What Does Shams (the Sun) Mean in Yıldızname?

Of the seven wandering lights of the old sky, only one is seen by everyone at once, with no instrument and no knowledge required: the Sun. To find Saturn (Zühal) you need to know where to look, and to catch Mercury (Utarid) you have to watch the dawn; Shams never makes anyone search for it. Almost everything the Yıldızname tradition attaches to Shams grows out of this simple observation: being seen, giving light, standing at the centre. In this article we treat Shams, the old name of the Sun, not as a zodiac sign but as a planet: its place among the seven, the hours of Sunday, its partnership with the Moon, and the traditional portrait of a person whose name is dominated by Shams.

The Light in the Middle of the Seven

In modern astronomy the Sun is a star, not a planet. The old science of the heavens, however, counted as a "wanderer" (seyyare) every body that moves against the fixed stars, so the Sun and the Moon belonged to the seven classical planets. In the classical order, from farthest to nearest, they run: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. Shams stands exactly fourth, with three planets above it and three below. Part of the reason tradition calls the Sun the "sovereign" is this central seat: it sits at the heart of the sequence, shining by its own light.

In the classical theory of natures Shams is considered hot and dry. Traditionally it stands for the ruler, the state, the father, elders, honour and renown. The word itself is worth a look: Arabic شمس is made of three letters and its Abjad value is 400. A chapter of the Qur'an bears its name (Surah ash-Shams, the 91st surah), and verse 5 of Surah ar-Rahman states that the Sun and the Moon move by a precise reckoning. The Abjad tradition looks at the heavenly bodies through this idea of "reckoning": not as powers acting on their own, but as signs of time and order.

Neyyireyn: The Partnership of the Two Lights

When old texts mention Shams and Kamer (the Moon) together, they call them "neyyireyn", the two luminaries. One rules the day, the other the night. The difference between them sums up the whole symbolism of the tradition: the light of Shams is its own, while the light of the Moon is borrowed from the Sun and reflected. That is why tradition pairs Shams with the father and the Moon with the mother, Shams with what is open and the Moon with what is inward and hidden.

The pair also stands apart in the zodiac. The other five planets rule two signs each, while each luminary rules a single sign: the Moon rules Cancer and Shams rules Leo. Leo is a Fire sign, and the hot, dry nature of Shams is considered in harmony with that fire. We covered Leo's own portrait in a separate article; here our subject is not the sign but the planet behind it.

Traditional Correspondences of Shams

Every row is a classical correspondence and should be read as "in the tradition"; wearing gold or doing business on a Sunday produces no result on its own.

The Hours of Sunday: The Day Opens with Shams

In planetary hours (eşref saatleri) the time from sunrise to sunset is divided into 12; each part is one day-hour. The time from sunset to the next sunrise is also divided into 12 and gives the night-hours. The first hour of the day belongs to the planet of that day, and the following hours come in this order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, and back to the start. Since Sunday is the day of Shams, the day-hours of Sunday run as follows:

1. Sun (Shams)
2. Venus
3. Mercury
4. Moon
5. Saturn
6. Jupiter
7. Mars
8. Sun (Shams)
9. Venus
10. Mercury
11. Moon
12. Saturn

The night-hours begin with Jupiter and continue in the same order; Shams returns in the 3rd and 10th hours of the night. So four of Sunday's twenty-four hours fall to Shams. The last hour of the night belongs to Mercury; the next in the sequence is the Moon, and the first hour of Monday is indeed the Moon's hour. In this way the names of the weekdays and the sequence of hours lock into each other perfectly.

The length of the hours changes with the time of year and with your city: in summer the day-hours are long, in winter short. Knowing the sequence is enough; to find the minutes you calculate with that day's sunrise and sunset times. The key point is that this general table is the same for everyone. What a Shams hour means for you depends on how it relates to your own dominant planet.

The Planet Everyone Sees: Visibility or Arrogance?

The Sun cannot hide. In the tradition, a person whose name carries a strong Shams influence shares this trait: they work in the open, dislike behind-the-scenes manoeuvres and say things to your face. Their authority comes less from rank than from visible effort; people ask them for direction because they are already in plain view. Their honesty is as much a necessity as a virtue, since someone standing in the light cannot carry a lie for long.

Classical astronomy, however, has a striking concept: a planet that comes too close to the Sun is called "combust" (muhterik), literally burnt; the Sun's glare makes it invisible. This is exactly the shadow side of Shams. Someone with strong light can, without noticing, make the people around them invisible. A subtler point: the Sun never sees a single shadow, because wherever it looks is lit. A Shams temperament may likewise be slow to notice the shade others are standing in, their hurt or their fatigue.

The tradition thinks about this balance in pairs:

• Visibility and display: one is the natural result of effort, the other tries to replace it.
• Authority and domination: one shows the way, the other chooses the way alone.
• Honour and touchiness: one protects a good name, the other treats every criticism as an attack on it.
• Generosity and expecting gratitude: the Sun asks no thanks for its warmth.

Which side of each pair comes forward is not decided by the planet itself; according to the tradition it is decided by the other letters of the name and by the person's own discipline. The same light may read as warmth in one name and as glare in another.

Is Shams Your Planet?

A common confusion needs correcting here. For someone whose Yıldızname sign is Leo, the ruler of the sign is of course Shams; but the dominant planet of a name is a separate reading. In the tradition it is found by reading the letters of your own name together with your mother's name. So someone whose sign is Aries or Pisces may have a clear Shams in their name, while someone with a Leo sign may have another planet in front. That is as far as a general article can go: whether Shams dominates your name only becomes visible when your name and your mother's name are read together.

Time has a ruler too. In annual readings each year is assessed under the influence of a planet and an element. A year ruled by Shams means one thing for someone whose own planet harmonises with Shams, and something else for someone inclined to fall into the shade when the light is this strong. Whether the year is a light that brightens or one that wearies you becomes clear when the year's ruler is set beside your own Abjad value.

What the Tradition Says, and What It Does Not

Most Muslim scholars have been cautious about attributing independent influence to the stars; at its healthiest, the Abjad and Yıldızname tradition is read not as a verdict of fate but as a tool for reflection and self-knowledge. The Shams temperament describes an inclination: it makes no one a leader and no one arrogant. How the light is used is the person's own choice.

This article offers general information based on the Abjad and Yıldızname tradition; it contains no definitive judgement, prophecy or guarantee. The metal and colour correspondences are traditional symbols and have no health-related purpose.