Azzanati
Much more is known about al-Barbari's successor Abu 'Abdallah Muhammad az-Zanati who lived in the twelfth or thirteenth century, and who founded a school of geomancy his followers are to this day called al-Zanatiyya. Not only has his work been reprinted many times from the thirteenth century to the present day, but a number of manuscripts are still extant purporting to be from his pen. The work which is attributed to him bears different titles, the printed versions of which were issued in Cairo...
Xv
The fifteenth figure is the Judge and final determinant of the entire khatt. These fifteen figures formed by the above process are now interpreted according to the position in which they fall. The Houses on the right of the central line are relevant to the querent, together with the Seventh House, whilst those on the left are concerned with his enemies, or the object of his question. Additionally the Eighth House is 'double-faced', and rather mercurially neutral. If the same figure as that...
Ibn Khaldoun
During the fourteenth century, the celebrated Ibn Khaldoun who died in Cairo in 1406 devoted a chapter of his Prolegomena, or Muqaddimah, to the art of geomancy.7 Ibn Khaldoun assumed that geomancy was developed by the sand diviners 'because they found it difficult to establish the attitude of the stars by means of instruments, and to find the adjusted position of the stars by means of calculations. Therefore, they invented their combinations of figures.' After a description of the sixteen...
Ibn Mahfuf
Next in order of fame comes 'Abd Allah ibn Mahfuf al-Munadjdjim, known as the 'Astrologer' i.e. the geomancer who died before 1265 leaving a work entitled Muthallathat Ibn Mahfuf fi'-l-raml3 and sometimes called Risalat rami .4 A manuscript of this work bearing Berber glosses has found its way to the Berlin Library,5 and it is from this manuscript that the Berber equivalent of each of the geomantic figures has been derived for the present Appendix V. Connected with the treatise by 'Abd Allah...
H
of fa, and the Yoruba if a, were first noted by Fischer in 1929, and later elaborated on by Monteil, Trautmann, Schilde, and most importantly, Bernard Maupoil in 1943, who also drew attention to the similarities with.Madagascan sikidy divination. However, as early as 1864, the well-travelled Sir Richard Burton noted similarities between the Dahomean fa and the 'geomancy of the Greeks, much cultivated by the Arabs under the name of al-raml.' Here he erred in attributing the ultimate origin to...
Figures
1 Origins and lines of transmission of geomancy 7 2 Arabic manuscript attributed to Tum-Tum, showing a geomantic talisman for finding water MS Arabe 2697, fol. 16, Biblioth que Nationale 21 3 The expansion of Islam and spread of rami AD 635-760 25 4 Geomantic talisman against diseases of various parts of the body, from an eighteenth-century Arab manuscript attributed to Idris MS Arabe 2631, fol. 64v, Biblioth que Nationale 43 5 Geomantic talisman to uncover hidden treasure showing attribution...
i The roots of geomancy
One of the difficulties of writing even a short history of geomancy is that to date studies of its emergence in one culture have tended to disregard manifestations of the same divinatory technique in other cultures. Even within Africa there are few studies with one or two exceptions, notably Ren Trautmann, Bernard Maupoil and J.C. H bert which even appear to realize that ifa and fa on the west coast of Africa are exactly parallel with sikidy in Madagascar, and that both stem from rami, a common...