Ilm al-Raml means “the science of the sand”. It is the Arabic name for the art known in English as geomancy. A practitioner makes marks in the sand (today, on paper or a screen), turns them into simple figures of one or two dots, and arranges those figures into a chart that is read for a question.
Where it comes from
Ilm al-Raml belongs to the medieval Islamic world. Its earliest beginnings are uncertain and surrounded by tradition. The first geomancy texts in Latin, from the twelfth century, are thought to be translations from Arabic. A brass geomancy instrument made in Syria in 1241–42 is kept in the British Museum. Ilm al-Raml is unrelated to Chinese feng shui, which simply shares the English name.
Sources: A. Palazzo, “The Reworking of the Earliest Latin Texts on Geomancy …”, in Rencontres de Philosophie Médiévale 31 (Brepols, 2025), pp. 421–456; British Museum, geomantic instrument, museum no. 1888,0526.1; E. Savage-Smith and M. B. Smith, Islamic Geomancy and a Thirteenth-Century Divinatory Device (Undena Publications, 1980).
The sixteen figures
Every chart is made from sixteen figures. Each one is a stack of four rows, and every row holds either one dot or two. In The Master of Geomancy each figure has a name, a number from 1 (Yussif) to 16 (Musah), and an element: Fire, Air, Water or Sand/Earth.
How a chart is built
At a high level:
- With your question in mind, you make sixteen rows of marks without counting them.
- Each row becomes one dot (odd) or two dots (even), and every four rows make one figure.
- The first four figures, called the Mothers, give rise to the rest of the chart, step by step, until all sixteen houses are filled.
Each house speaks to an area of life, such as self, wealth, home, marriage or career. The last positions bring the chart together in the Judge.
Reading a chart
This is where the real knowledge lies. The same figure can say something quite different depending on the house it falls in and the question being asked. Ilm al-Raml is a traditional art and an invitation to reflection, not a guarantee of any outcome.
Discover more
You can try it now: cast a free chart and read the free sample question, “Will I own a house in my life?” (Kanzul Mikban, Chapter 146).
The full meanings and methods are in The Master of Geomancy, the foundation text by Sheikh Abdul Basit Bayan, and Kanzul Mikban, which holds over 150 question-specific reading methods.