Part ii: From Nature to Ghayb

The physician Ishaq ibn ‘Ali al-Ruhawi asserts in Adab al-tabib (The Ethics of the Physician) that “the physician is ajudge of souls and bodies.”5⁷ He explains that an imbalance or disturbance to the soul leads to physical disease^⁸ This view is expanded in a statement made by al-Majusi in Kamil al-sina^ca:

The mind cannot be without the health of the rational soul.

He adds that the animal and natural pneumas absorb the air by a power given to them by the soul.⁶⁰ He later adds that the changes in the air, which lead to a disordered physical state, are caused by the motion of the celestial bodies.61 So the microcosmic triad of soul, spirit and body are entwined, reflecting the interlinking between the stars, the mediating celestial souls, bodies and humours.

In the eleventh century, however, we begin to observe a leaning towards an occupational split between medicine and metaphysics in practice and theory. The physician Abu SaTd Ibn Bakhtishu' refutes the opinion that physicians should not care about the psychological wellbeing of their patients. He writes in Risala flal-tibb (Epistle on Medicine): “each of the soul and body is a part of the animal, not in the same way, as the soul is the noblest part of the animal inasmuch as [it is responsible for] governance (riyasa) and mastery (siyada) and the body is its best part inasmuch as it is a machine, slave and a servant of the soul [...] the soul carries the body and the body is carried by the soul.”^[912] His Epistle was composed as a response to a request to address a debate that broke out in 1037 in Basra about the relationship between philosophy and medicine^{[913] [914]}

The tendency to dissociate between soul and body, philosophy and medi­cine, had been established by Ibn Sina who died in that same year. In his Qanun fl al-tibb (Canon of Medicine) the soul—nafs—is considered irrelevant to the aetiology of disease and the effects of air on the physical state:

The air is an element necessary for us and our spirits [arwah], and in addition [to being] an element [necessary] to our bodies and spirits, it is their supporter delivering our spirits, and it is the cause of their restora­tion [...] and we have shown what we mean by the spirit/pneuma [ruh] before and we do not mean by it what the metaphysicians call the soul [nafs].64

According to Ibn Sina, the soul is the principal source of existence (mabda ’ wujudl) but not a particular cause of illness with demonstrative proofs ^{[915] [916]} However, even though he refuted astrology,66 when Ibn Sina assumes the role of the metaphysician we encounter a definition of the soul in terms similar to Qusta ibn Luqa’s; it is the essence, the perfection and governor of the body.^{[917] [918] [919] [920] [921] [922] [923]} But it is also in the capacity of the metaphysician and philosopher that we encounter Ibn Sina’s exposition on the celestial souls.

One of the major repercussions of this is the loss of the natural/astral ontol­ogy of ruhaniyyat in favour of supernatural entities that interact with humans either to harm or to cure them. The efflorescence of Sufism towards the twelfth and thirteenth centuries transformed the nature of the ruhaniyyat from pow­ers of a single ontological origin, i.e. the celestial world, into intelligent beings emerging from inaccessible mysterious dimensions. This becomes evident as we look at the works of the prominent occultist Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn ‘Ali ibn Yusuf al-Buni (d. c. 1225)?²

Unfortunately not a lot is known about al-Buni’s life but evidence suggests that he was Ifriqiyan and had taken instructions by Sufi masters?³ He had a reputation as a worker of miracles whose prayers were always answered and considered by some as a saint.^{[924] [925] [926] [927] [928] [929] He has written several treatises on the occult science of lettrism that correlates Arabic abjad letters with the emanative hier­archy of the universe?5 The mastery of these letters benefits the operator spiri­tually and also magically. 76 The circulation and influence of his works were first restricted to Sufi disciples and closed auditions. By the fourteenth century they became better known outside these circles and from there grew in popu­larity^ However, the fame of al-Buni today rests on the popular printed edi­tions of a work known as Shams al-macarlf al-kubra (The Sun of Knowledge, the Larger Version), which is actually a compilation of al-Bunian occult practices produced in the seventeenth century?8 Nevertheless, it made him one of the most recognized authors on magic and lettrism in the Islamic world.}

There are many other titles questionably attributed to al-Buni but a widely copied and consistent text known as Shams al-ma^carif wa lata’if al-'awarif (The Sun of Knowledge and the Secrets of Gnosis), formed the basis of The Larger Version. This text contains anachronisms which could possibly be interpo­lations by students, but it can still be “most directly attributed to al-Buni”?⁹ This work represents a comprehensive attempt to systematize and formalize Islamic magic in the medieval period.^{[930] [931]}

In Shams al-ma^carif al-kubra, it is explained that the book and the rituals therein resulted from a “withdrawal of the cover of al-ghayb^ In the Qur'an, particularly in the chapter called The Jinn, we read that God “the Knower of the Unseen [al-ghayb] is He! He discloses his Unseen to no one, save to whom­ever He pleases.”8^{[932] [933] Al-ghayb is the realm to which angels, Jinn, and other ruhaniyyat belong. In the magical texts of the thirteenth century and onwards, the nature of these ruhaniyyat becomes less clear and stable; words, letters, magical squares and verses from the Qur'an have ruhaniyyat33 For example, in Shams al-macarif wa lata’if al-cawarf it is explained that the first lunar man­sion known as al-Nath has an angel (malak) called Simsa'tl who is related to a ruhaniyya called Israfil, and both correspond with alif, the first letter of the abjad. Under this mansion aggressive spells can be made for causing physical and mental distress including headaches[934] Another method for causing illness through a ruhaniyya is provided in the same text using the seven consonants that do not appear in the first chapter of the Qur'an (Al-Fatiha'). It comes with a long prayer to God to permit some ruhaniyyat to do the operator’s bidding[935]}

The interchangeability of angels and ruhaniyyat, and the ‘Islamization’ of the latter, has been achieved in different ways one of which can be seen in Al-Kitab al-shamil wa al-bahr al-kamil, a magical encyclopedia attributed to the grammarian Abu Ya'qub Yusuf al-Sakkaki (1160-1229).