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Certain works have had to wait 800 years before receiving a complete translation.
Pub.Cat Books issues full English versions of important texts that have previously appeared in English only in part, or not at all. Full means full: each volume, each table, with nothing silently omitted.
The first title
Shams al-Maʿārif al-Kubrā
This work, composed by the Berber scholar Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Būnī, who passed away in Cairo in around 1225 and was a contemporary of Ibn ʿArabī, stands as the seminal text in Islamic letter-mysticism. It deals with the study of Arabic letters, magic squares, and the attributes of the divine Names.
For eight centuries it passed through Ottoman archives, West African religious schools and the Mughal imperial court, always reproduced by hand. Earlier English translations covered only fragments and selected passages. The complete text had never been published in English, until this edition.
The complete set spans 1,465 pages in two volumes and includes all four sections of the longer recension, accompanied by a translator's preface examining al-Būnī's biography and the manuscript history, along with a comprehensive glossary of specialised terminology.
Start here
Background reading, free
Four introductory reference pages for those new to the subject. No registration or subscription required.
Who was al-Būnī?
The story of a Sufi scholar from Annaba, his lifespan, his era, and how he became the most widely plagiarised and most fiercely criticised writer in the Islamic mystical tradition.
The science of letters
ʿIlm al-ḥurūf explained in plain terms: how every Arabic letter is tied to a number, an element and a planet, and how scholars put that system to use.
Magic squares
What a wafq really involves, how such a figure is put together, and why a set of arranged numerals became regarded as a charm.
Which edition should you buy?
A frank look at every English-language edition currently available, covering even those that suit particular readers better than our own.
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