In the Quran 5:69,
Maghrebi manuscript, The
Quran briefly mentions the Sabians in three places: in Al-Baqara| (2:62), in Al-Ma'idah| (5:69), and in Al-Hajj| (22:17). just like the Jews, the Christians and, according to a few interpretations, the
Zoroastrians (the 'Magians', ). However, neither of the three verses give any indication of who the Sabians might have been or what they may have believed. At the beginning of the
Muslim conquest of Mesopotamia, the leader of the Mandaeans, Anush bar Danqa, appeared before Muslim authorities showing them a copy of the
Ginza Rabba, the Mandaean holy book, and proclaiming the chief Mandaean prophet to be
John the Baptist, who is also mentioned in the
Quran by the name
Yahya ibn Zakariya. Consequently, the Muslim caliphates provided them with acknowledgement as the Quranic Sabians and People of the Book. 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 are identified with the Mandaeans or Elcesaites.
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.' According to Abu Yusuf Absha al-Qadi, Caliph
al-Ma'mun of
Baghdad in 830 CE stood with his army at the gates of
Harran and questioned the Harranians about what protected religion they belonged to. As they were neither Muslim, Christian, Jewish, nor 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 Quran, by the time he returned from his
campaign against the Byzantines or he would kill them. The Harranians consulted with a lawyer, who suggested that they find their answer in the Quran II.59, which said that Sabians were tolerated. It was unknown what the sacred text intended by "Sabian," and so they took the name. The pagan people of Harran identified themselves with the Sabians in order to fall under the protection of Islam. The Harranians may have identified themselves as Sabians in order to retain their religious beliefs. Multiple medieval sources state that the Harranian Sabians acknowledged
Hermes Trismegistus as their prophet. Validation of Hermes as a prophet comes from his identification with
Idris (i.e.,
Enoch) in Quran 19:57 and 21:85. This has often led modern scholars to think of the Harranian Sabians as
Hermeticists, though there is in fact no further evidence for this. The jurist Abu Hanifa, who died in 767 CE, is recorded to have discussed the legal status of Harranian Sabians with two of his disciples. Additionally,
al-Masudi reported in his
Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems, that the Sabian religion was founded by a man named "Boudasf" who lived during the reign of the mythical Persian king,
Hushang , whereas Al-Biruni wrote that Budhasaf came forward in
India after the 1st year of
Tahmuras. However, he also narrates a story that
Haran, the brother of Abraham, was the founder of the Sabian religion.
Other The Jewish scholar
Maimonides (1135 or 1138–1204) translated the book
The Nabataean Agriculture, which he considered an accurate record of the beliefs of the Sabians. According to Maimonides, the Sabians believed in idolatrous practices "and other superstitions mentioned in the
Nabatean Agriculture". He provided considerable detail about the pagan Sabians in his
Guide for the Perplexed. The Sabians are also mentioned in
the literature of the
Baháʼí 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" [Harranian Sabians], and others "who believed in the son of Zechariah (
John the Baptist) and didn't accept the advent of [Jesus Christ] the son of Mary" [Mandaeans].
'Abdu'l-Bahá briefly describes Seth as one of the "sons of Adam".
Bahá'u'lláh identifies Idris with Hermes Trismegistus in a
tablet. He does not, however, specifically name Idris as the prophet of the Sabians. Sometimes referred to as
Sabeans, this religious group has been mentioned in the
Baha’i Faith among the many early religions of the previous dispensations. In
Baha’i writing,
`Abdu’l-Bahá’ attributes the Sabeans as possibly being the source of some foundations to the science of
logic.
Modern scholars differentiates between the pagan "pseudo-Sabians" of Harran and the real Sabians, which he identifies as the marsh Arabs of Iraq. The Caliph Mamun asked the pagan Harranians to choose a recognized religion, become Muslim, or die. They subsequently identified themselves with the Sabians. Chwolson also connected the Elcesaites with the Manicheans and with the Essenes. The
Syriac Christian Nicolas Siouffi, and later French Vice-Consul at
Mosul, claimed to have identified 4,000 Sabians in the Mandaean population. Siouffi's work was well received by the Theosophist
G.R.S. Mead, but scholars criticized the estimates and study.
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 the Sabians (spelled by Layard as
Sabaeans) to be under oppression from Turkish and Persian authorities.
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 artisans in the area, to whom others turned for metalwork. The work they were principally known for outside Iraq was silverwork.
J. Hämeen-Anttila (2002, These pagan Sabians are mentioned in the
Nabataean corpus of
Ibn Wahshiyya. ==Pagan Sabians==