Talk:Sabians/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Subjective Mess

This article is riddled with highly subjective material and conclusions without reference- a heavy edit for encyclopedic content is needed; I will endeavor to do so- with the informed aid of the peer group.Mavigogun (talk) 06:29, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I have discovered that all of the Arabic source quotes given are published in Chowolson's 2 volume German work on the subject.82.6.30.147 (talk) 21:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Subjective Mess II

For me the "information" of the article is non-digestible, like f.ex. wax, and as tasteless as well. What's the relevancy of a statement like this:

Sabian in Hebrew also means drunk or drunkard.

? Also it seems like the Sabians are/were:

• general apostates from X to Y,
• Greek,
• a crossbreed betw Jews and Babylonians,
• Mandeans,
• monotheists,
• no polytheists,
• ...

I would rather like that they were a people mentioned in various sources, f.ex. S, T and U, known to be located at L, M and N. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 18:29, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Now how come that the article claims:

• the Ṣabians read from a holy book called "Zaboor"/"Zabur" and similar,
• the Ṣabians have nothing whatsoever to do with the Sabeans^{[citation verily needed, by High Jove!]} because of Ṣad/Sin

but

• the Sabaeans write in an alphabet called "Zabur",
• and the article of Sabaeans only have a Roman Emperor source, and in the roman alphabet, there is neither Ṣad nor Sin, but just an 'S' [ɛss]??

I think the distinction between "Ṣabians" and "Sabaeans" is unsupported this far. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 19:36, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Why does the search string "Hekal Tiamat" redirect here?

Why?

Good question. Just for neats, I'm going to redirect it to Acheron (band) instead, since that's the only reference to the phrase Google turns up. It's metal's problem now. (And for extra tidy, I'm going to slip in a subheading down here to lop off the I-presume-unconnected ravings below. Good me.) • Lainagier • talk • 12:36, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Anonymous drive-by silliness

- This Wikipedian article is pure JEWISH OCCULT... term "Sabeans" were originally members of the cult of Shiba - Shiva, before "Noah". Other names were also "Sabeani", Saviani or Slaviani (old Slavs, before arrival of Semites)

also "Tiamat" was derived from "Dia or Djiva or Jiiva or Zhiva Maat - which means "living mother" Shiva (Hathor) in Slavic and Sanskrit, as old Aryan kingdom, before this OCCULT Wikipedian nonsense

???? Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 19:37, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Mandaean OR section moved to Talk

Seems to be 100% WP:OR In ictu oculi (talk) 02:57, 20 August 2011 (UTC) START

Mandaeans

Main article: Mandaeism

Some scholars hold that the Sabians mentioned in the Qur'an are those currently referred to as Mandaeans, while others contend that the etymology of the root word 'Sabi'un' points to origins either in the Syriac or Mandaic word 'Sabian', and suggest that the Mandaean religion originated with Sabeans who came under the influence of early Hellenic Sabian missionaries, but preferred their own priesthood.

After the conquests of Alexander the Great, Harran came to be a center of intellectual and religious activity, which evolved into a philosophical tradition centered on Hermes Trismegistus. The Harranians were heavily influenced by other religious groups, including those of the baptizing sects, and in this way the Mandaean Nasaraean Sabians would come into existence. They followed the Nasr (a white eagle lord) and called their community Miryai. From the 1st century AD they were heavily influenced by the Christians but reacted against Pauline Christianity, possibly absorbing the Ebionites.

Various religious groups holding some Gnostic Harranian beliefs (like the Mandaeans) have sought to justify application of the term to themselves in the hopes of avoiding persecution. Thus Mandaeans have become known as Subi (Sabian) by their Muslim neighbors in both Iraq and Iran. However, they could just have equally applied to come under the category of Nasaari because the application of this title to them predated the earliest Christians by at least a century.

END

In ictu oculi (talk) 02:57, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

References

Jews Christians and Sabians ?

"mentioned three times in the Quran with the people of the Book, "the Jews, the Sabians, and the Christians.""

Here is the thing. The Quran doesn't explicitly say that these three are "the people of the book" !! --3omarz (talk) 12:41, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

God-Fearers?

"Some[who?] supposed that they influenced the practices of the Hellenic Godfearers (theosebeis Greek: Θεοσεβεῖς)" A frequent mistake, the 'God-Fearers' (Gentiles that followed Judaism) were called in Greek Theophobians. The Theosebeans were a different group of Hellenistic/Gentile Monotheists and are associated with the Mandeans, especially at Harran. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.197 (talk) 10:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Editorial comments from article moved here

this text which follows is originally from the main article page - it does not belong there, but evidently that editor felt it was important to keep (should use their own sandbox, but I digress), and so I am posting it here

NOTE (Please, do NOT delete. WORK IN PROGRESS):

Sabaeans and Sabians are NOT the same. Sabeans were an ancient people speaking an Old South Arabian language who lived in what is today Yemen. Sabians are converts to Islam but they have a Gnostic tradition (according to Hadiths and some Muslim texts). Sabians are adherents of the Sabian religion, which has nothing to do with Islam (according to Encyclopedia Britannica and other sources). The Quran mentions Sabians once. The Quran mentions Sabeans twice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.232.13.109 (talk) 01:27, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

"The Jewish scholar Maimonides (1125–1204) translated the book The Nabataean Agriculture, " -- Maimonides did not translate it, though he used the Arabic translation -- and Maimonides was born in 1138 2001:BF8:200:FF99:AC3B:2026:C577:8DE4 (talk) 11:55, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Questions on Sabis

No one ever called Muhammad a Sabian and there is no evidence that ablution or the movements in the Muslim prayers of worship were taken from the Sabians. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.225.142.150 (talk) 09:59, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Lol, yeah, no one ever ... "... They said, 'To Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) .' She said, 'Do you mean the man who is called the Sabi ...'"-https://sunnah.com/bukhari/7/11 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:C449:4ED0:CD9F:5EC4:606E:91AA (talk) 06:37, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

This article is confusing.

IS this a religious group or a ethnic group? the article gives the impression that we don'T know much about these people. It also seems strange that they occasionally seem to come from the greek region, yet all their beliefs are semitic and so is their language? Like I said - very confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.57.98.33 (talk) 05:39, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Refer to No one ever called Muhammad a Sabian and there is no evidence that ablution or the movements in the Muslim prayers of worship were taken from the Sabians. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.225.142.150 (talk) 09:59, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

the answer: "The pastor asked, Muslim students say" book

They have seven prayers, which correspond to five times of prayer of the Muslims, the sixth is the Duha prayer, which is also available on the Muslims. The different of this ruling voluntary prayers in the Muslims. The seventh time was just six o'clock at night. They also have a corpse in prayer, without bowing and prostration. Their fasting month of the year, like the Muslims, but time is from the tribe last night until sunset. Such fasting is quite similar to the fasting Muslims.

In the book "History of the Muslim New edition of the writings and research Prof. Dr.Hamka" under the heading of nations before the birth of Muhammad pages 83;

told it's true this group is a group of Arabs in the community. This group have called 'Sabi'ah. Their belief that the star pocket and space, is confident that this something seala, movements and silence, walking and cessation of all the stringed instruments and related to the course of the stars. That's why the face of each star is no name, no dignity, and there are homes that are determined for each performance.To sun is home, for months there is his house, so also Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury and other -other, and every star that is idol the like. Venus or Venus, the god of beauty, so he still found the idol of Venus was the Roman state, too bad the broken hand side, is a very beautiful woman. From there the religion Sabi'ah apparently taking it. But there is more to enlarge the group of states Sabi'ah Mecca, pilgrimage, sacred game ban, do not like to eat pork, and do not want marriage of kinship; similar to the beliefs of Muslims. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 113.23.132.206 (talk) 10:05, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Do they still exist?

Yes they do! They are called Mandeans today — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.197 (talk) 10:39, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Just watched some interviews with Iraqi refugees on the redacted DVD, and several of them say they are of the Sab'i sect, which would be this one I assume So why is it all in past tense? FunkMonk (talk) 19:57, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd also like some detail on this. It's impossible to tell, from the article as it stands, what happened to the Sabians and whether any still exist. 86.143.50.243 (talk) 17:12, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Sabians most definitely exist and are also called Mandaeans or Sabian-Mandaeans. They are found in Iraq and Iran with diaspora communities in North America, Europe and Australia. Mcvti (talk) 02:25, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Do Sabians really believed that they belong to Prophet Noah?

Because they believe in the Zabur and similar to Christians. Doesn't it means they belong to Prophet Dawud or King David. Because Zabur was revealed to King David by God. And Zabur came after Torah ( To Moses and believed by Jews) and before Gospel (To Jesus and believed by Christians). Doesn't that means that they belong to Prophet Dawud or King David. Faysalm098khL (talk) 13:24, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Sabians or Sabian-Mandaeans believe that the founder of their religion is their first prophet Adam. They claim direct descent from Shem son of Noah who are both considered prophets. John the Baptist (Yahya ibn Zakariya) is their greatest and final prophet who renewed and reformed their ancient religion founded by Adam. Their main holy scripture is the Ginza Rabba also called the Book of Adam and another holy scripture is the Book of John the Baptist. Sabians believe that their religion predates Judaism and Christianity as a monotheistic faith. In Neo-Mandaic, Ṣabi means 'to baptize'. To their non-Mandaean neighbors in Iraq and Iran, they are more commonly known as the Ṣābi'ūn, i.e. 'the Sabians‘, or colloquially as the Ṣubba, meaning 'the baptizers'. This is due to the fact that baptism is the most important ceremony for Sabians. Mcvti (talk) 17:21, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

24 May 2022 updates and changes

@Mcvti: with regard to your revert here of my updates and changes to the article:

• Regarding "the Sabaeans of Southern Arabia also called Sheba are not Christian and have absolutely nothing to do with the sabians of the Quran": see Van Bladel 2009, pp. 67-68: Modern scholars have identified the Qurānic Ṣābians as the Mandaeans, the ḥunafā' understood as Gnostics, Christian Sabaeans (Saba', the people of Sheba) of South Arabia, the Manichaeans, Elchasaites, the Gnostics understood as the Archontics or Stratiotics (a Judeo-Christian sect mentioned by Epiphanius in the fourth century), the ḥunafā' understood as “sectarians,” and even just as the Ḥarrānian pagans. He's not necessarily saying that all Sabaeans are Christians, just that some scholars have identified the Quranic Sabians with Sabaeans that were also Christian.
• Regarding "The Mandaeans formally call themselves Nasoraeans and are one in the same": Whatever your source may be for this wild claim, at least scholars like Drower 1960, p. 111 do not in any way take the Mandaeans and the Nasoraeans as "one and the same". Where does he say that they are the same?
• Regarding "The Manichaeans are known as Zandiqs or Zandaqa in Islam and also have nothing to do with the Sabians": that may be your personal view, but some scholars have identified the Sabians with the Manichaeans, per the Van Bladel 2009 quote above.
• Your edit summary cut off, but it's probably a good idea to discuss any other objections you may have on this talk page before reverting.

Regards, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:05, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Please read other sources such as Mandaean Book of John which is open access translated by Haberl and McGrath, Buckley, Drower, Kurt Rudolph, Macuch. You seem to only mention Van Bladel which is not the go to source for Mandaeans or sabians. Do not change the text in the article until there is a consensus. It has been reverted to the original. Mcvti (talk) 16:13, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

That's not how it works. I have added some information based on very reliable and prominent sources (De Blois 1960–2007, Hämeen-Anttila 2006, Van Bladel 2009), and removed some unreliably sourced information that flatly contradicts these top-quality sources. You are free to question some of these additions or removals (that would be very constructive), but you need to be specific and make your argument based on what reliable sources are saying (ideally, quoting them). It needs to be directly based on the sources, not on unverifiable interpretations of them. I am willing to quote from any source I've used, just ask. Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:33, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Your sources are not as prominent as Sinasi Gunduz, Lady Ethel Drower whose book about the Mandaeans is called The Secret Adam, a study on Nasoraean Gnosis, which you fail to acknowledge; Charles Haberl who recently translated the Mandaean Book of John with James McGrath. They all concluded that the Mandaeans are the Sabians and also called Nasoraeans. These are reliable sources from scholars that specialize in Mandaeism or Sabianism which you fail to accept. Mcvti (talk) 18:10, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, they are all reliable. I never removed anything anyone of them is saying, just one misrepresentation of Drower 1960, pp. 111-113. Please just quote any of them where they are saying that Mandaeans are the same as Nasoraeans, and that whenever they will use the word "Nasoraean", as Drower 1960 does on p. 111, they really mean "Mandaean", as you argue. A simple quote will do. Otherwise, please just drop the stick. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:20, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Häberl, Charles G.; McGrath, James F. (2019). The Mandaean Book of John: Text and Translation (PDF). Open Access Version. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.

Drower, Ethel Stephana (1960). The secret Adam, a study of Nasoraean gnosis (PDF). London UK: Clarendon Press. Retrieved 19 February 2014.page xiii

"I chose none of these names when writing of them in this book for, though this may appear paradoxical, those amongst the community who possess secret knowledge are called Nasuraii (or, if the heavy ‘s’ is written as ‘z’, Nazorenes). At the same time the ignorant or semi-ignorant laity are called ‘Mandaeans’, Mandaiia-‘gnostics’. When a man becomes a priest he leaves ‘Mandaeanism’ and enters tarmiduta, ‘priesthood‘. Even then he has not attained to true enlightenment, for this, called ‘Nasirutha’, is reserved for a very few. Those possessed of its secrets may call themselves Nasoraeans, and ‘Nasoraean’ today indicates not only one who observes strictly all rules of ritual purity, but one who understands the secret doctrine." from Drower - The Secret Adam

"As elaborated in these sacred texts, the core of their faith is a doctrine known as Nāṣerutā or ‘Nazorenism’, the adherents of which are called ‘Nazorenes’ (nāṣorāyi). Within this group of people, these texts further distinguish between a priesthood, tarmidutā, and a laity, mandāyutā. The latter word, which comes from their word for knowledge (mandā), furnishes us with a useful term for the entire complex of beliefs, culture, faith, and practices associated with this doctrine, namely ‘Mandæism’. Thus its followers are often called Mandæans, although we could just as easily refer to them as ‘Nazorenes’ or even ‘Gnostics’, using the Greek word for knowledge (gnōsis) in place of an Aramaic one. To their non-Mandæan neighbors in the region, they are most commonly known as Ṣubba or Sabians, employing a term lifted from the religious vocabulary of the Qur’ān" from The Mandaean Book of John

Thanks for these quotes, that's very interesting. So clearly, Drower prefers to use the term "Nasoraean" rather than "Mandaean", because the former term designates the most secret and properly religious knowledge associated with this sect. So you're right that in Drower's context, the two terms amount to the same. When in my edit summary here I wrote that Drower 1960, p. 111 is merely speculating that some Harranian Sabians may have been Nasoraeans (not Mandaeans!), the last bit "(not Mandaeans!)" is wrong and an artefact of my ignorance on this subject. However, the first part remains: Drower is merely speculating that Thabit ibn Qurra may have been Nasoraean/Mandaean: That such brilliant scholars as the Sabian Thabit-ibn-Qurrah and his school, who were responsible for many translations into Arabic from the Greek, were acquainted with Stoic, Hermetic, and Platonic literature is of course probable; nevertheless they may have been no pseudo-Sabians but genuine members of that sect, Nasoraeans, who practised baptism and were faithful to the religion into which they had been born. In this case they would probably have been of the priestly clan which today still provides the intelligentsia. (Drower 1960, pp. 111-112)

Drower acknowledges that the mainstream view is that Thabit was a "pseudo-Sabian" (i.e., an adherent of the pagan religion of Harran), but merely states the possibility that he was Nasoraean/Mandaean instead. But what are we to do with this? Drower gives no argument why, more than possible, it would in fact be likely, or fitting with some other evidence we have. Is there any other scholar who picked up Drower 1960's suggestion, and who did in fact elaborate some arguments in favor of it? In any case, we can't use Drower 1960's suggestion to state something like The most prominent of the Mandaean Sabians was Thābit ibn Qurra, which is the statement I removed in my edit. That would be a blatant misrepresentation of the source. I don't believe it really fits in this article at all, though I do think that maybe in the Thābit ibn Qurra article we could mention something like E. S. Drower has suggested that Thabit may have been a Mandaean rather than an adherent of the Harranian religion. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:35, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Prof Brikha Nasoraia did genealogical studies on Thabit, but you dismissed it. He is a prof in Sydney Australia and in Turkey, I recall reading he is currently engaged in archaeological work in Harran and Urfa (modern day Edessa) to find links to the Sabian-Mandaeans of ancient Harran. Mcvti (talk) 19:50, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Roshdi Rashed: Formation of the Arab Scientific Mind - MOHAMMED AREF Contemporary Arab Affairs

Vol. 11, No. 1/2 (MARCH–JUNE 2018), pp. 279-296 (18 pages) Published by: University of California Press (page 287). Thabit ibn Qurra is mentioned as a Mandaean. You can find the article on JSTOR — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcvti (talk • contribs) 21:09, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, some scholars refer to Thabit ibn Qurra as Sabian or Mandaean, like Roshdi Rashed quoted by Mohammad Aref here. We should definitely mention that in the article, preferably citing Drower 1960 and Nasoraia 2012 (who are specialists in this regard). But as Drower 1960's wording clearly demonstrates, the idea that Thabit was Mandaean rather than pagan (what she calls "pseudo-Sabian") is an alternative view, another possibility, not a fact. Other scholars, like De Blois 1960–2007 in Encyclopaedia of Islam, ot Roberts 2017 writing in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, firmly regard him or his family as an adherent of the Harranian ancestral pagan religion. We should thus mention both views.

But you reverted seven edits of mine, which contained a whole lot more than that. Do you have any argument with the rest of it, or can we restore and further update the article from there? Just to help you see that other views exist, I will quote for you from De Blois 1960–2007:

[...] a name applied in Arabic to at least three entirely different religious communities:

(1) the Ṣābiʾūn who are mentioned three times in the Ḳurʾān [...]. Their identity, which has been much debated both by the Muslim commentators and by modern orientalists, was evidently uncertain already shortly after the time of Muḥammad and remains uncertain now. They were clearly not Mandaeans (as Chwolsohn and many others believed), and hardly Elchasaites (as proposed below, s.v. ṣābiʾa); there is indeed little reason to believe that Muḥammad and his compatriots could have had any knowledge of either of these communities. The present author has argued that they might possibly have been Manichaeans, i.e. what the Arab antiquaries refer to as the zanādiḳa among the Ḳuraysh.

(2) The Ṣābat al-baṭāʾiḥ , or mughtasila , of Southern ʿIrāḳ, the remnant of an ancient Jewish-Christian sect, the Elchasaites. They owed the designation “Sabians” evidently to the fact that some of the early Ḳurʾān commentators in Baṣra or Kūfa saw in them a possible candidate for identification with the Sabians of the holy book.

(3) The Sabians of Ḥarrān, a community following an old Semitic polytheistic religion, but with a strongly Hellenised elite, one of the last outposts of Late Antique paganism. These adopted the Ḳurʾānic name Ṣābiʾa during the 3rd/9th century so as to be able to claim the status of ahl al-kitāb and thus avoid persecution. (Arabic Muslim and Christian authors occasionally also apply the name Ṣābiʾ , by extension, to the pagans of ancient Greece and to other polytheists.) It is only with these last that Muslim authors of the ʿAbbāsid period were acquainted at first hand and, except in discussions of the Ḳurʾān, the name Ṣābiʾ is normally applied either to Ḥarrānian pagans or else to their Muslim descendants (e.g. the astronomer al-Battānī [q.v.]). In particular, the name was applied, in effect as a nisba, to two distinguished families of scholars and secretaries of Ḥarrānian origin who flourished in Baghdād between the 3rd/9th and 5th/11th centuries, and it is with these that the present article is concerned.

One of the two families De Blois is talking about is precisely the family of Thabit ibn Qurra:

1. Abu ’l-Ḥasan Thābit b. Ḳurra b. Marwān b. Thābit [q.v.] (died 288/901), the celebrated mathematician, astronomer and translator of Greek books, was the first member of the Sabian community to come to the notice of Muslim intellectuals. He was born in Ḥarrān but spent most of his life in Baghdād. where he enjoyed the especial patronage of the caliph al-Muʿtaḍid.

Genealogical table of the Ṣābiʾ families [picture of a genealogical table showing Thabit ibn Qurra and his descendants]

2. His son Abū Saʿīd Sinān served as personal physician of three successive caliphs: al-Muḳtadir, al-Ḳāhir and al-Rāḍī. Al-Ḳāhir forced him to convert to Islam, but his children apparently remained in the ancestral religion. [...]

3. His son Abū Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm was an important astronomer and mathematician. [...]

[Etc. etc.]

☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:14, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

can you please hold on this until we see a result of the incident report you filed against me. Mcvti (talk) 16:15, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

@Mcvti: the best way to end the incident is to work with me and other editors at talk pages. So in this revision, the only problem we have identified is that it does not mention that it has been suggested by Drower 1960 and Nasoraia 2012 that Thabit ibn Qurra and other scholars of the Abbasid period carrying the name al-Sabi' may also have been Mandaeans rather than pagan polytheists. We will need some way to include this, but if this is the only problem we should we able to start from that revision, right? Or is there some other problem with it? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:15, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

No consensus to remove important sourced material from article, I have reverted to original version. Mcvti (talk) 03:13, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Sabian facts

In order to be considered Sabian, (People of the Book), the religion must be monotheistic which by default excludes religions such as Manichaeism, Sabaeans, pagans etc. Also, the predominant interpretation of the meaning of Sabian is from the the Aramaic root Sabi meaning to baptize i.e 'baptizers'. The only two religious groups that fall under this category are the Mandaeans and Elchasaites and they were both listed. Thirdly, the Elchasaites had an obscure leader named Elkesai, not recognized as a prophet in Islam. However, the Mandaean main prophet John the Baptist is the Prophet Yahya in Islam. Mandaeism is the only religion that ticks all the boxes. This is not tendentious editing but simple facts. There is no consensus to add religions which clearly cannot be the Sabians of the Quran. Mcvti (talk) 15:21, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

The revision you reverted stated that modern scholars have variously identified the Quranic Sabians 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. Van Bladel 2009, p. 68 adds that his own view is that the question can never be solved with certainty given the state of the evidence, and then quotes Sarah Stroumsa as taking a similar position.

What do you expect us to say? 'No, François de Blois, Richard Bell, Christopher Buck, Michel Tardieu, Johannes Pedersen, Jan Hjärpe, Charles Genequand, Gotthard Strohmaier, Kevin Van Bladel, Sarah Stroumsa, these scholars are all wrong because Mcvti's view that Sabians must be monotheistic, that Sabi means 'baptize', that Sabians must have had a main prophet that was recognized in Islam, and that therefore they must have been Mandaeans, is the only view that can possibly be right?'

I'm at a loss as to how to reply to this, but I will say this: please read Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view very carefully. Your proposal here could not be farther out of line with these core policies. Briefly, we summarize all the significant views argued for and published by reliable and knowledgeable sources, in proportion to their prominence, and we only present the views of these sources, never our own.

Just as an extra, the idea that Sabi means 'baptizing' was of course the basis of Chwolsohn 1856's view, but it may be useful to quote Van Bladel 2009, p. 67, note 14 in this context: De Blois’ argument (De Blois 1995: 51–52) that the real meaning of the term Ṣābi'a is really just “converts” is the most convincing etymology yet (cf. Margoliouth 1913: 519b; Genequand 1999: 126). There's much more to this subject than you seem to be aware of (and that's still assuming quite a bit of good faith), and we simply need to represent all of these views in the article. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:06, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Again with accusations, now its original research. Sabians are People of the Book, you need to look up what that means before giving me a lecture. My view doesn't matter to Wikipedia, but recent scholars such as Gunduz who did a thorough analysis in his book The Knowledge of Life: The Origins and Early History of the Mandaeans and their Relations to the Sabians of the Qu'ran and to the Harranians argues that the Sabians of the Quran are the Mandaeans. Interestingly you quote Van Bladel, but not from his most recent book From Sasanian Mandaeans to Ṣābians of the Marshes where he seems to confirm the Sabians of the Quran are the Mandaeans. Drower, Chwolson, Häberl, Brikhah Nasoraia and Andrew Phillip Smith also confirm this. You need to take a look at yourself before accusing others of not following WP:NPOV. Mcvti (talk) 22:57, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't have access to Van Bladel 2017. If he changed his opinion there, it would be nice to be able to include this in the article, so if you can quote it here that would be great (of course we also need page number, this is not enough). We're already citing Chwolsohn 1856 and Gündüz 1994 in my proposed revision, but if you have full bibliographical references for the others we can add those too.

As for you view that completely disregarding the lenghty list of scholars I cited above is the correct application of NPOV, and that this revision is more in line with policy than the one you reverted, I think it's best to seek other editors' opinion on that. Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 10:55, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

I have uploaded the pdf file of Van Bladel 2017 here https://easyupload.io/07c69u. I just downloaded the book and looked into it, so I may have missed something. Anyways this is what I have found so far a few minutes in;

"This Arabic passage has led to some misunderstanding among modern scholars. The Mandaeans have been assumed regularly to be the people known as Ṣābians of the Marshes. The problem is that the term Ṣābians was applied to Marshland people of various religions" (page 71)

"This illustrates clearly the utility of the term “Ṣābian” for the people in the Marsh region as well as its inutility for historians today. The name came to be applied to practically any little religious group among the Aramaic-speaking villagers, no doubt as a convenience to Arabic-speaking outsiders who perhaps could not easily discern the differences between them or even communicate with them." (page 72)"

So far it looks like more POV from Mcvti. --HistoryofIran (talk) 14:03, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for that! Van Bladel 2017, p. 5 is pretty clear:

The Ṣābians (Arabic Ṣābiʾūn, known from the ninth century onward collectively as Ṣābiʾa) were people first mentioned alongside the Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians in the Qurʾān (2:62, 5:69, 22:17) and were granted the status equivalent to those other groups as a protected, if subordinate, community. Within a short time after Muḥammad’s death, however, the identity of the Ṣābiʾūn intended in the Qurʾān was obscured or forgotten, opening the way for several different groups to claim the name in self-legitimation under Muslim authorities, and for Muslim scholars of later centuries to speculate about them. That the Mandaeans came to be regarded as Ṣābians does show that there must have been local contacts between Mandaeans and their Muslim neighbors. Otherwise the term would never have been applied to them. This is just one example of how the rule of Muslims, which was explained in Islamic terms, increasingly fitted the world to its own expressions, in this particular case a qurʾānic word that was available for adoption. [...]

I present for the first time in modern scholarship a substantial and sympathetic tenth-century Muslim secretary’s account of Mandaean villagers and their social life, which is also the earliest unambiguous witness to the application of the Qurʾānic name “Ṣābian” to the Mandaeans. It is an early illustration of the process by which the Mandaeans came to be regarded, at least sometimes, as a legitimate group by Muslims.

Isn't it remarkable how this summary resembles the lead in my last revision? The identity of the Quranic Sabians was forgotten at an early time, but the term was applied to several groups from the ninth century on. On p. 15, Van Bladel 2017 further specifies that:

In light of these vague testimonia, we may guess that Arab governors may have had to decide on the status of the Mandaeans among others in the eighth century, and that a modus vivendi was achieved by calling them Ṣābians, but it is also conceivable that this took place later, or that some Arabs considered them Ṣābians and therefore legitimate and that others did not. It is important to emphasize how scarce the evidence for this is. It remains possible that Anoš bar Danqā visited Baṣra to account for his religion (if that is what happened) in the eighth century, but it may just as well have happened later. It appears that only one early Arabic source mentions anything specifically and unquestionably to do with the Mandaeans, and it is a source from Baṣra. This isolated occurrence about a century after the conquest of Iraq and its obscurity demonstrate how little known the Mandaeans were to the Arabs.

Clearly, Van Bladel 2017 has stuck to his 2009 opinion that the original identity of the Quranic Sabians has been lost in time, and is in fact explicitly arguing against Gündüz 1994 and others' opinion that they must have been the Mandaeans. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 15:45, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

The Syriac sources reviewed so far shed light on the origins of the Mandaeans. The earliest source to describe their social life, however, is an Arabic work of al-Ḥasan ibn Bahlūl (fl. circa 950–1000), another learned member of the Church of the East. His work is also the earliest to identify the Mandaeans unambiguously as Ṣābians, marking their transition to a status legitimate under Muslim rule. [...] One of the chapters of his Kitāb ad-Dalāʾil presents an extraordinary, detailed, and detached (if not sympathetic) description of sectarian villagers, deriving from the first half of the tenth century, cited from an author whom Ibn Bahlūl names as “Abū ʿAlī.” The people described in this excerpt are not called Mandaeans, but rather Ṣābians but it will be clear that they were antecedents of the modern Mandaeans. This is, I believe, the single most informative text about Mandaean life and custom written by a non-Mandaean before modern times, and is all the more important in that it derives from circa 900. It has never been discussed before in scholarship on the Mandaeans. I begin with a translation. [...]

Abū ʿAlī—may God have mercy on him—said: They are the ones by whose epithet the Ḥarrānians are called. They are the ones mentioned in the Qurʾān. Their status as ḏimmīs is sound. There is no relationship between them and the Ḥarrānian pagans (ḥunafāʾ), nor is there any point of comparison in any aspect of their religious laws (aššarāʾiʿ). Rather they are distinct from them in every way. A few of them came into my presence in the City of Peace [Baġdād] in the days of my employment as secretary (kitbatī) for Sāra, the daughter of al-Muʿtaḍid billāh [the caliph, r. 892–902]—may God have mercy on him—and my employment as secretary for her mother and for her sister Ṣafīya. I had requested for Sāra’s mother as an administrative land grant (istaqṭaʿtu) [the site of] Bayādir, known as “the Jewish” (al-Yahūdī), in al-Ǧāmida, and ad-Dūl in aṣ-Ṣalīq, all of whose inhabitants are Ṣābians (Ṣābiʾūn). So I investigated their situation and queried them about it thoroughly. I found that they profess the religion of Seth (Šīṯ) son of Adam, peace be upon him. They say that he is their prophet. They acknowledge John son of Zachariah [Yaḥyā ibn Zakarīyāʾ, i.e. John the Baptist].

The above quote is from Van Bladel's book chapter 5, pages 47-48, its remarkable how much you two both lie and misrepresent facts.

James F. McGrath's official YouTube page

soulziwa:

2 years ago

Very Great Dr. McGrath, did you find if the mandaeans are same as Sabians of the marshes or of the Qur'an's Sabians as yet ?

James McGrath

2 years ago

I believe they are. There is a helpful study by [G]unduz that makes the case in detail, and even van Bladel's recent book seems to confirm it.

James McGrath

2 years ago

There certainly have been debates throughout Islamic history about the identity of the Qur'an's Sabians, but the Mandaeans, referred to in Islamic literature as the Sabians of the marshes, are the best candidate, and a number of scholars have made a convincing case. It isn't certain, as with so many matters of history. But it is likely.

Mcvti (talk) 04:24, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

As you have put in fat bold letters yourself, Van Bladel 2017 says that al-Ḥasan ibn Bahlūl's 10th-century work is the earliest to identify the Mandaeans unambiguously as Ṣābians. Not the Quran in c. 610-632, not (according to Van Bladel) 8th-century sources as Gündüz 1994 argued: see Van Bladel 2017, p. 14: Şinasi Gündüz has surveyed a number of brief reports from Arabic sources deriving from the eighth century, cited by later authors, referring to Ṣābians who lived in southern Iraq, but these references are not at all precise. One cannot tell exactly which sect is intended in each report. Certainly the tenth-century Arabic sources (some to be discussed later) consider several clearly different religious groups in southern Iraq, and not just Mandaeans, all to be Ṣābians.

More imporantly, the Van Bladel passage you quoted is not about establishing the identity of the Quranic Sabians, but about tracing where and when the Mandaeans first came to be referred to as Sabians, and why. Please read carefully what Van Bladel 2017 writes at p. 66 about how he understands Abū ʿAlī's claims regarding the Mandaeans:

Assuming that the author Abū ʿAlī is Ibn Muqla, he evidently found it useful to make an account of the Mandaeans, because it allowed him to dismiss the prominent Ḥarrānian pagans in Baġdād as “false Ṣābians.” Whether this was because of jealousy, court intrigue, or just interest in gain at their expense, Ibn Muqla was the vizier presiding at the time of the condemnation of the Ḥarrānian Ṣābians by the caliph al-Qāhir (932–934), who obtained a legal ruling from a Muslim jurisconsult that the Ḥarrānians were polytheists, in the end extracting a large sum of property from the Ḥarrānians in return for allowing them to exist. The question remains whether the agent behind this momentary persecution of the Ḥarrānians was not al-Qāhir himself but the vizier Ibn Muqla, who knew some Mandaeans personally and deemed them to be the real Ṣābians, making the Ḥarrānians into false Ṣābians and therefore an unsanctioned group. Perhaps his encounter with the Mandaeans earlier in his career is what induced him to malign the Ḥarrānians later on. Perhaps the excerpt under examination here, preserved by Ibn Bahlūl, was part of an otherwise lost essay against the Ḥarrānians for that occasion around 933.

Probably also relevant is Van Bladel 2017, p. 54:

Some Mandaeans came to Baġdād to meet the accountant in charge of their villages, the author of the passage. He noticed that they were not Jews, and after his inquiry they impressed him enough to declare them to be the true qurʾānic Ṣābians. We do not know whether this was originally their claim or his. The Ḥarrānian pagans, who were the better-known Ṣābians in Baġdād at that time, are dismissed as false and entirely different.

Please note that I'm not claiming that Van Bladel is right and that Gündüz is wrong. It should just be understood that Van Bladel's view is very different from Gündüz's: whereas Gündüz tried to prove that the Quranic Sabians were Mandaeans, Van Bladel believes the identity of the Quranic Sabians themselves to be unrecoverable (see the quotes above), and is instead interested in how the epithet came to be claimed by various religious groups in subsequent centuries.

As for McGrath's YouTube comment (if that account really is him!), the fact that he spells Gündüz 1994 "Sunduz" should tell you everything about how he is relying on (apparently bad) memory here. Perhaps there was some new information in Van Bladel's book that strengthened his conviction that the Quranic Sabians were Mandaeans, an argument that Van Bladel himself does not make and in fact strongly rejects? The even van Bladel's recent book might point in such a direction. Anyway, we don't need a vague YouTube comment section to establish article content here, we need a published (see WP:RS), secondary source.

There also seems to be a recurrent misunderstanding here, where every time you (think you have) found a source arguing that the Quranic Sabians were Mandaeans, you seem to believe that the (purported) existence of this source means that these are the facts, and that we should state this in our article as facts. This is not how it works. When different reliable sources make sustained arguments for different things, we report all of these things, neutrally and proportionately. However many sources you should find that defend your preferred point of view, this will never mean that we are going to ignore all the other published views. That's just not an option. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 08:15, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Let's also not forget that the reversions we're discussing here did not only remove the different scholarly points of view on the original identity of the Quranic Sabians, they also removed the 9th/10th-century identifications of Sabians as the Harranians or as the Mesopotamian pagans mentioned by Ibn Wahshiyya. In this context it may be helpful to note that in his published review of Van Bladel 2017, McGrath 2019 does in fact grant that Van Bladel is surely correct (as most if not all would agree) that the Arabic name “Sabians” was not consistently applied to the Mandaeans and did not denote them exclusively. At least the fact that very different groups were called 'Sabian' in the 9th/10th centuries is something that scholars do not disagree on, and which should be clearly explained in our article. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 11:24, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

• Bell, Richard (1926). The Origin of Islam in Its Christian Environment. London: Macmillan. OCLC 695842215.
• Buck, Christopher (1984). "The Identity of the Ṣābi'ūn: An Historical Quest". The Muslim World. 74 (3–4): 172–186. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.1984.tb03453.x.
• Chwolsohn, Daniel (1856). Die Ssabier und die Ssabismus. Vols. 1–2. St. Petersburg: Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften. OCLC 64850836.
• De Blois, François (1995). "The "Sabians" (Ṣābi'ūn) in pre-Islamic Arabia". Acta orientalia. 56: 39–61.
• Genequand, Charles (1999). "Idolâtrie, astrolâtrie, et sabéisme". Studia Islamica. 89: 109–128. doi:10.2307/1596088.
• Gündüz, Şinasi [in Turkish] (1994). The Knowledge of Life: The Origins and Early History of the Mandaeans and Their Relation to the Sabians of the Qur'ān and to the Harranians. Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement. Vol. 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199221936.
• Hjärpe, Jan (1972). Analyse critique des traditions arabes sur les Sabéens harraniens (PhD diss.). University of Uppsala.
• McGrath, James F. (2019). "James F. McGrath Reviews From Sasanian Mandaeans to Sabians (van Bladel)". Enoch Seminar Online.
• Pedersen, J. (1922). "The Ṣābians". In Arnold, T. W.; Nicholson, R. A. (eds.). ʿAǧab-nāma: A Volume of Oriental Studies Presented to Edward G. Browne on his 60th Birthday. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 383–391. OCLC 6390613.
• Strohmaier, Gotthard [in German] (1996). "Die ḥarrānischen Sabier bei Ibn an-Nadīm und al-Bīrūnī". Ibn an-Nadīm und die mittelalterliche arabische Literatur: Beiträge zum 1. Johann Wilhelm Fück-Kolloquium (Halle 1987). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 51–56. ISBN 9783447037457. OCLC 643711267. [reprinted in Strohmaier, Gotthard (2003). Hellas im Islam: Interdisziplinäre Studien zur Ikonographie, Wissenschaft und Religionsgeschichte. Diskurse der Arabistik. Vol. 6. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 167–169. ISBN 978-3-447-04637-4.]
• Tardieu, Michel (1986). "Ṣābiens coraniques et 'Ṣābiens' de Ḥarrān". Journal Asiatique. 274 (1–2): 1–44. doi:10.2143/JA.274.1.2011565.
• Van Bladel, Kevin (2009). "Hermes and the Ṣābians of Ḥarrān". The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 64–118. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195376135.003.0003. ISBN 978-0-19-537613-5.
• Van Bladel, Kevin (2017). From Sasanian Mandaeans to Ṣābians of the Marshes. Leiden: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004339460. ISBN 978-90-04-33943-9.

References

Incorporating the view that the Quranic Sabians were Mandaeans

@Nebulousquasar: I have copied the following comment from this page, since this is a better place to discuss it.

Although I would personally strongly agree with Mcvti's argument that the Sabians can indeed by connected to the Mandaeans and that this can be backed up by WP:RS, I do realize that there are other more skeptical points of view that I may not necessarily agree with, per WP:NPOV and that Wikipedia needs to present different viewpoints. Is there a way for everyone to somehow incorporate and synthethize all of their different viewpoints into the relevant articles? Nebulousquasar (talk) 05:06, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I would like that, but with just one caveat: if by 'everyone' you mean all Wikipedia editors with different points of view, that would be a wrong approach, since we need to incorporate and synthesize the reliable sources' points of view, not our own. The article should not reflect the proportion in which Wikipedia editors hold certain views, but the proportion in which scholars hold them.

Now I have mainly seen sources that are skeptical, not necessarily about the Quranic Sabians being Mandaeans as such (which by no means is some kind of standard view, as it has been falsely portrayed lately in our article here), but about whether it is realistic to try to identify the Quranic Sabians with any known religious group at all. Thus Hämeen-Anttila 2006 p. 50, who speaks about the wild goose chase for the identity of the Qur'anic Sabians, which has taken all too much attention. Thus also van Bladel 2009 p. 68, who believes that the real identity of the group intended in the Qur'ān cannot be known for certain given the present evidence. See also de Blois 1960–2012: Their identity, which has been much debated both by the Muslim commentators and by modern orientalists, was evidently uncertain already shortly after the time of Muḥammad and remains uncertain now. They were clearly not Mandaeans (as Chwolsohn and many others believed), and hardly Elchasaites (as proposed below, s.v. ṣābiʾa); there is indeed little reason to believe that Muḥammad and his compatriots could have had any knowledge of either of these communities. Stroumsa 2004 has called the elaborations of scholars on the Sabians as being one specific religious group, especially but not exclusively with regard to the speculations on the Sabians of Harran, a "modern myth". She writes about this at length at pp. 335–341:

Les Sabéens sont mentionnés déjà dans le Coran, mais la majorité des savants s'accorde sur le fait que les Sabéens du Coran ne sont pas identiques à ceux des hérésiographes musulmans. [...] Ces difficultés auraient dû nous inspirer un certain scepticisme à l'égard des textes. Pourtant, les chercheurs modernes, tout en notant le caractère générique ou paradigmatique de cette appellation de Sabéens, tentent depuis un siècle d’harmoniser toutes ces sources contradictoires, afin d'en voir émerger un peuple défini, pratiquant une religion précise. Ainsi, on a pu proposer d'identifier les Sabéens avec les Mandéens, un groupe gnostique, ou des pratiquants de la religion babylonienne. On a pu aussi décrire leur religion comme profondément influencée par le courant hermétiste. [...] Il me semble donc que toute tentative pour harmoniser les brins d’information à notre disposition afin de faire des Sabéens un peuple unique ayant une seule religion, et d'introduire ces Sabéens ainsi figés dans le royaume islamique, court le risque de véhiculer, à côté de véritables intuitions historiques, un fort élément mythique. On peut ainsi parler du mythe moderne des Sabéens, fondé sur une lecture non critique des sources médiévales, ces sources elles-mêmes reflétant déjà une perception mythique des Sabéens.

Courtesy translation from Google translate, emended:

The Sabians are mentioned already in the Quran, but the majority of scholars agree that the Sabians of the Quran are not identical to those of the Muslim heresiographers. [...] These difficulties should have inspired us with a certain skepticism with regard to the texts. However, modern researchers, while noting the generic or paradigmatic character of this designation of Sabians, have been trying for a century to harmonize all these contradictory sources, in order to see the emergence of a defined people, practicing a precise religion. Thus, it has been proposed to identify the Sabians with the Mandaeans, with a Gnostic group, or with practitioners of Babylonian religion. Their religion has also been described as deeply influenced by the Hermetic current. [...] It therefore seems to me that any attempt to harmonize the strands of information at our disposal in order to make the Sabians a single people with a single religion, and to introduce these Sabians as thus having been given a fixed place in the Islamic realm, runs the risk of conveying, alongside true historical intuitions, a strong mythical element. We can thus speak of the modern myth of the Sabians, based on an uncritical reading of medieval sources, these sources themselves already reflecting a mythical perception of the Sabians.

These are all top scholars publishing with the most reputable publishing houses (in order of appearance, Brill, OUP, Brill, and Peeters) and mainly writing in the 21st century. It seems inevitable to me that the idea of uncertainty should therefore be the main approach taken in our article.

But that said, it would of course be great if we could summarize the arguments that different scholars have made for their different conclusions with regard to the identity of the Quranic Sabians. For the identification as Mandaean, it seems that Chwolsohn 1856 and Gündüz 1994 are the two main sources which have argued for this at length. Drower 1960 affirms this identification but does not argue for it (there are probably many others like Drower in this regard, as de Blois 1960–2012 notes). It would be especially helpful if someone would read Gündüz 1994 and summarize his arguments in a separate section of the article. Do you feel like taking this on? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 10:16, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Mentioned three times as People of the book

I'm not disputing the status of the Quranic Sabians as People of the book. My point is that it should be added as a separate sentence, not tacked on Van Bladel's statement(s). He didn't use the phrase and didn't say "mentioned three time in the Quran as People of the book". That claim in particular is factually wrong as Sura 22 doesn't use the phrase "People of the book" anywhere. For the Zoroastrian issue, I think it needs to be qualified similar to the lead of People of the Book. Notes are not enough: most readers probably won't read them, and they don't appear in search engine summaries, etc. It's also undue in the lead, which may confuse readers into thinking that the status of the Sabians is similar to that of the Zoroastrians. Wiqi⁽⁵⁵⁾ 16:54, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

But Sura 5 does use the phrase "ahl al-kitab", in a verse (5:68) that is directly succeeded by one of the verses mentioning the Sabians (5:69; both verses quoted at People of the Book#Identity). The interpretation that 5:69 mentions them as ahl al-kitab is quasi-univeral. Consider, for example,the following sources:

• Consequently, the noun [ṣābiʿa] 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. Fahd, Toufic (1960–2007). "Ṣābiʾa". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0953.
• Ahl al-Kitab Quranic term referring to Jews, Christians, and Sabaeans as possessors of books previously revealed by God. Esposito, John L., ed. (2003). "Ahl al-Kitab". The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 10. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195125580.001.0001. ISBN 9780195125580.
• Ahl al-kitāb — the people of the kitāb It is the kitāb relationship that defines the Christians (naṣāra), the Jews (yahūd, Banū Isrāʾīl) and the Sabians (ṣābiʾūn). All of these groups are referred to in the Qurʾān as ahl al-kitāb or alladhīna ūtū l-kitāb (those who have been granted the kitāb. Madigan, Daniel (2001). "Book". In McAuliffe, Jane Dammen (ed.). Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. doi:10.1163/1875-3922_q3_EQCOM_00027.

The last source literally says that they are referred to in the Quran as ahl al-kitab, so our statement is directly verifiable. Saying that 2:62 and 5:69 "imply" that they belong to the ahl al-kitab, or that it's an interpretation, is all good and well for the article body (I wrote it that way there, following De Blois 2004, who also uses the word "imply"), but in the lead it only serves to distract. As you may know, almost anything in the Quran is subject to interpretation, and framing it that way is helpful if there's also enough space to explain what the interpretation is based on. The lead, however, serves another purpose, which is to help readers get a quick grasp of the subject as a whole.

And it is very helpful to the reader to have in the back of their mind the fact that the Sabians were not merely implied, but quasi-universally regarded as ahl al-kitab: this is crucial in order to understand why several religious groups historically claimed to be Sabians. Van Bladel 2009 p. 68 even suggests (in the context of a different argument) that the creation [by the Mandaeans] of a canonical scripture [the Ginza Rabba] may perhaps be regarded as an attempt to join ahl al-kitāb (“the people of the book”) and to obtain legitimacy in the eyes of Muslims. In this case the Mandaeans might have been given the name Ṣābian very early in the history of Islam, but not from the beginning. That they had to take measures to establish a canonical scripture and thus adopt such a name would serve to indicate that they were not the Ṣābians of the Qur'ān.

In other words, being included as ahl al-kitab in the Quran may have steered the historical development itself of the religions so labeled. Darrow 2003 writes that whether the Magians were to be included among the People of the Book (q.v.) was debated since it appeared that the religion lacked a prophet (see prophets and prophethood) and a scripture, and that in response the legend of Zoroaster was remolded to present him along the lines of Islamic prophethood. (!) Which brings us to the Zoroastrians, who despite the fact that in general, Islamic authorities have granted them partial status as a People of the Book (Darrow 2003), are not universally recognized as being mentioned in that way in the Quran. I think the most elegant thing to do would be to add "–according to some interpretations–", just like in the lead of People of the Book, and to move the explanatory note about the Zoroastrians there:

The Sabians (Arabic: الصابئون al-Ṣābiʾūn, in later sources الصابئة al-Ṣābiʾa), sometimes also spelled Sabaeans, are a mysterious religious group mentioned three times in the Quran as a 'People of the Book' (ahl al-kitāb), along with the Jews, the Christians, and –according to some interpretations– the Zoroastrians. Their original identity, which seems to have been forgotten at an early date, has been called an "unsolved Quranic problem".

Since we're only expressing doubt about the status of the Zoroastrians, I don't think it will confuse readers about the status of the Sabians. I think the only really viable alternative is to remove the mention of Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians from the lead altogether:

The Sabians (Arabic: الصابئون al-Ṣābiʾūn, in later sources الصابئة al-Ṣābiʾa), sometimes also spelled Sabaeans, are a mysterious religious group mentioned three times in the Quran as a 'People of the Book' (ahl al-kitāb). Their original identity, which seems to have been forgotten at an early date, has been called an "unsolved Quranic problem".

I like it less because it's less informative (the vast majority of readers will ask, 'People of the Book'?, which will lead them to almost exactly the same phrase as proposed here), but it may perhaps be less confusing. What do you think? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:34, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

The early mufassirun held different views, so we can't be sure about the quasi-universal claim. I checked Tabari's tafsir of 2:62 and half the accounts there say the Quranic Sabians had no book or no religion.

Ideally, we need a source that shows how the three verses (not one) designates the Sabians as people of the book. We lack said source at this point. A literal explanation by Yohanan Friedmann actually omits any mention of People of the book:

• The Sabi'a appear three times in the Qur'an. In verses 2:62 and 5:69, they are mentioned together with the Jews and the Christians in a favorable way, while in 22:17 they figure as one of the five communities [...] whose fate Allah will determine on the Day of Judgment.[1]

So for a meaning not explicitly stated in the Quran, I think "imply" is the right word and it's already supported by two sources.

Similarly, the Qur'an doesn't mention Zoroastrians as people of the Book. According to EI2's Madjūs, they were treated as such because of a Hadith, not the Qur'an:

• Muhammad had accepted djizya from the Madjūs of Ḥadjar. This provided a precedent, since there was no Kur'anic basis for treating the Madjūs as ahl al-kitāb. Sūra XXII, 17 merely lists them along with ahl al-kitāb and mushrikūn, [...]" (Michael G. Morony, Madjūs, vol. 5, p.1110)

We don't need to make any offtopic and disputed claims about the Zoroastrians in the lead of this article. Wiqi⁽⁵⁵⁾ 12:14, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, what I was not keeping to mind enough yesterday was that in any case, they are not mentioned three times as People of the Book, and maybe even really only once, in 5:68–69. It is of course important to include that they were mentioned three times in the Quran as such, and also that they were associated with the People of the Book, but we need to get rid of the "mentioned as" a People of the Book (which is an artefact of older revisions of this page: [2], [3], even [4]). I also agree that it may ultimately be better not to mention the disputed claim about the Zoroastrians (I will note though that Darrow 2003 does suggest that 22:17 was taken into account when granting them the status), but then I think it's also better not to mention Jews and Christians either. What about just "are a mysterious religious group mentioned three times in the Quran, where it is implied that they belonged to the 'People of the Book' (ahl al-kitāb)"? I also made some other changes here. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 09:31, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Sabiens in the book of Job

From the old testament of the bible. Job predates the quran by over 700 years.

Job 1:13-15

Satan Takes Job’s Property and Children

[13] Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, [14] and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, [15] and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 24.212.130.130 (talk) 23:17, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

This refers to the Sabaeans, the ancient people from Southern Arabia (the Biblical Sheba and the Queen of Sheba are often identified with them). Despite the fact that the Sabaeans are also mentioned in the Quran (as سبأ, versus صابئ for the Sabians), and despite the fact that in English 'Sabians' is sometimes also spelled 'Sabaeans', the Sabians and the Sabaeans are completely unrelated. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 23:45, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Shahada

Does anyone have the source saying the Sabians used the shahada without the second part about Muhammad? Gibby01 (talk) 01:27, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Sabeans

Mentioned earlier in the Old Testament of the Bible by the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel 23:42 “Sabeans were brought from the wilderness…” Date written approximately 571 B.C. Ou814me2 (talk) 12:02, 13 December 2023 (UTC)