Suns of Lights and the Great Treasures of Secrets

What's Inside Shams al-Anwar

• The operational sequel to al-Buni's Shams al-Ma'arif, dated 1327 CE — bringing its theoretical framework into applied practice.
• Magic squares assigned to each day of the week, with construction rules and the purposes each is designed to serve.
• Planetary hour tables and their corresponding jinn — a timing system for ritual operations.
• Talismanic instructions for commerce, protection, and love, specifying materials, timing, and invocation formulas.

Shams al-Anwar in English: Names, Squares and Spirits

This Shams translation is not al-Buni’s Shams al-Ma’arif, though both titles begin with shams, the Arabic word for sun, and the two are easy to mix up in English. Shams al-Anwar — in the manuscript’s own spelling Shumus al-Anwar, “Suns of Lights” — is attributed to Ibn al-Hajj al-Tilmsani al-Maghribi and dated 727 AH / 1327 CE. Readers looking for other books by the author of Shams al-Ma’arif will find al-Buni’s own works in the Al-Buni Manuscripts Collection; Shams al-Anwar comes from a later hand working in the same tradition.

The Beautiful Names of God and the science of letters

Chapter One opens on the secret of the letters and Chapter Two on the properties of the Beautiful Names of God (al-Asma’ al-Husna), the 99 Names that recur through the book down to the treatment of the Fifth Name, al-‘Alim, in the second volume. Chapter Four explains how to extract the servants of the Names and of the Quran, and Chapter Six the composition of the letters. For how al-Buni handled the same Names, see what al-Buni wrote about the 99 Names of Allah.

Magic squares from Saturn to the Moon

Chapter Nine sets out the magic squares (awfaq), and the second volume explains how to construct them, with one method for odd squares and another for even. The book assigns each size to a planet: the three-by-three to Saturn, four-by-four to Jupiter, five-by-five to Mars, six-by-six to the Sun, seven-by-seven to Venus, eight-by-eight to Mercury and nine-by-nine to the Moon. The Sun’s square here is therefore the six-by-six, and each square, properly constructed and consecrated, is said to become a vessel for its planet’s spiritual force. For the system behind them, read Arabic magic squares: the awfaq explained; for the squares this Arabic magic square manuscript gives for each weekday, see the Sun’s magic square and the other weekday squares.

Surat al-Jinn and the service of the jinn

Chapter Seventeen, on the service of the jinn, describes their nature and tribes, and its procedures lean on the Quran. One has the practitioner make ablution, pray two cycles of the prayer of need and recite Surat al-Jinn three times before asking God for “a righteous servant from among the believing jinn.” Elsewhere in the book, a section on freeing a person, a dwelling or a whole town from the jinn has Surat al-Jinn written out complete on a clean sheet, recited over with the Greatest Name and fumigated with frankincense and costus.

The science of the earth

Chapter Twelve, on the science of the earth, covers the purified circle, the four angels who guard the directions and the planet tied to each direction. It mentions geomancy (‘ilm al-raml), reading the figures struck in the dust, only in passing: geomancy needs its own body of knowledge, the text says, but a talismanic practitioner should know its basics for choosing auspicious times and directions. A full treatise on Arabic geomancy is among the four that close the 1927 printed edition of the Shams al-Ma’arif.