From the early tenth century on, the term 'Sabian' was applied to purported 'pagans' of all kinds, such as to the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, or to Buddhists.[18]Ibn Wahshiyya (died c. 930) used the term for a type of Mesopotamian paganism that preserved elements of ancient Assyro-Babylonian religion.[19]
Today in Iraq and Iran, the name 'Sabian' is normally applied to the Mandaeans, a modern ethno-religious group who follow the teachings of their prophet John the Baptist (Yahya ibn Zakariya). These Mandaean Sabians, whose most important religious ceremony is baptism,[20] are monotheistic, and their holy book is known as the Ginza Rabba.[21]: 1 Mandaean Sabian prophets include Adam, Seth, Noah, Shem and John the Baptist with Adam being the founder of the religion and John being the greatest and final prophet.[22]: 45
Etymology
The etymology of the Arabic word Ṣābiʾ is disputed. According to one interpretation, it is the active participle of the Arabic rootṣ-b-ʾ ('to turn to'), meaning 'converts'.[23] Another widely cited hypothesis, first proposed by Daniel Chwolsohn in 1856,[24] is that it is derived from an Aramaic root meaning 'to dip' or 'to baptize'.[25]
The interpretation as 'converts' was cited by various medieval Arabic lexicographers and philologists,[26] and is supported by a tradition preserved by Ibn Hisham (died 834, editor of the earliest surviving biography of Muhammad) relating that the term ṣābiʾa was applied to Muhammad and the early Muslims by some of their enemies (perhaps by the Jews),[27] who regarded them as having 'turned' away from the proper religion and towards heresy. As such, the term may have been reappropriated by early Muslims, first as a self-designation and then to refer to other people from a Jewish Christian background who 'turned' to the new revelations offered by Muhammad. In the context of the Quranic passages in which the term occurs, it may thus refer to all people who leave their faiths, finding fault in them, but who have yet to come to Islam. In this sense, the term ṣābiʾ would be similar in meaning to the term ḥanīf.[28]
Understanding the term as a reference to 'dippers' or 'baptizers' fits best with those interpretations that identify the Quranic Sabians with baptist sects like the Elchasaites or the Mandaeans.[26] However, this etymology has also been used to explain Ibn Hisham's story about Muhammad and his followers being called 'Sabians', which would then be a reference to the ritual washing performed by Muslims before prayer, a practice resembling those of various baptist sects.[29]
Other etymologies have also been proposed. According to Judah Segal, the term referred to Ṣōbā, a Syriac name for Nisibis, a city in Upper Mesopotamia.[30] It has also been related to Hebrewṣābā', "[heavenly] host", implying star worshippers.[31]
Sabians of the Quran
In the Quran
First part of Quran5:69, Maghrebi manuscript, c. 1250–1350
The Syriac ChristianNicolas Siouffi,[54][55] and later French Vice-Consul at Mosul, claimed to have identified 4,000 Sabians in the Mandaean population.[56] Siouffi's work was well received by the Theosophist G.R.S. Mead,[57] but scholars criticized the estimates and study.[58]
A.H. Layard mentions in his travel diary meeting a "travelling silversmith" who was "Sabaean or Christian of St. John". He estimated around 300~400 families to live in Shooshtar and Basra at the time. He also mentioned Sabians (spelled by Layard as Sabaeans) to be under oppression from Turkish and Persian authorities.[59]
Gavin Maxwell while travelling with explorer Wilfred Thesiger in the southern marshes of Iraq records in his diary that the Sabians were "People of the Book". The marsh Arabs called them "Subbi". They had their own script and religious practices. He estimated their number as "perhaps ten thousand". They dressed in the manner of the Sunnis. They lived only near moving (rather than stagnant) marsh water. In the mid-1950s they were considered the skilled craftsmen in the area who others turned to for metalwork. The work they were principally known for outside Iraq being silverwork.[60]
J. Hämeen-Anttila (2002,[61] 2006) notes that in the marsh areas of Southern Iraq, there was a continuous tradition of Mandaean religion, and that there was another pagan, or ‘Sabian’, centre in the tenth-century Islamic world centred around Harran.[61] These pagan Sabians are mentioned in the Nabataean corpus of Ibn Wahshiyya.[62]
Pagan Sabians
Among the various religious groups which in the 9th and 10th centuries came to be identified with the Sabians mentioned in the Quran, at least two groups were pagans. Moreover, both appear to have engaged in some kind of star worship.
^クルアーン22章17節に列挙されている「マギ人」が啓典の民に属すると理解すべきかどうかは、中世イスラム学者の間で論争の的となった。イスラム法学者は概してゾロアスター教徒を啓典の民として部分的に認めていたが、イスラム教徒との婚姻といった法的特権がどの程度認められるべきかについては意見が分かれていた(Darrow 2003; Nasr et al. 2015, p. 834, verse 22:17参照)。
^この点はChwolsohn 1856とGündüz 1994(いずれもVan Bladel 2009, p. 67で引用)によって広く論じられている。この見解は、Drower 1960, p. ixやNasoraia 2012, p. 39(Gündüz 1994を引用)といったマンダ学者たちにも採用されている。
^ ab Brikhah S. Nasoraia (2012)。 「サビアン・マンダ宗教における聖典と難解な実践」(PDF)。
^ De Blois 2004; Genequand 1999, p. 126. Van Bladel 2009, p. 67, 注 14 では、De Blois 1995, pp. 51–52 および Margoliouth 1913, p. 519b も参照しながら、これを「これまでで最も説得力のある語源」としている。
^ Chwolsohn 1856、Green 1992 で引用、p. 103。
^この語源は、Häberl 2009、p. 1など、一部の学者によって現在でも支持されています。
^ abcd De Blois 2004.
^ Green 1992, p. 106。これらの敵はユダヤ人であった可能性が Genequand 1999, p. 127 で示唆されている。
^ Buckley, Jorunn Jacobsen (2002), The Mandaeans: ancient texts and modern people (PDF) , Oxford : Oxford University Press , ISBN9780195153859、 2017年10月11日のオリジナル(PDF)からアーカイブ、 2022年2月18日閲覧。
^ Siouffi、N. (1880)。Études sur la religion des Soubbas ou Sabéens, leurs domes, leurs moeurs [スッバまたはサビアンの宗教、その教義、[および] 彼らの習慣に関する研究] (フランス語)。パリ、フランス: Imprimerie Nationale。
^ Mead, GRS (1924). Gnostic John the Baptizer: Selections from the Mandaean John-Book. London, UK: John Watkins. p. 137 – via Internet Archive (archive.org). ... モスル駐在のフランス副領事は、その数を合計約4000人と推定した(Etudes sur la Religion des Soubbas ou Sabéens、パリ、1880年)。当時、これらの人々は主にバスラとクート近郊に居住していた。Siouffiの推定によれば、...
^ ab Hämeen-Anttila, Jaakko (2000年10月27日~31日). シカゴ, IL.にて執筆. Panaino, Antonio; Pettinato, Giovanni (編). Ideologies as Intercultural Phenomena: Proceedings of the third annual symposium of the Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project . Melammu Symposia III. International Association for Intercultural Studies of the Melammu Project . Milano, IT: Università di Bologna & IsIAO (published 2002). pp. 89– 108. p. 90: ... イラク南部の湿地帯にはマンダ教の伝統が脈々と受け継がれてきたが、10世紀イスラム世界にバグダッド周辺のイラク地方(サワド)にもう一つの異教、すなわちサービアンの中心地があったことは、学術研究において全く無視されてきたようである...
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デ・スメット、ダニエル (2010)。 「Le Platon arabe et les Sabéens de Ḥarrān. La 'voie diffuse' de la transfer du platonisme en terre d'Islam」。レス・アンティーク。7 : 73–86.ISBN978-2-87457-034-6。
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