4.4.8.1  Sunday

Sunday is the “First Day” of Creation, and its Arabic name means “the one”, also a divine Name of Allah, which means the One, the Unique, or the indivisible Unit. It is the first Day in which Allah started the Creation, so it is the first Day in the world [IV.11.31]. As we noted above, the entities of the world were already eternally determined in Allah’s fore-knowledge, and by this state of pre-existence they gained the first fundamental divine attribute of ‘hearing’. So the motion of “Sunday was created from the Attribute of Hearing; that is why everything in the world hears the divine Command (Be!) (even) in its state of non-existence” [II.438.8]. Allah said in the Quran: “But His Command, when He intendeth a thing, is only that He saith unto it: Be, and (then) it is” [36:82]. Therefore Allah creates by saying the command ‘Be’ unto the things even before their actual existence. Ibn al-Arabi, however, carefully distinguishes between the divine ‘Saying’ and ‘Speaking’: ‘By “Saying” the non-existent hears. (This is) like His saying “Our Command when We intend a thing is to say unto it Be”. And by ‘Speaking’ the existent hears, as when Allah spoke (directly) to Moses.’ [4:164, [II.400.7]

As we have already explained above, Ibn al-Arabi affirms that the motion of the Isotropic Orb determines only one Day, which is a one cycle starting from when the first degree of Gemini is matching the Foot in the Pedestal. So because the divine Pedestal is above the Isotropic Orb, which has no distinguishing signs, the length of the day cannot be known [II.437.34]. Although we on Earth normally measure the day by hours and minutes or by the time of the Earth motion around its axis, this is a mere convention, while the actual length of the day/Day is only known to Allah [I.122.28].

Ibn al-Arabi also explains that the Sun and its heavenly orb were created on Sunday [I.155.6, I.466.6, II.445.15]. This is because the Sun resembles the spirit [I.55.8, I.275.26], and the absolute Spirit, that is “the real through whom creation takes place” is the first manifestation of the divine Real in the Creation, so with the initial creative motion of this First Day, the ‘point’, or zero-dimension () was defined. The Sun is in the central, fourth heaven from the Earth, and this heaven was created by the self-disclosure of the divine Name ‘the Light’. Hence:

‘(the Sun) is the heart of the world, and the heart of the (seven) heavens. Allah created it on Sunday, and He made it a place for the Pole of human spirits, Idris (or Enoch) peace be upon him. And Allah called this heaven “a lofty place” [19:57] because it is a heart, although the heaven that is above it is higher (in physical place). But Allah meant the loftiness of its status, so the place (of the fourth, central heaven) is high because of its status, and Allah created it in al-Simak, and created its planet (the Sun) and its orb, and created the letter ‘nun’ out of it.’ [II.445.15]

Ibn al-Arabi then explains the relation and correspondence between the fourth heaven (celestial sphere) of this Day and the particular geographical clime on the Earth that was appointed to the corresponding figure from among the seven Substitutes, mentioned in section 2.6.2, and what are the particular affairs that happen on, or through the higher influences associated with this Day [I.155.6].

Also in chapter 46 of al-Tanazzulat al-Mawsiliyya, Ibn al-Arabi mentioned many mysterious details about this Day and his visit to the Pole of all spirits, the prophet Idris, in the orb of the Sun. This chapter (46) of the Tanazzulat, together with its following few chapters, and taken in conjunction with related passages from chapters 15 and 198 of the Meccan Revelations deserves a separate specialized study which is beyond the scope of this book.