One of the sources for the festival calendar
of the pagan Ḥarrānians in Northern Mesopotamia is the Christian Wahb ibn Ibrāhīm’s
“About Offerings” (?), from which excerpts were preserved in Ibn al-Nadīm’s
monumental Fihrist, a great
bibliographical encyclopedia of all Arabic-language literature available to the
author. In book 9, there is a long section on Sābians (roughly “pagans”), and particularly
of the Ḥarrāniyyah or Ḥarrānian sect.
Wahb’s text could, I believe, be as early as the 8th century, but is
usually taken to be from the 9th or early 10th. (Green, The City of the Moon God. Religious
Traditions of Harran, 1992, p. 146).
The translation I am using here is largely
that of Dodge, The Fihrist of al-Nadīm: A
Tenth-Century Survey of Islamic Culture, 2 vols., 1970. I have, however,
changed several of the transliterations where I find another construal of the
same letters more plausible, or where there is an obvious and easily explainable spelling mistake (e.g. Nābiq for Nābū).
The Ḥarrānian weekdays
“A Manuscript Which I Read Written
in the Handwriting of Abū Saˁīd Wahb ibn Ibrāhīm, the Christian, about Offerings”:
“Sunday (is sacred?) to al-Shams (Arabic
for ‘the sun’), whose name is ˀĪlīyūs (< Greek
Helios);
Monday to al-Qamar (the moon), whose name is Sīn (< Akkadian Sīn);
Tuesday to al-Mirrīkh (Mars), whose name is Ārīs (< Gr. Arēs);
Wednesday to ˁUṭārid (Mercury), whose name is Nābū ( < Akk. Nabū);
Thursday to al-Mushtarī (Jupiter), whose name is Bāl (< Akk. Bēl);
Friday to Zuharah (Venus), whose name is Balthā (< Akk. Beltia or a similar form);
Saturday to Zuḥal (Saturn), whose name is Q r * s (< Gr. Kronos).” (translation strongly modified)
Monday to al-Qamar (the moon), whose name is Sīn (< Akkadian Sīn);
Tuesday to al-Mirrīkh (Mars), whose name is Ārīs (< Gr. Arēs);
Wednesday to ˁUṭārid (Mercury), whose name is Nābū ( < Akk. Nabū);
Thursday to al-Mushtarī (Jupiter), whose name is Bāl (< Akk. Bēl);
Friday to Zuharah (Venus), whose name is Balthā (< Akk. Beltia or a similar form);
Saturday to Zuḥal (Saturn), whose name is Q r * s (< Gr. Kronos).” (translation strongly modified)
(The third letter in the
transcription of Kronos varies; it was presumably originally n, with the vocalization Qrunus.)
The situation of three Greek gods
(Helios, Ares, Kronos) and four Mesopotamian ones (Sin, Nabu, Bel, Beltia) making
up the ‘canonical’ planetary gods at Ḥarrān is unusual, but in a bilingual city,
we can well imagine that a local cult of Ares came to outshine that of Nergal, etc.
The Ḥarrānian year and its
festival cycle (“Knowledge of Their Feasts”)
As in the ancient Babylonian
calendar, “the beginning of their year is Nīsān.” The month names do not
entirely line up with the Babylonian ones, however, but rather with the
Christian Assyrian calendar. (Or are these month names used by the translator
in place of the original ones?)
Nīsān (roughly April), also called the
month of al-Tamr
1–3: “they pray humbly to their
goddess, Balthā, who is al-Zuharah (Venus). When entering the shrine of the
goddess on these days, group by group in a scattered way, they slaughter
sacrificial victims and burn animals alive.”
6: “they slay for their divinity,
the Moon, a bull, which they eat at the end of the day.”
8: “they fast and then break the
fast with the meat of lamb. On this day they also hold a fest in honor of the
seven deities,” – the planets? – “the devils, jinn, and spirits1.
They burn seven lambs for the seven deities, a sheep for the Lord of the Blind2,
and a sheep for the deities [which are] the devils.”
- From the calendar, it is impossible to say what Aramaic terms are being represented here; ‘devils’ is more literally ‘satans’, common in the plural. (There is no exact equivalent to ‘devil’ in Arabic.)
- Ares; see section on Nīsān 20.
- A central but mysterious feature of Ḥarrānian religion, but not one on which to enlarge here; suffice it to clarify here that North was worshipped as a god in the city.
- Scholarly identifications with Iranian Zruvan or Greek Aion or Khronos is entirely speculative, and an unnecessary assumption. The nature of the deity is simply unknown.
- Possibly a mistake for Ares, as it is in the passage that mentions a sacrifice of “many small chickens to Ares”. But in this case, he is mentioned alongside the “seven deities”, i.e. the planets, so it is unlikely that he is one of them.
1: “they make the offering of the mystery
to the North, worship the Sun, smell the rose, eat, and drink.”
2: “they hold a feast for Ibn
al-Salm1 and make vows. Then, loading their tables with all kinds of
rare things, fruits, and sweetmeats, they eat and drink.”
- Obscure, possibly corrupt.
27: “they perform the worship of the
mystery to the North, for the deity who makes the arrow fly. On this day also
they set up a table on which they place seven portions for the seven deities
and the North. The priest brings a bow which he strings, and into which he
fixes an arrow to which there is attached a firebrand. It has a flame at its
head and is made of wood which grows in the region of Ḥarrān. On it there is a
piece of cloth upon which the flame is ignited, just as it lights a candle. The
priest shoots twelve arrows. Then the priest walks as a dog does on his hands
and feet, until he fetches the arrows. he does this fifteen times and then
makes an augury, that is, he divines that if the firebrand is extinguished, the
feast in his estimation is not acceptable. But if it is not put out, then the
feast is accepted.”
Tammūz (July)
15 (?): “In the middle of the month
there is the Feast of al-Būqāt, that is, of the weeping women. It
is the Tāwuz, a feast celebrated for the god Tāwuz1.
The women weep for him because his master slew him by grinding his bones under
a millstone and winnowing them in the wind2. So the women eat
nothing ground by a millstone, but rather moistened wheat, chick-peas (ḥimmaṣ), dates, raisins, and similar
things.”
- No other than the god Tammūz, after whom the month is named; Tāwuz is from the Late Akkadian pronunciation (which changes intervocalic -m- to -w-), while Tammūz represents an older Aramaic adaptation of the same name.
- Like in Ibn Waḥshiyya (as will come up in a future post), the story has changed drastically from what we know from cuneiform literature.
- According to Dodge, he “is very likely meant to be the god Hamon or Khammān, worshipped at Palmyra”. But the real spelling is Bēl Ḥamon, and the change to ‘H’ has to be accounted for. The only thing that makes this identification plausible, to my mind, is that it would explain why this obscure figure is “the chief and father of the gods”, a title one would expect to refer to Bēl.
- Obscure, perhaps misspelled. Identification with Nemesis (suggested by Dodge) is possible but not particularly likely.
?: “During eight days they tread new
wine for the gods. They call it by many varied names. On this day they
sacrifice an infant boy1 when he is born to the gods who possess the
idols. They slaughter the boy and then boil him until he disintegrates. Then
the flesh is taken and kneaded with fine flour, saffron, spikenard, cloves, and
oil, and made into cakes as small as figs, which they bake in a new clay oven.
This takes place every year for those who observe the mystery of the North. No
woman, slave, son of a slave girl, or lunatic eats it [the cake] or watches the
slaughter of this child. When carried out, the rite is performed by only three
priests. The priests burn whatever remains of the bones, the organs, the
cartilages, the veins, and the jugular veins as an offering to the gods.”
- Human sacrifice was certainly practiced by Canaanites (incl. Phoenicians and the audience of some early Biblical texts), but it is unlikely that the custom should have been preserved through the centuries of Hellenization, when Greeks and Romans saw it as the peak of barbarism. More likely, Wahb ibn Ibāhīm is misinterpreting or misrepresenting a ritual that few were privy to. (Perhaps one involving symbolic human sacrifice, as in Greek Bacchic mysteries.) Similar libel attached itself to the temple of YHWH in Jerusalem and the Serapeum of Alexandria.
?: “During three of its days they
heat water in which they bathe (as?) a mystery to the North, the chief of the
jinn, who is the greatest divinity. They throw into this water some tamarisk,
wax, pine, olives, cane, and caustic. Then they boil it, accomplishing this
before the sun rises, and they pour it over their bodies as magicians do. At
this time they slaughter eight lambs, seven to the deities and one to the god
of the North. They eat in their assembly and each one drinks seven cups of
wine. The headman takes two silver coins for the treasury from each of them.”
26: “they go forth to the mountain
and observe the opposite position (al-istiqbāl)
of the sun and Saturn and Venus. They burn [as offerings] eight young chickens
and grown cocks, as well as eight lambs. Whoever is bound by a vow to the Lord
of Good Luck1 takes either a grown rooster or young chicken. On its
wing he fixes a firebrand, the top of which has been kindled with a flame, and
he sens forth the chick to the Lord of Good Luck. if the whole chicken burns up,
the vow is accepted but, if the firebrand is extinguished before the chicken is
burned, the Lord of Good Luck does not accept from him either the vow or the
offering.”
- “This was evidently Gad, a god of fortune and fertility”, says Dodge. I would not be as confident, although this may well be correct.
Tishrīn al-Awwal (October)
15 (?): “In the middle of this month
they make burnt offerings of food for the dying. That is, each one of them buys
a bit of every kind of edible meat and fruit to be found in the market, whether
fresh or dried. Then they cook varieties of cooked food and sweetmeats, all of
which are burned during the night for the dying. With this food there is also
burned (cooked) a bone from the thigh of a camel, which is given to the dogs of
persons in affliction so that they will not bark and terrify the dying. They
also pour mixed wine over the fire for their dying to drink, in the same way
that they eat the burnt food.”
Tishrīn al-Thānī (November)
9–29: “During twenty-one of its days
they fast. Nine days, the last one of which is the twenty-ninth, are for the
Lord of Good Luck. Every night they break soft bread with which they mix
barley, straw, frankincense, and fresh myrtle, and over which they sprinkle
oil. Then they mix it and distribute it among their houses, saying,
‘Oh diviners
of good luck, here is bread for your dogs, barley and straw for your beasts,
oil for your lamps, and myrtle for your crowns (wreaths). Enter in peace, go
forth in peace, and leave a good livelihood for our children and ourselves.’”
Kānūn al-Awwal (December)
4: “they erect a dome which they
name the Chamber of Balthā who is al-Zuharah (Venus), the flashing goddess, whom
they call al-Shaḥmīyah (the Glowing). They erect this
dome on the marble of the inner shrine, hanging many kinds of fragrant fruits
on it, with dried roses, citrons, small lemons, and such other fruits as they
can obtain, whether dry or fresh.
“In front of this dome they
slaughter sacrificial beasts chosen from as many kinds of animals as possible,
four-footed beasts and birds, saying
‘They are
slaughtered for our goddess Balthā,’
“who is al-Zuharah (Venus). They do
this for seven days and during these days they also burn many offerings of
animals for the gods and goddesses who are hidden, far removed, but substituted
for. They also [offer] plants of the water.”
30: “the beginning of the month of
the Raˀīs al-Ḥamd (the Head of Praise). On this day the priest sits on [the top
step of] an elevated pulpit with nine steps. He takes a tamarisk rod in his
hand and then, as the procession passes by him, he strikes each one of them
with the stick three, five, or seven times. Then he preaches a sermon to them,
in which he calls (prays) for all of them to live, to increase the number of
their offspring, and to gain power and superiority over all nations, that their
sovereignty and days of rule may return to them and that the congregational
mosque of Ḥarrān may be destroyed, as well as the Greek Orthodox Church and the
market street known as the Women’s Market. Before the Byzantine kings uprooted
them when they were conquered, it was in these places that their idols used to
be. He also calls for the revival of the religion of ˁUzūz1, which used to be in the place of these things that we
have described. Then he descends from the pulpit and they eat the slaughtered
victims and also drink. On this day the headman takes two silver coins for the
treasury from every man.”
- Multiple suggestions for this name’s meaning exist, none particularly satisfying.
24: “the birthday of the Lord, who
is the Moon. At this time they observe the mystery to the North, slaughtering
sacrificial victims and burning eighty creatures, both four-footed beasts and
birds. They eat and drink and for the gods and goddesses they burn al-dādhī, which are rods of pine.”
Shubāṭ (February)
9–15: “They fast […]. This fast is
for the Sun, the great lord, the Lord of Well-Being. During these days they eat
no meat and drink no wine. During this month, moreover, they pray only to the North,
the jinn, and the devils.”
Ādhār (March)
Ādhār 8 – Nīsān 7 (?): “They hold a
fast to the Moon from the eighth day, for thirty days. On the twentieth day the
presiding headman breaks barley bread for their assembly to Ares, the god who
is al-Mirrīkh (Mars).
30: “the beginning of the month of
al-Tamr, I mean of the dried dates, and [during] this [month] is the marriage
of the gods and goddesses They divide in it the dates, putting kohl [antimony
powder] on their eyes. Then during the night they place beneath the pillows
under their heads seven dried dates, in the name of the seven deities, and also
a morsel of bread and some salt for the deity who touches the abdomens1.
The presiding headman, moreover, takes two silver coins from each one of them
for the treasury.”
- “This evidently refers to women who wish to become pregnant.” (Dodge)
27–28: “Every twenty-seventh day of
the month, I refer to the lunar month1, they go out to their
sanctuary, which is known as Dayr Kādī. They slaughter and burn offerings to
the god Sīn, who is the Moon. They also eat and drink. Then on the twenty-eighth
day they go forth to the Cupola of al-Ujurr, where they slaughter and burn
sheep, cocks, and many small chickens to Ārīs, who is all-Mirrīkh (Mars).”
- I take this to meant that these rituals are repeated monthly, but perhaps I am misunderstanding something.
“If they wish to slay a large victim
like a zabrukh, which is a bull or a sheep, they pour wine over it while it is
still alive. If it quivers they say,
‘This
offering is received,’
“but if it does not quiver they say,
‘The
god is angry and will not receive this offering.’
“Their way of slaughtering every
kind of animal is to cut off its head with one blow. Then they carefully
observe its two eyes with their movements, as well as its mouth, its convulsions,
and how it quivers. They draw an augury from it, employ magic, and seek an omen
about what will happen and take place.
“If they wish to burn a large
animal, such as one of the cows, sheep, or cocks, while it is alive, they hang it
up with clamps and chains. Then a group of them exposes all sides of it to the
fire until it burns. This is their great offering, which is for all of the gods
and goddesses together. They state that the seven heavenly bodies, that is, the
deities, are males and females who marry and have passions for one another, and
also have bad and good luck.”
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