The Arab historian, Ibn Khaldun, in his Muqaddimah, ascribed authorship of "Picatrix" (referring to the original Arabic version, under the title "Ġāyat al-Ḥakīm" غاية الحكيم ) to the astronomer and mathematician Maslama Al-Majriti, who died between 1005 CE and 1008 CE (398 AH). This attribution is problematic: the author of the Arabic original states in its introduction that he completed the book on 348 AH, which is ~ 959 CE. Moreover, the author states that he started writing the "Picatrix" after he completed his previous book, "Rutbat al-Ḥakīm" رتبة الحكيم in 343 AH (~ 954 CE). This makes the authoring more than five decades before Al-Majriti's death, and if his estimated birth year is to be accepted, he would be only around 5 years old when he started writing it. As well, according to Holmyard, the earliest manuscript attribution of the work to Maslama al-Majriti was made by the alchemist al-Jildaki, who died shortly after 1360, while Ibn Khaldun died some 20 years later. However, no biography of al-Majriti mentions him as the author of this work.