Hermes Trismegistus - in Islamic Tradition

In Islamic Tradition

Sayyid Ahmed Amiruddin has pointed out that Hermes Trismegistus has a major place in Islamic tradition. He writes, "Hermes Trismegistus is mentioned in the Holy Qur'an in verse 19:56-57:"Mention, in the Book, Idris, that he was truthful, a prophet. We took him up to a high place". The Jabirian corpus contains the oldest documentable source for the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, translated for the Hashemite Caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid the Abbasid. Jābir ibn Hayyān (Gerber), a Shiite, identified as Jābir al-Sufi, was student of Ja'far al-Sadiq, Husayn ibn 'Ali's great grandson. For the Abbasid's and the Alid's, the knowledge of Hermes Trismegistus was considered sacred, and an inheritance of the Ahl al-Bayt. These wonderful writings were then subsequently translated from Arabic into Persian, Turkish, Hebrew, Russian, and into English by Isaac Newton, reviving illumination in men of these great human civilizations. These profound teachings enabled the Arabs to contribute the inventions mentioned in the educational project 1001 Inventions and enabled other great civilizations to further advance the greatness of mankind. In our writings, the Master of Masters, Hermes Trismegistus is identified as Idris (prophet) the infallible Prophet who traveled to outer space from Egypt, to heaven, where Adam and the Black Stone he brought with him when he landed on earth in India, originated. According to ancient Arab genealogists, Muhammad the Prophet, who also is believed to have traveled to outer space on the night of Isra and Mi'raj to the heavens is a direct lineal descendant of Hermes Trismegistus. Ibn Kathir said, "As for Idris...He is in the genealogical chain of the Prophet Muhammad, except according to one genealogist..Ibn Ishaq says he was the first who wrote with the Pen. There was a span of 380 years between him and the life of Adam. Many of the scholars allege that he was the first to speak about this, and they call him Thrice-Great Hermes ". Ahmad al-Buni considered himself a follower of the hermetic teachings and his contemporary Ibn Arabi mentioned Hermes Trismegistus in his writings. The Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya of Ibn Arabi speaks of his travels to 'vast cities (outside earth), possessing technologies far superior then ours' and meeting with the Twelfth Imam, the Ninth (generation) from the Third (al-Husayn the third Imam) (Amiruddin referring here to the Masters of Wisdom from the Emerald Tablet), who also ascended to the heavens, and is still alive like his ancestor Hermes Trismegistus".

Antoine Faivre, in The Eternal Hermes (1995) has pointed out that Hermes Trismegistus has a place in the Islamic tradition, though the name Hermes does not appear in the Qur'an. Hagiographers and chroniclers of the first centuries of the Islamic Hegira quickly identified Hermes Trismegistus with Idris, the nabi of surahs 19.57 and 21.85, whom the Arabs also identified with Enoch (cf. Genesis 5.18–24). Idris/Hermes was termed "Thrice-Wise" Hermes Trismegistus because he had a threefold origin: the first Hermes, comparable to Thoth, was a "civilizing hero," an initiator into the mysteries of the divine science and wisdom that animate the world: he carved the principles of this sacred science in hieroglyphs. The second Hermes, in Babylon, was the initiator of Pythagoras. The third Hermes was the first teacher of alchemy. "A faceless prophet," writes the Islamicist Pierre Lory, "Hermes possesses no concrete or salient characteristics, differing in this regard from most of the major figures of the Bible and the Quran." A common interpretation of the representation of "Trismegistus" as "thrice great" recalls the three characterizations of Idris: as a messenger of god, or a prophet; as a source of wisdom, or hikmet (wisdom from hokmah); and as a king of the world order, or a "sultanate." These are referred to as, müselles bin ni'me.