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Continuity of Pagan Religious Traditions in Tenth-Century Iraq” JAAKKO HÄMEEN-ANTTILA

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Continuity of Pagan Religious Traditions in Tenth-Century Iraq” JAAKKO HÄMEEN-ANTTILA THE MELAMMU PROJECT http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/ “Continuity of Pagan Religious Traditions in Tenth-Century Iraq” JAAKKO HÄMEEN-ANTTILA Published in Melammu Symposia 3: A. Panaino and G. Pettinato (eds.), Ideologies as Intercultural Phenomena. Proceedings of the Third Annual Symposium of the Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project. Held in Chicago, USA, October 27-31, 2000 (Milan: Università di Bologna & IsIao 2002), pp. 89-108. Publisher: http://www.mimesisedizioni.it/ This article was downloaded from the website of the Melammu Project: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/ The Melammu Project investigates the continuity, transformation and diffusion of Mesopotamian culture throughout the ancient world. A central objective of the project is to create an electronic database collecting the relevant textual, art-historical, archaeological, ethnographic and linguistic evidence, which is available on the website, alongside bibliographies of relevant themes. In addition, the project organizes symposia focusing on different aspects of cultural continuity and evolution in the ancient world. The Digital Library available at the website of the Melammu Project contains articles from the Melammu Symposia volumes, as well as related essays. All downloads at this website are freely available for personal, non-commercial use. Commercial use is strictly prohibited. For inquiries, please contact [email protected]. HÄMEEN -A NTTILA C ONTINUITY OF PAGAN RELIGIOUS TRADITION IN IRAQ JAAKKO HÄMEEN -A NTTILA Helsinki Continuity of Pagan Religious Traditions in Tenth-Century Iraq Perhaps nine tenths of sciences belong to the Nabateans and one tenth to all other nations together 1 t has long been known that Θ!""&$ conquerors never settled down en masse . remained a seat of pagan and Helle- Curiously enough, these traditions have Inistic religion deep into the Islamic remained very little studied. period. One of the leading authorities of Jewish and Christian communities Hellenistic religions in Syria, H.J.W. apart, the Islamization of rural areas was Drijvers, has written (1980: 129): a slow process, 2 and it was never com- Leaving aside the whole complicated tra- pleted in the swamp areas, where Man- dition about the Sabians of Harran, it can daeans have a continuous tradition from be stated that they represent a continua- before the Islamic conquest and ulti- tion of indigenous religion and that, mately leading back, at least in part, to however philosophically disguised their Mesopotamian religion. Despite their ef- doctrines may be, the sources of Sabian forts to appropriate the term ‘Sabians,’ belief and practice must be sought in the traditional religion of Harran. reserved in the Qur’ n for an obscure monotheistic group and thus approved of It is generally accepted that the local by Muslim authorities, Mandaeans were tradition of Θ!""&$ flourished, as a mix- very close to pagans in the eyes of Mus- ture of paganism and Hellenistic philoso- lim observers. Yet they could find a way phy, till the 9th-10th centuries, as wit- to live as a separate religious community, nessed by authors such as an-Nad m and tolerated by Muslim rulers, through to al-Mas <d. Hence there is, a priori , no the twentieth century, which shows how reason to doubt the existence of pagan theoretical the non-tolerance of Islam traditions in the less accessible country- towards paganism may sometimes have side ( saw d) of Iraq, where the Arab been. 3 1 Ibn &! Ι()*++! , Kit b as-Sum <m, fol. 4b. One has also to remember that pagans, like Man- 2 I feel somewhat uneasy with the study of Bulliett on daeans, rarely wanted to advertize their religion. conversion (1979), and do not quite find it adequate Likewise, the learned authors never showed much to study biographical dictionaries of learned men as a interest in peasants, ash-Shirb n’s Hazz al-qu f<f basis for speculations about the total population and being a glorious but late exception. The occasional its conversions. The peasants of the Saw d hardly peasant in, e.g., al-Hamadh n’s al-Maq ma al- had many offspring that were noticed in the bio- Baghd dhiyya , is a stereotype to be laughed at, but graphical dictionaries. Thus, paganism may well have even in this comic function peasants are rare. lived on for a considerably longer time than one 3 Rudolph (1960-61) II:28, takes it for granted that might presume on the basis of Bulliett’s book. Islam did not tolerate the Mandaean religion, but this A. Panaino & G. Pettinato (eds.) MELAMMU SYMPOSIA III (Milano 2002) ISBN 88-8483-107-5 89 HÄMEEN -A NTTILA C ONTINUITY OF PAGAN RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS IN IRAQ In fact, the existence of pagans in the tenth-century Islamic world, in the tenth-century Islamic world was well countryside of Iraq ( saw d) around Ba- known to contemporaries and caused no ghdad. problems to Muslim authors. Thus, even This is, in fact, curious because there a strict theologian like al-Ash ar simply are several important sources which in- stated the existence of modern Sabians in form us of the existence and importance his Maq lt, pp. 103-104, when speaking of a Sabian community or a group of about some Kh rijites who also called communities in the area. These sources, themselves Sabians: the Nabatean 5 corpus, are a group of He (their leader) claimed that the relig- books purported to be translations from ious community ( milla ) of that prophet “ancient Syriac” by Ibn &!Ι()*++! (see (whose appearance they awaited) was below), who calls these “other Sabians” sbbi’a – these are not the same Sabians bbil “Babylonian.” It is only because to which some people belong today [em- the Harranian Sabians were the first to phasis added, J.H-A], nor are they the draw the attention of scholars that Θ!", same as those mentioned by God in the Qur’ n (…). "&$ has been seen as the main centre of paganism during the Islamic period. The existence of Sabians under Islamic In his al- th r al-b qiya , p. 206, 6 al- domination was neither surprising nor Br<n (d.c. 1050) sets the picture for us: objectionable to al-Ash ar , and he even shows himself aware of the tenuous It is said that the Harranians are not the real Sabians, nay they are called h^an fs identification of the “modern” Sabians and idol worshippers in the (holy) books. with the group mentioned in the Qur’ n. The (real) Sabians are those who stayed As concerns Harranian paganism we behind in B bil from among the tribes have some information in an-Nad m’s (of Israel) when they (the other tribes) Fihrist and other sources, and it has been returned to Jerusalem during the days of < established that many Mesopotamian tra- K rush and Ar ϡaΙshast. They (the ones who stayed behind) inclined towards the 4 ditions lived on in the area. Likewise, it laws ( shar ’i ’) of the Magians ( al-Maj <s) is well known, although this knowledge and had a liking towards the religion is often not quite internalized, that in the (dn) of ./0)1$!ϗϗ!" . Thus they have marsh areas of Southern Iraq there was a selected a doctrine mixing ( mumtazij ) continuous tradition of Mandaean relig- Magianism with Judaism like the Sa- ion, but it seems to have been totally ne- maritans did in Syria. Most of them live in &&(*ϡ and the glected in scholarship that there was an- countryside ( saw d) of Iraq near 3!4!" other pagan, or Sabian, centre in the and al-J mida and the twin rivers of !ϗ, view is gratuitious and not supported by any evi- East Muslims were more tolerant than in later centu- dence. The theoretical structure of Islam, created by ries. For Mandaean evidence for this tolerance, see Muslim theologians, does not tolerate other religions Gündüz (1994): 70 (< Haran Gawaita). than those coming under the dhimma system (Christi- 4 See especially Green (1992) and Gündüz (1994). anity, Judaism, Magianism i.e. the Zarathustran re- 5 The term Nabatean ( naba #) is a word used by Mus- ligion, and Sabianism), but this has rarely lead to any lim authors to denote the indigenous, Aramaic practical measures against other religions, especially speaking population of especially Iraq. It does not in the countryside (cf. e.g. the peaceful coexistence refer to the inhabitants of Petra. I have kept the Ara- under Islamic rule of Muslims and Hindus, who were bic term to avoid being too precise on questions theoretically not tolerated). Moreover, the Islamic about which we know all too little. attitude became more rigid in time, and during the 6 The passage is duplicated on p. 318. first few centuries of Islamic domination in the Near 90 HÄMEEN -A NTTILA C ONTINUITY OF PAGAN RELIGIOUS TRADITION IN IRAQ ϖ*6! . They trace their origin back to extraneous influences. Thus, what he 7 An <sh ibn Sh th and they disagree with actually says, translated into modern the Harranians and criticize their doc- terms, is that the Iraqi Sabian religion is trines. They agree with them only in a few things; they even turn their face in a syncretistic religion containing ele- prayer towards the North Pole whereas ments from Judaism – or better: Biblical the Harranians turn towards the South. tradition – and the Magian religion of ./0)1$!ϗϗ!" , which we would call Meso- The passage of al-B r<n strikes one as potamian religion. Al-B r<n did not have being accurate. He knows the area of a term for this religion, because the Iraqi Sabians and there is a general Assyrian Empire had almost been for- overlapping with the information pro- gotten and for Muslim scholars the local vided by Ibn &!Ι()*++! .
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