Eyes on the Skies: Prophecy Eclipses Astrology

Posted on August 1, 2024 by Maurice Hines

On Monday, April 8, 2024 eyes were on the skies in North America. Day turned to night in the path of totality extending from Mazatlan, Mexico to Elliston, Nova Scotia in Canada. As the Moon and Sun danced in the shadows of the sky some awaited a cataclysm while others cherished the spiritual moment. As the temperature dropped and the day drew dim, there descended a strange serenity that interrupted our usually busy weekday afternoons. The conscious Ḥanīf was most likely bowing in extended moments in prayer, while the Sabian probably pondered the ill omen behind the event.

Ancient religion was always tied to celestial phenomena. First, we know that in the ancient Egyptian religion, ṣ-b-3 meant star and words derived from it signified religious teachings. Its cognate in Semitic languages like Hebrew, Aramaic, and Hebrew would have similar connotations (Sayyār, 2020). The Egyptians based much of their religious beliefs and holidays on what they knew of the stars. Likewise, the Mysteries were made up of two levels, the Lesser Mysteries and the Greater Mysteries. The Lesser Mysteries were known for studying terrestrial phenomena, while the Greater Mysteries were known for studying celestial phenomena. To most historians of religion, the ancients ignorantly followed superstitious beliefs about natural phenomena and deified features and creatures of nature. But our studies of Sabianism and the Mystery Schools afford us a much more nuanced view.

Sabians intently studied the stars to understand what the angels or spirits were trying to tell them about the past, present, and future state of the world and those in it. This included predicting the weather, fortune-telling, creating calendars, creating talismans, studying the properties of elements, etc. There was no distinction made between astronomy and astrology. Nowadays, only the former is accepted as an empirical science while the latter is considered a pseudoscience; although it remains a fixture in the popular psyche. It is important to note how this came to be.

“Star Gazing” AI generated image by Hotpot.

Astrology in the Ancient World

In ancient Rome, the term Chaldean was equivalent to astronomer and they were credited with inventing the gnomon device, which is a triangular blade that casts shadows on a sundial used to tell time (Thompson, 1929, p. 39). Bayard Dodge also states that the term Chaldean meant astrologer and notes that it was associated with people who were known as Sabians who claimed Hermes and the Philosophers as their teachers (Ibn al-Nadīm, 1970, pp. 745-746). For most of the history of the world, religion, philosophy, and astronomy were closely associated.

Their rationale was as the Central Asian polymath, Muhammad al-Shahrastānī stated in the 12th century (Shahrastānī and Muhammad, 1992, 354-359):

They began with a belief in a singular transcendent deity, who they later saw as unconcerned with creation.
They believed that spirits, which we know as angels, governed worldly phenomena such as planets, stars, moon, etc. Due to their active role in our lives and their proximity to the Creator, they are worthy of worship and can relay the benedictions of humans to the Creator.
They then adopted the belief that they should worship something tangible and that the planets, stars, and so on were the bodies of those spirits.
Then they adopted the belief that the heavenly bodies cannot always be seen, so they made shrines on Earth that aligned with certain astronomical significance and put in them idols and other images to represent the celestial bodies of worship.

The Ḥanīf criticism of the Sabians was not their study of the heavens, but the theology, mythology, and dangerous practices they constructed around it, such as human sacrifice and violent orgies. These criticisms are apparent were we to examine the life of Abraham (Ibrāhīm), the quintessential Ḥanīf and prime Sabian/Chaldean antagonist. The story of Abraham and the near sacrifice of his son serves on a prohibition of human sacrifice. While it is said that Abraham supplicated against his people causing them to all die after witnessing them in an orgy (Ṭāwus, 1949, p. 25).

We also find in his narrative a clear polemic against astral worship in his disputes with his people (Al-Anʿām: 74-79). As I explained in Islam and the Ancient Mysteries Vol. 1, when Abraham was shown the truth behind the celestial realm he exclaimed “this is my lord!” However, this did not mean that he was deifying the stars, moon, and sun. No prophet is guilty of such polytheistic behavior. Rather, Abraham, in a moment of awe, made the elliptical statement as if to say, “this is the handiwork of my lord” or “this is the magnificence of my lord.”

Total Solar Eclipse from Carbondale, IL (image courtesy of NASA)

Astrology in Islam

Within the Islamic tradition, astrology is largely disproved of, with very few dispensations. The Prophet Muhammad is reported as saying the following concerning eclipses, after it was said that a solar eclipse occurred due to the death of his son, Ibrāhīm:

The sun and the moon are two signs amongst the signs of Allah; they do not eclipse on the death or life of anyone. So when you see the eclipse, remember Allah and say “Allah is the greatest,” pray and give charity.

The Prophet Muhammad is also reported as saying: “If the stars are mentioned then be silent.” and “Learn of the stars as much as you are guided with in the land and sea, then stop at that.” (Shahrastānī and Muhammad, 1992, 350) The Prophet Muhammad is also recorded as prohibiting the study of the stars to predict the future and engage in other occult practices. One hadith reads:

The Messenger of Allah (may peace and blessings be upon him) led the morning prayer at Hudaybiya. There were some marks of the rainfall during the night. At the conclusion of prayer he turned towards people and observed: Do you know what your Lord has said? They replied: Allah and His Messenger know best. Upon this he (the Holy Prophet) remarked: He (Allah) said: Some of My bondsmen entered the morning as My believers and some as unbelievers. He who said: We have had a rainfall due to the Blessing and Mercy of Allah, he is My believer and a disbeliever of stars, and who said: We have had a rainfall due to the rising of such and such (star) disbelieved Me and affirmed his faith in the stars.

Despite the seemingly clear prohibition of such practices, Muslims studied and practiced astrology throughout much of their history. Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq was reported to be knowledgeable of astrology and said that Imam ʿAli ibn Abī Ṭalib was also very knowledgeable of it. Even mainstream Sunni scholars like Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Ibn Qutaybah, and Ṣāʿid al-Andalusī have produced books on astrology and related sciences. Imam Jaʿfar gave permission to the Āli Nawbakht family to practice it, who were employed by the Abbasids. The Ottomans were also known to use astrology to predict the outcomes of battles.

Al-Maqqarī notes that astrology, although taboo, certain Andalusian scholars knew it well, but did not broadcast this out of fear from the masses. If a scholar was known to speak or practice astrology. he would be labeled an atheist (zindīq) and possibly burned to death by a mob before the issue reaches the sultan. If the issue reaches the sultan, then the scholar must be executed in order to appease the people regardless of the facts. Usually, the sultan only ordered that their books be burned (Maqqarī, 1968, p. 221). Ṭāwūs reported that an astrologer was about to be crucified when he was asked “Did you see this in your stars?” He said “I saw an elevation, but I didn’t know it was above wood.” (Ṭāwus, 1949, p. 192)

There are a number of rationale as to why astrology is prohibited from an Islamic viewpoint. One is that predicting the future with the stars is opposed to the guidance and predictive aspects of prophethood. If one could accurately predict events using the stars then they would not be in need of prophetic guidance or prophesy.

Astrology: A Decisive View

The grey area in the religious rulings lies in the empirical elements of the study of the stars. Ibn Rushd, the grandfather, states in his Al-Bayān wa al-Taḥṣīl that calculating the time of an eclipse, telling the weather, or measuring the placement of the stars are not claims to knowing the unseen. However, publicizing this knowledge is blameworthy because it does not concern everybody, especially simpletons without discernment (Ibn Rushd al-Jadd and Hajji, 1974, p. 345). vol 9

Other scholars have taken the position that calculating the astronomical phenomena is a communal obligation (farḍ kifāyah) and forecasting is analogous to a doctor’s prognosis. Studying the stars is only prohibited when the practitioner makes a claim to know the unseen and if their practice is associated with magic, fortune-telling, and the like (Kuwait Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, 1988, pp. 52-54).

One scholar deduced the prohibition to three reasons (Kuwait Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, 1988, p. 54):

Negative psychological associations with the appearance of certain constellations, even if they have no meaning.
Although the Prophet Idrīs was gifted with the miracle of predicting events by the stars, in current times it amounts to conjecture because it is not a precise science.
Astrology is useless. Even if one can know the future, there is nothing they can do to change it.

Likewise, in the modern day, astronomer Andrew Fraknoi wrote an article titled “Your Astrology Defense Kit,” in which he examines 10 questions that pick at the veracity of astrology (Fraknoi, 1989):

Question	Summary
What is the likelihood that one-twelfth of the world’s population?	Challenges the probability aspect of astrology
Why is the moment of birth, rather than conception, crucial for astrology?	Questions the timing of events and the accuracy of astrological predictions
If the mother’s womb can keep out astrological influence until birth?	Compares astrological influence to a hypothetical situation involving a pregnant mother
If astrologers are as good as they claim, why aren’t they richer?	Raises doubt about the validity of astrological predictions based on the financial success of astrologers
Are all horoscopes done before the discovery of the two outermost planets?	Implies that the discovery of new celestial bodies should have affected astrological practices, questioning the accuracy of previous horoscopes
Shouldn’t we condemn astrology as a form of bigotry?	Suggests that astrology may have cultural implications and questionable validity
Why do different schools of astrology disagree so strongly with each other?	Challenges the scholarly differences and variations within the field of astrology
If the astrological influence is carried by a known force, why do the planets dominate?	Questions the dominance of planets in astrological influences if the force behind astrology is known
If astrological influence is carried by an unknown force, why is it independent of distance?	Raises doubt about the independence of astrological influences from distance, including a critique of the force behind astrology
If astrological influences don’t depend on distance, why is there no astrology of stars, galaxies, and quasars?	Questions the absence of astrology relating to other celestial bodies, challenging the universal applicability of astrological influences based on the distance of celestial bodies

These questions challenge the astrologer’s probability, timing of events, accuracy, validity, cultural implications, its scholarly differences, and the fact that it has not advanced due to new astronomical discoveries. In other words, astrology is a pseudo-science that does not meet the standards of empirical study.

There is no doubt that our fascination with celestial phenomena will endure as it has endured until now. The 2024 eclipse was nestled closely to other strange and cataclysmic phenomena: an earthquake in the Northeast United States, talk of sacrificing red heifers in Israel, a genocide in Gaza, and an initiation of attacks in the greater Near East. Yet our “faith” in the stars should be tempered by the Ḥanīf approach, which accepts the study of astronomy (the outward science), while reserving our doubt for astronomy (the inward science) that was lost and eclipsed with our knowledge of the prophets.

References

Fraknoi, Andrew. “Your Astrology Defense Kit.” Sky and Telescope, vol. 78, Aug. 1989, p. 146.

Grant, Robert M. Augustus to Constantine: The Rise and Triumph of Christianity in the Roman World. 1st ed., Westminster John Knox Press, 2004.

Ibn Rushd al-Jadd, Abū Walīd Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, and Muhammad Hajji. Al-Bayān Wa’l-Taḥṣīl Wa’l-Sharḥ Wa’l-Tawjīh Wa’l-Ta’līl Fī Wasā’il al-Mustakhrija. Dār al-Maghrib al-Islāmī, 1974.

Kuwait Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs. Al-Mawsūʿah al-Fiqhīyyah. 2nd ed., Kuwait Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, 1988.

Maqqarī, Aḥmad al-. Nafḥ Al-Ṭīb Min Ghuṣn al-Andalus al-Raṭīb. Edited by Iḥsān ’Abbās, Dār Ṣādir, 1968.

Sayyār, Nadīm al-. Laysū Āliha Wa Lākin Malā’ika. 2020.

Shahrastānī, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm al-, and Ahmad Fahmi Muhammad. Al-Milal Wa al-Niḥal. 2nd ed., Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyyah, 1992.

Ṭāwus, Al-Sayyid ibn. Farj Al-Mahūm Fī’l Ḥalāl Wa’l Ḥarām Min ’Ilm al-Nujūm. Dār al-Dhakhā’ir, 1949, https://ar.lib.eshia.ir/71550/1/189#.

Thompson, C. J. S. The Mystery and Romance of Astrology. Brentano’s, 1929.

Islam and the Ancient Mystery Schools (Part 11)

Posted on July 12, 2022 by Maurice Hines

If we cede that the primordial religion was a comprehensive spiritual and intellectual tradition resembling what we know as the Ancient Mystery Schools, then we should be able to map them to a single origin, whose name and appearance differed throughout time and space, but whose essence remained the same.To better illustrate the relationship between the major religions of the Near East and the Ancient Mystery Schools see the graphic below. Following that, I will provide a brief description of each of these names for Near Eastern religions with the aims of illuminating the similarities and differences.

The various forms of Near Eastern Mystery Schools

Chaldeans

The priests of the Mystery Schools in Prophet Ibrahim’s day were referred to as the Chaldeans. This is the Latinized form of the Semitic term, Kasdīm. Seated in ancient Iraq, they were known for their knowledge of astrology and worshipful reverence of the stars. When they went astray, Ibrahim was sent to rectify their religion. Those that followed him were known as Ḥanīfs. The Muslim polymath, al-Fārābī believed that the Chaldeans were the first to harvest the “wisdom teachings,” which they transmitted to the Egyptians, who transmitted them to the Greeks, who transmitted them to the Syrians (i.e. Naṣārā), who ultimately transmitted them to the Arab Muslims (43).

Sabians

The leaders of the Mystery Schools of Egypt and the lands that fell under their rule were known as Sabians (Ṣābi’a). This is attested to in Mandaean sources as well as in hieroglyphics. Dr. Nadim al-Sayyar found in a papyrus scroll that the word for knowledge was ṣabāwi (صباوٍ), which is derived from the word ṣabā, which means guidance in the ancient Egyptian language. Moreover, another derivative of this root is the word for teachings, ṣabāyat, which also indicates a scripture or a message (Sayyār, 1995, 274-5). He also demonstrates that this root carried connotations to the stars (Sayyār, 2020, 142).

How this Egyptian term entered the Arabic lexicon is a matter of speculation, but it suffices us to say that historians writing in Arabic after the advent of Islam used the term to refer to the unreformed Mystery Schools and the antithesis to Ḥanīf. This is attested to by the Andalusian Jewish scholar, Maimonides in his Guide For the Perplexed, Ṣa’id al-Andalusī’s Biographies of the Nations, and Muhammad al-Shahrastānī’s Sects and Creeds.

Ḥanīfs

Though the term Ḥanīf referred to Ibrahim and his followers who taught an unwavering monotheism and deference to human prophets as opposed to the angels, the term was inverted by many Semitic languages and religions. Other groups took it to mean pagan among other things discussed in Part 10 of this series. The Arabic of the Qur’an corrected this understanding and freed Ibrahim of any allegations of polytheism (as discussed in Part 9).

In later Arabic writings, the term Ḥanīf could be understood as the reformed versions of the Mystery Schools guided by the prophets as opposed to the Sabians, who represented the unreformed versions. While Muslim jurists, theologians, and historians acknowledged that Sabian beliefs had a foundation in monotheism, they also invented ideas that misled the masses into polytheism. Therefore, later religions would lie on the continuum between Sabian, a kind of proto-polytheism, and Ḥanīf, an orthodox monotheism.

Yahūd

It is my understanding that the Bani Isra’il (the Children of Israel) represented the Ḥanīf opposition to Egyptian, Chaldean, and Arabian Sabianism, as expounded by Maimonides. The Yahūd, on the other hand, are frequently spoken of negatively in the Qur’an, in contrast to Bānī Isrā’īl. Thus it is plausible that the Yahūd were those Jewish priests who relapsed into the practices and beliefs of the Sabians, particularly those of Northern Arabia where the kingdoms of Israel and Judah (perhaps a cognate to the Arabic word, Yahūd) were located. As we know, the Kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Assyrians and fell under the influence of the Chaldeans of their day.

One should note that the Mandaean Sabians believed themselves to have once been of the Jews, who were called Yahutai in Aramaic. However, they were from the faction who doubted the immaculate conception of Miriam (Buckley, 4), meaning they contributed to the distortion of the revealed doctrine. It should also be noted that Madaeans see the ancient Yahutai (i.e. Yahūd) and the Chaldeans (their spiritual predecessors) as one and the same. This can account for the Qur’an’s repeated critique of the Yahūd and other Sabian-style beliefs. A deeper look into the language of the Qur’an will reveal that most of their mentions in the Qur’an refer to them as “those who claim to be Jews” (الذين هادوا) revealing that God is casting doubt on their claims.

http://history-of-israel.org/history/chronological_presentation11.php

Philosophers

The Greek Philosophers, though not mentioned directly in the Qur’an, are generally known as Sabians among Muslim scholars. Ibn Taymīya, for instance, stated as such in his Al-Radd ʿalā al-Shādhulī. He believed that the philosophers were originally rightly guided (al-Ṣābi’a al-Ḥunafā’), just as the Yahūd and Naṣārā were originally rightly guided. However, only those among them who did not contradict the prophets remained guided (Ibn Taymīya, 136-7). We should also note that the Greek philosophers are also most commonly associated with the Mystery Schools. The likes of Pythagoras, Socrates, and Zeno were all associated with versions of the Mysteries, although there were philosophers also not associated with a particular Mystery school.

Naṣārā

As discussed in Part 10 of this series, the Naṣārā were most likely the Nasoraeans, a Neo-Platonic priestly class that became infused with the prophetic lineage (i.e. Ḥanīf) following the advent of Īsā. They were apparently Judeo-Christian in their beliefs and practice, but they retained a philosophical element inherited from the Sabians that influenced their approach to the prophetic tradition. As such, God in the Qur’an rebukes those beliefs that came from the Sabians such as the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, and his sonship of God, while affirming the Ḥanīfs among them as Ahl al-Kitāb (People of the Book). The concepts of the Trinity, divination of man, and pantheism are all recurring themes in Sabianism and the ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman mysteries.

Majūs

As for the Majūs, they are only mentioned once in the Qur’an among those who claim to be Jews, Sabians, and Naṣārā. They were the priestly class of the Zoroastrians, the Persian Mystery Schools. Medieval European Biblical scholars referred to Zoroastrians as Eastern Chaldeans and Sabians (Elukin, 624).

The Abbasid court astrologer, Abū Sahl ibn Nawbakht, gives a testimony to the Persian Mysteries in Ibn al-Nadīm’s al-Fihrist. According to Abū Sahl, Hermes taught the “wisdom teachings” to the people of Babylon, which included present-day Iran, then he traveled to Egypt to teach to them. The knowledge taught by Hermes remained in Persia uninterrupted until the invasion of Alexander, in which he killed the leader Dara II, defaced the inscriptions on their buildings, and looted all their manuscripts. Alexander then took these works on medicine, astronomy, etc. and had them translated into Greek and Coptic, then burned the Persian originals. Following this catastrophe, the Persian kings began the process of reconstructing their knowledge by acquiring manuscripts from the peripheries of the Persian Empire like those of India and China and re-establishing their chains of transmission in Persia. This project persisted into the Muslim conquest of Persia and was continued until the height of the Abbasid empire (Ibn al-Nadīm, 333-4).

Summary

Now that we have provided a synopsis for each of these terms, we see that the common denominator is that these terms primarily referred to the learned class within their respective traditions, whose nomenclature varied depending on the locale and time period. Secondly, these traditions all had similar trajectories. For instance, they all excelled at the empirical and occult sciences, especially astrology. However, the standard for measuring the veracity of a tradition was how close it conformed to the Ḥanīf system, which was championed by the prophets, as opposed to the Sabian system, championed by the polytheists (i.e. Mushrikūn). Finally, many exegetes of the Qur’an interpreted al-Baqara: 62 and its cognate verses to mean: Whosoever affirms a belief in God as taught by the Prophet Muhammad among the Yahūd, Sabians, Naṣārā, and Majūs will not be treated unjustly by God in the end. An unraveling of this nomenclature and their respective beliefs has relevance for 21st century America. As many individuals, young and old, gravitate to expressions of Sabianism in one form or another, it is necessary to know where these ideas came from and the pre-modern debates that ensued around them. I will touch on these discussions in subsequent posts.

References

Buckley, Jorunn Jacobsen. The Mandaeans: Ancient Texts and Modern People. Oxford University Press, 2002.

Elukin, Jonathan. “Maimonides and the Rise and Fall of the Sabians: Explaining Mosaic Laws and the Limits of Scholarship.” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 63, no. 4, 2002, pp. 619–37. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3654163.

Farabi al-. Al-Farabi’s Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Translated by Muhsin Mahdi, Free Press of Glencoe, 1962.

Ibn Nadīm, Abū al-Faraj Muḥammad ibn Isḥaq. Al-Fihrist. Dar al-Ma’rifah, 937.

Ibn Taymiyya, Taqī al-Dīn Abū’l-’Abbās Aḥmad, and ʿAlī Muhammad ʿUmrān. Al-Radd ʿalā al-Shādhulī Fī Ḥizbayhi Wa Mā Ṣannafahu Fī Ādāb al-Ṭarīq. Dār ʿĀlam al-Fawā’id, 2008.

Sayyār, Nadīm al-. Qudamāʼ Al-Misṛīyīn Awwal al-Muwahḥịdīn. 2nd ed., 1995.