This study treats the religious and intellectual history of the city of Harran (Eastern Turkey) from biblical times down to the establishment of Islam. The author starts from the well-known reference in the Qur'an and the early Islamic histories to the people of Harran as Sabians, one of the 'peoples of the book.'
The author unravels strands of religious tradition in Harran that run from the old Semitic planetary cults through Hellenistic hermeticism, gnosticism, and Neo-Pythagoreanism and Christian cults to esoteric Islamic sects such as the Sufis and Shiites.
Tamara M. Green is Professor in the Department of Classical and Oriental Studies at Hunter College, The City University of New York.
'...I welcome Green's book, which should spur scholars to renewed efforts.'
Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, Religious Studies Review, 1994.
'Tamara Green est en effet bien qualifiée pour nous offrir de nouveaux ouvrages sur les rapports entre les Sabiens et les Musulmans et dans cette perspective on souhaite voir les résultats de ses recherches futures.'
Cosmas Megalommatis, Journal of Oriental and African Studies, 1993.
students and scholars of theology, classical and oriental studies, Islam and the history of religion.