Magia en al-Andalus: Rasā’il ijwān al-Ṣafā’, Rutbat al-ḥakīm y Gāyat al-ḥakīm (Picatrix)

Abstract

This article is concerned with the introduction of the Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa’ to al-Andalus, and the implication this question has for the history of Arabic science and philosophy. More specifically, it focuses on the impact of the encyclopaedia of the Brethren of Purity on the Rutbat al-Hakim and the Ghayat al- Hakim, two important works of the literature of al-Andalus in the field of occult sciences. The article revisits the issue of authorship and chronology of the three works, highlighting the fact that the corpus of the Rasa’il is the product of a historically long process of composition and confirming with some new clues the identification of the author of the Rutba and the Ghaya with Maslama al-Qurtubi (d. 964). The textual comparison of these three works and, in particular, the study of the still unedited Rutba enables one to identify Maslama al-Qurtubi as the genuine transmitter of the Ikhwanian corpus to al-Andalus.