The Islamicate Seven Seals in Christian – and especially Coptic – magic

Lloyd D. Graham

In previous publications, I have examined the influence of the Islamicate Seven Seals1 – a
series of seven symbols (Fig. 1) popular in Arabic magical texts and talismans2 – on the
magical traditions of non-Islamic cultures. Accordingly, I have addressed their appearance in
Kabbalistic texts and Jewish amulets,3 and – with very limited success – sought evidence that
they had additionally been imported into the Christian folk-magic of Ethiopia.4 In a
theoretical exercise, I also showed how the Islamicate Seal series could be mapped onto the
Seven Seals in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation.5

By way of completeness, I would now like to add that the Islamicate Seven Seals seem also
to have enjoyed some limited circulation within Christian magical practices in Egypt, having
been appropriated into the Coptic tradition as part of a historiola known as “The Seven
Covenants of Solomon” or “The Seven Pacts of Solomon.”6 As I pointed out previously,7 this
narrative – together with the associated Seal symbols – is popular in Islamicate amulets;8,9 the
story and its graphic accompaniments are intended to ward off the Qarīna, a female demon
who afflicts or kills expectant mothers, babies and children and who is identified with the
Evil Eye.10 The same demoness is known by a wide variety of names and epithets, some of
the more prevalent being Alabasdria (Aberselia or Warzaliyyah in Coptic usage),11 Gyllou,
Abyzou, and (in Arabic) “the Mother of Children.”12 The historiola describes an encounter

Fig. 1. The Islamicate Seven Seals (read right to left for Seals 1-7)

1
In previous publications I have used the adjective “Islamic;” however, since magic is expressly prohibited by
Islam, it is now preferred that the term “Islamicate” – which denotes the cultures of regions where Islam is
the dominant religion – be used instead.
2
Graham 2011; 2012a; 2012b.
3
Graham 2013. Although ʿAlī’s poem in the Shams al-Maʿārif al-Kubrā describes the Seal series as consisting
of four elements from the Torah, four from the Christian Gospels, and five from the Qurʾān (Winkler 2006:
104, 180 & 191; Graham 2014b: 10), we can be confident that – whatever inspired its creation (Graham
2012a) – the Islamicate symbol series is the original form of the ensemble and that cognates in other
religions are derived from it (Graham 2014a: 31-32; 2014b: 36).
4
Graham 2014a: 29-30.
5
Rev 5:1, 6:1-17, 8:1-6; Graham 2010.
6
Viaud 1978; Gardner 2023a: 71; 2023b: 82. Other glyphs may have travelled from Coptic to Islamicate magic
(e.g. Winkler 2006: 220).
7
Graham 2014b: 24.
8
A facsimile of a printed amulet of this type is given by Pielow 1995: Bild 1 (unnumbered page immediately
following p.207).
9
Doutté 1908: 112-116; Zwemer 1916: 40-45; Winkler 2006: 79-87.
10
Stevenson 1920: 99 & 104-105.
11
Vycichl 1991: 1504a.
12
Zwemer 1916: 42; Viaud 1978: 116-119; Winkler 2006: 82. She is umm – “Mother” – to children insofar as
she takes possession of them (Stevenson 1920: 99); others tranlsate umm as “Enemy” or “Witch” (Stevenson
1920: 99; Vycichl 1991: 1504a). Previously, I have written about her incidentally in a wholly different
context (Graham 2021: 2).

1
between Solomon and the demoness in which the former proceeds to bind the latter by means
of seven sequential oaths, each of which invokes a different attribute or name of Allāh.13 In
this way, Solomon constrains the power that the Qarīna can wield against her victims.

It seems that the Arabic version of the Seven Covenants was imported wholesale and without
change into Coptic folk magic,14 appearing for example in The Book of the Prayer of the
Virgin,15 a Coptic book of magical prayers which, in the 1970s, reportedly sold 2000-3000
copies annually.16 Accordingly, it is expected that – in Coptic usage – each Covenant would
be accompanied by the cognate Islamicate Seal symbol, since these normally form an integral
part of the historiola in its apotropaic embodiment.17 The imported package was Christianised
by appending a special prayer at the end, which translates as follows:18
We beg and ask your Goodness, O Friend of the Human Race, to take away from your
servant N..., and from the one who said this prayer with him, all illnesses, pains, the
Woman (the Mother of Children) and her consequences: ophthalmia, migraine, the evil
eye, the black and evil look, and all the impure, evil and demonic spirits; and also all
those who belong to them and accomplish their ignoble works. Remove them, O Lord,
by the power of your Magnificence, from the body and bones of your servant N... and
from those who will say this prayer with him. By the truth of the prayer of the Pure
Virgin, Mother of the Saviour and Refuge of all. By the truth of the intercession of
Angels and chiefs of Angels, Fathers and Prophets, Apostles and Martyrs, Saints and
Servants, Ascetics and all who are pleasing to the Lord for their good works. And glory
to the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and always. Amen.

In a further attempt to assimilate of the Seven Covenants into Egyptian Christianity, the
prayer is followed by a series of “blessed and magnificent names” written in Coptic script:
Ⲭⲁⲡⲥⲟ ⲍⲉⲥ ⲱⲙⲉ ⲁⲓⲍⲥⲟⲩ ⲛⲡⲉ ⲁⲍ
ⲕⲱⲣⲏⲇⲉⲥ ⲇⲉ ⲙⲟⲛ ⲫⲭⲏⲃⲁⲯⲁ ⲃⲩⲛ
ⲃⲩⲗⲃ ⲙⲗⲉ ⲯⲥ ⲁⲯⲓⲝⲩ ⲁⲃⲟⲛⲁ ⲯⲁⲗ
ⲣⲓⲛ ⲁⲯ ⲕⲗ ⲕⲃ ⲣⲁ / ⲇⲁⲯ :

13
Each Seal symbol is linked – via an association with one of the seven sawāqiṭ – with one of the 99 Beautiful
Names of Allāh (Graham 2011: 13), and each member of the sawāqiṭ co-appears with its cognate Seal in the
Seven Covenants of Solomon (see the middle ring of the circular seals in Viaud 1978: 123-199 & Pielow
1995: Bild 1). Despite this, the corresponding Beautiful Name does not correspond in any way with the
divine names or attributes used to enforce the Covenant in question.
14
Viaud 1978: 119. There is no mention of a Coptic-language version of the Seven Covenants historiola, so
presumably the text remained in Arabic. Viaud (1978: 119-130) gives only the French translation of an
Arabic version attributed to the Sufi scholar al-Ghazali (11-12th-century CE), along with the associated
“magic squares” and Seal symbols.
15
Writing in French, Viaud 1978: 75 gives its full title as Prière de la Vierge Marie et Prières des Pères Saints
et Prière d’Anba Samuel le Reclus and gives the publisher of the 1973 edition (his preferred source) as the
Library of Saint George, Shubra, Cairo. See Viaud 1978: 118, fn. 179 & 119, fn. 181 for bibliographic
details of the Seven Covenants amulet within the 1973 book.
16
The book existed in many editions (Viaud 1978: 75). Despite its local popularity amongst Egyptian Copts, I
have been unable to find any copies for purchase online or for loan within Australia, where I live.
17
Viaud 1978: 123-129. However, there are versions from which the Seal symbols as a series are absent. For
example, one version of the talisman shown by Viaud (1978: 120) lacks the one-to-one mapping of Seal to
Covenant. Even here, though, some of the Seal symbols appear individually (or appear in non-canonical
permutations) within the cells of “magic square” tables in the amulet; see e.g. the first grid in the right hand
column and the third and fourth grids in the third column from the right, with enlargements of the latter two
instances at Viaud (1978: 127-128).
18
Viaud 1978: 130; it is unclear whether the prayer is written in Coptic or in Arabic.

2
Of these, the word ⲣⲓⲛ may be a form of ⲣⲁⲛ, meaning “name,”19 but otherwise the letter-
strings do not seem to be meaningful Coptic words. Nor are they known from elsewhere to be
voces magicae, whether Coptic or otherwise. The one possible exception is the two-letter
sequence ⲣⲁ (“Ra”), which occurs in the Prayer of the Virgin that appears in the 10th-century
Coptic Magical Book of Mary and the Angels:20 “I adjure (you) today, Father almighty, by
the holy sounds, whose names are Achi Acha Acham Ra.”21 Unfortunately, little significance
can be attached to a match consisting of just two letters when no other correspondences are
evident.

The final Coptic addition to the Seven Covenants is, paradoxically, a 7 x 7 “magic square”
consisting of the seven ṭahaṭīl names from Islamicate magic, each name being written in
disconnected Arabic letters and presented one above the other to fill the grid.22 Each name is
considered to be the “seal” of the corresponding Covenant: lelṭahṭīl for the first Covenant,
mahṭahṭīl for the second, and so on. This means that, in the Coptic sphere, the seven
Covenants, the seven ṭahaṭīl names and the seven Seal symbols maintain the individual one-
to-one correspondences that they enjoy in Islamicate magic.

It remains unclear how long ago the importation of the Islamicate package occurred; the
phenomenon may have been quite recent.23 Outside of this wholesale appropriation from the
apotropaic repertoire of Egyptian Muslims, the Seal symbols seem to have had little or no
currency in Coptic folk-magic.

© Lloyd D. Graham (2023), v01_04.01.23.

Cite as: “Lloyd D. Graham (2023) The Islamicate Seven Seals in Christian – and especially Coptic – magic,”
online at https://independent.academia.edu/LloydGraham

Keywords: Coptic magic, Coptic talisman/amulet, Seven Covenants of Solomon, Seven Pacts of Solomon,
Alabasdria, Qarina.

Bibliography

All URLs were accessed 27 Dec, 2022, unless otherwise stated.

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19
Coptic Dictionary Online, online at https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C3121.
20
P. Heid. Inv. Kopt 8.13; Meyer 1996: 23. Note that a modern version of this Marian prayer appears in the The
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21
Presumably this vox (Ra) may be a reflex of the name of the ancient Egyptian sun-god.
22
Viaud 1978: 131.
23
After the Islamic conquest of Egypt, Arabic-language spells became increasingly common as imports into
Coptic magic (Vycichl 1991: 1504a); no doubt the process continues up to the present day.

3
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4
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