Ilm Al-raml In Islamic And Arabic Culture

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Published: 17th May 2017 in Religion

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Distant as it may seem, synergizing mathematics with divination systems
and religious practices that transcend the realm of rational thought is an
almost impossible endeavor. To get a clear understanding of into the nature
of amtehatmical knowelegdew Nonetheless, a careful and detailed
examination of some

Historical Background

Ilm Al-raml constitutes an omnipresent divination system in the Arabic and

Islamic culture. The literature attributes the Arabic term Ilm Al-raml or ilm Al
-khutut to Geomancy. Historically, Geomancy constituted a family of
divination systems, including such famous members as Ifa, Fa, 'Sixteen
Cowries' (Nigeria and West Africa in general), Sikidy (Madagascar and
Comoro Island), Ramalasastra (India), I Ching ( China), Hakata (Southern
Africa), ilm al-raml or khutut al-raml (North Africa). According to the most
recent historical re-enactments, the Hellenic, Jewish, Persian, African, Indian
and Chinese borrowings into the Arabic body of geomancy point to a drafting
of the classic, strongly astrological geomantic system in Southern
Mesopotamia in an Isma'ili context in the tenth century CE. Subsequently,
the system's rapid and successful spread over the Islamic and Jewish
intellectual world, and hence into Europe, Africa and the Indian Ocean
region, was largely due to its being preserved in widely circulated treatises.
Of these, perhaps the most famous and successful has been the Kitab al-fasl
fi usul 'ilm al-raml) by the Berber sheikh Muhammad al-Zanati (c. 1200 CE)
(Van Binsberg , 1996). A careful examination of the binary mathematical
structure of both the Southern African four-tablet divination system, and the
more directly Arabian-derived forms of geomancy found in the Indian Ocean
region led many historians and researchers to hypothesize a series of
historical connections.

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In Arabic Islamic culture, ilm al-raml or sand-science goes back to Idrīs, the
Egyptian third Islamic prophet of Allah who came between the prophets
Adam and Noah and resided in Egypt during which he undertaken the
mission to show people how to write, to sew, to build cities and to use the
Science of the Sand(Al-Tokhi,1991).

The narrative tells that Idriss was taught this science by an angel sent by
Allah and he taught it to his people who were practicing "astrology"
(Tanjjim).

Description and interpretations

According to the principles of Idrisian facts, all living creatures are made up
of four elements: fire, air, water, earth and four results heat, cold, moist, dry,
and four directions east, west, south, and north. Also, looking at people's
activities they found that they basically used four major practices: weighing,
counting, planting, and farming (Van Binsberg, 1996). Then everything
balances on four corners, four figures, four extremities (e.g. the human
body), and four elements on which they have built unlimited configurations.
Partly rooted in simple chance procedures and random processes (like hitting
the earth, throwing tablets, beans, shells etc.), ilm al-raml is a binary system
of 16 figures. Each figure is 4 rows high and each row consists of either one
dot or two dots. The figures are determined through various methods both
ancient and modern. The procedure is called darb al-raml or the forceful
'hitting of the sand' with a stick, in order to produce a random number of dot
traces or marks which can then be scored as either odd or even. Four figures
are created, and a chart is depicted using simple binary multiplication, and is
interpreted based on the meanings of each figure. The 4_(number)"four
binary elements of each figure allow for 24 or 16 different combinations. As
there are 4 root figures in each chart, the total number of possible charts
equals 16Ã-16Ã-16Ã-16 or 65536. The charts are also interpreted differently.
Depending on the nature of the question, ilm al-raml can be considered as
one of the most thorough kinds of divination based on only 16 figures which
are extremely simple yet with deep connotations. The marks on the ground
are interpreted through a process of "transformation and elimination", from
one horizontal line, with one or two dots (one for odd, two for even), to a
four-line symbol, of which there are sixteen 24 configurations (Van Binsberg ,
1996, p.5) :

With two dots making a line, the above configurations can be written as:

More complex procedures may raise this number to any higher power of 2. A
written or memorized key (the catalogue) provides the interpretation of each
generated symbol and of their combinations. (Van Binsberg , 1996)

The origin of this science is the dot and its secret is the odd number. Each of
the four basic elements has a dot representation. Knowing that the element
fire is lighter than the element air and that air is lighter than water and the
water lighter than sand and knowing that the heavy element carries the
lighter and not vice versa, so the elements in ilm al-raml follow this order:
fire then air then water then sand (Al-Tokhi, 1991). Moreover, they assigned
4 letters from the alphabets to designate each one of the 4 elements.

Fire( naar)
Air (hawa')
Water (maa')
Sand (torab)
Ù† (noun)
هـ (haa')
Ù… (meem)
ت (taa')
Originally, the patterns were created when the munajjim or the geomancer
traced dots with a "stylus" across a board of sand or dust. The geomancer
then examines and construes the dots, deriving further patterns, and
eventually gives an answer or forecast for his client. Ascribed to this pattern
of dots are different meanings and interpretations, related to the colors,
months, planets, the four elements, the signs of the zodiac and parts of the
body.

Conditions when using Ilm al-raml

To hit the sand, the hitter or geomancer or Al-Darib should be facing AL
Qubla (a place in Mecca where the Muslims do pilgrimage) and should be
clean and wearing clean clothes. He should pray, read certain verses from
the Qur'an and place an intention to hit the sand seeking an answer to a
question in mind. In the Islamic culture, hitting the sand is not supposed to
be done in the following times: during storms or rain, at sunset or sunrise.
However, it is preferable to be done after sunset until dawn, the best time is
during the night. Also, the hitter shouldn't speak to others while performing
the act. He should be joyful and content and should start with hitting the
sand from left to right saying these words: Tash 4 torbash 4 shaqoor 4 tazan
4. (Al-Tokhi, 1992).

Procedure: How it is done

The procedure is administered inductively through a set of pre-determined
and systematic series of steps that are embellished by the diviner's skill to
intensify and epitomize the importance of the act. The series of steps
constitutes a decision making algorithm that, upon execution, results in an
outcome which is interpreted by the diviner as either good or bad.

The steps are illustrated in the following example:

Step 1: A customer comes to Al-Darib (the diviner or the person hitting the
sand), seeking answers or advice on certain questions. The questions can be
related to any type of day-to-day affairs such as marriage/divorce; life/death;
finding a thief; pregnancy; happiness; profit/loss, etc..

Step 2: To find the answer, Al-Darib, after fulfilling the above mentioned
conditions, makes 4 horizontal lines and on each line he designates 4 rows of
random number of dots in such a way that each row has less number of dots
than its precedent. Below is a demonstration:

Then Al-Darib eliminates the dots two by two, if the remaining is a single dot
he puts a dot otherwise he puts a dash sign. This concept is what is known in
arithmetic as counting modulo 2. (Ascher, 2002)

The above figure is called Al-takht (the board in Arabic) and the resulting 4
shapes or configurations are called the "mothers" from which the other
twelve shapes (4 daughters; 4 granddaughters; 2 off springs; 1 arbitrator; 1
judge) are generated (Al-Tokhi, 1992). Each of the sixteen possible
configurations is identified by a name, and for each a number of standard
interpretations are given in a catalogue or some type of a written manual.
These configurations are derived by a special form of juxtaposition, based on
the following computational rules:

even x odd = odd, i.e. x = ; odd x even = odd, i.e. x =

even x even = even, i.e. x = ; odd x odd = even, i.e. x =

In any given shape, the four parts designate from top to bottom: Head;
chest; waist; legs.

The above takhit produced the following four mothers' configurations:

Step 3: From the four shapes that constitute the "mothers'" configuration,
four other shapes are generated by taking one shape from the mothers'
heads, another from their chests, a third from their waists and a fourth from
their legs. These four configurations constitute the "daughters". Juxtaposing
the first two mothers then the second two mothers and the first two
daughters and the second two daughters will generate the four
"granddaughters". The same procedure is repeated with every two
granddaughters to get the 2 configurations which are called "off springs".
Juxtaposing the two off springs together will give one configuration and is
called "arbitrator". To generate the sixteenth configuration, Al-Darib
multiplies the last shape with the first mother shape to get the "judge". The
sixteen configurations generated are shown below:

Interpretation:
Each of the sixteen configurations designates a "house" which holds the
meanings on which interpretations are made. The houses are different from
the configurations itself. While the configuration or shape is the piling up of 4
layers of dots and dashes, the houses are the locations in which these
configurations fall (Al-Tokhi, 1992). The first house represents the life of the
client, the second house is the house of capital, the third for the brothers,
the fourth for the parents, the fifth for the children, the sixth for disease, the
seventh for marriage, the eighth for death, the ninth for travel, the tenth for
luxury and fame, the eleventh for hope, the twelfth for enemies, the
thirteenth for the asker, the fourteenth for the sponsors, the fifteenth for
balance and equilibrium and the last shape is for judgment . The shapes in
the sand speak to Al_Darib: When he sees distressful or tragic configurations
he pronounces bad news irrespective what the object of consultation is.
When he sees a mixed configuration he pronounces middle results. When he
sees happy configurations he pronounces good news and success.

Kinship relations:
A number of researches indicate that the mothers here do not primary stand
for a kinship reference, but for fundamental cosmological entities such as
planets or elements,
However, in hitting the sand, the client has to give the name of his mother
and not the father. (Al-Tokhi, 1991). This in turn makes the descent series
mothers/ daughters/ off springs distinctly "matrilateral". (Van Binsberg ,
1996)

Calendar:
The sixteen shapes or configurations are divided among the days, weeks,
months, and years. For the days of the week, the shapes are distributed as
follows:

Sunday&Thurs. night

Friday &Tues. night

Wed &Sat. night

Wed &Fri. night

Sat. &Wed. night

Thurs.&Mon. night

Tues. &Sat. night

Sat. &rest of days

Adopted from Al-Tokhi (1992). Al-usul wa al-wosoul fi ilm al-raml.(Translated

from Arabic)

Also, the first twelve of these sixteen configurations are identified with the
twelve astrological houses and are interpreted accordingly, taking into
account the usual correspondences and conventional meanings of the twelve
houses, the planets and the zodiacal signs. The planetary and zodiacal
associations of each of the sixteen names are listed in the following table:

Adopted from Van Binsberg, The Astrological Origin of Geomancy, 1996,

p.43.

Closure
Ilm al-raml in Islamic, Arabic culture is a complex cosmological tradition that
is still practiced and is highly popular in most Arab countries today. Although
it is highly contextual and mostly spread out among the more
underprivileged, poverty stricken people, it is nonetheless highly
sophisticated with a systematic set of procedures that underlies its
implementation and interpretation. As a divination practice, Ilm al-raml
encompasses a range of mathematical ideas that are embedded in the daily
life of indigenous people and play an unprecedented role in impacting the
decisions they undertake in their everyday encounters. Concomitantly, such
an inductive, semiotic system is based on mathematical and probabilistic
principles that are constantly proposed as vital in the mathematics school
curricula. Introducing students to such cultural practices can help embed
mathematics in meaningful and novel contexts and consequently build a
more positive attitude toward mathematics.