A literary history of Persia

302 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHYrepresented by the Mandaeans or true Sabaeans (Sabiyun) of themarshes between Wasit and Basra (the ancient Chaldsea), alsonamed by the Arabs from their frequent ceremonial ablutionsal-Mughtanla^ which term, misapprehended by the Portuguesenavigators of the seventeenth century, gave rise in Europe tothe absurd misnomer u Christians of St.John the Baptist."*From these true Sabaeans the pseudo-Sabaeans of Harran (theancient Carrhae) must be carefully distinguished. The learnedChwolson was the first to explain in his great workSabransof Die Ssobler und der Ssabismus (2 vols., St. Petersburg,1856) the apparently hopeless confusionwhich till that time had surrounded the term "Sabasan."Here we must confine ourselves to stating the curious factwhich he brought to light, viz., that since about A.D. 830 twoperfectly distinct peoples have been confounded together underthis name, to wit, the above-mentioned Mandasans or Mughtasilaof Chaldasa, and the Syrian heathens who flourished at Harran(about half-way between Aleppo and Mardin) until theeleventh century of our 2 era, and that this confusion wasbrought about in the following way.3 When the Caliphal-Ma'mun passed through the district of Harran on his lastcampaign against the Byzantines, he remarked amongst thepeople who came out to meet him and wish him God-speedcertain persons of strange and unfamiliar appearance, wearing1See Chwolson's Ssabier und Ssabismus, vol. i, p.100. The mostimportant works on the Mandaeans are : Dr. A. J. H. Wilhelm Brandt,Die Manddische Religion (1889) ; Idem, Mand'aische Sckriften (1893) ;Mand. Grammalik by Th. Noldeke, 1875 ;H. Pognon, Consul de Francea Alep, Inscr. Maud, des coupes de Khouabir (1898).; Of the book of theMandaeans, the Sidrd Rabbit or Ginzd, there are two editions, Norberg's,in three vols. (1815-1816), and Petennann's, in two vols., (1867). Noldekedescribes their literature as " eine Literatur, welche voll des grosstenWidersinns ist, geschrieben in eine Mundart von der ein Kenner desSyrisches zunachst den Eindruck starker Entartung erhalt."3 Chwolson, op. cit., i, pp. 669, 671.3 Ibid., ii, pp. 14-19- The facts are recorded in the Fihrist (ed. Fliigel,pp. 320-321) on the authority of an almost contemporary Christian writer,Abu Yusuf al-Qati'i.