What if astrology, magic, and the occult aren’t as outside of Islam as we’ve been taught to think?

This week, I’m joined by astrologer and student of the Islamic occult sciences Blaze-Maximus Al-Hakimiyya (@AstroByMax) to ask: Where do Islam + the occult meet?

Blaze takes us into a history of Islam and the occult sciences that complicates the idea that astrology, magic, divination, and Islam have always existed in opposition to one another. We talk about what it means that Islam takes the unseen for granted, the difference between licit and illicit magic, and how colonialism + modern reform movements helped change the way many of us understand the occult in the first place.

We get into astrology in the medieval Islamicate world, geomancy as the “science of the sands,” divination, bibliomancy, the astrology embedded in everyday life, and the possibility that some of us are already engaging practices connected to the occult sciences without thinking of them that way.

One of my favorite parts of our conversation is thinking about astrology as an intellectual tradition. Blaze walks us through a history of astrology that decenters Europe and instead takes us through Baghdad, Cairo, Alexandria, Timbuktu, Marrakesh, Delhi, and the larger Afro-Asiatic world. We talk about what gets lost when astrology becomes a consumer product rather than something we actually study, inherit, debate, and learn in community.

Chapters

00:00 — Teaser: Lifestyle Astrology vs. an Intellectual Tradition

00:59 — Welcome to Grounded + Meet Blaze-Maximus Al-Hakimiyya

03:13 — Where Blaze Is Finding Grounding

04:39 — Where Do Islam + the Occult Meet?

12:39 — Magic Is All Around Us

19:31 — How Blaze Discovered Astrology

28:32 — Old Astrology vs. New Astrology

37:59 — Geomancy + Divination

44:56 — Building Intellectual Life in Community

48:53 — Where Do You Start Studying the Occult Sciences?

56:14 — Where to Find + Support Blaze

References

Abū Maʿshar. The Great Introduction to Astrology. Edited and translated by Keiji Yamamoto and Charles Burnett. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2019.

Ali, A. “Head on History.” Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonhistory/about

Chireau, Yvonne P. Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

Saif, Liana. The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Zadeh, Travis. Wonders and Rarities: The Marvelous Book That Traveled the World and Mapped the Cosmos. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023.

Find + Support Blaze

Blaze-Maximus Al-Hakimiyya is a professional astrologer and student of the Islamic occult sciences whose work specializes in pre-modern astrological traditions from the Hellenistic and medieval Islamicate worlds.

Find Blaze as @AstroByMax across social media.

AstroByMax: Website, Readings + Classes: https://astrobymax.com/

Support Blaze on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/astrobymax?utm