ARAM, 11-12 (1999-2000), 269-279≤INASI GÜNDÜZ 269 PROBLEMS ON THE MUSLIM UNDERSTANDING OF THE MANDAEANS ≤INASI GÜNDÜZ* From the beginning of the Islamic era onwards Muslims have been inter- ested in the Sâbians since the Sâbians as a religious group are mentioned in the Qur'an.1 However, the Qur'an mentions them only by name among the ahl al- kitâb with the Jews and the Christians; it does not give any information about their identity, cults and beliefs. Muslim scholars from the early period to the modern time have therefore been interested in this term and tried to explain the religious identity of the Sâbians of the Qur'an. Extant Islamic sources do not give any information about the existence of the arguments of the Sâbians at the time of Muhammad. We know that the op- ponents of Muhammad who objected to the Qur'anic message asked him many questions about the statements of the Qur'an which were unfamiliar to them. However, they were silent when the Qur'an mentioned the Sâbians with the other religious groups such as the Jews, Christians and Magians. This obviously shows that, mainly because of their trading journeys the Arabs of Hijâz had knowledge of the Sâbians as a religious group. During his time the Prophet Muhammad as well as his followers was also called sâbiî by his opponents.2 Although some of the early Muslim scholars such as ‘Abd al-Rahmân ibn Zayd (d. 798 AD), Ibn Jurayj (d. 767 AD) and ‘Atâ ibn Abî Rabah (d. 732 AD) have seen a specific connection between the term Sâbiî, used for Muhammad and his companions, and the Sabians who lived in the region of Sawâd, it is most probable that the Arabs used this term for Muhammad and his followers in the meaning of ‘apostate' since Mu- hammad left the traditional religion of the Arabs and introduced a new belief system based on strict monotheism.3 After Muhammad, the Muslim commentators of the Qur'an (mufassirûn) tried to explain who the Sabians whom the Qur'an mentioned three times were. They were not particularly interested in the Sabians; and their explana- * Ph. D., Associate Professor, Department of History of Religions, Ondokuz Mayıs Üniver- sitesi Ilahiyat Fakültesi, Samsun, Turkey. 1 al-Baqarah, 62; al-Mâidah, 67; al-Hajj, 17. 2 See for example Ibn Hanbel, Ahmad, musnad, Beirut (n.d.), v. 3, p. 492; v. 4, p. 341, v. 5, pp. 174f; al-Bukhârî, Abû ‘Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ismâ'îl, al-jâmi' al-sahîh, Istanbul (1981), v. 1, p. 89; Muslim ibn Hajjâj, sahîh, n.p. (1955), v. 4, pp. 1920f. 3 See Gündüz, ≤., The Knowledge of Life. The Origins and Early History of the Mandaeans and Their Relation to the Sabians of the Qur'ân and to the Harranians, Oxford (1994), pp.18f. 270 PROBLEMS ON THE MUSLIM UNDERSTANDING OF THE MANDAEANS tion on the Sabians was generally only a few sentences. Their main aim was to give an explanation of some statements and terms of the Qur'an which needed to be explained, and the term sâbiûn (or sâbiîn) was one of them. Most of these Muslim scholars who lived in the first two Islamic centuries stated that the Sabians were a religious group who lived in southern Mesopota- mia. According to their statement the Sabians particularly live in Kûthâ, Sawâd and Jazîrah al-Mawsil in Iraq. About the Sabian religion they maintain that the Sabians have a religious system of their own which resembles in many points Christianity, Judaism and Magianism. Some of these early scholars, such as Wahb ibn Munabbih (d. 728-732 AD) and ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Zayd, even state that the Sabians worship only one true God.4 We also see from many sources that during the first two Islamic centuries many Muslim scholars believed that the Sabians were among the ahl al-kitâb, while some did not accept this for they believed that the term ahl al-kitâb was a specific term for only the Jews and the Christians.5 Likewise, the Muslim rulers during that time treated the Sabian community in Islamic empire as a religious group belonging to ahl al-dhimma (the subject people), a status given to the non-Muslims, mainly to the Christians and the Jews, who live under Muslim government. Some Muslim rulers even thought to recognise an exclu- sive right to the Sabians because they thought the beliefs of the Sabians were nearer Islam than the other groups among ahl al-dhimma. In these Muslim rul- ers' opinion the most important feature which showed the proximity of the be- liefs of the Sabians to Islam was the Sabian's belief in God. The following narration is quite important for this. According to the information given by Hasan al-Basrî (d. 728), Ziyâd ibn Abîhî (d. 672), the governor of Iraq at the time of the first Umayyad caliph Mu'âwiyah, had met the Sabians and wanted to exempt them from the poll-tax (jizyah), but when he was informed that they worshipped the angels (malâikah) he changed his decision.6 It is quite clear that the Sabians of the Qur'an who were described by these early scholars are the Mandaeans of southern Iraq. We know that the Man- daeans have been living in this area since the second century AD. They mi- grated from Palestine first to the mountainous lands of Media (Adiabene), then to the marshy region of southern Mesopotamia. By the second century AD they were in this new homeland, where they settled under Parthian protection. Also we know that Mandaean beliefs and cults have many similarities to Judaism, Christianity and Iranian religions, and take various elements from these religious traditions. These early Muslim scholars were therefore correct 4 Ibid., pp. 18, 24. 5 Ibid., pp. 28-29. 6 al-Tabarî, Abû Ja'far Muhammad, jâmi' al-bayân ‘an ta'wîl ây al-qur'ân, Cairo (1968), v. 1, p. 319. ≤INASI GÜNDÜZ 271 when they stated that the Sabians have a religious system resembling Christi- anity, Judaism and Magianism. In the early Islamic period (first two centuries) we do not generally see such problems with the identification and place of settlement of the Sabians as we see in later sources. Although there are some differences between these Mus- lim scholars regarding some characteristics of the Sabians, there is a consensus on the identification of the Sabians and the main characteristic features of the Sabian religion. We also see in this early period that Muslim rulers as well as Muslim scholars were generally tolerant of the Sabians, since they saw them as a group among the ahl al-dhimma. Although the Mandaean sources do not generally talk about the Muslims positively,7 an account in Haran Gawaita seems supportive of the idea that the Muslims treated them as ahl al-kitâb when they first met the Mandaeans, so there was no problem with them.8 The Abbasid period was an important milestone for early speculations about the Sabians. These speculations were mainly based on the claim that the Sabians were pagans, adherents of the planet cult of ancient Mesopotamia. From this period onwards most Muslim scholars saw a special connection be- tween the term “Sabians” and the pagans of Harran. Even such important Muslim scholars as al-Mas'ûdî (d. 957), Ibn Hazm al-Qurtûbî (d. 1063), al- Shahristânî (d. 1153) and Abû ‘Abd Allah Muhammad al-Qurtûbî (d. 1282) identified Sabians with the Harranians, whom they called “the Sabians from Harran”.9 Although early Muslim scholars (commentators of the Qur'an and the jurists) mentioned neither the city of Harran nor the Harranians in relation to the Sabians, later Muslim writers especially emphasised Harran as the dwelling place of the Sabians whenever they talked about the Sabians. The characteristic features of the Harranians, such as paganism, polytheism and star and idol worshipping, have therefore been described as the characteristics of the Sabians. This was also contrary to the early scholars, since they never, as stated earlier, mentioned characteristics such as paganism, polytheism and so on when they described the Sabians. Some Muslim scholars of that time, such as Ibn al-Nadîm (d. 995), Abd al- Qâhir al-Baghdâdî (d. 1037), and al-Bîrûnî (d. 1048) maintained that there was another Sabian group, Sabât al-Batâ'ih, living in southern Mesopotamia. They also stressed that Sabât al-Batâ'ih were completely different from the Harra- nians. Some of them even emphasised that the Harranians were not the real 7 For example, in Mandaean literature Muhammad is identified with the demon Bizbat and usually called “the Son of Slaughterer, the Arab”. See Ginza Right (hereafter GR) M. Lidzbarski (tr.), Ginzâ. Der Schatz oder das grosse Buch der Mandaer übersetzt und erklart, Göttingen (1925), pp. 30, 54; Haran Gawaita, E.S. Drower (tr.), The Haran Gawaita and the Baptism of Hibil Ziwa, Citta del Vaticano (1953), pp. 12-16. 8 See Haran Gawaita, pp. 15f. 9 See Gündüz, op. cit., pp. 31-48. 272 PROBLEMS ON THE MUSLIM UNDERSTANDING OF THE MANDAEANS Sabians, but pseudo-Sabians.10 In spite of this they continued to use the term Sabians as a particular name for the Harranians, and described the characteris- tics of the Harranians as those of the Sabians. Muslim writers, especially the commentators and jurists, have continued to hold this point of view on the Sabians up to now. They have repeated the idea of those Muslim scholars who described Harranians as the Sabians and ac- cused the Sabians of being idolaters and star-worshippers.