Book One, chapter 1-3

1Book One. Chapter 1

2Know, my brother, may God illumine your intellect, that wisdom is the most sublime of gifts and the most excellent of acquisitions, since wisdom is the knowledge of the remote causes by which existing things exist, and by which the proximate causes of the things that have causes exist; and that is, that one be certain of their existence and know what they are and how they are.

3And [that one know] that they, even if they are many, ascend in an order to one existent, which is the cause of the existence of those remote things and of the proximate things below them; and that this One is the First in reality, and His subsistence is not through the existence of any other thing; rather He is sufficient in His essence without acquiring existence from another; and that it is impossible for Him to acquire existence from another at all.

4And that it is impossible for Him to be a body at all, or to be in a body; and that His existence is another existence, outside the existence of all other existing things, and He shares with none of them in any meaning at all; rather, if there is a sharing, it is in the name only, not in the meaning understood from that name; and that it is impossible for Him to be other than one only; and that He is the One in reality; and that He is the one who gave all other existing things the unity by which we have come to say of every existing thing that it is one.

5And that He is the First Truth, who gives reality to what is other than Him and is sufficient in His own reality without acquiring reality from another; and that it is impossible to imagine a perfection greater than His perfection, let alone for one to exist; nor is there an existence more complete than His existence, nor a reality greater than His reality, nor a unity more complete than His unity.

6And that he knows, along with this, how all other existing things acquired existence and reality from Him, and what share each one of them has of existence, reality and unity, and how all other causes acquired causality from Him [reading uncertain].

7And that he knows the ranks of all existing things: that among them is a first, among them a middle and among them a last; the last have causes and are not causes of anything below them; the intermediate are those that have a cause before them and are causes of things below them; and the first is a cause of what is below it and has no cause above it. And that he knows how the last ascend, one to another, until they end at the First; then how governance begins from the First and existing things receive it in an order until it ends at the last of them. This, then, is wisdom in reality. So what do you think of a thing whose way is this, O seeker?

8For wisdom, may God strengthen you, is broad and sublime, and seeking it is a duty and a virtue. That is because it illumines the intellect and the soul with the eternal light of beauty when they seek it, and makes them renounce this worn-out, setting world when they understand its meaning and its countenance [word uncertain], and makes them desire to move to that lofty, high world from which is their beginning, to which is their return, from which is their origin and in which is their resting place, so that God may cool their eye by it and make known to them what the cause of the world is, what its effect is, and what the means is by which the cause brings forth the effect.

9And it [the means] is what mediates between them, so that they know with necessary knowledge that God the Exalted is the cause of the world and the world is His effect, and the means is His holding them in His worship through their knowing Him and their acknowledging His existence [sense uncertain], as He, mighty and glorious, said: 'I did not create the jinn and humankind except that they should worship Me', that is, that they should know Me; and He guards them and provides for them, so that they thank Him and praise Him; and He makes wretched whom He wills among them and makes happy whom He wishes, and keeps with Him whom He loves in the bliss that does not perish.

10Wisdom has three essential particularities: it grows and does not wear away; it shines and does not grow obscure; and it reveals itself to be looked upon and does not withdraw. And it has three powers of governance: it restrains, it disciplines, and it does not turn toward whoever turns away from it.

11And know that this result which we are about to uncover would have no existence were it not for the existence of wisdom, and with some right did the sages name it 'result', since the result, among the people of logic, is the fruit of the syllogism, and it is the best of what is in the premises. So what was intended by positing these two results [referent unclear] was nothing but urging toward the pursuit of knowledge, and that is attained only by the sage who has encompassed in knowledge all the branches of wisdom according to their ranks. So its rank at the end of wisdom is like the rank of the result in the syllogism, which is the best of what is in the premises. Understand this, for I have made clear to you a wondrous secret.

12And know that the result is the fruit of the two premises, which [together] are called a 'pairing' (qarīna); and when it yields a result it is called 'comprehensive' (jāmi'a), and in the language of the Greeks 'syllogism' (siljmūs). The premise is [made] of a subject and a predicate. The subject is the inchoative (mubtada') among the people of grammar, and the predicate is the enunciative (khabar), and the enunciative is that into which truth and falsehood enter. The subject and the predicate are the musnad and the musnad ilayhi [lacuna marked by Ritter]

13[…] an utterance neither defined nor described, because utterances, all of them: among them is an utterance that is neither defined nor described, among them is what is defined, and among them is what is described. The enunciative utterance is the one used in propositions, and the rest of speech is not used by them, such as command, inquiry, question and address, because it yields neither truth nor falsehood. What we have said needs an explanation that would run long and depart from the purpose; so whoever wishes, let him take it from its proper places.

14Chapter 2

15And know that this result is what is expressed by 'magic'. The reality of magic, taken absolutely, is everything that enchants intellects and toward which souls are led, of all words and deeds, in the sense of wonder, submission, attentive listening and approval. It is among the things whose apprehension is difficult for the intellect, and whose causes are hidden from the dull-witted. That is because it is a divine power, by prior causes laid down for its apprehension [sense uncertain], and it is a science obscure to apprehend.

16And part of it is also practical, because its subject is spirit in spirit, and this is marvel-working (nīranj) and illusion-making (takhyīl); just as the subject of the talisman is spirit in body, and the subject of alchemy, too, is body in body. In short, magic is that whose cause is hidden from the intellects of most [people] and whose derivation is difficult.

17The reality of the talisman (ṭilasm) is that it is its name reversed, and that is 'the one given dominion' (musalliṭ), because it is of the substances of overpowering and dominion. It acts upon that for which it was composed an act of mastery and overpowering, by numerical ratios and celestial secrets placed in particular bodies at suitable times, and by fumigations that strengthen and draw down the spiritual power (rūḥāniyya) of that talisman. Its condition is like the condition of the second result, which is expressed by 'the elixir', which converts bodies into itself by overpowering them, since it is an active ferment that converts things away from their foundation. It is given dominion like poison, which spreads through its kind of bodies [reading uncertain] and converts them into itself, so as to turn one individual into [another] individual by a power placed in it.

18And know, O my brother, that the reality of ferment is an elixir compounded of earthy, airy, watery and fiery [parts], carrying in its totality [reading uncertain: 'that which makes grow'], turning whatever it enters toward its own essence and changing it into its own form. It acts upon what it enters through the puffiness and friability it has acquired, so that its digestion in the stomach goes well and it changes quickly into nourishment. In the same way the elixir of alchemy does the like of this: the body changes into it quickly, and it converts it from one nature to a nature nobler than it, clothes it with spirit, soul and hardness, and removes from it verdigris and corruption. Such is its secret among the ancients.

19The word 'elixir': its meaning is that it is the power that breaks the powers, changing them by mastery, converting them into its [own] substance until they become like it. The elixir comes to be only from the combination of animal, plant and mineral in some manner, since for them it is a world: for by their coming together the world comes to be, part of it governs part, and part of it sets part right. For the plant does not subsist by itself, and the animal likewise does not subsist by itself but needs the plant and other things besides, and the mineral needs cooking and fieriness together with a mercurial moisture, and then it is perfected. This is a secret we left out of the Book of Rank (Kitāb al-Rutba). I return to our purpose and say:

20that magic is confined to two divisions, theoretical and practical. The theoretical is the knowledge of the positions of the fixed stars, since their subject is the seat of the images, and of the manner of the casting of their rays upon the planets, and of the configurations of the ratios of the sphere, at the seeking of the coming-into-being of what is desired. Under this falls all that the ancients laid down of elections and talismans. Know that whoever makes an election has made a talisman; this is a necessary matter.

21The best of the kinds of theoretical magic is speech. Toward this points the saying of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace: "Truly, in speech there is magic." Of this kind too is the saying of the divinely supported Plato in the Book of Sections: "Just as a friend turns into an enemy to you through bad speech, so an enemy turns into a friend to you through good speech." Is this not of the class of magic?

22The practical is the acquaintance with the three generated kingdoms and with what has been diffused in them of the powers of the wandering planets. These are what is expressed as occult properties among those who hold to them, and they know no cause for them and no reality, and there is no need to uncover the secret of the ancients.

23Then [comes] the mixture of some of them with others by operation. If elemental heat is intended by it, that is the class of fumigations, so that the complete powers are called upon for help against the deficient ones; or if natural heat is intended by it, that is the division of edibles. And these two are not fed upon [sense uncertain] and are not made use of except by the human and animal soul. And the devices called marvel-workings (nīranjāt) are the best kinds of this practical magic.

24Know, O my brother, that of magic there is what is acquired [sense uncertain], and of it there is what is by contrivance. Of the acquired is what the sage of the lunar cycle used to do; and toward this points His saying, mighty and majestic is He: "Take four of the birds." Of the contrived is what the sage of the Saturnian cycle used to do, and also what the sage of the Venusian cycle used to do.

25The ancients among the Greeks used to reserve for marvel-workings (nīranjāt) and the turning of the eye the name 'al-tarjīḥ', and for the talisman the name 'al-saljamūs', which is the drawing down of the powers of the upper spirits; and they applied to all of them the name 'magic'.

26These had no power over this science except through knowledge of the science of the sphere. What is necessary of it is: knowledge of the sphere of the equator, which is what is expressed as the Throne, and of the spheres it contains; the division of the sphere of the signs, its directions and all its conditions; knowledge of the natures of the twelve signs and the particular character of their significations for the existing things in this world, and of the shares the seven planets have in the belt of the sphere of the signs, and what is connected with that of what resembles it; knowledge of the natures of the seven planets and the two nodes, their positions in the sphere, and the particular character of their significations for the existing things in this world, and of what befalls the seven planets in themselves and in relation to one another; knowledge of the fundamental significations on which the craft of astrological judgements turns; the extraction of the ruler among the seven planets and the ranks of its dominion; and the working out of the lots and knowledge of their positions in the sphere of the signs. This, then, is what is necessary of the science of the sphere; it is found in the books of those people, so let it be taken from them. Toward this knowledge points the allusion of the first sage in his saying: 'I am the one who was raised above the seven spheres.' By his saying 'I was raised' he meant only his grasping them in knowledge by his power of thought. And toward it points the allusion in the saying of God, mighty and glorious: 'And We raised him to a high place.'

27Chapter 3

28Know, O reader, that the celestial sphere is a solid globe of the utmost roundness, and so is everything in it, in all its states and at all its times. Some people have imagined that states arise in the sphere which remove it from the circular shape at some time or other; but it is not possible for any of that to be in it at all, because the shape of the sphere is only the shape of its cause. That is because the soul, this is its form; I mean that it is the first unconditioned thing [sense uncertain]. That is because the first thing, in which there is no corruption, has a complete form, and the complete form is the circle; and so it comes to be from a single line, because it is a first cause.

29This is a place whose proof is hidden. The sphere, moreover, is an essence, and the degrees in it are only position. So when we begin with the positional degrees, we ascend from them to the compelled, necessary matter; and the path of instruction in this matter goes only in reverse. Also, instruction in the degrees is a road to instruction in the states of the sphere. It is not possible for any of the bodies of the world of generation and corruption to be in any place ‹of› the sphere, nor for any part of the parts of the sphere to be in any place of the world of generation and corruption, at all, unless that is by compulsion.

30So the sphere, as we have said, is a globe gathered round on all its sides, of the utmost correctness of roundness. The circle comes to be only from a single curved line, within which is a point from which all the lines going out to the circumference are equal; and that point is the centre. The allusion by these lines is only to the places where the rays of the stars are cast upon the world of the centre, and this is the influence of talismans. It is as if it were a definition or a description that has been agreed upon, since the sphere is a globe encompassing the whole world, behind which there is neither void nor plenum. The aether is a motionless form; it is what is pointed to [sense uncertain]. The sphere of the stars is within it, at a deviation from its centre, because its centre is to one side of the centre of the earth, according to what has been said about that concerning the inclination [sense uncertain].

31The nature of the sphere is a single nature. The motion of the bodies that possess natures follows the motion of the sphere, and its heat, which comes to be from it by accident, is the stirring up of what is in this world from its generation [sense uncertain]. The degrees of the sphere are three hundred and sixty by the first division, and likewise the images are three hundred and sixty images; in them is the hidden sense of the judgements, because the judgements follow the ratios. Some people said no, and held that there is no benefit in the sphere, and that the benefit from the aether in the upper world is the stars and the heat, and that the images in the degrees themselves are only likenesses of the positions of the stars when some of them are joined to others. And some people said that the images of the degrees are the hidden sense of the science of the stars, and are the cause of the generation of all things that come to be.

32As for the actions of the degrees: when the degree falls at some point, whatever point it may be, and one of the fixed stars is in it, and then one of the wandering planets arrives at it, then know the place of that planet's action on the earthly things that are in this world. Its example: given that Saturn moves the things possessing cold and dryness, Jupiter moves the things possessing heat and moisture, Mars moves the things possessing heat and dryness, Venus moves the things possessing weak heat and prevailing moisture, Mercury moves the things possessing weak heat and much dryness, and the Moon moves the things possessing coldness and moisture; and the fixed stars were likewise,

33So whenever the degree has the use [reading uncertain] of a planet that is hot without qualification, weak in its concomitants of dryness and moisture, and the Sun is in the place alone, you judge [pronoun ambiguous: or 'it (the Sun) judges'] the growth and increase of that matter. Likewise, if it happens that the planet is acting by its power [pronoun ambiguous: the degree's or the Sun's], the growth is greater. This is a difficult place, exceedingly obscure among the first sages, because obscurity in speech, with them, is that they veil its outward sense and hide its inward sense, and that is called obscurity. So know that.