Heavenly Figures 2

Mercury, the Scribe

The name ‘Uṭārid is far older than Islam and its origin is no longer clear, though there’s little doubt that it refers to a pre-Islamic deity¹. There’s an interesting mention of it in the Epistles of the Brothers of Purity² which states that after having created Adam and Eve, God inspired “‘Uṭārid, the master of reason صاحب المنتق” with speech³. The connection of ‘Uṭārid to the wisdom figure of Mercury/Hermes is clear, and already existed all the way back in Babylonian astrology, where the planet was identified with Nabu, god of literacy, scribes, reason and wisdom.

According to this website, which seems well-researched but I can’t verify, “‘Uṭārid is the Arabian god of the planet Mercury who was a patron of writing, learning and eloquence and was worshiped primarily by the tribe of Banu Asad ibn Khuzaymah, who lived near Mecca.”

Whatever the case may be, this planet is also known in Arabic as al-Kātib الكاتب: the Scribe, and from this is derived all associated imagery…

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Picturing Mercury (al-’uṭāred العطارد)

The iconography of the Scribe is that of a young man (and therefore usually beardless) engaged in writing, in the position used by scribes and calligraphers: sitting on the floor, one knee raised to rest the paper on – although one could also sit cross-legged, and that turns up too.

This smooth-cheeked young man sometimes turns up without his signature writing implements: we will see later in this series that the signs of the zodiac are nearly always depicted with their ruling planet (in whatever way the imagery allows). Mercury rules Gemini and Virgo, so that figures that appear in these signs are based on the scribe, even when the scribe’s own image has moved on.

For descriptions of the source objects, please refer to the first post in this series.

Beardless scribe on Pen box and Vaso Vescovali. In the latter we can just recognise, among the attributes the multi-armed figure is holding, a scroll with writing, a pen box (bottom right) and possibly an ink bottle (left)

Basin and Trays: The raised knee position, and the paper hanging down as it's written on, can still be made out.

Painted ceramic bowl, and a Mamluk bowl. Note how closely related the latter looks to the Tray design: both objects were made in Egypt in the 14th century.

Manuscript 1's Mercury is always bearded when appearing in his own right.

Manuscript 2: In this late volume, the scribe is usually bearded. But the artist still knew to make evident the Mercury connection in the Virgo sign (bottom right): as the wheat reaper is always a young man, based on the original scribe, he made the scribe in that section equally beardless and dressed the same so there could be no doubt they are the same figure.

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Sigil رسم

The modern convention for Mercury is the symbol ☿ , a relatively late (sixteenth century) alchemical and astrological symbol that refers equally to the planet and to the metal it rules: mercury or quicksilver (Hg)⁴. Now, while the planetary symbols could always be used for the corresponding metals, there have been dozens of versions and variants for each of them⁵, and among these Islamic sources we find some really unusual ones.

Astrolabe 1

I was only able to positively identify this sigil as Mercury’s because of its position in a sequence of symbols on this astrolabe. The context makes it difficult to tell if, used on its own, it would still be vertical, or written horizontally as on the right. It doesn’t look like any other sigils of Mercury I’ve come across, but I think it could be derived from the shape of its name عطارد with the first and last letter, the middle circle acting as an ellipsis. This is just a theory, though.

Yet another symbol is offered by Ghāyat al-Hakīm, in two different iterations:

The late classical roots of this sigil are obvious when you remember the symbol of Mercury, Roman equivalent of Greek Hermes, is the caduceus, the staff with two intertwined snakes. I have no doubt that in the more elaborate version of the pair, the two curves ending in circles directly represent the serpents’ heads.⁶

To finish, here are some of the correspondences for Mercury listed in this same text:

Languages: Turkic الخزرية, Khazar التركية

Cloth: Linen الكتان

Taste: Acidity الحموضة

Places: Gatherings to do with speech مجالس الكلام, places of scientific debate مواضع مناظرات العلماء, places of delicate manufacture مواضع الصنائع الدقيقة, the sources of rivers, water and streams عيون الانهار والمياه والسواقي

Gemstones: Incised stones الحجارة المنقوشة, green gems⁷ الزبرجد

Minerals/metals: Anything engraved كل ما نقش فيه; mercury الزئبق, distilled spirits الارواح الصاعدة, and whatever has the work and wisdom of craftsmen in it

Plants: Reed القصب, cotton القطن, flax الكتان, peppers الفلفل, anything sharp-tasting, cloves القرنفل, every tree that bears fruits with an outer peel, and any edible aromatic

Pharmaceutics: All gums الصموغ, and of perfumes those that are remedies and are also food such as ginger الزنجبيل and camel grass السنبل and similar; everything tart-tasting and fine-looking, what looks like grass and sweet flag قصب الذريرة

Animals: Humans الانس, camel calves صغار الابل, red predators حمر الوحش, apes القردة, gerbils اليرابيع, wolves الذئاب, woodpigeons/ringdoves الوراشين, and all that are fleet-footed and swift or can spring; every bird that flies nimbly, warbles finely with exquisite melody, and every quick-moving insect like ants النمل and roaches بنات وردان

Colours: Mingled green and white الممتزج الخضرة بالبياض, and marbled colours الالوان المجزّعة

Next stop: Venus!

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Previous posts in this series:

Heavenly Figures 1

1. Nearly all ancient cultures identified the planets with deities, and though some people clutch their pearls at the idea of pre-Islamic deities surviving in any form, such was also the case with the Arabic planetary names which the Islamic world inherited. This is not, by the way, the only part of the Arabic language where banned pantheons are remembered. The word for “rainbow” is still qaws quzaḥ, “the bow of Quzaḥ”, who was one of the old Arabian sky-gods. In 2016 I created a whole art series on the planets, expanding their number to match today’s knowledge, and had to create new “ancient” Arabic names for the post-classical planets by delving into the little surviving information about such deities.

2. A secret, esoteric fraternity of scholars in Basra, Iraq, in the 10th century, who authored a monumental encyclopedia (at least two centuries before anything comparable was done in Latin) consisting of fifty-two rasā’il (epistles) grouped in four books. More info.

3. Rasā'il III, 112.18.

4. The Brothers of Purity provide correspondences of their own that wildly deviate from tradition, with lead ruled by Mercury. It seems they had a profound influence on Ghāyat al-Hakīm, which often deviates in the same way.

5. A “concise” selection of thousands of these is compiled in Fred Gettings’ Dictionary Of Occult, Hermetic and Alchemical Sigils. It can be found online and is well worth a look, if only to see the sheer number of variants recorded, in Europe alone, for each planet.

6. In A Little Book of Coincidence in the Solar System, the planetary sigils are explained as each being made up of the symbols for the Sun, the Moon and the Earth, their different arrangements having different meanings. While I otherwise love this book, this neat little system is a perennialist, Eurocentric fantasy with no historical grounds, that only holds water if you totally ignore the scores of older symbols that flatly contradict this myth of origins. To present it as a universal human tradition, as is being done, is both dishonest and irresponsible. It seems to be a reinterpretation of the 1914 publication Symbolism and Astrology: An Introduction to Esoteric Astrology, where prominent astrologer Alan Leo made up a load of deep-sounding but pungent guff* by embroidering on the Renaissance authors Dee (1564) and Gabella (1615), who were the first to claim that the astrological symbols were made up of the symbols for the Sun, the Moon and the Four elements. Except that the sigil for the Sun ☉ first appeared in 1480’s Italy, and the “cross of the Four elements” was squarely invented by Dee himself. The supposed “cross” that exists on some sigils was merely a cross-bar added to the already existing sigils of Saturn and Mercury. As a result of which Mercury briefly had two cross-bars, as seen in this sixteenth century illustration, before the extraneous one was dropped again.

*Here’s what Alan Leo writes about the symbols, all of it demonstrably at odds with reality:
☿ represents “the complete union of the three symbols ( ☉ Will, ☽ Wisdom, and ✚ Activity) in one, denoting perfectibility”.
♀︎ is the “symbol of Spirit triumphant over matter, circle over cross”.
♂︎ is “really the cross over the circle” and is “the symbol of spirit constrained by matter”.
♃ represents “the semi-circle rising over the cross” and is “the symbol of soul liberating itself from matter”.
♄ was originally “the cross over the semi-circle” and is “the symbol of the soul bound by the form”.

We’ve seen above the actual origin of Mercury’s sigil, and the other planets will be covered each in due time.

7. Zabarjad is today reserved for peridot (chrisolite), but used to also apply to other green gemstones such as beryl, aquamarine or green topaz.