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“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.

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HÄMEEN-ANTTILA CONTINUITY OF PAGAN RELIGIOUS TRADITION IN IRAQ

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JAAKKO HÄMEEN-ANTTILA Helsinki

Continuity of Pagan Religious Traditions

in Tenth-Century Iraq

Perhaps nine tenths of sciences belong to the Nabateansand one tenth to all other nations together1

t has long been known that !""#$remained a seat of pagan and Helle-nistic religion deep into the Islamic

period. One of the leading authorities ofHellenistic religions in Syria, H.J.W.Drijvers, has written (1980: 129):

Leaving aside the whole complicated tra-dition about the Sabians of Harran, it canbe stated that they represent a continua-tion of indigenous religion and that,however philosophically disguised theirdoctrines may be, the sources of Sabianbelief and practice must be sought in thetraditional religion of Harran.

It is generally accepted that the localtradition of !""#$ flourished, as a mix-ture of paganism and Hellenistic philoso-phy, till the 9th-10th centuries, as wit-nessed by authors such as an-Nad m andal-Mas%!d . Hence there is, a priori, noreason to doubt the existence of pagantraditions in the less accessible country-side (saw d) of Iraq, where the Arab

conquerors never settled down en masse.Curiously enough, these traditions haveremained very little studied.

Jewish and Christian communitiesapart, the Islamization of rural areas wasa slow process,2 and it was never com-pleted in the swamp areas, where Man-daeans have a continuous tradition frombefore the Islamic conquest and ulti-mately leading back, at least in part, toMesopotamian religion. Despite their ef-forts to appropriate the term ‘Sabians,’reserved in the Qur’"n for an obscuremonotheistic group and thus approved ofby Muslim authorities, Mandaeans werevery close to pagans in the eyes of Mus-lim observers. Yet they could find a wayto live as a separate religious community,tolerated by Muslim rulers, through tothe twentieth century, which shows howtheoretical the non-tolerance of Islamtowards paganism may sometimes havebeen.3

I

A. Panaino & G. Pettinato (eds.)MELAMMU SYMPOSIA III (Milano 2002)ISBN 88-8483-107-5

1 Ibn &!'()*++!, Kit b as-Sum!m, fol. 4b.2 I feel somewhat uneasy with the study of Bulliett onconversion (1979), and do not quite find it adequateto study biographical dictionaries of learned men as abasis for speculations about the total population andits conversions. The peasants of the Saw d hardlyhad many offspring that were noticed in the bio-graphical dictionaries. Thus, paganism may well havelived on for a considerably longer time than onemight presume on the basis of Bulliett’s book.

One has also to remember that pagans, like Man-daeans, rarely wanted to advertize their religion.Likewise, the learned authors never showed muchinterest in peasants, ash-Shirb n ’s Hazz al-quf!fbeing a glorious but late exception. The occasionalpeasant in, e.g., al-Hamadh"n ’s al-Maq ma al-Baghd dhiyya, is a stereotype to be laughed at, buteven in this comic function peasants are rare.3 Rudolph (1960-61) II:28, takes it for granted thatIslam did not tolerate the Mandaean religion, but this

HÄMEEN-ANTTILA CONTINUITY OF PAGAN RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS IN IRAQ

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In fact, the existence of pagans in thetenth-century Islamic world was wellknown to contemporaries and caused noproblems to Muslim authors. Thus, evena strict theologian like al-Ash%ar simplystated the existence of modern Sabians inhis Maq l t, pp. 103-104, when speakingabout some Kh"rijites who also calledthemselves Sabians:

He (their leader) claimed that the relig-ious community (milla) of that prophet(whose appearance they awaited) wass " bi’a – these are not the same Sabiansto which some people belong today [em-phasis added, J.H-A], nor are they thesame as those mentioned by God in theQur’"n (…).

The existence of Sabians under Islamicdomination was neither surprising norobjectionable to al-Ash%ar , and he evenshows himself aware of the tenuousidentification of the “modern” Sabianswith the group mentioned in the Qur’"n.

As concerns Harranian paganism wehave some information in an-Nad m’sFihrist and other sources, and it has beenestablished that many Mesopotamian tra-ditions lived on in the area.4 Likewise, itis well known, although this knowledgeis often not quite internalized, that in themarsh areas of Southern Iraq there was acontinuous tradition of Mandaean relig-ion, but it seems to have been totally ne-glected in scholarship that there was an-other pagan, or Sabian, centre in the

tenth-century Islamic world, in thecountryside of Iraq (saw d) around Ba-ghdad.

This is, in fact, curious because thereare several important sources which in-form us of the existence and importanceof a Sabian community or a group ofcommunities in the area. These sources,the Nabatean5 corpus, are a group ofbooks purported to be translations from“ancient Syriac” by Ibn &!'()*++! (seebelow), who calls these “other Sabians”b bil# “Babylonian.” It is only becausethe Harranian Sabians were the first todraw the attention of scholars that !","#$ has been seen as the main centre ofpaganism during the Islamic period.

In his al-$th r al-b qiya, p. 206,6 al-B r!n (d.c. 1050) sets the picture for us:

It is said that the Harranians are not thereal Sabians, nay they are called h %an#fsand idol worshippers in the (holy) books.The (real) Sabians are those who stayedbehind in B"bil from among the tribes(of Israel) when they (the other tribes)returned to Jerusalem during the days ofK!rush and Ar-a'shast. They (the oneswho stayed behind) inclined towards thelaws (shar ’i’) of the Magians (al-Maj!s)and had a liking towards the religion(d#n) of ./0)1$!22!". Thus they haveselected a doctrine mixing (mumtazij)Magianism with Judaism like the Sa-maritans did in Syria.Most of them live in &#(*- and thecountryside (saw d) of Iraq near 3!%4!"and al-J"mida and the twin rivers of !2,

view is gratuitious and not supported by any evi-dence. The theoretical structure of Islam, created byMuslim theologians, does not tolerate other religionsthan those coming under the dhimma system (Christi-anity, Judaism, Magianism i.e. the Zarathustran re-ligion, and Sabianism), but this has rarely lead to anypractical measures against other religions, especiallyin the countryside (cf. e.g. the peaceful coexistenceunder Islamic rule of Muslims and Hindus, who weretheoretically not tolerated). Moreover, the Islamicattitude became more rigid in time, and during thefirst few centuries of Islamic domination in the Near

East Muslims were more tolerant than in later centu-ries. For Mandaean evidence for this tolerance, seeGündüz (1994): 70 (< Haran Gawaita).4 See especially Green (1992) and Gündüz (1994).5 The term Nabatean (naba##) is a word used by Mus-lim authors to denote the indigenous, Aramaicspeaking population of especially Iraq. It does notrefer to the inhabitants of Petra. I have kept the Ara-bic term to avoid being too precise on questionsabout which we know all too little.6 The passage is duplicated on p. 318.


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5*6!. They trace their origin back toAn!sh7 ibn Sh th and they disagree withthe Harranians and criticize their doc-trines. They agree with them only in afew things; they even turn their face inprayer towards the North Pole whereasthe Harranians turn towards the South.

The passage of al-B r!n strikes one asbeing accurate. He knows the area ofIraqi Sabians and there is a generaloverlapping with the information pro-vided by Ibn &!'()*++!. However, thesame region is differently defined, whichshows that al-B r!n is not directly de-pendent on Ibn &!'()*++!. Furthermore,al-B r!n is well aware of the differencebetween the genuine Sabians of Iraq andthe secondary Sabians of !""#$, eventhat they have doctrinal differenceswhich, once again, finds confirmation inIbn &!'()*++!7s main work, Fil h %a.8

Moreover, al-B r!n is perfectly rightin his analysis of their origin, if we re-member his frame of reference. For himand for other Muslim authors, monothe-istic or Biblically tinged religions derivefrom a monotheistic origin moulded by

extraneous influences. Thus, what heactually says, translated into modernterms, is that the Iraqi Sabian religion isa syncretistic religion containing ele-ments from Judaism – or better: Biblicaltradition – and the Magian religion of./0)1$!22!", which we would call Meso-potamian religion. Al-B r!n did not havea term for this religion, because theAssyrian Empire had almost been for-gotten and for Muslim scholars the localArameans (the Naba#) and the Persiankings were the main constituents in thehistory of Mesopotamia. Thus, what he isactually saying is that the Iraqi Sabian-ism contains elements both from theBiblical tradition and local paganism, i.e.Assyro-Babylonian religion. The onlything I would like to add to this is thestrong Hellenistic influence on both Iraqiand Harranian Sabianism. Otherwise, Ican agree with al-B r!n ’s opinion.

The question of the identity of theSabians described by al-B r!n andothers9 is problematic, and they have alltoo often been bluntly identified with theMandaeans. This seems to have been

7 One has to keep apart An!sh and Enoch (Ar.Akhn!kh) – Green (1992): 116, makes the mistake ofreading An!sh as Enoch. In Fil"'a, An!'" is one ofthe main prophets, and obviously a contamination ofNoah, N!'("), and Enoch, Akhn!kh("), as alreadyestablished by Gutschmid (1861): 36.In al-Mas%!d ’s Mur!j, both Seth, An!sh andAkhn!kh are given as belonging to Islamic lore, butone has to remember that al-Mas%!d himself wasunder Sabian influence. In §56 Seth is called thekhal#fa of Adam, and concerning An!sh al-Mas%!d writes (§58):

Seth slept with his wife who became pregnant withAn!sh. So the light moved over to her until shegave birth to An!sh and the light wandered to him.

After An!sh this prophetic pre-existent “light” con-tinued until it was finally incarnated in Mu'ammad.About Enoch al-Mas%!d writes (§62):

After Yarad came his son Akhn!kh who is thesame as the prophet Idr s, peace be upon him.The Sabians claim that he is the same as Hermes;the meaning of Hermes is %U-"rid [Mercury] (…)[al-Mas%!d ’s own opinions continue:] Thirty

$af#fas were sent down to him; before that 21$af#fas had been sent to Adam and 29 to Seth, allcontaining glorification and praise (tahl#l wa-tasb#f).

8 Praying towards the North is also attested withMandaeans (Rudolph 1960-1961 I: 136, note 4, andGreen 1992: 206). Cf. also Gündüz (1994): 164-166.9 Al-Mas%!d , Tanb#h, p. 161, writes:The Chaldaeans are the same as the Babylonians therest (baqiyya) of whom nowadays live in the low-lands (ba# ’if) between W"si- and Basra in villages.They turn towards the Northern Pole and the Capri-corn (al-Jady) in their prayer.Then he continues to describe “Egyptian Sabians,” bywhich he means Harranians, as their esoteric learningwas seen as the continuation of the Alexandrianschool, deported to arr"n in 717 by the Caliph%Umar II.:

The Egyptian Sabians are those whose rest arenowadays the Sabians of arr"n who turn to-wards the South in their prayer (…)

Al-Mas%!d continues with a short exposition on thedoctrine of these Sabians.


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done mainly because the Mandaeans arethe only community which has kept itsreligion until today, and scholars havebeen aware of only Harranians and Man-daeans as the possible equivalents of thedifferent Sabians.

Some Islamic authors, though, do seemto have thought specifically of Man-daeans. Al-Mas%!d tells how B!d"sf(Buddha) originated the Sabian religion(a frequent error due to the world view ofMuslim authors who tried to derive ex-tant religions from a diminishing numberof ancestors, ultimately leading back toone, Adamic monotheism) and goes on todefine the area of Iraqi Sabians in termsthat do fit the Mandaeans (Mur!j § 535):

It is said that this man [B!d"sf] was thefirst to originate (az %hara) Sabian doc-trines of Harranians and K m"rians (al-K#m riyy!n)10 who are a group (naw‘) ofSabians, different from the Harranians intheir creed (nih &la). They live (di-y ruhum) between the area of &#(*- andBasra in Iraq, towards (nah &wa) the low-lands (ba# ’ih &) and marshes ( j m).

There are, however, few exact corre-spondences between the religious beliefsof the Iraqi Sabians as described in theIslamic sources and the Mandaeans as weknow them from their own tradition.Naturally, there is an overall similaritybetween both Harranians, Iraqi Sabiansand Mandaeans, all of whom exhibit syn-cretistic religious forms tapping Meso-potamian, Syrian, Hellenistic and Bibli-

cal traditions. – There is also a furthergroup of Sabians, often called in modernliterature the Harranians of Baghdad,11

but this term is not used to refer to thepeasants around Baghdad, but to the Har-ranian scholars and philosophers, Th"bitibn Qurra among them, who werebrought by the Caliph to the capital towork in the Academy (Bayt al-h &ikma).The existence of this group is relevantfor the general study of Sabians, but theyare an offspring of arr"n, not a localvariant of Sabians.

For the time being, before a meticulouscomparison is made between the IraqiSabians and the Mandaeans, I stronglysuggest keeping these two groups sepa-rate and seeing the Sabians as an um-brella term for three groups: the IraqiSabians, who are the focus of the presentstudy, the Harranians (with their philo-sophical, Baghdad branch) and the Man-daeans.12 In Islamic literature the term‘Sabian’ is used rather indifferently forall these subgroups, as well as for almostany other pagans who possessed somecredentials of belonging to a developedreligion.13

The study of Sabians has been ham-pered by many things, not least by a wildgoose chase for the identity of theQur’"nic Sabians, which has taken all toomuch attention. The monograph ofTamara Green (1992) was welcome inconcentrating on the Harranians andworking with material which was at least

10 Throughout Mur!j (e.g. §§ 1397, 1433) there areseveral different variants of this name. Rudolph(1960-61) II: 56, derives this from kamar- and identi-fies the K#m riyy!n as Mandaeans.11 E.g. Hjärpe (1972): 35ff. Cf. an-Nad m, Fihrist, p.333 = Dodge (1970): 647.12 I am excluding the Sabians of the Arabian Penin-sula. The information concerning them is extremelydubious. For the general historiographical situation inthe studies of early Islam, see the bibliography inHämeen-Anttila (2000).

13 E.g. Buddha is seen as a Sabian teacher, and thesources speak of Chinese Sabians. The pre-ChristianRomans (and Greeks, as the word R!m denotes both)are also often called Sabians (e.g. al-Mas%!d , Tanb#h,p. 123). This means that before knowing who theauthor is speaking about we should be very cautiousin interpreting the information he provides on (some)Sabians. Only a consistent body of material – as Ibelieve we have in the Nabatean corpus – can be usedto build up a system with which we may start com-paring other materials.


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to some extent consistent, although she,too, has to admit that (p. 145) “none ofthe Muslim authors who purport to de-scribe traditional Harranian religion haveany first-hand knowledge of what wasbeing practiced in Harran during his ownlifetime.”

Internal consistency and first-handknowledge would give us a more secureground in analyzing one Sabian sub-system and that would help us startbuilding up a clearer view about who andwhat the Sabians were and what relationtheir religion had with the earlier relig-ions in the area. Concerning Iraqi Sabi-anism we have some good sources which,in my opinion, fulfill these two condi-tions, but which have been neglected dueto problems in the dating and evaluationof the material, viz. Ibn &!'()*++!’s“Nabatean corpus” from the early tenthcentury, consisting of al-Fil h %a an-Naba#iyya “The Nabatean Agriculture”(abbreviated in the following as Fil h %a),Kit b as-Sum!m “The Book of Poisons”(Sum!m) and Kit b Asr r al-falak “TheBook of the Secrets of the Spheres” (As-r r al-falak), together with some minorworks. Fil h %a, although known for oneand a half centuries through the work ofChwolsohn and his critics, has only re-cently been edited by Toufic Fahd, afterthe appearance of the facsimile editionby Fuat Sezgin, and the other works re-main unedited even now.14

For the majority of Mediaeval Muslimauthors, peasants were totally invisible,be they pagans, Christians or Muslims.Arabic literature is urban in character,which has contributed to a distorted viewof Mediaeval Near Eastern society. The

cities were soon Islamized – Christianand Jewish communities excepted – andaccordingly, the literature gives an illu-sion that the whole area dominated byMuslims was free of paganism. Ibn&!'()*++! is one of the very few authorsto write about the largely non-Islamic, orat most only nominally Islamic, country-side of Iraq.

In the present paper, I shall concen-trate on the Mesopotamian element in thelocal rural religion as decribed in theNabatean corpus, using two examples – Iwish to be able to return to the questionof the overall religious system of theIraqi Sabians in a future study.

Before discussing the Mesopotamianmaterial transmitted to us by Ibn&!'()*++!, the date and the geographicalsetting of the Nabatean corpus need to bediscussed. In brief, the opinions con-cerning the corpus, and especially Fil h &aon which much of the discussion hascentred, have been divided into three po-sitions. First, the books of the Nabateancorpus themselves claim to be transla-tions from “ancient Syriac” (e.g. Fil h %aI:5) made by Ibn Wah #shiyya and trans-mitted to a student of his, Ibn az-Zayy"t.

The real authors of, e.g., Fil"h #a, ac-cording to Ibn Wah #shiyya, were ancientsages. Those responsible for 8*6#'! henames as 5/9)":1),15 Yanb!sh"dh andQ!th"m", in this chronological order andwith many variants, Q!th"m" being thefinal author of the purported original –likewise Ibn &!'()*++! identifies theauthors of the originals of his other pur-ported translations in their prefaces.16

The names are opaque, and I feel verydubious about them. They are given as

14 I have been able to use the microfilms of thesemanuscripts in the Institut für Geschichte der ara-bisch-islamischen Wissenschaften in Frankfurt.15 This name is also read as ;aghr th.

16 None of these authors can be identified. In each ofthe books, there are also quotations from other books,again unidentifiable.


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ancient sages and that made the first, andclearly overenthusiastic, mid-19th-cen-tury European scholars see in the book aremnant of Babylonian literature; Chwol-sohn, the main advocate of this first po-sition, even titled one of his studies“Über die Überreste der altbabyloni-schen Literatur in arabischen Übersetz-ungen.” This position has been aban-doned by all serious scholars, especiallysince the cuneiform texts have been de-ciphered.

The remaining two positions both havetheir advocates. Some scholars like FuatSezgin (in GAS III and IV), Toufic Fahd(1977 and several shorter publications,the most important collected in the thirdvolume of his edition of Fil h &a) and Mi-chael Moronyi (1991) take Fil h &a, andmore or less implicitly the other works ofthe Nabatean corpus, to be what theypurport to be, viz. translations fromAramaic originals, which should thus bedated somewhere roughly around the 5thcentury A.D. The problem with this isthat the books do not show any cleartraces of having been translated.

The third position is that of, amongothers, Manfred Ullmann (1972), viz.that Ibn &!'()*++!, who, be it mentionedin passing, made himself out to be a de-scendant of Sennacherib (<*$'#":=),17 isin fact the author of Fil h &a (and obvi-ously also of the other books of the

Nabatean corpus). Most of those whohold this third position have dismissedthe texts as forgeries of little value.18

In my opinion, however, all of thethree positions fail to confront the ulti-mate problem. Forgeries the books maybe, in the sense that they were written orcompiled in Arabic in the late ninth orthe early tenth century and do not goback each to just one Aramaic sourcewhich would have been translated by Ibn&!'()*++!.19 On the other hand, they arevaluable documents of local traditionscirculating at the time and may containparts which go back to written Aramaicsources. The author quite obviously knewlocal informants and he may have hadaccess to some written sources; much ofthe material he adduces is not knownfrom elsewhere, or at least not in so de-tailed a form, yet it is genuine and con-forms with what we know about late pa-ganism and cannot thus be a fanciful in-vention of Ibn &!'()*++!’s. Also the ag-ricultural parts of Fil h &a – the religiousparts are a minority – show that he wasfamiliar with and extremely well in-formed about the Iraqi countryside.

Yet, in order to avoid the tangledquestion of the date and provenance ofthe texts, I wish to concentrate here es-pecially on a passage in Fil h &a, whereIbn &!'()*++! speaks as himself, thetranslator, and which thus definitely

17 An-Nad m, Fihrist, p. 378 (Dodge 1970: 731). Thename Sennacherib was very popular in the tenthcentury. For an Armenian prince of this name, seeUllmann (1978): 43.18 It has even been claimed that Ibn Wa'shiyya is aninvented character and his student Ibn az-Zayy"t thereal author, but this is based on mere guesswork, seeHämeen-Anttila (1999).19 Note that this period was full of Arabic pseudepi-grapha, e.g. the Daniel Apocalypse or the Sa##fApocalypse (see Hämeen-Anttila 2000), as well asanonymous works showing interest in esoteric tradi-tions like the slightly later Ras ’il Ikhw n a$-\af .Likewise, it saw the coming of Harranian philoso-

phers into the capital; Th"bit ibn Qurra (d. 901) wasthe most famous of the Harranian scholars and trans-lators in Baghdad. His production also shows thattranslations from ancient languages were in vogue atthe time.One should also remember the flourishing of esotericIslamic movements at the same time: the Ismailis, onthe ascendance for the whole of the 10th century,were the most influential of these movements but lessknown esoteric trends also existed, see Halm (1982)and Hämeen-Anttila (2001).Note also Pingree (1968): 1ff., for ancient esoterictexts refound and translated at about the time of IbnWa'shiyya.


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dates to the early tenth century.The religious material in Fil h &a has an

overall resemblance to the Harranian re-ligion and it has earlier been discussed asHarranian paganism by the few who be-lieve in the authenticity of Fil h %a, suchas Fahd. Yet the book clearly describesthe situation in Iraq, not !""#$. Theauthor is very consistent in using geo-graphical names, and all places which hementions as his own or neighbouring re-gions, are in Iraq, close to Baghdad.

Other Islamic sources do confirm thatthe Saw d of Iraq – an unfortunatelyvague term meaning roughly “arablecountryside” – was the main area of theSabians. The slightly later al-B r!n (d.c. 1050) mentions in his $th r, p. 318,that most of the Sabians lived in the Sa-w d, in small local communities, sepa-rated from each other. He also mentionsthat they are different from the Sabiansof !""#$ who, he says, took the name ofSabians only in 228 A.H. (843 A.D.).

The information given by al-B r!n fitsexactly the information in Fil h &a, a bookwhose materials come from the Saw dand describe a coexistence of severalconcurrent pagan communities, the ma-jority belonging, according to the author,to the Sethians, a sect to which Q!th"m"

does not belong.Thus, there is nothing improbable in

the existence of contemporary descrip-tions of early tenth-century paganism.Much of the material of the Nabateancorpus could thus be genuine in the sensethat it is either directly observed by theIslamic author, or received from his in-formants, or finally, in some cases per-haps derived from genuine writings,whether in Aramaic or in Arabic.20 How-ever, the Islamic filter of the author has

to be taken into account. Thus, he islikely to have misunderstood things, andhe clearly wishes to present the materialin a form as acceptable to Muslims aspossible, which may at least partly ex-plain the passages emphasizing the un-derlying monotheism of the Sabian re-ligion.21

As an aside, one might mention thatthe interest of Muslim authors in theSabians had flourished since the lateninth century, especially after the comingof the Harranian scholars to the capital.The interest in the local inhabitants as asource for possible esoteric wisdom musthave grown in the ninth century, and thelocal population which had earlier beeninvisible now became a potential sourcefor this wisdom – and Ibn &!'()*++! wasready to cash in on these expectations.

After this, I am afraid, rather lengthyprologue, we may now turn our attentionto the religious material in the Nabateancorpus and especially in Fil fa, the mainwork in the corpus. First of all, it is wellto point out that agriculture, the use ofplants for food, medicine or magic, run-ning a farm and other similar topics formthe main part of the bulky book with itsone and a half thousand large pages, andreligious themes are dealt with only inpassing. Only the Prologue and a fewchapters in the book provide continuousinformation on religion, but much morecan be gleaned from passages half hiddenamong other topics.

In general, the cult described through-out the book is a syncretistic and astralone and very similar to the Sabian cult aswe know it from arr"n. In a sense it isalso ultimately monotheistic, the lesserdeities being derived from a SupremeGod, yet one must keep in mind the ef-

20 For a possible case of such writings circulating inboth Arabic and Syriac versions, cf. the Prophecies

of B b (Rosenthal 1962).21 See also Hämeen-Anttila (1999).


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fect Islam may have had on this point: anopenly polytheistic cult would moreprobably have raised opposition than onewhich was ultimately monotheistic, as itis possible to consider the lesser deitiesmerely as emanations from the One God.

As in Mandaean religion and manyGnostic sects, the astral deities are farfrom being simply good. In fact, the de-scription (Fil h %a, pp. 10-12) of an of-fering and invocation to Zuh $al, Saturnthat is (or Nergal), makes it clear that thedeity is a nefarious one. – It should alsobe mentioned that there are no traces ofany baptisms or lustrations in Fil"h #a, ex-cept for just one mention of “living wa-ters” (p. 10: “He [the god Saturn] hasmade water run like He Himself runs [inHis heavenly course] and it [the water]runs, alive like His life”). The lack ofinterest in water and baptisms naturallymakes the cult, like that of arr"n, dif-ferent from the Mandaean cult, despiteother similarities.22 – The one mention ofwater may be understood in the light ofthe agricultural background of the localpopulation for whom water was certainlyan important element.

The religion, as described by Ibn&!'()*++! (and the same holds true forHarranian paganism), consists of twoseparate layers, viz. popular religion andphilosophical speculation. The former,often heavily inlaid with magical ele-

ments, consists of popular rites, magic,folklore, aetiologies, etc., and taps theautochthonous Mesopotamian tradition,whereas the latter concentrates on philo-sophical speculation on planetary move-ments, their meaning and influence, andis heavily in debt to Hellenistic thought –whether and to what extent itself depend-ent on Mesopotamian models is anotherquestion. Whether the philosophical ele-ment was completely restricted to thelearned Sabians or whether it had anyrelevance among the farmers and laics isa difficult question which we cannot an-swer at present.

The weeping for Tamm!z (Dumuzi),23

which we know from tenth-century !","#$ (see Green 1992: 147-158) is alsotold in Fil h %a and, moreover, in moredetail than in any other Arabic source. Ithas been suggested that the Harranianlamentation on T"wuz24 is a contamina-tion from the cult of the Syrian Mot,25

which may well be the case (but see be-low), but Ibn &!'()*++! offers a some-what different version of it – although heunfortunately tells only part of the story.The relevant passage in Fil h %a reads (pp.296-298 – the beginning is given as thework of the supposed author Q!th"m"):26

The people of the time of Yanb!sh"dhclaimed that all the sak#nas27 of gods andidols (as %n m) wept for him after hisdeath, just like angels (mal ’ika) and

22 Note also that weeping for the dead, which is acentral theme in the story of Tamm!z, see below, isnot practiced among Mandaeans, see, e.g., Gündüz(1994): 88, note 101.23 For the Syriac and Christian sources on Dumuzi,see the references given in Drijvers (1980): 110 (+note 115), and Schiffmann (1986): 68-70. See alsothe articles Adonis (pp. 12-17, S. Ribichini) andTamm!z (pp. 1567-1579, B. Alster) in DDD.24 This seems to be the correct reading for the formT>WZ. For this name form of Tamm!z, cf. the Neo-Assyrian pronunciation of the name, see DDD, articleTamm!z. The possible – though perhaps not veryprobable – connection between T"wuz and the Yezidi

Malak ?"’!s was first brought to my attention byAmir Harrak (personal communication); later, Ifound the same suggestion already in Gündüz (1994):152, note 255 (with further references).25 See, e.g., Haider (1996): 232.26 The passage is also briefly mentioned in MosesMaimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, p. 319.Maimonides is, Biblical material excepted, totallydependent on Fil fa for his information concerningthe Chaldeans.27 Cf. the same term in Mandaean (šk#n , Rudolph1960-61, II:21, note 4) and Manichaean religion (Sy-riac šk#nt , the five “dwellings” in the Kingdom ofLight, Lieu 1985: 10).


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sak#nas had all wept for Tamm!z"

(TMWZY). Further, they claimed that allthe idols came from all regions (minjam#‘ aq# r al-ard &) to Bayt al->ŠKWL28

in B"bil and all went to the temple(haykal) of the Sun, and especially to thegreat golden idol which hangs betweenheaven and earth.The idol of the Sun stood in the middleof the temple and all the world’s (ard %)idols stood around him. Closest to himwere the idols of the Sun from every re-gion, then the idols of the Moon, then theidols of al-Mirr#kh (Mars), then the idolsof ‘U# rid (Mercury), then the idols ofal-Mushtar# (Jupiter), then the idols ofaz-Zuhara (Venus), then the idols ofZuh &al (Saturn).29

Then the idol of the Sun started weepingfor Tamm!z" and all the idols wept. Theidol of the Sun read litanies (yu‘addid)on Tamm!z" and told his story in detail(yadhkuru sharh & qis %s %atihi), and all theidols wept from sundown till sunrise thenext morning. After that they flew backto their regions.The idol of Tih"ma30 was called Nasr.31

His eyes keep weeping and his tearsflowing since that night when he la-mented on Tamm!z" with the idol of theSun, and will do so forever. This is be-cause of the special role (lim yakhtas %s %ubihi) this idol has in that story of Tam-m!z [sic]. This idol which is called Nasris the one who gave (af da) kih na to theArabs so that they were able to tell aboutsecret things (al-ghayb) and explaindreams before the dreamer had told his

dream to them.32

Thus the idols also wept for Yanb!sh"dhthat night in the clima of B"bil, sepa-rately in their temples, the whole nighttill the morning. Towards the end of thenight there was a great inundation, withgreat and heavy thunder and lightningand a great earthquake which extendedfrom ulw"n to the bank of Tigris in theregion of Bin"rw"y"33 on the eastern sideof Tigris. When the inundation started,the idols returned to their places; theyhad stirred somewhat from their places.They caused this inundation as a pun-ishment to people (abn ’ al-bashar) ofthe clima of B"bil because they had leftthe body of Yanb!sh"dh under the opensky on the steppe of Sh"m"s $", until theinundation washed his body to w d# al-Ah &far from where the body was furtherwashed to the sea.34 Famine and plaguebefell the clima of B"bil for three monthsuntil the living had no time to bury thedead.These are stories which they have writtendown and read in their temples after theprayers. Then they weep and lamentmuch. When I join the people in the tem-ple, especially in the feast of Tamm!zwhich is in his month and they read hisstory and weep, I always weep withthem, helping them and feeling sympathywith their weeping, but not because Iwould believe in what they relate. Yet Ido believe in the story of Yanb!sh"dh.When they read his story and weep, Iweep with them unlike I weep for Tam-m!z". The reason for this is that the time

28 The equation with Hebrew eshk'l, made already byEwald (1857): 151, note, is unwarranted and there isnothing to connect this temple with Dionysos. Areading worth considering might also be Bayt *al-uthk!l, from uthk!l “a bereft woman” (see Lane,s.v.). Another possibility is to connect it with ashk l,the (celestial) forms, although it is difficult to explainhow the common noun form af ‘ l would have beendeformed to the rare ’F‘WL. Similar distortions ofArabic words are not used in Fil fa, except for theAramaizing ending - added to Arabic words. – Anyconnection with Esagila is improbable.29 The scene sounds somewhat similar to a story, toldin Islamic lore (itself deriving from earlier models) ofhow the idols came to Ibl s when Jesus had beenborn, see Perlmann (1987): 115.

30 Note the Islamic focus, although also fifth andsixth-century authors were aware of a temple ofNishr" in Arabia, see Hawting (1999): 115.31 A well-known pagan god, mentioned in the Qur’"n(71:23), whose temple has been excavated at Hatra.32 Obviously a reference to the recurrent k hin tales,like the one concerning Shiqq and Sa- ', discussed inHämeen-Anttila (2000). One is also perplexed by themention of a vulture in an anti-Islamic biography ofMu'ammad from Spain, see Constable (1997): 48,further discussed in Hämeen-Anttila (2000).33 Written BN>WDHRN>, but cf. below.34 Throughout Fil fa, the author is concerned withthe question of the corruption of the body and burial.I will discuss this point in detail in a further paper.


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of Yanb!sh"dh is closer to our own timethan the time of Tamm!z, and accord-ingly his story is more reliable and true.It may also be that part of the story ofTamm!z is also true, but I do doubt someof the story because his time is so remotefrom ours.Ab! Bakr ibn &!'()*++! says:35 Thismonth of Tamm!z is, according to theNabateans as I found it in their books,called by the name of a man about whomthere is a long and amazing story. Theyclaim that he was killed time after timein horrible (qab#h &a) ways. In fact, alltheir months are called by the names ofexcellent and learned men of the past,who belonged to those Nabateans wholived in the clima of B"bil before Chal-deans (kasd n#).This Tamm!z, namely, was neither Chal-dean, nor Canaanite (kan‘ n#), nor He-brew (‘ibr n#), nor one of the Jar miqa,but one of the ancient h &as sin (min al-h &as sin al-awwal#n). So they also sayconcerning each of their months that theyare called by the names of men who havepassed away. Thus the First and the Sec-ond Tishr n are the names of two otherswho were excellent in sciences (‘ul!m)and so also the First and the SecondK"n!n. <)/=#- was a man who married athousand women, all virgins but who gotno offspring and no son was born tohim,36 so they set <)/=#- at the end oftheir months because of his lack of off-spring, and this lack became the lack ofthe number (of days) in it.37

All Sabians, both Babylonian (b bil#)and Harranian (h &arn n#), weep andlament for Tamm!z till our days in themonth called Tamm!z in a feast (‘#d) oftheirs which is attributed to Tamm!z.

They read long litanies (yu‘addid!n), es-pecially the women who, both here andin !""#$, weep and lament together forTamm!z and rave long ravings (hadha-y n) about him. Yet I have noticed thatneither of the two groups possesses anytrue information (khabar s %ah & #h &) con-cerning Tamm!z and the reason for theirweeping for him.When I was translating this book, I readin it that Tamm!z was a man aboutwhom there is a story and that he waskilled in a horrible way only once, andthere is no more to his story. They haveno38 knowledge about him except thatthey say: “So we have known our fore-fathers to weep and lament during thisfeast ascribed to Tamm!z".”So I say that this is a memorial feast(dhukr n)39 which they held for Tamm!zin the ancient times and which has con-tinued until present although the storyabout him has been forgotten because ofthe remoteness of his time. In our times,no one of them knows what his story wasand why they actually weep for him.The Christians have a memorial feastwhich they hold for a man called J!rj s40

who, so they claim, was killed manytimes in horrible ways, but he returned tolife each time. Then he was killed again,and again returned to life, until he diedat the end of the story which is too longto be explained. It is written down in abook which the Christians possess andthey hold a memorial feast for him whichthey call the memorial feast of J!rj s.The story of this Tamm!z which we al-ready mentioned is just like that of J!r-j s. I do not know whether the Christiansheard (waqa‘a il ) of the story of Tam-m!z who lived in the ancient times and

35 From this passage till the end the text is given asIbn Wa'shiyya’s explanatory addition to the “ancientSyriac” text.36 The passage remotely resembles the frame story ofThe Thousand and One Nights.37 Twin prophets with the same name are also foundelsewhere in the material describing Sabian prophets;e.g. al-Mas%!d , Mur!j § 1234, knows of two differ-ent prophets called Orpheus, viz. Hermes andAgathodaimon.38 I read l for l#.

39 Cf. Syriac and Mandaic dukhr n . For which Man-daean dukhr n “a sacramental commemoration of aperson or persons by reciting their name” (Gündüz1994: 82), see Rudolph (1960-1961): 287-296.40 The name is curiously close to that of the god ordemon Jirj"s mentioned in Ras ’il Ikhw n a$-$af IV: 296; see also Green (1992): 208-213. For thefeast of St. George, see also al-I2fah"n , Agh n# VI:225 (‘#d Mary Sarjis, var. Jarjis; further referencesin Elad 1995: 65-66) with a reference to the presenceof women in the feast.


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they changed the name of J!rj s at hisplace and then related the story of Tam-m!z under the name of J!rj s and dis-agreed with the Sabians concerning thetime (of the feast). The Sabians hold thememorial feast of Tamm!z on the firstday of Tamm!z and the Christians holdthe feast of J!rj s at the end of N s"n or alittle before it.41 Now we think (waqafn )that the story of J!rj s, how he was pun-ished and killed several times by the kingis the very same as that of Tamm!z, butthe Christians stole it from the Sabiansand set J!rj s, one of the disciples of theChrist (h &aw r# l-Mas#h &) (in his stead)and claimed that he called a king to theChristian religion, and that the king tor-tured him by killing him these manytimes. Personally, as far as I know, myopinion is that both stories are lies andimpossibilities that cannot be true.This is what I found in the book of Fi-l h &a about him. After that I happened tocome upon another Nabatean book whichcontained the explanation of the story ofTamm!z. He called a king to serve theSeven and the Twelve,42 and that kingkilled him but he returned to life afterhaving been killed. Then the king killedhim in many horrible ways but each timehe returned to life. In the end he finallydied. That story was indeed identical tothe last with the story of J!rj s which theChristians know. The Sabians hold amemorial feast for Tamm!z which theycall the memorial feast of Tamm!z andthe Christians hold a memorial feast forJ!rj s which they call the memorial feastand tadhkira of J!rj s.Ab! Bakr ibn &!'()*++!, the author43 ofthis book says: When it comes to Yan-b!sh"dh, the Sabians of our time do notknow him and they have not heard hisstory as I have heard from them. I do notknow how that has come about, except ifit is a pure coincidence because they

have stories about other Nabateans whoare more ancient than Yanb!sh"dh.44

Bin"rw"y"45 which he [i.e. Q!th"m"]mentioned in the story of the earthquakewhich, he said, came after the inundation– this Bin"rw"y" is the place of the cityof al-@!$2A" which is the same as Mad#-nat as-sal m [i.e. Baghdad] (…)

In assessing the meaning of this story,we should, first of all, note the geo-graphical accuracy and consistency; thename Bin"rw"y" mentioned by the authoris indicative of this accuracy. Bin"rw"y"

is an obscure village known only to thebest geographers which, I think, speaksfor a local origin of this version; if Ibn&!'()*++! had only copied Harraniansources, he would hardly have locatedthe story in this obscure place, whichotherwise is not mentioned in Fil h %a.46

Ibn &!'()*++! also openly admits thatthe story is told by the Harranians, too,and he does not in the least claim anyprimacy for the Iraqi version; in fact, hepersonally disavows the whole story.This would be inconsistent if he were notworking with a real, Iraqi version of thestory. If Nabatean national spirit (‘a-s "abiyya) would have been his only moti-vation, as has often been claimed, itwould be curious that he admitted thefictitious character of the story and didnot argue for an Iraqi origin of the story.Thus, ‘as %abiyya cannot be the drivingforce in telling the story which leaves uswith the assumption that Ibn &!'()*++!is describing an existing situation in Iraq,not forging a story out of Harranian ma-terials to bolster the Nabatean nationalspirit.47

41 St. George’s feast is on the 23rd of April.42 For the combination of Seven and Twelve in Man-daean religion and in Islamic sources, see Rosenthal(1959), esp. pp. 315-317.43 Var. the translator into Arabic.44 Thus the book of Q!th"m" would not have beenknown to tenth-century Sabians.

45 Y"q!t, Mu‘jam al-buld n I:496: Bin r (…) minqur Baghd d mimm yal# #ar#q Khur s n min n fi-yat Bar z ar-R!dh (for which see Mu‘jam al-buld nI:364).46 The place name seems to occur only here in Fil fa.It is also missing from the Index of the edition.47 Cf. Hämeen-Anttila (1999).


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In other words, the weeping for Tam-m!z continued not only in !""#$ butalso in the Iraqi countryside until thetenth century – although Ibn &!'()*++!at the same time indicates that the tradi-tion was dying out; not only was it re-analyzed in Christian terms but in pagancircles the myth underlying the ritualstarted to be forgotten.

The passage also shows the generalacumen of Ibn &!'()*++!. His knowl-edge is wide, as he is aware of both thepagan Harranian and pagan Iraqi, orB"bil , tradition and of the Christianizedversion which, moreover, he is able toconnect with the pagan version, and heeven manages to get the picture right: thecult of Tamm!z is of pagan origin andhis story has been appropriated – Ibn&!'()*++! called it stealing – by Chris-tians.

The transmission of pagan material toChristianity is often obvious. The mecha-nisms of this transmission are also rela-tively clear but I cannot refrain frommentioning here that, according to al-Maqdis (Bad’ IV:42), some Christians inthe vicinity of !""#$ had adopted Har-ranian doctrines (madhhab). What heprobably should have said, is that someHarranians had converted – sincerely ornot – to Christianity, bringing along withthem much of their religious lore andwisdom. Instead of weeping for Tamm!zthey were now weeping for St. George.

The same sober acumen is also seen inthe agricultural parts, which are far fromthe magical mumbo jumbo Ibn &!'()*+,+! is often accused of. Instead, theycontain highly critical observations andare often even experimental.48 That thework does contain elements of magic andfolklore does not mean that its author

was uncritical; magic was part and parcelof the tenth-century civilization, and thehighly lauded Brethren of Purity, for ex-ample, had a long chapter on magic (esp.Ras ’il IV:283-335), yet they are gener-ally acknowledged as original thinkersand intellectuals.

On the other hand, Ibn &!'()*++!’sversion of Tamm!z has already becomeradically changed from the original. Theidea of a missionary propagating the cultof “the Seven and the Twelve” is obvi-ously inspired by the Christian marty-rologies,49 perhaps specifically by thelegend of St. George. Thus, we havefeedback from the Christian version backto the pagan version – although naturallythe “missionary” version of Tamm!z’sdeath may have been fabricated by Ibn&!'()*++! himself, using the Christianversion to reconstruct an explanation forthe Sabian ritual. In either case, this ver-sion is late, and the more ancient mate-rial is found in the lamentation itself,with the gods assembling to weep for thedead Tamm!z, and it is mirrored in thestory of Yanb!sh"dh.

The older version, the one not con-taminated by the legend of St. George,contains motifs that are found elsewherein Mesopotamian literature. The journeyof the gods to the central sanctuary, thefamine which befalls the country afterthe death of Yanb!sh"dh, and the storyof the inundation – I have avoided theword Flood – all resemble Mesopotamianmotifs.

Before turning our attention to anotherinteresting religious custom of theNabateans, let us briefly translate theother references to Tamm!z in Arabicliterature. First, there comes another ref-erence to the ritual in Ibn &!'()*++!’s

48 Naturally we should not let statements like “I havetried this” to lead us astray. For the genre of magical“empirica,” see Ullmann (1978): 110.

49 Naturally, there was also a missionary literature inManichaeism, see, e.g., Lieu (1985): 54-90.


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Asr r al-falak (fol. 87b, from the Prefaceof the “translator,” Ibn &!'()*++!):

When they mentioned him [Daw"n"y],50

they used to say “the Lord of Mankind(sayyid al-bashar), Daw"n"y.” He usedto be called “the Lord of Mankind” (al-ready) during his life time. When hedied, the people of this clima, I mean theclima of B"bil, wept for him for a wholeyear51 and every day they held a cere-mony (ma’tam) for him in which theywept and lamented for him, like the peo-ple of Syria wept for Tamm!z"52 bywhich they mean Hermes.Some Kard"nians of the clima of B"bilalso wept for Tamm!z", but the Syrianswept for Hermes for thousands of yearsand till the end of the days of theirdomination (dawla), but the Kashd"nianswept for this Daw"n"y for a year afterhis death, each day, as a ceremony.After his death they did things to hisbody which it is not proper to mention.They wrote about this to all regions(aq# r) and countries (buld n). It is saidthat they claim that he (Daw"n"y) con-trived and extracted the secrets of thespheres (asr r al-falak) and the wondersof the actions in this world of the twoluminous ones (the Sun and the Moon)and the other stars, what none before himhad done.

It is conspicuous that Ibn &!'()*++!also here only refers to the story ofTamm!z but ultimately leaves it untold.

The case of Tamm!z sheds more lighton the schematically told Harranian feastof Tamm!z as described in Fihrist. Thetext of Fihrist (coming ultimately from“what we have copied from the hand-

writing of Ab! <!%:B Wahb,” Fihrist, p.395) reads (p. 392):53

[The month of] Tamm!z: In the middleof this [month] there is the feast of al-B!q t, that is of weeping women. It isthe T"wuz, a feast dedicated to the godT"wuz. The women weep for him be-cause of how his master (rabb) killedhim and ground his bones in a hand-milland then winnowed them to the wind.The women do not eat anything groundin a hand-mill: they only eat moistenedwheat, chick-peas, dates, raisins andother similar things.54

The details of the version of Fihrist,connected with the Syrian Mot by manyscholars, do not find confirmation in theversions of Fil h &a and Asr r al-Falak.Moreover, in al-B r!n ’s $th r, p. 321,the memorial feast (dhukr n) of Tamm!zwith its lamentations is set on the 7th of !C:"#$, whereas the feast of flour (‘:d‘urus daq ’iq) is set on the 17th of thenext month, Tamm!z, with the followingtwo days marked as ‘#d daq ’iq. Thus itis possible that there is some confusionin Fihrist between the two differentfeasts, the memorial feast of Tamm!zand the feast of flour.

There is also a short and somewhatenigmatic reference to Tamm!z in Fi-hrist, pp. 395-396 (from “the handwrit-ing of someone else [than Ab! <!%:B]concerning them [the Harranians]”):

From among the gods of the Harranians:(…), the Lady of the Killing(?) (Rabbatath-Thall)55 who *killed(?) *Tamm!z56

50 Throughout this late copy, Daw"n"y is written Ra-w"y"y; the copyist obviously had no idea how topronounce the name.51 Written SNT, with T instead of t ’ marb!#a.52 Written both here and later THMWDY, obviouslya contamination from Tham!d – the late copyist ofthe manuscript had great difficulties with the names.53 Also translated by Dodge (1970): 758.54 Obviously on this day only.55 The note of Dodge (1970): 766, note 107, is with-out foundation: there is no word thill in the sense of“herd” (see, e.g., Lane, s.v.; Ibn ManD!r, Lis n, s.v.),

despite the later reference in Fihrist to goats. Thereference to Dozy I:162, is also erroneous: Dozy onlycodifies the variants thulla and thilla, with their plu-rals thulal and thilal. Reading “the Lady of theFlocks” would thus need an emendation, either toRabbat *ath-Thalla or to Rabbat *ath-Thalal. Thetranslation of Dodge has unfortunately been adoptedby later writers, e.g. Green (1992): 158.The verb thalla, from which the infinitive is thall alsomeans (see Lane, s.v.) “to pour; to demolish; to takeforth the earth from a well.”56 In the edition: allat# QYLT TMWR’. It is also possi-


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(…)

Finally, there are two confused men-tions of an idol called Tamm!z in ad-Dimashq ’s Nukhbat ad-dahr. The longerone reads (p. 168):

Its [the land of 5:$E!2,5:$] inhabitants areunbelievers who worship idols. They es-pecially respect one idol, made of gold,which they call Tamm!z. They say thathe is the spouse of the spirit of Sun andthey claim that there is a temple for himin the centre of the earth by which theymean Jerusalem (…). They also say thatthe name of this idol Tamm!z is men-tioned in the Torah, but here they utteran immense lie, may God curse them be-cause of their words! The Jews know thisand they know that his name (is derived)from the name of the month Tamm!z.

The second is a brief mention on p. 42:

The Sabians claim the temple of Jerusa-lem was built (already) before Salomonbuilt himself a temple and that it [theearlier temple] was for Mars and thatthere was an idol called Tamm!z.57

As these passages show, Ibn &!'()*+,+! is our best source of information forTamm!z in the Islamic period. Interest-ingly enough, Ibn &!'()*++! seemsslightly to contradict himself in the twopassages. It seems obvious that Asr r al-falak is an earlier text than Fil h &a, and itis in the latter that Ibn &!'()*++!,speaking as himself, the translator, sayshe has come by a more complete versionof the story.

Also the unwillingness of Ibn &!'()*,++! to tell the whole story is remarkable.It may of course be that he knew less

than he wanted to confess: after all, hisinformants had, so Ibn &!'()*++! him-self, forgotten the story behind the ritualweeping. What other reasons he wouldhave had to suppress the story is notclear: the cruelty of the story, which hehimself mentions, hardly accounts for hisrepeated refusal to tell it.

In Fil h &a, there is another highly in-teresting description of local rituals, viz.the so-called “The Servant of Venus”(Fil"h #a, pp. 538-541), translated with itsfull context in the following:

The chapter on hadhart y . Q!th"m" hassaid: This plant grows on the banks ofthe river called Jordan (al-Urdunn)which runs in the land of the Canaanites.Some people brought hadhart y toB"bil and implanted it in the region of[Bar]s"wy"58 and it started growing wellthere. (…)

[there follows a description of hadhar-t y and some recipes using its fruit androots]

Some of the farmers (fall h & #n) eat theplant itself. They reap it at the end of thefirst K"n!n, on the occasion of the Birth-day of Time (M#l d az-zam n).

[there follows a recipe]

This they call “eating the hadhart y ”and they eat it on the very night of theBirth, without fail. If some of them59

cannot eat hadhart y that night, theywill inevitably do so the next night. Theysay: “Take your purification (bar ’a) byeating hadhart y .”They claim that if someone does not eathadhart y in these two nights, he willsuffer from fever the following year and

ble to read allat# qabilat Tamm!zan “who receivedTamm!z,” as Dodge does, loc.cit. I find it improb-able that we should read qayyalat (“she gave a drinkto Tamm!z at noon” – see Ibn ManD!r, Lis n XI:375,s.v. QYL). Tamm!z as a month name is a diptote inArabic; whether we should here read Tamm!z" (as inIbn Wa'shiyya’s texts, although there such names areusually written with a final Y) or as the triptote accu-

sative of Tamm!z is not clear. In any case, the edi-tion’s TMWR> (tum!ran “dates”) is probably a mis-taken effort to make sense of the text.57 Cf. Chwolsohn (1956) II:390 (with notes II:679-681).58 Correction by the editor.59 I read: wa-[man] minhum l …


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his physical condition (badan) will col-lapse after the Birthday. They have apremonition of this and because of theirpremonition (istish‘ r), their conditiondoes collapse if they do not eat hadhar-t y .When they eat hadhart y on the nightthey are accustomed to eat it, they putkuh &l (antimony paste) twice on theireyes, first before supper and then after-wards because they say: “If you do notput kuh &l twice on your eyes, you willhave problems with them the followingsummer.”If one of them can afford it, he keepsqithth ’ and khiy r cucumbers in storagefrom their season till the time of theBirthday to use them in this food andthey give each other qithth ’ and khiy rcucumbers as presents for that purpose.This is especially the habit of the peopleof Bars"wy", ? zan"b"dh and S!r", asalso of al-Qurayy"t and as far as Quss nand Junbul". The habit has spread out tothe clima of B"bil, and I have also heardthat the people of B"jarm" and the banks(saqy) of J!kh" make it, too, and theycannot do without it.It has the special property60 that when itis eaten as we have described it, it in-creases the urge for coition and food.The urge for coition comes a little after ithas been eaten, and the urge for foodcomes in the next day: who eats it [forhis supper], eats an early lunch, claimingto be hungry.Woe, yes woe, to someone who makesfun of the people of these regions foreating hadhart y ! If they hear himsaying that it is sheer nonsense, they beathim until he dies. They also say thatSeth, son of Adam (Sh#th ibn $dam )used to eat it; yet this hadhart y cameto the clima of B"bil only after his death,but woe to the one who says so, becausethey will call him a liar and throw stonesat him and proclaim him an infidel(yukaffir!nahu).I have myself seen owners of great es-tates, headmen and lieutenants (‘ mil) eatit on the Night of the Birth and they have

the same premonition as the ordinaryfarmers and tillers (al-akara wa’l-fall h &!n) and they believe all that is saidof it and of what befalls one who doesnot eat it.I have been told that once a headman,owner of a great estate from the peopleof ar-F!'G!1+#, sent a word to his agentthat he should bring him some basketfulsof s bir# dates. The agent was busy andthe owner of the estate forgot the wholething until a day or two before the Nightof the Birth and the following day. Thenhis family said to him at noon: “Theagent has not yet brought us s bir# datesnor anything else!”.The owner became furious, because theagent had not bought him the dates andhe wrote to his other agents in the coun-tryside where his agent was and orderedthem to arrest him, beat him with a hun-dred sticks and put him in jail for amonth as a punishment for not sendinghim the baskets of s bir# dates. He alsobanished him from his village!No one can speak sense to these persons!Does not their reason make them realizethat before this plant came to them andbefore they started to eat it, all the peo-ple of this clima would have been fever-ish in the summer and their conditionshould have collapsed even before thattime! Yet who could say this to them andoppose them?This is just the same as what the peopleof the religion of Seth (ahl millat(sh#th ) say about the Night of N s"n.Everyone of them, man, woman or child,sleeps that night with three pieces ofbread, four dates, seven raisins and a bagof salt under his pillow, because an oldwoman called the Servant of Venus (az-Zuhara) comes that night and goesaround visiting everyone, touching theirstomachs61 and searching under theirpillows.If she finds an empty belly and none ofall these foods under someone’s pillow,she makes the subsistence narrow in thecoming year and prays to az-Zuharaasking her to make that person ill in the

60 Kh $$iyya, i.e. magical property. 61 Var. mouths.


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following year.All the people in the clima of B"bil dolike this without exception, and I do notknow which is more wondrous: that theysay that az-Zuhara has an old servant orthat this servant should go around thatvery night visiting everyone or that shewould make their subsistence narrow thecoming year? How come she would havesuch power so as to make people’s sub-sistence narrow or wide? Where does thislady come from and who is she?All these prodigies (u‘j!ba) come fromamong the followers of Seth becausethey are the majority in the clima ofB"bil, al-Jaz#ra, Syria and the neigh-bouring areas. Seth’s law (shar#‘a) hasbeen victorious upon all other laws(shar ’i‘) and I believe it shall remain soforever, having been diffused among allnations (j#l) of Nabateans and it shallremain always as I have said.

The same habit is described in Fihrist(p. 541 = Dodge 1970: 764)62 in a shorterversion but containing differences whichshow that the two versions are independ-ent. According to Fihrist, where this isdated to the thirtieth of %dh"r, the Har-ranians hold their feast as follows (tr.Dodge):

The thirtieth day is the beginning of themonth of al-Tamr, I mean the drieddates, and [during] this [month] is themarriage of the gods and goddesses.They divide in it the dates, putting kohl[antimony powder] on their eyes. Thenduring the night they place beneath thepillows under their heads seven drieddates, in the name of the seven deities,and also a morsel of bread and some saltfor the deity who touches the abdomens.The presiding headman (al-ra’#s), more-over, takes two silver coins (…) fromeach one of them for the treasury.

Dodge understands the touching of theabdomen as follows (note 91): “This evi-dently refers to women who wish to be-come pregnant.” Yet, the fuller versionof Ibn &!'()*++! makes it clear that thetouching is to make sure that they haveproperly eaten, i.e. feasted on the NewYear’s Eve – proper eating on festivenights belongs both to Jewish and toMuslim customs.

The sumptuous feasting is also impliedby the fact that, according to al-B r!n ,$th r, p. 320, the last of %dh"r marks theend of a lengthy fast. On the other hand,this thirty-day fasting is sometimes saidto have started on the 8th of %dh"r(Green 1992: 157).

In the story, the meaning of the wholeritual is to ensure prosperity for thecoming year. The New Year’s Eve isseen as the night when the fates are fixedfor the coming year, an idea familiarfrom Mesopotamia and later taken to al-most all major religions of the area, in-cluding Islam.63

The passage also throws light on thetangled question of the beginning of theNew Year and the festivities connectedwith it. Two festivities are described inthese passages, first the feast of eatingthe hadhart y , which also involves theuse of antimony paste (kuh &l) at the endof K"n!n I, and then the New Year fes-tivity in %dh"r/N s"n. Both of thesetimes have been equated with the begin-ning of the Harranian New Year in dif-ferent Arabic texts (see Green 1992: 149-150, drawing on Fihrist and al-B r!n ,$th r). The passage in Fil h &a refers tothe rites of K"n!n I as a habit of the

62 See also Picatrix, quoted in Hjärpe (1972): 125. –Hjärpe’s comments, incidentally, are a good exampleof the attitude of many earlier scholars towards IbnWa'shiyya: “(…) l’imposteur Ibn Wa'š ya men-tionne, en rapport avec un rite magique chez les“nabatéens,” une vielle femme “appelée servante de

Vénus”(…).” Ibn Wa'shiyya is an impostor, nothingmore!63 Cf. the so-called Laylat al-Qadr, already men-tioned in the Qur’"n (97:1-3), although the originalmeaning of the passage is not necessarily identicalwith how it was later understood.


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author’s own community, whereas thebelief in the Servant of Venus is given asa “Sethian” belief.

Fil h &a seems to imply that the eatingof hadhart y and the belief in the Ser-vant of Venus are parallel phenomena,and as both of them contain features thatwould fit New Year’s festivities, it givesus some reason to suggest that there mayhave been different calendars in use, andconsequently the different informationprovided by Fihrist and al-B r!n doesnot necessarily mean that one of them iscorrupted and the two feasts should bereduced to one. Following Fil h &a onemight suggest that some Sabians heldtheir New Year’s festivities in K"n!n I,others in %dh"r/N s"n.

As with the information concerningTamm!z, here, too, Ibn &!'()*++!

proves to be an independent observer.The information in Fil h &a and the otherworks of the Nabatean corpus cannot bederived from the Harranian lore, nor arethere any remarkable similarities withMandaean religion, which seems to sup-port the hypothesis which I made at thebeginning of this paper, viz. that the re-ligious habits described in this corpusexhibit a third form of “Sabian” religion,centred in the rural area around Baghdad.

Thus, the Nabatean corpus of Ibn&!'()*++! is of prime importance forunderstanding the late manifestations ofthe indigenous religious traditions. –

Naturally, it should not be forgotten thatJudaism, Christianity and Islam are allequally significant inheritors of theMesopotamian religious tradition.

The Nabatean corpus has hitherto beenneglected and has remained little known.It is my hope to publish a translation ofselected passages of the Nabatean cor-pus, pertinent to religious beliefs, and Ihope that the present paper has made itobvious why such a project is necessary,or in fact, long overdue.

It may also please our modern Assy-rian friends and hosts to know that theNabateans, about whom I have beenspeaking, are more or less to be identi-fied with the ancestors of the modernAssyrians and Chaldeans. Much of theindigenous population had become Chri-stian much earlier, but the Nabateansdiscussed in the present paper definitelybelong to the same stock as the ancientpeoples of the area and were very proba-bly becoming Christians as time passed.Not only was the ritual weeping forTamm!z taken over to Christianity as aritual connected with St. George – whoin his fight against the Dragon resemblesmore Ninurta, though – but also thosewho had been weeping for Tamm!z musthave travelled with him, becomingChristians weeping for St. George. Per-haps it was one of your ancestors whotold Ibn &!'()*++! some of the storieshe codified in the Nabatean corpus.


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al-H()%!":, Maq l t al-isl miyy#n wa-khtil f al-mus %all#n = Abu l- !(!$ %H6:E *=$E I(J#%:6E !6,

HK%!":, Die dogmatischen Lehren der Anhänger des Islam. Hrsg. Hellmut Ritter. BibliothecaIslamica 1. Dritte Auflage. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1980.

al-B r!n , al-$th r al-b qiya ‘an al-qur!n al-kh liya = Chronologie orientalischer Völker vonAlb)r!n#. Hrsg. Eduard Sachau. Leipzig: Deutsche Morgenl. Gesellschaft – Harrassowitz1923, repr. Bayr!t: D"r 5#B*" s.a.

ad-Dimishq , Nukhbat ad-dahr = M.A.F. Mehren (éd.), Cosmographie de Chems-ed-Din AbouAbdallah Mohammed ed-Dimichqui. Texte arabe. Saint Pétersbourg: Académie Impériale dessciences 1866.

Ibn Hish"m, as-S#ra an-nabawiyya. I-V. Eds. Jam"l Th"bit – @/'!JJ!BE @!'JAB – Sayyid

Ibr"h m. Al-Q"hira: D"r al-'!B:1) 1996.

Ibn @!$DA", Lis n al-‘arab. I-XVIII. Ed. %H6: Sh r . Bayr!t 1408/1988.

Ibn &!'()*++!, al-Fil h &a an-Naba#iyya = Toufic Fahd (éd.), L’agriculture nabatéenne. Tra-duction en arabe attribuée à Ab! Bakr Ah &mad b. ‘Al# al-Kasd n# connu sous le nom d’IBNWAFŠIYYA (IV/Xe siècle). I-III. Damas: Institut Français de Damas 1993-1998.

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al-@!(%AB:, Mur!j adh-dhahab wa-ma‘ din al-jawhar. I-VII. Ed. Charles Pellat. Publicationsde l’Université Libanaise. Section des études historiques XI. Bayrouth 1966-1979.

al-E@!(%AB:, at-Tanb#h wa’l-ishr f = Kit b at-Tanb#h wa’l-ischr f, auctore al-Mas!d#. Ed. M.J.de Goeje. Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum VIII. Lugduni-Batavorum: Brill 1894, repr.Bayr!t: D"r 5#B*" s.a.

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