--- title: "The Pleiades (al-Thurayyā) in Arabic Astrology — Canopy" description: "The Pleiades, al-Thurayyā to the Arabs: the name, the anwāʾ rains, the third lunar mansion, and its Behenian gem, herb and sigil in Arabic astrology." canonical: https://canopyastro.com/pleiades.html markdown: https://canopyastro.com/pleiades.md date_modified: 2026-10-24 publisher: Stellar Apps LLC app: "Canopy: Arabian Astrology (iPhone, iPhone Duo and Android)" --- A Behenian star # The Pleiades, the stars called al-Thurayyā al-Thurayyā — the Pleiades, Messier 45 7 min read · From the classical sources · Updated October 24, 2026 ## The name al-Thurayyā **The Pleiades**, the small, close-set cluster of stars in Taurus, were *al-Thurayyā* to the Arabs (also written al-Thuraya), and few stars were better known in the desert. The cluster was so familiar that it was often called simply *al-Najm*, the Star, as if no other needed naming. The word is a diminutive, built on a root that speaks of abundance and plenty, so that it reads something like "the little abundant one". The tenth-century astronomer ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī, in his *Book of Fixed Stars*, glosses it as a small fortune, and gives his reasons: the name was made diminutive because the stars are small and close together, and the Arabs counted themselves blessed by the cluster and its rising, holding that the rain which fell at its setting brought good fortune. Al-Ṣūfī looked at the cluster with a careful eye. Ptolemy had listed only four of its stars, which al-Ṣūfī explains as the four brightest; he adds that two or three more sit among them, so that together they look like a bunch of grapes. Tradition counted the Pleiades as seven stars, the seven sisters, and Canopy's catalogue files the whole cluster under its brightest member, Alcyone. Al-Ṣūfī also corrects the older Arab books, which had set the Pleiades on the fat tail of the Ram: the cluster, he says, lies on the hump of the Bull, and it is the third of the Moon's mansions. In his day its middle stood at about 15° of Taurus, some four degrees north of the ecliptic. Its neighbour shares its fame. Aldebaran, the red star that trails the cluster across the sky, is *al-Dabarān*, the Follower, named because it follows the Pleiades, and its mansion comes straight after theirs. One story makes the Follower a suitor who chases al-Thurayyā through the heavens, kept from her for ever by Capella, *al-ʿAyyūq*. The name al-Thurayyā turns up, too, in the lore of Suhayl, the far southern star whose story is told on the [Canopus](https://canopyastro.com/canopus.html) page. Canopy, which is available in English, Arabic and Turkish, labels the cluster الثريّا in Arabic and *Ülker* in Turkish. ## A seasonal clock for Arabia Long before the astrologers, the Pleiades kept the desert's calendar. The Arabs reckoned the year by the *anwāʾ*. A star group's *nawʾ* came when it set in the west at dawn while its partner, its *raqīb*, rose in the east out of the Sun's light. Al-Bīrūnī sets out the scheme, and al-Ṣūfī confirms it. The star groups of that calendar are the same ones that came to mark the twenty-eight [lunar mansions](https://canopyastro.com/lunar-mansions.html), and the Pleiades had a nawʾ of their own, a welcome one. In Arabia the cluster's dawn setting came about mid-November, in the autumn rains called *al-wasmī*, the rains that marked the desert with new green; its dawn rising, as it came out of the Sun's glare, fell about mid-May. The exact days shifted with latitude and with the centuries, but the order of the year held. The cluster even lent its name to the stars around it: the Arabs drew two great hands reaching out from al-Thurayyā, one of them dyed with henna and stretching through Perseus toward Cassiopeia, and from them come the modern star names Caph, Mirfak and Menkib. Weather sayings gathered round it. When the Star rose at nightfall, one went, the herdsman would go looking for his cloak, for the cold was on its way. Another held that winter's cold arrived when the full Moon covered the Pleiades, the Sun being then in Scorpio, and al-Bīrūnī explains why the two belong together: a full Moon can stand on the cluster only in November, when the cold begins. ## The third lunar mansion The Pleiades mark the third of the Moon's twenty-eight stations, the mansion that carries their name. Canopy counts the mansions in the tropical zodiac, as equal arcs of 12°51′26″ measured from the March equinox, so al-Thurayyā runs from 25°43′ Aries to 8°34′ Taurus. It is a Saʿd mansion, one of the fortunate. When the Moon passes through it, Canopy's reading, drawn from the classical sources, among them the *Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm* and al-Bīrūnī's *al-Tafhīm*, favors safety at sea, the seeking of love, love between spouses and the growth of wealth; the fuller list adds alchemical and fire works, and hunting. It lends nothing to breaking partnerships, parting allies, strengthening prisons or harming flocks and herds. All twenty-eight, al-Thurayyā among them, are set out on the [lunar mansions](https://canopyastro.com/lunar-mansions.html#al-thurayya) page. There is a twist. The mansion keeps its name and its span, but the stars have moved on. Through the precession of the equinoxes every fixed star creeps forward through the zodiac by about a degree in seventy-two years, and Canopy sets each star at its place for the date of the chart. Roughly two thousand years ago the Pleiades stood in the middle of the third mansion's arc; by al-Ṣūfī's century they had already passed its end, and today Alcyone stands near 0°18′ of Gemini (2025 position), inside the arc Canopy counts as the fifth mansion, *al-Haqʿa*. The mansions are measured from the equinox while the stars drift on past them, so a Moon in al-Thurayyā today no longer sits beside the Pleiades at all. ## A Behenian star The Pleiades are also one of the fifteen [Behenian stars](https://canopyastro.com/fixed-stars.html#the-fifteen-behenian-stars), the short list of fixed stars that the talismanic tradition singled out, each with its own stone, its own plant and its own engraved image. Canopy gives Alcyone, the cluster's brightest star at magnitude 2.87, a double nature of the Moon and Mars, with rock crystal as its gemstone and fennel as its herb. The image belongs to the Picatrix tradition, the *Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm*, and the app gives it as the image of a little maiden, or the figure of a lamp, for the hours when the Pleiades rise or culminate. The old books said such a talisman was made to strengthen the light of the eyes, to gather spirits, to raise winds and to reveal hidden things. Those are the tradition's claims, set down here as history rather than promise; what Canopy adds is the timing. ## How Canopy reads the Pleiades Canopy calculates your birth chart from your birth date, time and place, and sets the Pleiades against it, with thirty-four more fixed stars. When Alcyone stands within three degrees of a planet, the Ascendant or the Midheaven, the reading, drawn from the classical sources, speaks of intuition and artistic sensitivity, of a turn toward the mystical, and of a vision touched with sorrow. Day by day, the Today screen notes the fixed stars the planets are touching, and the Tonight's Mansion widget keeps the Moon's station on your Home Screen, so you can see when she reaches al-Thurayyā. In the Talismans tab, Fixed Star Talismans looks for the moments when a star's degree, the Pleiades' among them, stands within one degree of the Ascendant or the Midheaven, and keeps only those in which the Moon is applying to the star and free of affliction. The full rules are set out on the talismanic timing page, under [fixed-star talisman windows in Canopy](https://canopyastro.com/talismanic-timing.html#fixed-star-talisman-windows-in-canopy). ![Canopy on iPhone Duo in Coffee Cream: today's fixed stars on the left page and one star read in full on the right page](https://canopyastro.com/images/app/duo/coffee-cream/08-fixed-stars-today-800.webp) ![Canopy on iPhone Duo in Midnight: today's fixed stars on the left page and one star read in full on the right page](https://canopyastro.com/images/app/duo/midnight/08-fixed-stars-today-800.webp) *On iPhone Duo, in Coffee Cream and Midnight: the day's fixed-star contacts on the left page, one star read in full on the right.* Tonight's mansion and the Pleiades' windows are in Canopy. [Download on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/canopy-ancient-arabian-astro/id6780314504?pt=638207&ct=seo-in-pleiades&mt=8&ppid=27c6fd93-918a-48f6-b7e0-0ee4b89bf83b) [Get it on Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=stellarappsllc.com.canopy&referrer=utm_source%3Dcanopyastro%26utm_medium%3Dseo%26utm_campaign%3Dinline-pleiades&listing=timing-planets-stars) Free to download · 7-day free trial where offered · then a subscription · **Supports iPhone Duo** ## How to see the Pleiades The Pleiades are one of the easiest sights in the night sky. The cluster, catalogued as Messier 45, lies in the north-west of Taurus, about 444 light-years away. Six or seven of its stars show to the naked eye, more on a dark night, and astronomers count more than a thousand members, young, hot and blue, around a hundred million years old. It stands about 24° north of the celestial equator, so it can be seen from nearly everywhere people live. To find it from the Northern Hemisphere, follow the line of Orion's Belt up and to the right, past the red star Aldebaran, the Follower, to the small misty cluster beyond. It rides the evening sky from autumn to early spring and stands highest around midnight in late November; around May it is lost in the Sun's glare, which is why its dawn rising and dawn setting could serve the desert as a clock. ## Questions **What does al-Thurayyā mean?** It is the Arabic name of the Pleiades, a diminutive from a root meaning abundance, so roughly the little abundant one. Al-Ṣūfī glosses it as a small fortune, saying the Arabs felt blessed by the cluster's rising and held that the rain at its setting brought good fortune. The cluster was so well known that it was often called simply *al-Najm*, the Star. **How many stars are in the Pleiades?** Tradition counted seven, the seven sisters. Ptolemy listed only the four brightest, and al-Ṣūfī noted two or three more among them, like a bunch of grapes. Six or seven show to the naked eye, more on a dark night, and astronomers count more than a thousand members. Canopy files the cluster under its brightest star, Alcyone. **Which lunar mansion is al-Thurayyā?** The third of the twenty-eight. In Canopy it spans 25°43′ Aries to 8°34′ Taurus in the tropical zodiac and is a Saʿd, or fortunate, mansion. Canopy's reading, drawn from the classical sources, favors safety at sea, the seeking of love, love between spouses and the growth of wealth, and lends nothing to breaking partnerships or parting allies. **Why are the Pleiades no longer in their own mansion?** Because of precession. The mansions are measured from the March equinox, while the stars creep forward about a degree every seventy-two years. Roughly two thousand years ago the cluster stood midway through the third mansion; today Alcyone stands near 0°18′ of Gemini, in the arc Canopy counts as the fifth mansion, *al-Haqʿa*. **What are the Pleiades' gemstone, herb and sigil?** In Canopy the Pleiades are a Behenian star of the Moon and Mars, with rock crystal as the gemstone and fennel as the herb. The image the Picatrix tradition gives them is a little maiden, or the figure of a lamp. Canopy's Fixed Star Talismans search looks for the moments when the Pleiades' degree stands within one degree of the Ascendant or the Midheaven. ## Keep reading - [The 28 lunar mansions](https://canopyastro.com/lunar-mansions.html) — manāzil al-qamar - [The fixed stars](https://canopyastro.com/fixed-stars.html) — al-kawākib al-thābita - [Canopus](https://canopyastro.com/canopus.html) — Suhayl ## The Star still keeps its season. Canopy reads the Pleiades and thirty-four more classical fixed stars against your chart and today's sky, keeps tonight's lunar mansion in view and looks for each star's talisman windows — every reading drawn from the classical sources. [Download on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/canopy-ancient-arabian-astro/id6780314504?pt=638207&ct=seo-pleiades&mt=8&ppid=27c6fd93-918a-48f6-b7e0-0ee4b89bf83b) [Get it on Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=stellarappsllc.com.canopy&referrer=utm_source%3Dcanopyastro%26utm_medium%3Dseo%26utm_campaign%3Dpleiades&listing=timing-planets-stars) ![QR code that opens Canopy in the App Store or Google Play](https://canopyastro.com/images/qr-get-canopy.svg) On a computer? Scan with your phone's camera to get Canopy. Featured in [Thrive Insider](https://thriveinsider.com/business/canopy-ancient-arabian-astrology-app/) --- *Markdown rendering of https://canopyastro.com/pleiades.html. Readings in Canopy are drawn from the classical Arabic sources; the HTML page is the canonical version.*