Ahmad al-Buni

His writings deal with 'Ilm al-huruf (Arabic: علم الحروف, the esoteric value of letters) and topics relating to mathematics, siḥr "sorcery", and spirituality.

[1][2] Born in Buna in the Almohad Caliphate (now Annaba, Algeria), al-Buni lived in Ayyubid Egypt and learned from many eminent Sufi masters of his time.

Most of the so-called mujarrabât ("time-tested methods") books on sorcery in the Muslim world are simplified excerpts from the Shams al-Ma'arif.

In c. 1200, Ahmad al-Buni showed how to construct magic squares using a simple bordering technique, but he may not have discovered the method himself.

[citation needed] Denis MacEoin, in a 1985 article in Studia Iranica, said that al-Buni may also have indirectly influenced the Twelver Shi'i radical movement known as Bábism.