Sabians

For the Canadian cymbal manufacturing company, see Sabian. For the ancient people living in what is now Yemen, see Sabaeans. For the followers of Sabbatai Zevi, see Sabbateans. For the people of ancient Italy, see Sabines.

The Sabians (/ˈseɪbiənz/; Arabic: صابئة‎) of Middle Eastern tradition were a religious group mentioned three times in the Quran as a People of the Book, "the Jews, the Sabians, and the Christians".[1] In the hadith, they were described simply as converts to Islam.[2] Interest in the identity and history of the group increased over time. Discussions and investigations of the Sabians began to appear in later Islamic literature.

Etymology

There has been much speculation as to the origins of the religious endonym from this practice. Judah Segal (1963)[3] argued that the term Sābi'ūn derives from Shiva, the primary god of Hinduism.[4]

In the Qur'an

The Qur'an briefly mentions the Sabians in three places, with hadith providing additional details as to who they were:

Lo! Those who believe (in that which is revealed unto thee, Muhammad), and those who are Jews, and Christians, and Sabaeans – whoever believeth in Allah and the Last Day and doeth right – surely their reward is with their Lord, and there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve.[Quran 2:62]
Lo! those who believe, and those who are Jews, and Sabaeans, and Christians – Whosoever believeth in Allah and the Last Day and doeth right – there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve.[Quran 5:69]
Those who believe (in the Qur'an), those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Sabians, Christians, Magians, and Polytheists,- Allah will judge between them on the Day of Judgment: for Allah is witness of all things.[Quran 22:17]

In later Islamic sources

According to Muslim authors, Sabians followed the fourth book of Abrahamic tradition, the Zabur. According to the Qur'an, this book was given to the prophet and King David of ancient Israel. Many modern scholars identify the Zabur as the Psalms. Most of what is known of them comes from ibn Wahshiyya's The Nabatean Agriculture, and the translation of this by Maimonides.

Other classical Arabic sources include the Fihrist of ibn al-Nadim (c. 987), who mentions the Mogtasilah ("Mughtasila", or "self-ablutionists"), a sect of Sabians in southern Mesopotamia who counted El-Hasaih as their founder.[5] Academics agree that they are probably the "Sobiai," to whom Elchasai preached in Parthia. According to Chwolsohn (1856), they appear to have gravitated around the original pro-Jewish Hanputa or Elcesaites, from which the prophet Mani seceded. Therefore they are identified as the pro-Torah Sampsaeans but also, less accurately, as the anti-Torah Mandaeans.

Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (d. 786) said that they believed that they "belonged" to the prophet Noah.[note 1]

Overview

Most of knowledge of the Sabians was translated in 904 CE from Syriac sources into The Nabatean Agriculture. Maimonides considered it an accurate record of the beliefs of the Sabians, who believed in idolatrous practices "and other superstitions mentioned in the Nabatean Agriculture." [6]

Al-Biruni (writing at the beginning of the eleventh century CE) said that the '"real Sabians'" were "the remnants of the Jewish tribes who remained in Babylonia when the other tribes left it for Jerusalem in the days of Cyrus and Artaxerxes. According to E. S. Drower (1937) these remaining tribes ... adopted a system mixed up of Magism and Judaism.'[7]

Non-Islamic sources

Maimonides

Maimonides (1125-1204) translated the book The Nabataean Agriculture, and he provided considerable detail about the Sabians in his Guide for the Perplexed (completed 1186-1190). According to Abu Yusuf Absha al-Qadi, Caliph al-Ma'mun of Baghdad in 830 CE questioned some Harranians about what protected religion they belonged to. As they were neither Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Magian, the caliph told them they were non-believers. He said they would have to become Muslims, or adherents of one of the other religions recognized by the Qur'an by the time he returned from his campaign against the Byzantines or he would kill them.[8] The Harranians consulted with a lawyer, who suggested that they find their answer in the Qur'an II.59, which said that Sabians were tolerated. It was unknown what the sacred text intended by "Sabian" and so they took the name.[9]

These newly dubbed Harranian Sabians acknowledged Hermes Trismegistus as their prophet and the Hermetica as their sacred text, being a group of Hermeticists. Validation of Hermes as a prophet comes from his identification as Idris (i.e. Enoch) in the Qur'an (19.57 and 21.85).[10]

The Harranian Sabians played a vital role in Baghdad and in the rest of the Arab world from 856 until about 1050; serving as the main source of ancient Greek philosophy and science as well as shaping intellectual life. The most prominent of the Harranian Sabians was Thābit ibn Qurra.[10]

A Yezidi writer

The Yazidis, and later French Vice-Consul at Mosul, Nicolas Siouffi in his Études sur la religion des Soubbas ou Sabéens, leurs dogmes, leurs moeurs (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1880) claimed to have identified 4,000 Sabians in the Soubbhas. Siouffi's work was well received by the Theosophist G. R. S. Mead,[11] but scholars criticized the estimates and study.[12]

In the Bahá'í writings

The Sabians are also mentioned in the literature of the Bahá'í Faith. These references are generally brief, describing two groups of Sabians: those "who worship idols in the name of the stars, who believed their religion derived from Seth and Idris", and others "who believed in the son of Zechariah (John the Baptist) and didn't accept the advent of the son of Mary (Jesus Christ)".[note 2] 'Abdu'l-Bahá briefly describes Seth as one of the "sons of Adam".[13] Bahá'u'lláh in a Tablet identifies Idris with Hermes.[14] He does not, however, specifically name Idris as the prophet of the Sabians.

Modern identification

Twenty-first century scholars have possibly identified the Sabians as Mandaeans or Harranians. Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila (2002, 2006) notes that in the marsh areas of Southern Iraq, there was a continuous tradition of Mandaean religion, and that another pagan, or "Sabian", centre in the tenth-century Islamic world centred on Harran.[15] These pagan "Sabians" are mentioned in the Nabataean corpus of Ibn Wahshiyya.[16]

"The Sabians, who were pagans in the Middle East, were identified with two groups, the Mandaeans and the Harranians. The Mandaeans lived in Iraq during the 2nd century A.D. As they continue to do today, they worshipped multiple gods, or "light personalities." Their gods were classified under four categories: "first life", "second life", "third life", and "fourth life". Old gods belong to the "first life" category. They summoned deities who, in turn, created "second life" deities, and so forth.

Today

A group of modern-day people based in Iraq call themselves Sabians and follow the teachings of John the Baptist. They are Mandaeans (or Sabian Mandaeans). They are more urban than other Mandaeans living in southern Iraq, which perhaps explains why they prefer to be called Sabians. [17] Due to their faith, pacifism and lack of tribal ties, they have been vulnerable to violence since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and numbered less than 5000 in 2007. They primarily live around Baghdad, where the last sheik resides who conducts services and baptisms. Many from the sect have moved from Baghdad to Kurdistan where it is safer. [17]

Notable people

Citations

  1. ↑ Khalil Ibn Ahmad (d. 786–787 CE), who was in Basra before his death, wrote: "The Sabians believe they belong to the prophet Noah, they read Zaboor, and their religion looks like Christianity." He also states that "they worship the angels".
  2. ↑ Á'ín-i Sábi'ín by Rúhu'lláh Mihrábkháni, Institute for Bahá'í Studies, Ontario, Canada, 1994

References

  1. ↑ Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam, 1987, page 13.
  2. ↑ E.g. Sahih Bukhari Book No. 7, Hadith No. 340; Book No. 59, Hadith No. 628; Book No. 89, Hadith No. 299 etc.
  3. ↑ Judah Benzion Segal, The Sabian Mysteries. The Planet Cult of Ancient Harran, Vanished Civilizations, ed. by E. Bacon, London 1963
  4. ↑ The city of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran, p112 Tamara M. Green, 1992. "Segal was inclined to believe that the root of the word Sabian was Syriac. Rejecting the notion that it means baptizer ... Even if the etymology proposed by Segal is correct, nevertheless the question of how Muhammad learned about these ..."
  5. ↑ Daniel Chwolson, Die Sabier, 1856, I, 112; II, 543, cited by Salmon.
  6. ↑ The Guide for the Perplexed, Book Three, Chapter 37 p. 334 M. Friedlander. Dover Publications, Inc. New York. 1956.
  7. ↑ Extracts from Ethel Stefana Drower, 1937, Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran
  8. ↑ (Churton p. 26)
  9. ↑ Tobias Churton pp. 26–7
  10. 1 2 (Churton p. 27)
  11. ↑ G. R. S. Mead, Gnostic John the Baptizer: Selections from the Mandaean John-Book, p137 "... the French Vice-Consul at Mosul, estimated them at some 4000 souls in all (Etudes sur la Religion des Soubbas ou Sabéens, Paris, 1880). These were then to be found chiefly in the neighbourhood of Baṣra aud Kút. Siouffi's estimate, "
  12. ↑ The Edinburgh Review, 1880, Sydney Smith. "Admitting M. Siouffi's ignorance and his teacher's possible dishonesty, these are scarcely sufficient to account for the origin of all the traditions and beliefs described in the * Etudes sur la religion ' des Soubbas. ..."
  13. ↑ 'Abdu'l-Bahá (1982) [1912]. The Promulgation of Universal Peace (Hardcover ed.). Wilmette, Illinois, USA: Bahá'í Publishing Trust. p. 365. ISBN 0-87743-172-8.
  14. ↑ Bahá'u'lláh (1994) [1873–92]. Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh Revealed After the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. Wilmette, Illinois, USA: Bahá'í Publishing Trust. p. 152. ISBN 0-87743-174-4.
  15. ↑ Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila in Ideologies as intercultural phenomena p90, ed. Antonio Panaino, Giovanni Pettinato, International Association for Intercultural Studies of the MELAMMU Project, 2002 "... that in the marsh areas of Southern Iraq there was a continuous tradition of Mandaean religion, but it seems to have been totally neglected in scholarship that there was another pagan, or Sabian, centre in the tenth-century Islamic world, in the countryside of Iraq (sawad) around Baghdad"
  16. ↑ Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, 2002. First, the books of the Nabatean corpus themselves claim to be translations from "ancient Syriac" (e.g. Filaha 1:5) made by Ibn Wahshiyya and transmitted to a student of his, Ibn az-Zayyat. The real authors of, e.g., Filaha, according to...
  17. 1 2 "Sabian sect keeps the faith", USA Today, 27 September 2007

Sources

External links

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