¹ H. Kovacs (transl.), ‘The preface of the Razmnāma’, in Translation and State: The Mahābhārata at the Mughal Court, (ed.) M. Willis (Berlin/Boston, 2022), p. 93Google Scholar.

² ʿAbd al-Qadir Badaʾuni, Muntakhab al-Tawarikh, (eds.) W. N. Lees and Munshi Ahmad ʿAli, introduction by Jaʿfar Subhani, three vols. (Tehran, 1380/2002), 2, pp. 181–227.

³ The term is Koch's: E. Koch, The Planetary King: Humayun Padshah, Inventor and Visionary on the Mughal Throne (Ahmedabad, 2022), p. 187. The literature on Akbar's sun worship is vast but scattered in studies that focus on different or wider topics. Apart from Koch, the most informative recent studies include A. A. Moin, The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam (New York, 2012) and, specifically for Akbar's sun cult, see Truschke, A., ‘Translating the solar cosmology of sacred kingship’, The Medieval History Journal 19 (2016), pp. 136–141Google Scholar. For the Mughal interest in cosmology, see in particular the works of Eva Orthmann, who, like Koch, stresses the importance of Humayun for laying the groundwork for Akbar's imperial cult (see in particular Orthmann, E., ‘Court culture and cosmology in the Mughal empire: Humāyūn and the foundation of the Dīn-i ilāhī’, in Court Culture in the Muslim World: Seventh to Nineteenth Centuries, (eds.) A. Fuess and J. P. Hartung (London, 2011), pp. 202–220Google Scholar). These works are part of an ongoing occult turn in Persianate studies more generally, as can be gleaned from the many works of Matthew Melvin-Koushki (see, for example, Melvin-Koushki, M., ‘How to Rule the World: occult-scientific manuals of the early modern Persian cosmopolis’, Journal of Persianate Studies 11 (2018), pp. 140–154Google Scholar). Another wonderful recent example of this occult turn, moving from premodern West to modern South Asia, is Zadeh, T., Wonders and Rarities: The Marvellous Book that Travelled the World and Mapped the Cosmos (Cambridge, MA, 2023)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Of course, using the term ‘longue durée’ refers to Braudel's ecological use of it, but here we would like to suggest that intellectual history also has relatively unbroken, slowly emerging formations that can be studied over extended periods of time.

⁵ As such, this is our third article to make that argument; see our earlier ‘Neoplatonic kingship in the Islamic world: Akbar's millennial history’, in Sacred Kingship in World History: Between Immanence and Transcendence, (eds.) A. A. Moin and A. Strathern (New York, 2022), pp. 192–222; and ‘Neoplatonism and the Pax Mongolica in the making of Ṣulḥ-i Kull: a view from Akbar's millennial history’, Modern Asian Studies 56 (2022), pp. 870–901. For some reflections on the global dimension of such a renaissance, see J. Gommans, ‘The Neoplatonic renaissance from the Thames to the Ganges’, in India after World History: Literature, Comparison, and Approaches to Globalization, (ed.) N. Bose (Leiden, 2022), pp. 170–200. For a thorough discussion of Akbar's political ideology, more generally, see Rizvi, S. A. A., Religious and Intellectual History of the Muslims in Akbar's Reign with Special Reference to Abu'l Fazl, 1556–1605 (New Delhi, 1975)Google Scholar; and Franke, H., Akbar und Ğahāngīr: Untersuchungen zur politischen und religiösen Legitimation in Text und Bild (Hamburg, 2005)Google Scholar.

⁶ See, for example, Kantorowicz, E., ‘Oriens Augusti: Lever du Roi’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17 (1963), pp. 117–177Google Scholar.

⁷ Assmann, J., Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge MA/London, 1997)Google Scholar.

⁸ Sinha, P. P., Raja Birbal: Life and Times (Patna, 1980), p. 95Google Scholar.

⁹ Badaʾuni, Muntakhab al-Tawarikh, 2, p. 181.

¹⁰ Grobbel, G., Der Dichter Faiḍī und die Religion Akbars (Berlin, 2001), p. 62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Truschke, ‘Translating the solar cosmology’, pp. 137–138.

¹¹ This is contradicted, however, by Franke, who refers to the sun cult of the Sisodia Rajputs of Mewar (Franke, Akbar, p. 231). Although Abul Fazl seems impressed by the thirteenth-century sun temple in Konarak in Orissa (see Abul Fazl, Ain-i Akbari, (ed.) H. Blochmann (Calcutta, 1872), 1, pp. 392–393), it is not clear from his description to what extent it still was a popular cult at that time. McKim Malville is also stressing its decline from the thirteenth century onward (J. McKim Malville, ‘The rise and fall of the sun temple of Konarak: the temple versus the solar orb’, in World Archaeoastronomy, (ed.) A. F. Aveni (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 377–388.

¹² Truschke, ‘Translating the solar cosmology’, pp. 139–140.

¹³ Abul Fazl, Ain-i Akbari, 1, pp. 50–51. This nicely corresponds with the Neoplatonic idea (Proclus) that fire is seen as a constituent of the sun (R. M. van den Berg, Proclus’ Hymns: Essays, Translations, Commentary (Leiden, 2001), p. 153).

¹⁴ Badaʾuni, Muntakhab al-Tawarikh, 2, p. 180.

¹⁵ Ibid., p. 181.

¹⁶ ʿAbd al-Qadir Badayuni’, Najat al-Rashid, ed. Sayyid Moin al-Haqq (Lahore, 1972), pp. 45–48; for further details, see A. Moin, ‘Challenging the Mughal emperor: the Islamic millennium according to ʿAbd al-Qadir Badayuni’, in Islam in South Asia in Practice, (ed.) B. D. Metcalf (Princeton, 2009), pp. 390–402.

¹⁷ Abul Fazl, Ain-i Akbari, 2, pp. 4–8.

¹⁸ ʿUmar Khayyam, Nauruznama, (ed.) M. Minawi (Tehran, 1385/2007), p. 3.

¹⁹ M. Ebstein, Mysticism and Philosophy in Al-Andalus: Ibn Masarra, Ibn al-ʿArabī and the Ismāʿīlī Tradition (Leiden, 2014); and G. de Callatay, ‘Brethren of purity’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, (ed.) K. Fleet et al., http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.leidenuniv.nl:2048/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_25372 (accessed 12 March 2021).

²⁰ K. van Bladel, The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science (Oxford, 2009), pp. 219–232. See also C. B. Pye, ‘The Sufi method behind the Mughal ‘peace with all’ religions: a study of Ibn ʿArabi's “taḥqīq” in Abu al-Fazl Preface to the Razmnāma’, Modern Asian Studies 56 (2022), pp. 902–923.

²¹ A. Caiozzo, ‘The horoscope of Iskandar Sultān as a cosmological vision in the Islamic world’, in Horoscopes and Public Spheres: Essays on the History of Astrology, (eds.) G. Oestman, H. D. Rutkin, and K. von Stuckrad (Berlin, 2005), pp. 129–130. Caiozzo also mentions Hermetic elements next to Neoplatonism, which in our view is better seen as part of the Neoplatonic tradition, but that is indeed a matter of definition.

²² S. I. Johnston, ‘Fiat lux, fiat ritus: divine light and the late antique defense of ritual’, in The Presence of Light: Divine Radiance and Religious Experience, (ed.) M. T. Kapstein (Chicago/London, 2004), pp. 5–25 (10).

²³ H. Ziai, ‘Suhrawardi on knowledge and the experience of light’, in Presence of Light, (ed.) Kapstein, pp. 25–45. See also H. Ziai, ‘The source and nature of authority: illuminationist political doctrine’, in The Political Aspects of Islamic Philosophy, (ed.) C. Butterworth (Cambridge, MA, 1991), pp. 314–384. The term also appears in the eleventh-century mirrors-for-princes of Nizam al-Mulk and Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (Franke, Akbar, p. 213).

²⁴ M. Subtelny, ‘Kāshifī's Asrar-i qāsimī: a late Timurid manual of the occult sciences and its Safavid afterlive’, in Occult Sciences in Theory and Practice, (eds.) L. Saif et al. (Leiden, 2021), pp. 267–313.

²⁵ C. W. Ernst, ‘Baḥr al-ḥayāt’, in Perso-Indica: An Analytical Survey of Persian Works on Indian Learned Traditions, (eds.) F. Speziale and C. W. Ernst, http://www.perso-indica.net/work/bahr_al-hayat (accessed 11 July 2023). Muhammad Gwaliyari's most influential work is the Jawahir-i Khamsa (The Five Jewels)—a compilation of Sufi practices that includes a section on sun divination. His involvement with the Indic traditions shows up clearly in his Bahr al-Hayat (Ocean of Life)—a greatly expanded translation of the Amrtakunda (Pool of Nectar) in which yoga practices become clothed in a sophisticated Neoplatonic Sufi theory.

²⁶ Badaʾuni, Muntakhab al-Tawarikh, 2, p. 181.

²⁷ Ibid., p. 181.

²⁸ Grobbel, Der Dichter Faiḍī, p. 53. In Parasiprakasha, the term is also mentioned as one of the three Persian terms for Shri Surya. Suhrawardi refers to it in his discussion on light of lights (nūr al-anwār). He mentions that the Great Luminous Being is the source of visible radiation (al-shuʿāʿ al-maḥsūs) and, as long as it exists, the radiation continues (Shahab al-Din al-Suhrawardi, Hikmat al-Ishraq, (ed.) In'am Haydura (Dar al-Mʿarif al-Hikmiyya, 1430/2010), p. 104). The term is frequently used in Timurid works when the Sun is used to describe the king. The late Timurid historian Khwandamir (d. 1537) compares Humayun with the Sun. He uses nayyir to describe Humayun (nayyir-i jamālat) and mentions that the divine light radiates from the king's face, and that is the reason why people cannot stare at him (Khwandmir, Qanun-i Humayuni, (ed.) Hidayat Hosain (Calcutta, 1940), pp. 29, 100, 113).

²⁹ In Iskandar Beg's words: īn madhab rā dāsht wa u pādshāh rā bā kalamāt-i wāhiya wasīʿ al-mashrab sākhta az jāda-yi shariʿat mūnḥarif sākhta būd. To support his claim, Iskandar Beg refers to the letters sent by Abul Fazl to Mir Sayyid Ahmad Kashi: Iskandar Beg Munshi, Tarikh-i Alamara, (ed.) Iraj Afshar (Tehran, 1382/2003), 2, p. 749. Cf. Karim Najafi Barzegar, ‘The Nuqtawi movement and the question of its exodus during Safavid period (sixteenth century AD): a historical survey’, Indian Historical Survey 40 (2013), p. 54.

³⁰ Gommans and Huseini, ‘Neoplatonism and the Pax Mongolica’, p. 206; Badaʾuni, Muntakhab al-Tawarikh, 3, p. 115.

³¹ Actually, happening a year later: 10 Rabi II 991, i.e. 3 May 1583. It seems that Nuqtawi thought was also influenced by the esoteric world vision of the eleventh-century Ismaili poet Nasir Khusraw, who, in his Kitab Jamiʿ al-Hikmatain (The Book Combining Two Wisdoms) likened the cosmos to a body in which the flaming ball of the Sun is the spirit (rūḥ) that animates it (A. Hunsberger, ‘The esoteric world vision of Nasir Khusraw’, Sacred Web 9 (2002), pp. 89–100). It is possible that Nasir Khusraw's idea about the world as a tree to be planted in the garden of the Religion of Truth (dīn-i ḥaqq) also had an impact on the column=tree structure of the Diwan-i Khass building in Fatehpur Sikri.

³² The original committee of authors comprised seven members. There were four scholars from Iran: Naqib Khan (d. after 1610), Shah Fath Allah Shirazi (d. 1587), Hakim ʿAli Gilani (d. 1619), and Hakim Humam Gilani (d. 1595), the latter being the brother of Abul Fath Gilani. From heart, there was Nizam al-Din Ahmad Haravi (d. 1594), whose family had been loyal supporters of the earlier Timurid rulers. The other two were Indian-born Muslims: ʿAbd al-Qadir Badaʾuni (d. 1615) and Haji Ibrahim Sarhindi (d. 1584). Later, the emperor appointed Mulla Ahmad to continue the book. When Mulla Ahmad was assassinated in Lahore, Akbar commissioned Jaʿfar Beg to complete the work. For further details, see Gommans and Huseini, ‘Neoplatonic kingship’, pp. 202–204.

³³ The Neoplatonic turn of 1582 was also stimulated by the flight of Shirazi scholars from Bijapur—amongst them Shah Fath Allah himself—after the death of ʿAli ʿAdil Shah. Indeed, the remarkable parallels between the latter and Akbar's courtly cult require further investigation (see also E. J. Flatt, The Courts of the Sultanates: Living Well in the Persian Cosmopolis (Cambridge, 2019)). Catharine B. Asher claims that Akbar's political ideology is entirely inspired by Suhrawardi's Illuminationism in ‘A ray from the Sun: Mughal ideology and the visual construction of the divine’, in Presence of Light, (ed.) Kapstein, pp. 161–195. Our argument is slightly different: we are not sure whether Illuminationism in all its philosophical details really fits the Akbari picture, but rather assume that both Illuminationism and Akbar's sun project are part of a long Neoplatonic philosophical tradition that continuously produces variations on a same, recognisable tune.

³⁴ Franke, Akbar, pp. 199–200, 206. The illustration for the Hamza Nama (1557–72) is in the Österreichishes Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna.

³⁵ Abul Fazl, The History of Akbar, (ed. and trans.) W. M. Thackston (Cambridge, MA/London, 2017), 1, pp. 185–187.

³⁶ This illustration is in the Akbar Nama, which is in the Chester Beatty Library, produced in 1603–05 by Sanwlah, depicting Akbar on the banks of the Ganges giving thanks for the defeat of ʿAli Quli Khan in 1567. Although the text informs us that Akbar ‘dismounted and placed his forehead on the ground in thanksgiving’ (Abul Fazl, History of Akbar, 4, pp. 280–281), the illustration has him praying towards the Sun. For another rare illustration of Akbar's worshipping the Sun, see the Singapore Asian Civilisation Museum: Accession Number: 2012-00166, https://www.roots.gov.sg/Collection-Landing/listing/1263871 (accessed 11 July 2023).

³⁷ Franke, Akbar, pp. 199–200, 206. Although not clear, it is possible that this illustration comes from the manuscript produced at Akbar's court in 1595–96, sometimes also called the Chingiznama, as it covers parts 1 and 2 of Rashid al-Din's first volume, and is now in the Gulistan Library, Tehran. Regardless, sun worship is mentioned neither in Rashid al-Din's original text nor in this later Mughal version. For a discussion of the prominent role of Moses in Rashid al-Din, see R. Hillenbrand, ‘Holy figures portrayed in the Edinburgh fragment of Rashīd al-Dīn's World History’, Iranian Studies 50, 6 (2017), pp. 843–871. It will be interesting to compare the Mughal illustrations of Rashid al-Din's work with the earlier Ilkhanid versions (see also Y. Rice, ‘Mughal interventions in the Rampur Jāmi‘ al-tavārīkh’, Ars Orientalis 12 (2012), pp. 150–165).

³⁸ Abul Fazl, Ain-i Akbari, 2, p. 235.

³⁹ This concurs with a report from Badaʾuni. The last time he refers to Akbar's sun veneration is 1004/1596 (Badaʾuni Muntakhab al-Tawarikh, 2, p. 283).

⁴⁰ Jahangir also continued to refer to the Sun as haẓrat nayyir-i aʿẓam. For Jahangir coins, see R. B. Whitehead, ‘The portrait medals and zodiacal coins of the Emperor Jahangir. II: the zodiacal coins’, The Numismatic Chronicle and Journal of the Royal Numismatic Society, Fifth Series, 11.42 (1931), pp. 91–130. For the dream paintings, see Y. Rice, ‘Moonlight empire: lunar imagery in Mughal India’, in The Moon, A Voyage through Time, (ed.) C. Gruber (Toronto, 2019), pp. 56–62.

⁴¹ M. Alam, ‘The debate within: a Sufi critique of religious law, Tasawwuf and politics in Mughal India’, South Asian History and Culture, 2.2 (2011), p. 149. For Jahangir more generally, see Moin, Millennial Sovereign, pp. 170–210.

⁴² Qadi Ahmad Thattavi and Asaf Khan Qazvini, Tarikh-i Alfi: Tarikh-i Hazar Sala-yi Islam, (ed.) Ghulam Reza Tabatabai Majd (Tehran, 1382/2002), 7, 4325. This is not mentioned in Rashid al-Din's world history.

⁴³ The full text is rather ambivalent about the centrality of the Sun compared with the mountain: ‘But I was greatly frightened. Every morning I will sacrifice to Burqan Qaldun, every day I will pray to it: the offspring of my offspring shall be mindful of this and do likewise! He spoke and facing the sun, hung his belt around his neck, put his hat over his hand, beat his breast with his fist, and nine times kneeling down towards the sun, he offered a libation and a prayer’ (The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century, (trans.) I. de Rachewiltz (Leiden, 2006), p. 33).

⁴⁴ ʿAziz al-Din b. Muhammad al-Nasafi, Kitab al-Insan al-Kamil, 3rd edn, (ed.) M. Molé, (trans.) Sayyid Ziya' al-Din Dihshiri, introduced by H. Corbin (Tehran, 1993). For the original publication, see Azizoddin Nasafi, Le Livre de l'Homme Parfait (Kitāb Insān al-Kāmil): Recueil de traités de soufisme en person publiés avec une introduction — Bibliothèque Iranienne 11 (Paris, 1962).

⁴⁵ L. Ridgeon, ‘ʿAzīz al-Dīn al-Nasafī’, in Encyclopedia of Islam, 3rd edn, https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/aziz-al-din-al-nasafi (accessed 30 May 2023).

⁴⁶ Nasafi, Kitab al-Insan al-Kamil, pp. 282–90, ʿAziz al-Din b. Muhammad al-Nasafi, Maqsad-i Aqsa, in Ganjina-yi ʿIrfan, (ed.) H. Rabbani, from the lithograph edn 1885 (Tehran, 1973).

⁴⁷ Mashahllah Misri is a corrupted form of Mashallah b. Athari. For his biography, see Ibn al-Nadim, Kitab al-Fihrist (Beirut, 1978), p. 382.

⁴⁸ Ibid., pp. 386–387.

⁴⁹ See H. Blatherwick, Prophets, Gods and Kings in Sīrat Sayf ibn Dhī Yazan (Leiden, 2016).

⁵⁰ Thattavi and Qazvini, Tarikh-i Alfi, 1, p. 253.

⁵¹ Ibid., pp. 252–253; the Tarikh's description of the temple, its builder, and its demolisher is totally different from the tenth-century narratives. See Abi Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Hamadani, Kitab al-Iklil, 10 vols, (ed.) Instas Mary al-Karmali al-Baghdadi (Baghdad, 1931), 8: 5–28.

⁵² Thattavi and Qazvini, Tarikh-i Alfi, 1, p. 253.

⁵³ Ibid., p. 253.

⁵⁴ The current edition calls him Shaykh Baha al-Din, which is a mistake for Shaykh Shahab al-Din (Thattavi and Qazvini, Tarikh-i Alfi, 1: p. 253). The Alfi's reference to Shahristani is correct as the same Arabic text is given in al-Shahristani's Milal wa al-Nihal (see Muhammad b. ʿAbd al-Karim al-Shahristani, Milal wa al-Nihal, (ed.) Ahmad Fahmi Muhammad (Beirut, 1413/1992), p. 732). Although the Alfi copied the Arabic text from Shahristani, it is attributed to Mashallah Misri. The Alfi ignores Shahristani's narrative in which he said that qaṣr ghumdān in Yemen was built by Zahhak, the mythical Persian king, to venerate not the Sun, but Venus (zuhra). It also neglects Shahristani's reports about the sun temple in Farghana and the debate about whether the Kaʿba was the Venus temple or not.

⁵⁵ As in the case of Plato, the influence of Pythagoras on the Islamic world was substantial, but we should keep in mind that, thanks to the interpretations of Porphyry, Iamblichus, and many others, both came to represent heavily Neoplatonised labels and, as such, the modern category of (Neo-) Pythagoreanism refers to the arithmetic, geometric, and also musical dimensions within Neoplatonism.

⁵⁶ Thattavi and Qazvini, Tarikh-i Alfi, 1, p. 380. The Arabic text adds that, if God does not appear in that form, then no one is able to look at him (wa idhā lam yulbishu lam yaghdir aḥadan ʿalā al-naẓara ilayhi) (al-Shahristani, Milal wa al-Nihal, p. 731); a similar idea about the Brahmin's belief of God as pure light is mentioned by the fifth/eleventh-century al-Bakri. See Abi ʿUbayd ʿAbd Allah b. ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-Bakri, Al-Masalik wa al-Mamalik, (ed.) J. Talaba (Beirut, 1424/2003), 1, p. 182.

⁵⁷ In Persian: wa mā saʿy dar tark-i lidhāt-i ʿālam namikunīm illā ba wāsiṭa-yi ānki ẕawāt-i mā rā istiʿdād-i ghabūl-i fayażān-i tu paydā shawad (Thattavi and Qazvini, Tarikh-i Alfi, 1, p. 253).

⁵⁸ So far, we could not bring home an older origin of the Persian translation.

⁵⁹ Although thus the Alfi suggests a Greek origin of Indian philosophy and in particular of Indian sun worship, it does not explain whether the Greeks had any ritual to venerate the Sun. Likewise, it does not explain the Indians’ understanding of the Sun and the reasons behind their sun-worshipping. It is not for the shortage of information, since Shahristani has full details on it. In his Milala wa al-Nihal, Shahristani argues that the Arabs and Indians were similar in terms of religion (yataqārrabān ʿalā madhhabin wāḥid). They both looked at the effects of things (khawāṣ al-ashyāʾ) and not their forms. He adds that there was a group of Indian people who believed in the impact of the planets and stars. Their thinking was like that of the Sabians (a religious group that flourished in Harran) except that they did not believe in the divinity of the stars. The Indians assumed that the Sun is an angel (malak) who has sense and reason/intellect (laha nafsun wa ʿqal). The Sun is the king of the celestial orbits (malik al-falāk) and all other planets take their lights from the Sun. Similarly, the evolution of the world's creatures is related to the Sun. Thus, the Sun deserves veneration, prostration, perfuming, and prayer (al-taʿẓīm, al-sujūd, al-tabkhīr wa al-duʿāʾ). Shahristani adds that Indians build a temple in which they place a statue who holds a red gem. They pray there three times a day before that statue. People fast when they visit the temple and bring the sick to the temple for healing. Shahristani calls the followers of this tradition aditya-kiniyya, without any explanations about their location or socio-political situation (al-Shahristani, Milal wa al-Nihal, p. 723). A similar discussion is given in al-Nadim, Kitab al-Fihrist. Before Shahristani and al-Biruni, the main source of information about Indian religions in Arabic was the Milal al-Hind wa Adyaniha. This book was commissioned by Yahya b. Khalid al-Barmaki (d. 806) in the eighth century (Ibn al-Nadim, Kitab al-Fihrist, p. 488).

⁶⁰ Thattavi and Qazvini, Tarikh-i Alfi, 1, p. 383; for details about the ṭarfā and lubān tree, see Zakariyya b. Muhammad b. Mahmud al-Kufi al-Qazvini, Ajaʾib al-Makhluqat wa Gharaʾib al-Maujudat (Beirut, 1421/2000), pp. 216, 221.

⁶¹ Thattavi and Qazvini, Tarikh-i Alfi, 1, pp. 382–383.

⁶² The Persian translation gives khamsa-yi mutaḥayyira, which refers to Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn (ibid., p. 382).

⁶³ In the Persian translation, it is aṣl-i hama, meaning ‘origin of all’ (ibid., p. 382).

⁶⁴ Ibid., pp. 383–384. Since the Taskhir al-Kawakib is not mentioned among his works, the Alfi's attribution of this prayer to al-Balkhi seems doubtful.

⁶⁵ The next paragraph builds heavily on the neglected, yet very important work of Gerald Grobbel, Der Dichter Faiḍī.

⁶⁶ Faizi's closeness to this group also shows in the fact that he wrote poems upon the deaths of Ahmad Thattavi, Fath Allah Shirazi, and Abul Fath Gilani.

⁶⁷ Badaʾuni, Muntakhab al-Tawarikh, 2, pp. 225, 234. Unfortunately, the work seems not extant.

⁶⁸ Wording inspired by Assmann, Moses the Egyptian, pp. 54–55.

⁶⁹ Grobbel, Der Dichter Faiḍī, pp. 137 (no. 181), 154 (no. 260).

⁷⁰ In 995/1587, Akbar ordered all dead bodies to be buried towards the east. This was against Islamic practice that the face of the dead should be put towards the qibla. Akbar personally observed this practice of facing the east when he slept. Then, in 1002/1594, Akbar issued a new order according to which dead bodies should be kept for a while towards the Sun and then buried. That would allow the sunlight to reach the dead body to remove its sins (Badaʾuni, Muntakhab al-Tawarikh, 2, pp. 249, 273).

⁷¹ Grobbel, Der Dichter Faiḍī, pp. 166–167 (resp. nos 311, 313).

⁷² Ibid., pp. 103–104.

⁷³ Abul Fazl, History of Akbar, 5, pp. 706–707; see also Franke, Akbar, p. 221.

⁷⁴ The literature on Julian is vast. Still a classic is J. Bidez, La vie de l'Empereur Julien (Paris, 1930). For a recent survey, see S. Rebenich and U. Wiemer, ‘Introduction: approaching Julian’, in A Companion to Julian the Apostate, (eds.) H. U. Wiemer and S. Rebenich (Leiden, 2020), pp. 1–37. For a brilliant revisionist overview of Neoplatonic politics in Late Antiquity more generally, see D. J. O'Meara, Platonopolis: Platonic Political Philosophy in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2003).

⁷⁵ S. Elm, Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus and the Vision of Rome (Berkeley, 2012), p. 104.

⁷⁶ Ibid., p. 116; D. N. Greenwood, ‘Crafting divine personae in Julian's Oration 7’, Classical Philology 109 (2014), pp. 140–149.

⁷⁷ Elm, Sons of Hellenism, pp. 88–143, 286–300. That Julian twisted already-existing festivals is stressed by W. Liebeschuetz, East and West in Late Antiquity: Invasion, Settlement, Ethnogenesis and Conflict of Religion (Leiden, 2015), pp. 325–340. Two other major studies on Julian's sun project include W. Fauth, Helios Megistos: Zur synkretischen Theologie der Spätantike (Leiden, 1995); and M. Schramm, Sonne, Kosmos, Rom: Kaiser Julian, Hymnos auf den König Helios (Tubingen, 2022).

⁷⁸ R. Chiaradonna and A. Lecerf, ‘Iamblichus’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2019 edn, (ed.) E. N. Zaita, https://plato.stanford.edu/Archives/fall2022/entries/iamblichus (accessed on 30 May 2023). For the Neoplatonic continuities between Late Antiquity and the Islamic world, see O'Meara, Platonopolis, pp. 185–198; S. Swain, Themistius, Julian, and Greek Political Theory under Rome: Texts, Translations, and Studies of Four Key Works (Cambridge, 2013); and G. Fowden, ‘Pseudo-Aristotelian politics and theology in universal Islam’, in Universal Empire: A Comparative Approach to Imperial Culture and Representation in Eurasian History, (ed.) P. F. Bang and D. Kolodziejczyck (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 130–148.

⁷⁹ It should be noted here that Julian's two hymns were written in some haste and through the memory/the inspiration of Iamblichus's work: the Hymn to the Mother of the Gods was written in one night, the Hymn to Helios in three nights. So, although Julian follows Iamblichus in creating more than just one transcendent realm, that is the kosmos noetos and the kosmos noeros, he seems to dispense entirely with Iamblichus's Sphere of the Soul. Also distinct from Iamblichus (and Plotinus) is that Julian's First Principle is part of the highest realm and that Julian makes too much of Helios at the centre of all this (J. Dillon, ‘The theology of Julian's Hymn to King Helios’, Ítaca: Quaderns Catalans de Cultura Clàssica 14–15 (1998–99), pp. 103–115; H.-G. Nesselrath, ‘Julian's philosophical writings’, in Companion to Julian the Apostate, (eds.) Wiemer and Rebenich, pp. 38–63). For other studies on Iamblichus's influence on Julian, see Bouffartigue, J., L'empereur Julien et la culture de son temps (Paris, 1992)Google Scholar; and Tanaseanu-Döbler, I., Theurgy in Late-Antiquity: The Invention of a Ritual Tradition (Gottingen, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁰ Elm, Sons of Hellenism, pp. 126–131; inverted commas indicate Julian's words.

⁸¹ Liebeschuetz, East and West in Late Antiquity, p. 328.

⁸² Nesselrath, ‘Julian's philosophical writings’, pp. 60–61.

⁸³ Elm, Sons of Hellenism, pp. 286–300.

⁸⁴ Ibid., p. 292.

⁸⁵ Ibid., pp. 332–333.

⁸⁶ See primarily Van Bladel, Arabic Hermes, and, most recently, J. Assmann, ‘Pharaonic kingship and its biblical deconstruction’, in Sacred Kingship in World History, (eds.) Moin and Strathern, pp. 94–110. Interestingly, as the Indian Neoplatonists created a Greek origin of sun worship, authors in Late Antiquity tended to see India (Philostratus) and also Ethiopia (Heliodorus) as idealised solar states closest to the Sun (J. R. Morgan, ‘The Emesan connection: Philostratus and Heliodorus’, in Theios Sophistès: Essays on Flavius Philostratus’ Vita Apolloni, (eds.) K. Demoen and D. Praet (Leiden, 2009), pp. 263–281). For possible Egyptian sources of inspiration for Julian's sun project, see, for example, D. C. Clark, ‘Iamblichus’ Egyptian Neoplatonic theology in De Mysteriis’, The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 2 (2008), pp. 164–205; and F. Lauritzen, ‘Constantine the Great as Ra the Egyptian sun-king in Julian's Hymn to Helios Basileus’, Revue des Études Tardo-Antiques 10 (2020–21), pp. 169–191. For obvious Mithraic links, see P. Athanassiadi, ‘A contribution to Mithraic theology: the Emperor Julian's Hymn to King Helios’, Journal of Theological Studies, N.S. 28 (1977), pp. 360–371. Linkages to the Aethiopica of Heliodorus are explored by John Hilton, who describes Julian's universalism as ‘universal apartheid’ (see J. Hilton, ‘Nomos, Physis, and ethnicity in the Emperor Julian's interpretation of the Tower of Babel Story’, Classical World 111 (2018), pp. 525–547; and J. Hilton, ‘Was the Emperor Julian a reader of the Aethiopica of Heliodorus?’, TAPA 151 (2021), pp. 195–417).

⁸⁷ Liebeschuetz, East and West in Late Antiquity, p. 340.

⁸⁸ M. Wakoff, ‘Awaiting the Sun: a Plotinian form of contemplative prayer’, in Platonic Theories of Prayer, (eds.) J. Dillon and A. Timotin (Leiden, 2016), pp. 73–87, at pp. 76–77.

⁸⁹ Ibid., p. 79; Plotinus, The Enneads V 5 [32] 8.3–9. Although this specific fragment was not translated into the Arabic Plotinus, comprising (a) Theology of Aristotle, (b) Sayings of the Greek Sage, and (c) Epistles on the Divine Science. Nonetheless, the Arabic Plotinus has numerous references to light (mostly rays/radiance that radiates from higher to lower layers of existence including specific enlightened human beings) and, albeit to a lesser extent, also to the Sun. Apart from the previous references, an important passage regarding light and the Sun is in the Sayings, which gives an Arabic rendering of Plotinus, The Enneads V 6: 4.14–22 (see ʿA. R. Badawi (ed.), Al-Aflatuniyya al-Muadatha ʿinda'l-ʿArab (Cairo, 1955), p. 186: 2–9.): ‘The Pure One resembles the light. The second one which is referred to some other thing resembles the sun. The third thing resembles the moon which receives its light from the sun. In the soul there is an acquired intellect which illuminates it through its light and causes it to become intellectual’ (translated by in, G. Lewis Plotini Opera, Vol. 2: Enneads IV–V, (eds.) Henry, P. and Schwyzer, H.-R. (Paris, 1959), p. 367Google Scholar).

⁹⁰ Wakoff, ‘Awaiting the Sun’, pp. 83–85.

⁹¹ Ibid., p. 81; based on Plotinus, The Enneads V 1 [10] 2.17–23 (translated into Arabic in the Sayings; see Badawi, Al-Aflatuniyya, p. 108: 5–17).

⁹² C. Helmig and C. Steel, ‘Proclus’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2021 edn, (ed.) E. N. Zaita, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/proclus/ (accessed 12 July 2023). Although we have some good studies on the Arabic Proclus—we know that his Elements of Theology was partly translated into Arabic—it is still difficult to really pinpoint his influence through text. As in the case of the other so-called founders of Neoplatonism, his influence is at least strongly suggested by his prominent position in Late-Antiquity philosophy, in both Athens and Alexandria.

⁹³ Van den Berg, Proclus’ Hymns, pp. 145–189.