Arabic Theories of Astral Magic: The De radiis and the Picatrix

Abstract

The occult was a way of knowing, an epistemic activity in the Middle Ages and the early modern period. In part it was a metaphysical query that investigated the operations and causes of hidden things. However, as the word ‘occult’ may suggest sorcery (sihr in Arabic) and demonology, this reconciliation with aetiology seems to be in stark contrast with the dictates of orthodox Islam. In the Qur’an we read: ‘it was the disbelieving devils. It was they who taught mankind sorcery […] they learn from them what enables them to separate a man from his wife. And they do no harm to anyone with their sorcery, save by God’s leave.’¹ In the Hadith too we learn that sorcery is one of the seven major sins which include murder and apostasy.² But if some extraordinary phenomenon can be proven not to be necessarily supernatural but is merely the case of natural yet hidden forces, then it cannot be the same as the sorcery of the devils. It would be a licit kind of knowledge and practice. In the medieval period – ninth to thirteenth centuries – the symbiotic relationship between astrology and magic was emphasized; one can say that the theories of astral influences were first articulated by Muslims in works on astrology and magic. The theories of astral influences in the context of astrology, discussed in the previous chapter, legitimized a magic that claimed to receive its power from the dynamics that govern the celestial and terrestrial worlds.