(a.), the name of two rather mysterious groups in early Islamic times:
1.
Ṣābiʾat al-baṭāʾiḥ .
The Mesopotamian dialectal pronunciation of
ṣābiʿa , where the
ʿayn has been transformed into
y or
ī , also occurs in Mandaean (cf. Lidzbarski,
Ginzā ; Nöldeke,
Mandäische Grammatik ; R. Macuch,
Handbook , 94, 1. 16:
ṣabuia ). This substantive, which became current in Mecca during the period of Ḳurʾānic preaching, irrespective of its etymology, derives from the Semitic root
ṣ-b-ʿ (Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac; Ethiopic
ṣabk̲h̲a ), corresponding to
ṣ-b-g̲h̲ in Arabic. The verb signifies, in the first form, “to dye, to bathe, to immerse”, whence, in the second form, “to baptise (by immersion)”. Consequently, the noun denotes “Baptists”, named three times in the Ḳurʾān (II, 62; V, 69; XXII, 17), in the company of the Believers, the Jews and the Christians, with whom they share the title of “people of the Book” (
ahl al-kitāb ). In the last of these verses (XXII, 17), the
Ṣābiʾūn occupy the third place after the Believers and the Jews, and are followed by the Christians, the Zoroastrians and the polytheists; which would suggest a closer relationship between them and the Jews. A reference to baptism is to be found in sūra II, 138, where the context is that of the “imprint” (
ṣibg̲h̲a ) of God on the Muslim, which is compared to Christian baptism (J. Penrice,
A Dictionary ofthe Koran , repr. London 1970, 81; cf. al-Kulīnī,
Kāfī , lith. Tehran 1307/1928, 152, where
ṭīna “matter”, is opposed to
ṣibgha which “is Islam” (
hiya l-islām ); other references
apud Kraus,
Jābir , ii, 171, n. 1).
Given the indisputable monotheism of the
Ṣābīʾūn of the Ḳurʾān, this can only refer to a baptising religious community. There is a temptation to think immediately of the Mandaeans, who are dispersed, at the present day, on the banks of the Euphrates and of the Tigris in the south of ʿIrāḳ, and along the river Kārūn in Ḵh̲ūzistān. They are called by their Arab neighbours
ṣubba or
ṣubbī “baptisers”; they form two groups: the
mandāyē (gnostics) and the
nāṣōrāyē (observants). This is the thesis defended by D. Chwolsohn in
Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus , dating from 1856. Although it has been severely criticised over certain of its conclusions, this work remains a basis for studies of the
Sabians (cf. J. Hjärpe,
Analyse critique des traditions arabes sur les Sabéens Ḥarraniens , Uppsala 1972, 1 ff.).
On the basis of a text of Ibn al-Nadīm (
Fihrist , 340), where there is reference to a baptising sect called
al-mug̲h̲tasila , also known as
ṣābat al-baṭāʾih , “the Sabaeans of the marshes”, whose leader was called ’ l.h.s.y.h (var. ’ l.h.s.h and ’ l.h.s.d̲j̲), Chwolsohn identified the latter with Elchasai (i, 112 ff.), thus identifying Mandaeans and Elchasaites. He found evidence for this in information recorded by Hippolytus in
Refutatioomnium haeresium, ix, 13 (ed. Wendland, 251), where it is said that Elchasai, founder of the sect, is supposed to have given a revealed book to a man named Sobai. Chwolsohn made of the last-named “a later personification of the name of a sect, this being that of the Sabaeans—the Mandaeans being called
al-ṣubba” (Hjärpe,
op.
cit., 11). On the basis of the etymological sense of
ṣābiʾa , he
nabaṭ. 2.].
In a very detailed study, Michel Tardieu sees the Ḥarrānians as Platonists (cf.
Ṣābiens coraniques et “
Ṣābiens . . .
de Ḥarran ”,
in JA, cclxxiv [1986], 1-44), “in the academic sense of the term. Plato was the object of their study and the centre of the research activity of their school” (39). He refuses to describe them as “Gnostics” since, according to him, “they were not philosophers by profession. But they utilised the philosophers, and Plato in particular” (
ibid.). He bases his argument on a statement by al-Masʿūdī (
Murūd̲j̲ ., ed. Pellat, ii, Paris 1965, 536-7, § 1395; cf. also his
K. al-Tanbīhwa ’l-is̲h̲rāf , 162, tr. 3-5), declaring that he “saw at Ḥarrān, on the knocker of the door of the meeting-place of the
Ṣābians, an inscription in Syriac characters, drawn from Plato”, which read as “He who knows his nature becomes a god” and “Man is a celestial plant. In fact, man resembles an upturned tree, the root being turned towards the sky and branches [sunk] in the ground” (Tardieu, 13 ff.). He sees, in the first “an echo of
Alcibiades , 133.C” and, in the second, “a reminiscence” of
Timaeus , 90 A.7-B.2 (cf. ref. 3, n. 8 and 14). It may be noted that echoes of these quotations are to be found in the literature of the “Sayings of the Sages” (
Placita philosophorum) and that the quotation from the
Timaeus occurs twice in the
Nabataean agriculture (i, 360). There is no evidence to indicate that the Nabataeans of the region of Sūrā were Platonists; it has been observed that various currents of a gnostic tendency had developed there.
At the end of this extremely erudite survey, the author identifies the
Ṣābīʾa of the Ḳurʾān with the “Archontics” of Epiphanius (
Haer ., xxix, 7, xl, 1, 5), known also by the name of “Stratiotics” (Epiphanius,
ibid., xxvi, 3, 7), followers of the “celestial bands”, a Judaeo-Christian sect of gnostic character, formed in Palestine and known in Egypt (
ibid., xl, 1, 8) and in Arabia (
ibid., xl, 1, 5). The Ḳurʾānic term would be derived from the Hebrew
ṣābā , “army” (an explanation already proposed by E. Pococke). Such an association leads the discussion back to Judaeo-Christian circles, among whom the
Elchasmtes/mug̲h̲ü tasila provide, in the present writer’s opinion, the best explanation of the Ḳurʾānic
Ṣābiʾa .
Thus, whatever may be the origin of the name of the
Ṣābiʾūn , the latter are shown to belong to two distinct groups: on the one hand, the disciples of Judaeo-Christian baptising sects (Ebionites, Elchasaites,
mug̲h̲tasila , Stratiotics) and, on the other, Ḥarrānian astrolators, the last representatives of decadent Greco-Roman paganism. Both groups may be described as gnostic: the first, Christian and the second, pagan. Hence the ambiguity of the term denoting them, and the diversity of commentaries relating to the three Ḳurʾānic verses which name them. A degree of corruption has occurred over the centuries, both in the terminology and the concepts, and this has greatly hindered the task of the historian of ideas and of religions.