The world controllers (1)

Text
Abu’l Faraj Ibn Jauzi, Talbis Iblis (Delusion of the Devil) 3:
There are people who assert that every spiritual being of the upper region has a shrine, i.e., one of the heavenly bodies for its shrine, whose relation to the spiritual being belonging to it is that of our bodies to our spirits, so that he (the spiritual being) is its ruler and controller. To the number of shrines belong all the celestial bodies, planets and the fixed stars, and these have no access to the spiritual itself. So he approaches his shrine with all sorts of devotion and sacrifice. Others among them say that every celestial shrine has one of the lower individuals in its likeness and of its substance; so they make figures and carve images and build them houses. Yahya b. Bishr al-Nihawandī states that some maintain that the seven stars (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon) are the controllers of this world, and that they proceed by order of “the supreme company” (Surah 37:7, 38:69). They set up images in their likeness, and offered each of them the appropriate animal.

Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Abu’l Faraj Ibn Jauzi, Talbis Iblis (Delusion of the Devil) 3
Qur’ān, Surah 37:7
Qur’ān, Surah 38:69

Bibliography

Amar Annus

URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000664.php