According to one interpretation, it is the active participle of the Arabic root ṣ- b- ʾ ('to turn to'), meaning 'converts'. The etymology of the Arabic word Ṣābiʾ is disputed. : 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. These Mandaean Sabians, whose most important religious ceremony is baptism, are monotheistic, and their holy book is known as the Ginza Rabba. 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). 930) used the term for a type of Mesopotamian paganism that preserved elements of ancient Assyro-Babylonian religion. įrom 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. Īnother important religious group who adopted the epithet were the Mandaeans (the Mandaean Sabians), a Gnostic sect living in the marshlands of southern Iraq. Most of the historical figures known in the ninth–eleventh centuries as al-Ṣābiʼ were probably either members of this Harranian religion or descendants of such members, most notably the Harranian astronomers and mathematicians Thabit ibn Qurra (died 901) and al-Battani (died 929). These Harranian Sabians practiced an old Semitic form of polytheism, combined with a significant amount of Hellenistic elements. Among those are the Sabians of Harran, adherents of a poorly understood pagan religion centered in the upper Mesopotamian city of Harran, who were described by Syriac Christian heresiographers as star worshippers. Īt least from the ninth century on, the Quranic epithet 'Sabian' was claimed by various religious groups who sought recognition by the Muslim authorities as a People of the Book deserving of legal protection ( dhimma). Some scholars believe that it is impossible to establish their original identity with any degree of certainty. Modern scholars have variously identified them as Mandaeans, Manichaeans, Sabaeans, Elchasaites, Archontics, ḥunafāʾ (either as a type of Gnostics or as "sectarians"), or as adherents of the astral religion of Harran. Their original identity, which seems to have been forgotten at an early date, has been called an "unsolved Quranic problem". The Sabians, sometimes also spelled Sabaeans or Sabeans, are a mysterious religious group mentioned three times in the Quran (as الصابئون al-Ṣābiʾūn, in later sources الصابئة al-Ṣābiʾa), where it is implied that they belonged to the ' People of the Book' ( ahl al-kitāb).
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