This article examines a short Persian work on the occult sciences of illusionism and conjuring (sīmiyā, rīmiyā) by the renowned late Timurid-era polymath Ḥusayn Vāʿiẓ Kāshifī (d. 910/1504–1505), titled Asrār-i qāsimī, which came to serve as the core of a greatly expanded interpolation, composed during the high Safavid period, that covered the remaining occult sciences of talismanic lettrism (līmiyā), astral magic (hīmiyā), and alchemy (kīmiyā). Although Kāshifī himself was not a Shiʿi, he was adopted by Safavid Shiʿi culture on account of his imamophilism, Sufism, and esotericism that transcended confessional boundaries. His Asrār-i qāsimī was by his own account inspired by the early ninth/fifteenth-century Sufi master, Persian poet, and occultist Qāsim-i Anvār. The bulk of the interpolation is devoted to the talismanic arts and is supposedly based on a work called Ḥall al-mushkilāt. The anonymous interpolator, whose identity has long been a mystery (as scholars assumed incorrectly that Kāshifī was the author of the interpolation, which retained the title Asrār-i qāsimī), appears to have been Jalāl al-Dīn Munajjim (d. 1028/1619), the court astrologer of the Safavid shah ʿAbbās I (r. 995–1038/1587–1629). He describes in detail the talismans fashioned for various purposes, often for well-known political figures, by such eminent Shiʿi religious scholars and Sufis as Shaykh Bahāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad ʿĀmilī (d. 1030/1621), who allegedly based many of his operations on those of the legendary Indian master known as Ṭumṭum-i Hindī. Kāshifī’s Asrār-i qāsimī offers a fascinating glimpse into the arcane and secretive arts of illusionism and conjuring, while the Safavid interpolation of his work provides a rarely documented perspective on the exercise of political power in Iran and demonstrates the great esteem in which the occult sciences were held at the highest levels of Safavid society.
Kashifi's Asrar-i qasimi: A Late Timurid Manual of the Occult Sciences and Its Safavid Afterlife