Description

[This is the Book of the Famous Greek Auditor, Philosopher Abu Ma’shar the Astronomer…]

8°. 100 pp. with black and white illustrations and diagrams, 2 pp., index, later (mid-20^th century?) marbled boards with white paper spine (a tiny tear in p. 87-88, sporadic old underlining in pencil, short cracks to the spine, otherwise in a good condition).

This unusual work in Arabic language, printed in Cairo in the beginning of the 20^th century, is a collection of spells, symbols, drawings and diagrams against bad spirits, including against the devil.

The text has been wrongly attributed to the author Abu Maʿshar, born in Balkh, in today’s Afghanistan, a Persian scholar and astronomer. According to the imprint on the title page, this edition is a revised text, but H. A. Winkler disputed the attribution in his 1930 work on the Islamic magic symbols.

Worldcat lists 12 examples, all of them housed in American libraries.

References: OCLC 23521664, 29903100, 31907254. H. A. Winkler, Siegel und Charaktere in der muhammedanischen Zauberei (Berlin and Leipzig 1930), p. 31, n. 5.