Content area
Full text
Thābit b. Qurra (d. 288/901), a Sabian of Harrān+, and his descendants remained in their ancestral religion for six generations. Why did they persist despite pressure to convert? This article argues that religious self-identification as a Sabian could be a distinct advantage in Baghdad's elite circles. It focuses on Thābit's great-grandson Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Hilāl al-?ābī (d. 384/994) and his poetry as collected by al-Tha'ālibī (d. 429/1038). Two members of the family who did convert are also considered by way of contrast.
ABBREVIATIONS
DhahabI Shams al-DIn al-Dhahabl. Siyar aclām al-nubalāy, gen. ed. Shucayb al-Arna'ūt, 2nd ed. Beirut, 1982-1988.
Eí2 The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. Leiden: Brill, 1960-2004.
IAU Ibn Abı UşaybLa. cUyūn al-anbā* fi ţabaqât al-aübba*, ed. N. Rida. Beirut: Dār Maktabat al-Hayât, (1965).
IKh Ibn Khallikān. Wafāyāt al-acyān wa-anbā} abnāy al-zamān, ed. I. cAbbās. Beirut: Dār al-Thaqāfa, 1968-72.
IN Ibn al-Nadīm. Fihrist, ed. A. E Sayyid, 2 vols. in 4. London: al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, 2009. Page numbers of Fl(tigeľs) edition are also given.
IQ Ibn al-Qifţl. Tārīkh al-hukamā*, ed. J. Lippert. Leipzig, 1903.
KhB Al-Khaţlb al-Baghdādī. Tārīkh Baghdad, 14 vols. Cairo, 1931; repr. Beirut, 1968.
LA Ibn Manzūr. Lisân al-carab. www.baheth.info.
Thacālibī Al-Thacālibī. YatÎmat al-dahr fī mahāsin ahi al-caşr, ed. M. M. Qumayha, 6 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-cIlmiyya, 2000. On occasion I refer to the "Damascus ed.": Damascus: al-Maţbaca al-Hifniyya, [1885].
Yāqūt Yāqūt al-Rūmī. Mucjam al-udabā*: Irshād al-arīb ilā maf rifat al-adīb, ed. I. cAbbās, 7 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1993. Continuous pagination.
Ever since the great patron of the sciences Muhammad b. Mūsā b. Shakir (d. 259/873), passing through Harrān in northern Mesopotamia on his return from Byzantine lands, had plucked the young Thābit b. Qurra like a new Matthew from his money-changing table to work as a physician, astronomer, and translator in Baghdad, Thābit (d. 288/901) and his descendants had lived and labored in high circles in the capital of the Abbasid caliphate, holding posts as physicians to the caliph al-Muctadid (r. 279-289/892-902) and his successors.1 Consistent with cosmopolitan attitudes among Baghdad's ruling elite, it does not seem to have bothered Thābit's patrons that he was a Sabían, adherent of a small cult that existed in some form prior to Islam but seems to have...