Sufi concept: Sunday – Prophet Idris

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Shaykh Ibn al-‘Arabi tells us, that for every day there is a prophet from among the prophets, from whom descends a secret upon the heart of the verifying witness, a secret in which you takes delight during your day and by which you know something of that which requires to be known. This only happens to those who possess a heart.

Day 1: Sunday

If your day is Sunday, then Idrîs (Enoch) is your companion, so bother not with anyone! On the first day, i.e. Sunday, it is Idris who addresses you with a secret revealing to you the causes of things before the existence of their effects.

SUNDAY:

Arabic: al-ahad
Divine attribute: Hearing
Prophet: Idrîs
Planet (Arabic): ash-shams
Planet: Sun
Creating divine name: an-Nûr
Prayer: Imam
Constellation (Arabic): Simâk
Constellation: Arcturus
Heaven: Fourth
Earthly region: Fourth
Arabic letter: Nûn.

Commentary:

Each day of the week is ruled by a specific divine name. The Sun and its heavenly orb were created on Sunday. The Sun is the heart of the world and the heart of the seven heavens. God made it a place for the Pole of human spirits, Idrîs. Idrîs is the centre and he has been placed at the heart or the centre, because the Sun is the central, fourth heaven, out of seven heavens. This fourth heaven was created by the self-disclosure of the divine name an-Nûr, the Light. It has been called a high place by God (see Qur’an 19:57 ) because it is a heart, although the heaven above it, is higher in physical space. But God meant the highness of status. God created it in as-simâk, which is the central, 14 th station of the 28 stations or ‘mansions’ of the Moon, and created its planet, the Sun, and its orb, and created the letter nûn out of it.

There are seven substitutes (abdâl) who are each responsible for one of the seven earthly regions. Every affair of knowledge in the First Day is from the matter of Idrîs. And every higher celestial effect on that day in the elements of air and fire is from the orbiting of the Sun and its supervision, which is entrusted to it by God.

As for what comes from the effect on the elements of water and earth on that day, it is from the motion of the fourth orb containing the Sun. The earthly place of the substitute (badal) who upholds that influence among the seven climes is in the fourth clime.

Why Idrîs? The model for the Sufis is the night journey (isra) where he went from the near temple (Mecca) to the far temple (Jerusalem) and then was taken upward through the planetary spheres and beyond — to “within two bow lengths or nearer to Allah.” In the planetary spheres, Muhammad met earlier prophets — traditionally Adam (Moon), Jesus (Mercury), Joseph (Venus), Idrîs (Enoch/Elias) in the Sun, Aaron (Mars), Moses (Jupiter), Abraham (Saturn).