in muqaddimah of ibn khaldun, this is listed under chapter 29: the knowledge of secrets of letters. vol.1 p.664 (modern edition). the method of zayirjah is specifically mentioned on p676 of the same book. https://archive.org/details/waqtkhldon
understood. but i just used the quote and cited it faithfully. of course, i could have translated it myself from ibn khaldun, or other works, but i thought a ready english quote will suffice to give an idea of the zayirjah. it is not meant to be an exposition of zayirjah. you can find a detailed description in siddiq hasan khan's abjad al-ulum, 2/311. though he is skeptical and is wary of it, he still mentions names of ulama who practiced it. --- or tashkupri*-zada (aka tashkubri zadah) in his miftah al-sa'adah 2/549. ==================================================== *see the geographical dictionary of worcester, 1823. see vol.2 p.704. (if tashkupri is a reference to something else, please feel free to correct.) useful reference; both volumes (universal gazzetteer) can be found here: vol.1: https://archive.org/details/geographicaldict01worc vol.2: https://archive.org/details/geographicaldict02worc
1. Za'irjah is not magic. 2. There is no solid evidence of the Perennialists using magic. We can demonstrate undeniably from their own texts that the Perennialists commit kufr and have su' al-adab with Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wa alihi wa sallam). What then is the point in speculating fruitlessly on whether they practice sihr or have knowledge of za'irjah? What benefit could this line of inquiry possibly have? Why muddy the waters with unprovable things when the ruling on them is already clear enough?
I can't imagine any of them knowing za'irjah. It's an incredibly rare science. Even most of those who know it are very reluctant to teach it. Perennialists are just ivory-tower intellectuals. They don't know anything that can't be found in a book.
Orientalist/perennialist, aswell, since, blavatsky, occidentalists? lol. Don't focus on a particular group of perennialists... They all agree, because of their relatavism,
Za'irjah is an extremely obscure science, and the only reliable reference to it I have seen is in a commentary to a poem by Shaykh 'Abd al-Qadir Dan Tafa al-Qadiri (rahimahullah), who was a master of said science. AFAIK, za'irjah is not magic, and I seriously doubt that the Perennialists, most of whom can barely speak Arabic, would have knowledge of such an rare and closely guarded science.
Salam I was wondering, If, the translation mentioned here, (from an orientalist), is a useful translation of Za’irajah, given the current climate, of the new world order and black magic, perennialists are associated with? 85 “The Za’irajah: A branch of the science of letter magic, (practiced) among the (authorities on letter magic), is (the technique of) finding out answers from questions by means of connections existing between the letters of the expressions (used in the question). They imagine that these (connections) can form the basis for knowing the future happenings they want to know.” [Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddimah, Trans. Franz Rosenthal, 3/182.] In all these examples, it is kufr to believe that information obtained from such sciences (or pseudosciences) is absolutely true and certain (qaţýī–yaqīnī) and one who has obtained this information has absolute knowledge of unseen (is also kufr); but if one practices the Zayirjah or Jafar – as a guide similar to istikhārah and not with the belief or claim of absolute knowledge of unseen, it is not kufr. Allāh táālā knows best.
