Buying guide
Which edition should you pick?
We publish one of these titles ourselves. That does not stop us from flagging when a competitor is the right purchase for your needs. You will find out anyway, so we prefer to say it plainly here.
| Edition | Scope | Best for | Roughly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ours. Shams al-Maʿārif al-Kubrā, complete | All four parts of the expanded recension, 1,465 pages in two volumes, 483 figures reproduced | Anyone who wants the full text rather than extracts | $24 digital, $34.99 print |
| The Sun of Knowledge: An Arabic Grimoire in Selected Translation | A selection, not the full work | The longest-running and most trusted English edition. If you want a guided entry point rather than the whole volume, this is the one. | ~$56 |
| Shams al-Maʿārif: Talismans and Magic Squares | Concentrates on the squares and talismanic content | Readers focused purely on the practical diagrams | ~$40 |
| Islamic Symbols and Sufi Rituals for Protection and Healing (Edgar Francis IV) | Academic study about al-Būnī, not a translation | Scholars. For peer-reviewed analysis of the manuscript tradition rather than the primary text, this is clearly the superior choice. | ~$30 |
| Shams al-Maʿārif The Sun of Gnosis: Part IV | A single volume only, dealing with letters and divine Names | Readers seeking only that part | ~$35 |
A one-line guide to deciding
For academic study of al-Būnī, take the Francis volume. That is genuine research; our title does not claim to be.
For a carefully chosen introduction from a publisher with strong credentials in the field, the selected translation fits the bill.
For the entire text, every one of the four parts, complete with reproduced square diagrams for close inspection, we filled that gap. Our edition is the one to order.
Watch out for the budget options
Low-priced paperbacks with eye-catching covers, slim page totals and no named translator are common in this field. Many are machine-rendered from an incomplete source and stretched out. The tell-tale signs are easy to spot: the translator is unnamed, no manuscript source is identified, there is no introduction, and the page count is nowhere near what a work of this scale demands. Run those three checks on any purchase in this area, our own title included.
Our own approach to methodology is set out on the about page, covering where machine assistance played a part.