transliterated letter for letter beside the Arabic script and never translated; the seals and magic squares are reproduced as images from the source manuscript.

Jinn names, seals and the mandal of Solomon

Among the spirits this Solomonic grimoire names are the earthly kings al-Mudhhab (the Golden One) and al-Abyad (the White One), together with Maymun, Shamhurash and Zawba’a (spelled Zu’ba’a in this volume), with their seals and adjurations. Beside them stand Sakhr, the helper empowered under the hand of Sulayman ibn Dawud and master of the mandal, and Mahakil, guardian of the mandal of Sulayman, with his four adjurations. Readers who come looking for Jann ibn Jann will not find him here: the name does not appear in the manuscript, whose hierarchy runs instead from the angels of the Throne down to the earthly kings and their helpers.

The mandal of Sulayman is a seal engraved in silver, or in red copper whitened with naphtha, and raised above the ground on four legs. In its healing use, Mahakil is summoned and the afflicted person is brought into the mandal; when he sees his companion there, the text says, the body has been emptied of the spirit. Before any operation, including scrying through the mandal, the operator must first dismiss the resident spirits of the place. Not every spirit is treated as hostile: the book addresses one company as “purified spirits, obedient to God,” and it distinguishes Muslim from disbelieving spirits when judging a possessing jinn, context worth having before you look up lists of good jinn names.

Anyone looking for a Solomon and the jinn manuscript will find one here as a working text rather than a legend: in effect a Kitab Solomon, drawing on the mandal of Sulayman and the spirits who served under him. For the wider history, see Solomonic magic in the Islamic tradition; for how Arabic Solomonic conjuration compares with the Western Goetia, see our side-by-side study; and for a map of the whole book, the chapter-by-chapter reader’s guide to Kitab al-Ajnas.

Surah al-Baqarah and Surah Kahf in the operations

The remedies and talismans weave in Quranic verses. Several quote Surah al-Baqarah, among them al-Baqara 2:137, “God will suffice you against them,” and 2:165 in a supplication for eminence, but as single verses chosen for a purpose, not al-Baqarah as a full surah. A remedy for stopping an infant’s crying pairs a triangular seal with Surah Kahf (al-Kahf 18:25): “And they remained in their cave for three hundred years.”

Reading Kitab al-Ajnas in English

Readers looking for a Kitab al-Ajnas in English PDF, or for Asif bin Barkhiya books as PDF files, will find this translation published instead as a Kindle ebook, readable in the free Kindle app on phones, tablets and computers, and in paperback and hardcover editions. The Kindle edition is free to read with Kindle Unlimited.