History
It was written by the scholar Ahmad al-Buni who wrote it while living in Algeria; he died around 1225 CE (622 AH). [3]
Scholars like Ibn Taymiyya have criticized the book and labeled the author, Al-Buni, as a deluded devil (Shaytan) worshipper. [4] [5] However, it continues to persist, in being read and studied up to the present day, despite its questionable veracity and negative implications. [4] [6] Some Sufi orders, such as the Naqshbandi-Haqqani order have occasionally recognised its potential spiritual value, provided that the reader understands it. [7]
After its first modern era printing in Beirut on 1985, the government of Saudi Arabia issued ban of the book. [8] Ibn Jibrin, a Saudi scholar member of Council of Senior Scholars and Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Ifta; has issued Fatwa which forbidding certain books, including Shams al-Ma'arif. [9] [10]
In 20-21st century AD, Shams al-Ma'arif grew recognition and adopted by the Order of Nine Angles, global terrorist Satanism organization, as one of their influence. Although a translation into English has not been undertaken, there have been numerous renditions of a few of the more popular rituals found within the main treatise, as well as those that lie in its accompanying text. Some of these rituals have had various degrees of notability, but one of recurring presence in many publications is that of the Birhatiya [12] [13] (also known as The Ancient Oath or Red Sulphur [14] ).
In 2022 a partial English translation by Amina Inloes was published by Revelore Press as "Shams al-Ma’arif: The Sun of Knowledge An Arabic Grimoire: A selected Translation" [15]
In 2023, another English translation of the Shams al Ma'arif was published by Johann Voldemont as "Shams al-Ma'arif: Talismans and Magic Squares" which focuses primarily on the talismans and magic squares contained within the text. [16] Outside of the Arab and Western world, several editions of the book have been published in the Urdu and Turkish languages. [17] [18] [19]
Muhammad ibn Isa al-Tirmidhi, often referred to as Imām at-Termezī/Tirmidhī, was an Islamic scholar, and collector of hadith from Termez. He wrote al-Jami` as-Sahih, one of the six canonical hadith compilations in Sunni Islam. He also wrote Shama'il Muhammadiyah, a compilation of hadiths concerning the person and character of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. At-Tirmidhi was also well versed in Arabic grammar, favoring the school of Kufa over Basra due to the former's preservation of Arabic poetry as a primary source.
Shams ad-Dīn adh-Dhahabī, also known as Shams ad-Dīn Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Qāymāẓ ibn ʿAbdillāh at-Turkumānī al-Fāriqī ad-Dimashqī was an Athari theologian, Islamic historian and Hadith scholar.
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Tāj al-Dīn Abū'l-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Abdullah ibn Ahmad ibn Isa ibn Hussein ibn ʿAṭā Allāh al-Judhami al-Iskandarī al-Shādhilī was an Egyptian Malikite jurist, muhaddith and the third murshid of the Shadhili Sufi order.
Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Sakhāwī was a reputable Shafi‘i Muslim hadith scholar and historian who was born in Cairo. Al-Sakhawi refers to the village of Sakha in Egypt, where his relatives belonged. He was a prolific writer that excelled in the knowledge of hadith,tafsir, literature, and history. His work was also anthropological. For example, in Egypt he recorded the marital history of 500 women, the largest sample on marriage in the Middle Ages, and found that at least a third of all women in the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and the Bilad al-Sham married more than once, with many marrying three or more times. According to al-Sakhawi, as many as three out of ten marriages in 15th century Cairo ended in divorce. His proficiency in hadith has its influences trace back heavily on his Shaykh al-Hafiz, ibn Hajar al-`Asqalani. He died in Medina.
Sharaf al-Din, Shihab al-Din, or Muḥyi al-Din Abu al-Abbas Aḥmad ibn Ali ibn Yusuf al-Qurashi al-Sufi, better known as Aḥmad al-Būnī al-Malki, was a medieval mathematician and Islamic philosopher and a well-known Sufi. Very little is known about him. His writings deal with 'Ilm al-huruf and topics relating to mathematics, siḥr "sorcery", and spirituality. Born in Buna in the Almohad Caliphate, al-Buni lived in Ayyubid Egypt and learned from many eminent Sufi masters of his time. A contemporary of ibn Arabi, he is best known for writing one of the most important books of his era; the Shams al-Ma'arif, a book that is still regarded as the foremost occult text on talismans and divination.
Shahab al-Din Abu Hafs Umar al-Suhrawardi was a Persian Sufi and nephew of Abu al-Najib Suhrawardi. He expanded the Sufi order of Suhrawardiyya that had been created by his uncle Abu al-Najib Suhrawardi, and is the person responsible for officially formalizing the order. Suhrawardi is the author of the ʿAwārif al-Maʿārif, which is recognized as a masterpiece work in Tasawwuf.
Abū’l-Ḥasan ʻAlī ibn Ismāʻīl, known as Ibn Sīdah, or Ibn Sīdah'l-Mursī, (c.1007-1066), was a linguist, philologist and lexicographer of Classical Arabic from Andalusia. He compiled the encyclopedia al-Kitāb al-Mukhaṣṣaṣ (المخصص) and the Arabic language dictionary Al-Muḥkam wa-al-muḥīt al-aʻẓam (The Great and Comprehensive Arbiter". His contributions to the sciences of language, literature and logic were considerable.
Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha'rani was a highly influential Egyptian scholar. He was an eminent jurist, traditionist, historian, mystic and theologian. He was one of the Islamic revivalists and scholastic saints of the sixteenth century. He is credited for reviving Islam and is one of the most prolific writers of the early Egyptian-Ottoman period. His legal, spiritual, and theological writings are still widely read in the Muslim world today. He is regarded as "one of the last original thinkers in Islam." He was the founder of an Egyptian order of Sufism, eponymously known as Šaʿrāwiyyah. The order gradually declined after Shaʿrani's death, although it remained active until the 19th century.
Yunus ibn Habib was a reputable 8th-century Persian linguist of the Arabic language. An early literary critic and expert on poetry, Ibn Habib's criticisms of poetry were known, along with those of contemporaries such as Al-Asma'i, as a litmus test for measuring later writers' eloquence.
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Abul Wafa Syed Mahmūd Shah al-Qadri al-Hanafi al-Afghani (1893–1975), also known as Abu Wafa Al Afghani, was a Hyderabad-based Afghani Islamic scholar, Hanafi faqih, and researcher.
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Sirāj al-Dīn Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf al-Sakkākī al-Khwārizmī was a Persian Muslim scholar famous for works on language, rhetoric, magic, and talismans. Like many scholars of his region and era, he wrote primarily in Arabic, although his book al-Tilasm was written in Persian.
Shams Al-Ma'arif is a 2020 Saudi comedy film directed by Faris Godus. It premiered on July 22, 2020, in Jeddah, then in Riyadh. It was widely released in Saudi Arabia on July 31, 2020. The film was supposed to premiere in the Red Sea International Film Festival but it got delayed due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Sirāj al-Dīn Mahmūd ibn Abī Bakr Urmavī was a Shafiʽi jurist, logician and philosopher from Urmia in Azerbaijan, a region in north-western Iran. He spent most of his scholarly life in Ayyubid-ruled Cairo, and from 1257 in Seljuk-ruled Konya. The Iranian diaspora he was part of, proficient in Persian and Arabic, contributed majorly to the Islamization and Persianization of Anatolia. Most of his extant works were written in Arabic but there is also one known work in Persian. He was an acquintance of Rumi.
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