Al-Sullam (السُّلَّم)

Authors: Khalid Al-Ajaji

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Al-Sullam and neighbouring Arabic asterisms in the region of Pisces. (CC BY Khalid Al-Ajaji 2026).

Al-Sullam (السُّلَّم, “the ladder”) is a traditional Arabic asterism identified with the cord joining the two Fishes of Pisces, the Ptolemaic linum piscium. In this reconstruction it is a group of stars, rather than a single star, running eastward from the western end of the cord to Alrescha (α Piscium), between approximately declinations +2° and +8°.

The identification is built on the positional phrase أسفل من العانة عن يمينها (“below al-ʿĀna, at/on its right”).

Etymology

The name السُّلَّم means “ladder.” In the Tāj al-ʿArūs, al-Zabīdī explains the name as على التَّشْبِيه بالسُّلَّم, “by resemblance to a ladder.” This is al-Zabīdī’s own explanatory gloss rather than a transmitted early statement, but it accords with an extended and regularly spaced stellar chain such as the cord of Pisces.

Sources

Ibn Qutayba

Ibn Qutayba (d. 276 AH / 889 CE) gives the positional statement without specifying a number of stars:

و«السلم» أسفل من «العانة» عن يمينها.

English

Al-Sullam is below al-ʿĀna, at its right-hand side.

Ibn ʿĀṣim al-Ṯaqafī

Ibn ʿĀṣim al-Ṯaqafī (d. 403 AH / c. 1013 CE) supplies a singular noun in his paraphrastic account:

وأسفل من العانة وعن يمينها كوكب يقال له: السلم.

English

Below al-ʿĀna and at its right is a star called al-Sullam.

Lexicographical witnesses

Earlier and later lexicographical witnesses preserve the plural كواكب (“stars”):

والسُّلَّمُ: كَواكِبُ أسْفَل من العَانَة عن يَمِيْنِها.

English

Al-Sullam: stars below al-ʿĀna, at its right-hand side.

This wording occurs in Ibn ʿAbbād al-Ṣāḥib’s al-Muḥīṭ fī al-Lugha (d. 385 AH) and in al-Ṣaghānī’s al-Takmila (d. 650 AH). The Tāj al-ʿArūs likewise records:

(و) أَيْضا: (كَواكِبُ أَسْفَل من العانَةِ عَن يَمِينِها) على التَّشْبِيه بالسّلم.

English

Also: stars below al-ʿĀna, at its right-hand side, by resemblance to a ladder.

Al-Marzūqī omits al-Sullam from his version of the notice.

Number of stars

The evidence favors the plural reading كواكب, and indicates that the surviving Hyderabad text of Ibn Qutayba’s al-Anwāʾ has lost the noun.

• Ibn ʿAbbād, who died in 385 AH, predates al-Ṯaqafī by eighteen years; his plural reading is therefore earlier than al-Ṯaqafī’s singular formulation.
• The lexica retain Ibn Qutayba’s positional wording—أسفل من العانة عن يمينها—verbatim while adding كواكب. This close agreement suggests that their exemplars preserved the missing word.
• Al-Ṯaqafī’s phrase كوكب يقال له: السلم is best treated as an inference from a source that did not state a number, rather than as a variant reading. His treatment of al-ʿĀna in the same context is likewise paraphrastic.
• The singular is deliberate in al-Ṯaqafī’s own text: he writes كواكب بيض يقال لها: العانة but كواكب يقال له: السلم, with pronouns agreeing respectively with the collective and singular names. This confirms his editorial interpretation, not the original number in Ibn Qutayba.

The name “ladder,” with its implied rungs, and the structure of the surrounding notice also favor a collective. In that passage, al-ʿĀna, al-Ribq, and al-Safīna are all groups of stars; a solitary star would be the lone exception.

Direction: yamīn

The positional term يمين (“right”) denotes north in this astronomical convention. Al-Marzūqī explicitly explains that the figures rise with their faces toward the west: north is consequently on their right and south on their left.

وكلّ صورة من نظم الكواكب فميامنها مما يلي الشّمال ومياسرها مما يلي الجنوب، لأنّها تطلع بصدورها ناظرة إلى المغارب فالشّمال على أيمانها، والجنوب على أيسارها.

English

For every stellar figure, its right-hand side is that which faces north and its left-hand side that which faces south, because it rises breast-first facing the western horizons: north is on its right and south on its left.

The convention is independently confirmed in indigenous descriptions. Ibn Qutayba places Awlād al-Ḍibāʿ “to the right” of al-Ḍibāʿ, in the direction of Banāt Naʿsh, that is, north; and al-Ṯaqafī places al-Baqar “to the right” of al-Kaff al-Jadhmāʾ, in the direction of al-Thurayyā, likewise north.

Identification

With يمين understood as north, al-Sullam is identified with the cord of Pisces, extending from its western end eastward to Alrescha. The chain comprises δ, ε, ζ, μ, ν, ξ, α Psc.

The extended sequence and its regularly spaced appearance accord with the “ladder” image. It also lies immediately off the north-eastern end of Al-ʿĀna, matching Ibn Qutayba’s general framing of the nearby stars, الكواكب المقاربة لهذه السعود (“the stars close to these Suʿūd”).

Positional ambiguity

The phrase أسفل من العانة عن يمينها contains the principal issue. If يمين means north, as the sources indicate, then أسفل (“below”) and “at its right” may describe a later position in rising, hence an eastward position. Al-Sullam would then lie east and north of al-ʿĀna, corresponding to the cord of Pisces.