“Shams al-Ma’arif al-Kubra: The Complete Sun of Divine Knowledge: Letter Magic, Lunar Mansions, Divine Names, and the Science of Squares” by Aḥmad al-Būnī (translated by John Friend)

"The only complete and unabridged English translation of the most famous Arabic occult text ever written. Attributed to the 13th-century scholar Ahmad ibn Ali al-Buni, Shams al-Maarif al-Kubra (The Greater Sun of Knowledge, or The Sun of Divine Knowledge) is the foundational encyclopedia of Islamic esoteric science, and for centuries its full form has mostly circulated in Arabic among scholars and practitioners.

This translation preserves every magic square, talismanic seal, divine name invocation, ritual, and lunar mansion table in Arabic script alongside ALA-LC transliteration and faithful English rendering.

Across forty chapters, the text covers the science of the Arabic letters and their numerical values, the properties and operations of each of the ninety-nine Beautiful Names of God, planetary correspondences and celestial timings, the construction and consecration of talismanic squares (awfaq), geomancy and sand divination, the lunar mansions and their spiritual operations, and extensive prayers, invocations, and remembrances for every purpose.

All prayers and invocations are presented in a three-layer format: English translation, ALA-LC transliteration, and the original Arabic script. Over four hundred illustrations, including magic squares, talismanic seals, and geometric diagrams, are reproduced from the original manuscript.

This landmark translation makes seven centuries of closely guarded esoteric knowledge fully accessible to English-speaking researchers, historians of religion, and serious students of the Islamic occult sciences for the first time."

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