An Arabic Version of Sefer Ha-Razim

Alexander Fodor
1. The present paper wishes to be a kind of preliminary report on an Arabic version of Sefer ha-Razim before the publication of the whole text, which I discovered by chance more than thirty years ago. The story happened in the following way: During one of my regular visits to Egypt I was offered to buy an Arabic manuscript in Cairo in 1973. It contained 223 numbered pages but later it turned out that the hand that put the numbers on the pages later with a pencil made two mistakes in the order and the actual number of the pages was only 213. The manuscript was carefully bound in a brown hard cover probably imitating leather. Its size measured 12 cm 17 cm. To enhance the impression of a careful work even a bookmark in the form of a ribbon was applied to the binding. The manuscript looked recently written in black ink but the titles of the chapters and some other important words were rendered in red. These facts pointed to the possibility that the copyist must have had an older manuscript in front of him, which he tried to reproduce in the most accurate form. This supposition was further supported by the presence of the catchwords at the bottom of the pages indicating the sequence of the pages in the traditional way. It was also striking that the number of the lines on almost all of the pages was 12. The frequently occurring angelic names and the magical recipes clearly showed that the text was a magical book. This fact also explains why the accurate copying was so important since magic is the most conservative part of the world of beliefs. So I felt justified to think that a work of ancient origin was in my hands. The man who sold the manuscript was a Copt book merchant who seemed to know nothing about it. The first lines of the book pointed to a Christian work since the usual formula of the Muslim basmala was replaced by the following expression. In the Name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen. After this the copyist said that with the help of God he started to copy the Book of Adam (Sifr Adam) that God revealed to Adam.
Jewish Studies Quarterly, Volume 13 (2006) pp. 412427 ' Mohr Siebeck ISSN 0944-5706

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:The Arabic version reads like this

. . . . . . . .

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. . . .
In translation:
In the Name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen. With the help of God and with good fortune [granted] by Him we start to copy Sifr Adam (The Book of Adam) which God, the Holy King revealed to him. It is from the precious and useful books. May God help us in copying it. Amen. In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Now then, this is the Book of Adam which God, the Holy King (May He be Blessed and Exalted!) revealed to him. The Angel Zaryayl (May Peace be upon Him!) accompanied him. The Angel Zaryayl (May Peace be upon Him!) lived in the time of Adam when he asked his Lord after he ate from the Tree, left his abode and fear seized him and became exasperated. He said in his request: O God of the Worlds! You created everything by the beauty of Your dignity and the greatness of Your kingship. We glorify You forever and ever. There is nothing that can be hidden from You and nothing can be concealed. You gave me power over Your creatures and You made me overseer and ruler over everything. But the serpent seduced me and my wife, my flesh and my blood although You have forbade me the Tree. But I did not know what would happen and what would reach me. Now I have known and understood that no one among the creatures could be guiltless in front of You. What can I say to You? I made a mistake and caused the conflict when I paid no attention to Your order. I was ignorant and I did not understand anything. Now I ask You O All-powerful, O Merciful to deliver me from the punishment, my figure and my soul and guide me to my right way and to the recognition of my benefits and raise my prayer to the place of Your holiness and the Throne of Your dignity and do not hide my invocation from the fulfilment by Your mercy. After three days the Angel Zaryayl descended when the Sun became red and told him: God listened to your invocation and I came to you to explain sayings and holy names and to teach you what will happen in your case until the day of your death and whatever will come from you in the last generations you will see it and it will be clear. Everybody who takes this book in purity and humbleness and makes something with it will wish to make it known for himself. When the Angel Zaryayl instructed Adam about the book and he heard the power of the names in it he fell on his face trembling.

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The Angel told him: Get up Adam, take courage, be strong, do not be afraid, come closer, take the book and guard it because you will know from it everything which concerns the ways of your guidance. When the Angel finished this, a fire was ignited on the bank of the river and the Angel ascended in the flame of the fire to the heaven. When Adam saw this he was sure that he came to him from God, the Glorious, Holy King. Adam kept this book and his secret prayers were directed by it in purity, with immaculate heart and in humbleness. He was asking [God for things] with its help, he was proud of it in everything he did. These are the advantages of this Holy Book and its ways. He who is dealing with it in purity will succeed in his acts.

Later on, the text says that Noah learned from this book when he built the Ark and this book was the first thing that he took in a golden box to the Ark. After his death the book was handed over to his son, Shet [a mistake for Shem] and after generations it reached Solomon who regarded it as his most precious book and worked miracles with it. At the end of the introduction the author mentions that the Book, which he calls this time Kita consists of two parts which he designates b, by the word sifr used formerly in the main title of work in the form of Sifr Adam. He states that The First Book (al-Sifr al-Awwal ) treats the seven firmaments, their angels who are the masters of different services and finally how to use them for different purposes. `The Second Book (al-Sifr al-Tha ) contains the names of the angels n of the four seasons, the names of the Sun, the Moon, the seven planets, the heaven, the earth, the winds, the angels of the seven days, the months. The first part of the work called The First Book says that among numerous things it will speak about the spheres, the seven firmaments, their angels, their names and their competences, how to make use of them, what will happen in the world, when illness or death will come, the interpretation of dreams, when wars will start and when they will end, when crops will be abundant or will be lacking. Following this structure, The First Book describes the seven firmaments enumerating their angels with their names and the different fields of life over which they practice power. So, the angels of the seven encampments of the First Firmament subordinated to a chief angel are active in healing, wars, the events of the world, human relations, communicating with the Sun, the Moon, the dead, catching fugitives, sending dreams. In the Second Firmament the angels stand on 12 steps and their competencies include creating distortion, arranging human relations, eliminating evil things, dealing with fire, securing prosperity, taking

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care of animals, souls, waging wars, causing illnesses, releasing prisoners, supporting the ruler, healing the sick. The Third Firmament hosts the angels who can help the horses to run faster. The angels of the Fourth Firmament enable the petitioner to talk to the Sun in daytime or at night. The Fifth Firmament contains the angels of the 12 months who know what happens in each month. The angels in the Sixth Firmament take responsibility for the wars. The description of the Seventh Firmament contains the doxologies of the angels in praise of God and lists His Names. In the end the text says that The First Book from the Book of Secrets (Sifr al-Asra called The Book of Hidden Things (Sifr al-Khar) fa ) was finished. ya The Second Book (al-Sifr al-Tha ) starts with a long praise of God n and the description of the benefits and uses of the Book. It also men tions that Zaryayl revealed the Book to Adam when Yared was 300 year old and then gives the chain of transmission, which includes Methuselah, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. After describing the conditions which are prescribed for those who wish to use the book, the work gives the names of the angels in the four seasons, the names of the celestial bodies, the winds, the sea, the angels of the months, the days, the hours, the planets. This section ends with the description of interesting divinatory procedures. After this, a new and independent section begins under the title Making Use of the Angels of the First Book (Tasrf Mala>ikat al-Sifr al Awwal). Here the author returns to the angelic groups of the seven firmaments and gives numerous magical recipes which are related to the different occupations of the angels. Under the pretext of the description of the Seventh Firmament the author, however, presents a long list of magical names which compose a powerful invocation called The Sword of God (Sayf Alla and menh) tions its numerous uses together with the prescribed magical rituals. Finally, he also describes the angels who minister in the Seventh Firmament around the Throne. The next chapter contains a prayer called The Hand of God (Yad Alla composed of an amazing number of names which can be used to h) get the revelation of the former invocation, The Sword of God in addition to many other benefits. The closing part admonishes the reader of the work to use it in the prescribed way. Finally, the colophon affirms again that the Book of the Hidden Things (Sifr al-Khafa ) ended but ya

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no reference is made to The Book of Adam, which appeares at the beginning as the title of the whole work. 2. Upon reading this text in a cursory way, it became evident that it must have been the translation of a Jewish work. It seemed also natural to discover the figure of the Angel Raziel behind the name of the main protagonist in the frame story, the Angel Zaryayl. The key to discover the original source was offered by the reference to the Book of Secrets called also The Book of the Hidden Things which appeared in the closing lines of the first part of the book. This led me to the Sefer ha-Razim published by Margalioth in 1966. Comparing the two texts it turned out that the first and the third parts of the Arabic work were practically the translations of the Sefer ha-Razim or at least of one of its versions. The main difference was in the structure of the works. The Arab translator or the compiler of that version of the Sefer ha-Razim which he had at his disposal separated the introductory cosmological section which had a kind of theoretical character from that part which contained the practical instructions concerning the use of the names in the magical recipes. In addition to this structural difference, the Arabic version contains several passages which are missing from the Sefer ha-Razim. The list of the angels who serve in the seventh firmament, the whole Second Book, the invocations called The Sword of God and The Hand of God seemingly did not belong to the version reconstructed by Margalioth. In their case we have to look for other pieces of the Jewish magical lore like The Sword of Moses and the Sefer Raziel as evident sources for the Arabic translation. As for the Arabic text and the person of its translator or of its last redactor, he could have been an Egyptian Copt, probably a priest who knew Hebrew or had an Arabic version of the Sefer ha-Razim in his possession. This translators or redactors priestly profession seems to be evident from the passage which confirms that he who keeps the instructions of the Book, God will accept the Mass from him. (Literally from you: yataqabbal Alla al-qudda minka.)1 His Arabic does not, h s however, represent the highest literary language as the frequent uses of the oblique case in the plural instead of the nominative shows a colloquial influence. His Egyptian background becomes also evident when we come across some typical local words like sa qiya for waterwheel or ta na for bakery in addition to the mentioning of the names of the bu
1 The original text has quddus, holy, which does not make sense in this context. It should be read as quddas, mass.

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Coptic months as the equivalents of the Jewish months. Although grammatically correct, it is totally out of the context of the situation and rather comic (to say the least) when he makes Adam address God by the word hadritak (pronounced in a colloquial form) which is the most common expression of politeness in everyday speech. The text of the translation seems to be simplified to a certain extent if we compare it to the Hebrew version. The translator most probably did not know Greek and this is why he omitted such words of Greek origin like heniokhos for charioteer or hieratikos. He translated the passage concerning the horse race, which proved to be so exciting for Margalioth when he studied the Geniza material, in the following way:

: .

In translation:

Making Use of the Third Firmament If you wish: in it three overseers are placed. If you wish to make easier the running of the horses so that nobody can stop them and they will not be tired and will not stumble and strength and vitality will help them and no other living being can pass them, then take a lamella and inscribe on it the figures of whatever horses you wish together with the names of the angels who are the overseers in the third firmament. The name of their overseer is DHTYAYL. You have to say the following: I adjure you O Angels of Strength and Speed who run among the planets to strengthen the horses by power and vitality so that they can run and will not be tired, can go ahead and will not stumble and their running will be easy

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like the wind and no other living being can catch them and no other riding animal can come close to them. Then you have to bury the lamella in the place where the horses are standing.

The original passage in Margalioths text and in Morgans translation reads as follows (Margalioth 1966:94 and Morgan 1983:64):
alf hfxw njlw fjejf nzufxmb flykj alf nhfk alb njqfqvjxel zywb na zfmy fjlr bfzkf tqkly qi hw nzufxmb dqhf ph fayjf ejh lk lux nmdwz jkalm nkjlr joa rjbym:xfmaf nejlry njxye nyf njkalme zfmyf njqfqe qfkfjoe zaf vfxjmly njqfqe za ljhf hk fxcazy njbkfke pjb njuxe eufxm zfjh lkf xyok njlwf njux fjejf flykjj alf fsrjj alf fufxjf nzfa vjxme fly vfxjmb feomif qie za hwf. nejlr elrj al tfywf nqw lkf nejosl fdmrj al :zfkcl ywbm ezay If you wish to race horses, [even] when they are exhausted, so that they will not stumble in their running, that they will be swift as the wind, and the foot of no living thing will pass them, and they will win popularity in their running, take a silver lamella and write upon it the names of the horses and the names of the angels and the name of the prince who is over them and say: I adjure you angels of running, who run amid the stars, that you will gird with strength and courage the horses that N is racing and his charioteer who is racing them. Let them run and be swift as an eagle. Let no animals stand before them, and let no other magic or witchcraft affect them. Take the lamella and conceal it in the racing lane [of the one] you wish to win.

So, there is no reference in the Arabic version to the charioteer or even to the horse race itself in an explicit way. Interestingly, and in contrast to the Hebrew version, the figures of the horses instead of their names should be drawn on the lamella together with the angel names. As for the proper transliteration of the names in the book, the translator proved to be very meticulous since he copied them attentively and seemingly did his best to remain faithful to the original forms. Most of the existing differences can be attributed to the mistakenly placed diacritical points. This very same carefulness can be discovered in the fact that when copying some magical characters he gave two versions saying that he found them in a different form in another copy. This double attitude on his part is quite understandable. When he translated the recipes with the practical instructions he wanted to avoid ambiguity, so he did not bother himself with words unknown for him and simply omitted them. In the case of the angel names, however, he had to stick to the original forms; otherwise their magical power could have been lost. The book itself frequently warns against any change in the text.

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The translators ignorance of Greek is also disclosed by the way he treated the famous passage which contained the invocation in Greek addressed to the Sun (Margalioth 1966, pp. 99f). The Jewish compiler of the Sefer ha-Razim must have taken over its text from a Greek original but instead of translating it he transliterated the Greek words in Hebrew characters. The Copt translator did not realize the original meaning, he must have taken them as a group of independent magical names, and consequently he also transliterated them in Arabic letters but separated the words from each other by dots. In the case of some frequently occurring Jewish benedictory phrases he was not so consequent. For example dealing with the well-known formula nlfrl fzfklm dfbk ny Afxb he transliterated it in Arabic letters. On the other hand, he preferred to translate the following passage in the doxology of the angels: Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of Hosts. The whole world is full of His glory. Occasionally he translated the same expressions that he left in a transliterated form other times. As we have seen the Christian character of the starting phrases of the translation or the Christianity of the translator or at least of the final redactor cannot be doubted. In the light of this Christian background it seems particularly strange that some expressions with a definite Islamic tint found their way to the text. An interesting example for this phenom enon is the occurrence of the following Qur>anic verse: God is sufficient for us, an excellent Guardian is He (Q 3,173).2 Its presence could be explained by supposing that a Muslim hand had an access to the work but it is also plausible to attribute it to the translator who might have included it to present the book as an acceptable work in a Muslim environment. 3. In order to show the character of those sections of the Arabic text which did not belong to the original Hebrew version of the Sefer haRazim I present here two interesting passages. At the end of The Second Book we find this recipe for divinatory purposes:

. .
2 For the text of the Quran I used the standard Egyptian edition. For the English translation, see Arberry 1983.

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. . . : . . . .
In translation:
If you wish to know, to understand and to see immediately what is hidden from you, take a [bowl?] in front of you while you are in the state of purity according to the already mentioned conditions. If you are not, make a young boy who has not yet come of age look [into the bowl] instead of you who is in the state of purity and wears pure clothes. An [incense burner] should be put in front of you with aloes and mastic on it. Then put something black which is shining in front of you, rub it with good oil until you see your face in it. Then looking into that black thing you have to say the Great Names of God which are these: ALYNWS, AGHLYNWS, BYNWS and KHFYNWS. You have to say these eleven times then you have to say: ATWN SHMAHAT, QDSHYA, ASTIRWAYA GHFALAT. Then an angel will be sent to you from among the angels of the heaven in the figure of a son of Adam who will come to you and you will see his figure in that black thing together with your own figure. After this you can say to him whatever you wish. He will show you whatever you wish to see, let it be about the lands, the people, the age or anything else. He will present these things for you in this black thing immediately. You will know everybody who is doing something, the hidden act will appear for you together with the person who performs it.

Without going into a detailed explanation it is enough to state that this recipe presents a case of lecanomancy which was widely practiced in the

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world of the Greek magical papyri and which became immensely popular in Islamic magic under the name of mandal.3 As for the first four magical names ending in WS they may conceal the names Helios Agathos Venus as the first three groups of letters. In the second group of the magical names, the first three words ( ) can be identified as the Aramaic expression for You, Holy Names ajyjdw azemy pfza. This shows that the original work used by the translator must have been composed in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic or in Jewish Aramaic. Our second illustrative passage comes from the long prayer called The Hand of God and reads like this:

In translation:
If you wish to destroy your enemy, take mud from the two sides of the river, form a figure from it, then write his name on it, take seven thorns from the tree of the blackberry, then make a bow from fresh twig with a string from the horse-tail, and shoot the thorn like the arrow with the bow into the figure while saying the names from AFTRS to QRSWMY over the thorn. Then you say in this way: May N, my enemy perish and may he disappear.

The source of this passage can be found in The Sword of Moses:4

ejlr bfzkf amlu djbrf axeo jsjk jxz pm aoji bn yoja liwml zjrb na 68 ajfu alwjd pm pjflq c bqf emy jflu hzmf azxu fub azmlu zjhaf ajqfqd jojmb azajowqhd azyw djbrf sbs lbhzj jqfqxs drf qdzwa pm aflq lk lr xfmaf eb jdyf azywb Aom (!) dzjf
See Fodor 1994. Gaster 192528b:84. For a new edition of the work, see Harari 1997. For the passage in question, see p. 42. I am grateful to Gideon Bohak who called my attention to this new edition and to Yuval Harari who kindly sent me a copy of the book.
4 3

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In Gasters translation (Gaster 192528a:324):

68. If you wish to kill a man, take mud from the two sides of the river and form it into the shape of a figure, and write upon it the name of the person, and take seven branches from seven strong palm-trees and make a bow from reed [?] with the string of horse-sinew, and place the image in a hollow, and stretch the bow and shoot with it, and at each branch [shot] say the words of No. 68, and may NN be destroyed

If we make a comparison between the parallel texts we can easily realize that the Arabic text is much clearer in certain details, namely it seems to be more practical to make a bow from a twig than from a reed and to make the string from the tail of a horse than from horse-sinew. 4. The question arises now, how and when an Arabic version of the Sefer ha-Razim gained acceptance in an Arabic environment. First of all, as far as we now, the Sefer ha-Razim itself seems to have disappeared for a longer period. The silence was broken by the Qaraites who accused the Rabbis with the use of magical works, and among these the Sefer haRazim and a Sefer Adam were also mentioned.5 Interestingly, Ibn al Nadm, the famous 10th century Arab bibliographist refers to a Sifr Adam, The Book of Adam in his Fihrist among the works dealing with amulets and incantations (Ibn al-Nadm, Fihrist 379). He says that this book contains the names of the angels and the description of the procedures that can be performed with their help. Ibn al-Nadm also states that the author of this book is unknown but the Jews claim its authorship. Our next possible evidence comes from the 16th century. Namely, a famous Suf master in India, Muhammad ibn Khatr al-Dn who lived in Gujerat, composed a magical treatise, the Kita al-Jawa b hir al-Khams which came to enjoy a very wide popularity in the Islamic world, and included a chapter under the title Da<wat Safr Adam, The Invocation of the Book of Adam (Ibn Khatr al-Dn, Jawa hir 159163). The word safr does not make any sense here, so it must have been corrupted from the original Sifr. Although this chapter cannot be taken as a trans lation or paraphrase of the Sifr Adam or the Sefer ha-Razim but the cosmological ideas of this chapter show a close relationship to the world of the Sefer ha-Razim. Another famous bibliographer, the 17th century Hajj Khalfa, speak ing about the science of the letters, <ilm al-huru in his Kashf, registers a f long list of magical works among which we can find not only a Sifr
5

For the history of the Sefer ha-Razim, see Margalioth 1966, Introduction, pp. 162.

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Adam but also a Book of Noah, Sifr Nu , a Book of the Hidden h Things, Sifr al-Khafa and a Book of the Secret of Secrets, Sifr Sirr ya al-Asra (Hajj Khalfa, Kashf I, 650660). As we have seen in the case of r our Arabic manuscript, the different titles may refer to one and the same work, an Arabic version of the Sefer ha-Razim. Curiously, we have another testimony concerning the existence of the Book of Adam from the 17th century, which we owe to Vansleb, the eminent orientalist of the period. Born as a Lutheran, he lived an adventurous life during the course of which he became a soldier, then a merchant, and finally joined the Dominican order and made a name for himself in France as an orientalist.6 Colbert sent him to Egypt to collect Arabic manuscripts for the French King, Louis XIV. He went to Egypt in 1672 and started to search for manuscripts. He had also a personal interest in magic and he found ample possibilities in Egypt to satisfy his curiosity. Seemingly, Vansleb took this passion very seriously but in his diary he claimed that he never harmed anybody. Trading with manuscripts, however, was prohibited in Egypt and those who were accused of this kind of activities could be imprisoned. So, it happened that Vansleb had to leave Egypt urgently to avoid this and he boarded a boat to Turkey in 1673. On the way, a very heavy storm caught the boat and it was about to sink. To that, the superstitious Greek captain of the boat accused Vansleb that he was the cause of the storm because the captain thought that Vansleb had a mummy in his baggage. Of course, he had nothing of the sort but finally he himself started to believe that one of his manuscripts could have provoked the storm as a punishment from God. He thought that this particular manuscript must have been a magical work, one of the most famous books which he could find in Egypt and which had the title Sefer-Adam, The Book of Adam (Volkoff 1970:78ff). According to Vansleb, the introduction of this manuscript related that the angels revealed the book to Adam, then Noah took it to the Ark and afterwards it was inherited from generation to generation. The frightened scholar became convinced that it would be a crime to keep such a work that could be used by evil people for bad purposes, and so, he threw the book into the sea. When the storm, however, was over Vansleb regretted very much the loss of the book because he knew very well the value of the manuscript since he read it in Cairo several times with the assistance of a native person who was an expert on magic. Vansleb himself hoped that with the help of this work he could restore the science of the talismans and of the dealings with spirits. His sadness
6

On Vansleb, see Volkoff 1970.

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was further increased when, after his return from Egypt, the Librarian of the King, Pierre de Carcavy urged him to try to find another copy of the manuscript but he never succeeded in this. Finally, we may obtain evidence of the existence of this work from the 20th century. Winifred Blackman mentions in her classic work, The Fellahin of Upper Egypt that she knew a Copt magician who had a book among his manuscripts that bore the title Book of Adam (Blackman 2000:231). From this review of the relevant sources, I think, it can be taken for sure that all these references point to an Arabic version or versions of the Sefer ha-Razim attesting to its continuous presence in Egypt. As for the date of the translation we may suppose that at least one version must have been in existence by the 10th century if we accept the evidence offered by Ibn al-Nadms Fihrist. 5. The importance of the Arabic version is evident for the Sefer haRazim. As a coherent work with a consciously structured text it proves that Margalioth was right when he started to piece together the scattered fragments of different manuscripts to reconstruct an original work. It also shows that different versions of the Sefer ha-Razim could have been in circulation and at least one of these must also have contained other pieces of the Jewish magical literature, first of all, The Sword of Moses. On the Arabic side, the long history of an Arabic version of the work demonstrates that the conditions for the reception of the book have remained unchanged for many centuries. This means that both social circumstances and magical practices have always proved to be receptive to the basic ideas of the Sefer ha-Razim. To make the latter aspect clearer I refer to the work of an Arab author of the 18th century which divided the different peoples into four groups according to the characteristics of their magical practices. According to this division, the Hindus, the Nabateans and the Greeks belonged to the first three groups while the Jews, the Copts and the Arabs all belonged to the fourth group. The author explained this by stating that the magic of these three peoples was based upon the use of names of unknown meaning through the help of which the angels who had power over the jinns could be ordered to force these spirits to accomplish the petitioners wish (al Kishnaw7, Durr I, 32).
7 al-Kishnaw al-Fullan. In my edition of his work the latter nisba occurs in the corrupted form of al-Ghilan. For this, see GAL II, 366.

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Practically, the Sefer ha-Razim and its magical recipes contain almost all of the typical traits of Arabic magic. The theoretical foundation of this magic is provided by the same cosmological ideas about the celestial spheres inhabited by the hosts of angels as we have seen it in the Sefer ha-Razim. This cosmological system came to be developed into perfection by the Su s for whom contemplations on the organic unity of the f universe became almost an obsession. They based their magical procedures on these cosmological considerations. The main elements of these practices reveal striking similarities to the magical operations described in the Sefer ha-Razim and they can be summed up in the following points: The act starts with an exercise, the riya a, which aims at disciplining d the soul and the body by a special fasting, based on abstention from meat. The practitioner must go to seclusion, khalwa, to be far away from other people. The oral part of the procedure consists of the invocation of the spirits by the magical names. The invoked spirit may appear personally to receive the orders from the practitioner. After the task is accomplished the spirit must be dismissed (isra f). During the whole operation incense must be fumigated. The practitioner is warned against divulging the secrets of the procedures. Naturally, these basic elements also show the parallelisms with the world of the Greek Magical Papyri (Fodor 1996). In conclusion, the Sefer ha-Razim through its Arabic translation or translations could have been one of the main channels which transmitted the magical heritage of the Late Antiquity to the Arabs and which helped to form that cosmological mysticism which has remained dominant in large Islamic circles until the recent past.

References
A. Primary sources
Hajj Khalfa, Kashf = Mustafa b. <Abdallah Hajj Khalfa, Kashf al-zunu <an n asam l-kutub wa-l-funu I. Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-<Ilmiyya, 1992. n, Harari, Y. 1997. Harba de-Mosheh, Mahadurah Hadashah u-Mehqar. [The Sword of Moses. A New Edition and Study, in Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Aqademon. Ibn Khatr al-Dn, Jawa = Muhammad b. Khatr al-Dn b. Bayazd, Kita al hir b Jawa al-Khams [sic!]. Fez (?), n. d. hir

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Ibn al-Nadm, Fihrist = Abu l-Faraj Muhammad b. Ab Ya<qub Ishaq Ibn Na dm, Kita al-Fihrist. Edited with indices by Rida Tajaddud. Teheran: no pubb lisher, 1391/1971. al-Kishnaw, Durr = al-Shaykh Muhammad al-Kishnaw al-Ghilani, Kita alb Durr al-Manzu wa-Khula at al-Sirr al-Maktu f l-Sihr wa-l-Tala m s m sim. 2 vols., Beirut: Maktabat al-<Ulum al-Falakiyya, n. d. Margalioth, M., ed. 1966. Sepher ha-Razim. A newly recovered book of magic from the Talmudic period. Jerusalem: American Academy of Jewish Research. Q = al-Qur>a al-Karm. Cairo: al-Majlis al-A<la li-l-Shu>u al-Islamiyya, 2002. n n Sifr Adam. Arabic manuscript, mid-20th century.

B. Secondary sources
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