Sabians

The Sabians (/ˈseɪbiənz/; Arabic: صابئة‎) of Middle Eastern tradition were a religious group mentioned three times in the Quran as a people of the Book, "the Jews, the Sabians, and the Christians". In the hadith, they were described merely as converts to Islam, but interest in the identity and history of the group increased over time. Discussions and investigations of the Sabians began to appear in later Islamic literature.

Etymology

There has been much speculation as to the origins of the religious endonym from this practice. Judah Segal (1963) argued that the term Sābi'ūn derives from the Syriac root s-b-' , referring to conversion through submersion.

In the Qur'an

The Qur'an briefly mentions the Sabians in three places, with Hadith providing additional details as to who they were:

In later Islamic sources

According to Muslim authors, Sabians followed the fourth book of Abrahamic tradition, the Zabur, which was given to the prophet and King David of ancient Israel, according to the Qur'an. The Zabur is identified by many modern scholars as the Psalms. Most of what is known of them comes from ibn Wahshiyya's The Nabatean Agriculture, and the translation of this by Maimonides.