PAGANS AND GNOSTICSmonastery. A widow who served devils in the village of Niram tried
to destroy Cyprian's successor, Rabban Gabriel, with magic, and pa-
gans in the villages around the monastery cut down its trees. The
village of Koph was still inhabited by Magians, Manichaeans, and
pagans who were "mad and drunk with the worship of idols and other
things" and worshiped an olive tree until the fire temple was destroyed,
and a church was built in its place. Sometime in the early eighth
century, a great old tree called the "king of the forest" stood at Beth
Sharonaye, the home village of Thomas of Margha. The pagans of
the surrounding villages used to burn incense to it, and worship before
it, and a devil is said to have appeared in it.71 Pagan usages also
survived in popular customs in lower Iraq. These included the "won-
ders" worked by the poor people of the village of Fam Dibal, situated
on one of the branches of the Tigris near Wasit, who swallowed snakes
and walked through fire.72
Pagan traditions of magic were preserved and perhaps even devel-
oped. Magicians were said to venerate Bidiikht, whose throne was on
the water, with offerings of human and animal sacrifices because she
would fulfill the wishes of those who did her bidding. Ibn an-Nadim
tells of a magician who composed works entitled The Untied, The
Tied, The Knots, and The Twistings. Among the writings of Ibn Wal).-
shiyah al-Kaldani of Qussin near Kufa were works called Expulsion
of the Devils and Doctrines of the Chaldaeans about Idols,?3
The Sasanian tradition of mathematical astrology was still alive in
the seventh century and was employed in the eighth century by Masha'-
allah ibn Athari, a Jewish astrologer from Basra, who used Middle
Persian works to cast horoscopes, compute the positions of planets,
and to compose his astrological history. With Masha'allah, the Dor-
othean tradition began its elaboration in the Arabic language.^74 Some
Muslims learned to identify astrology with sorcery, and among the
~adith (AL) that discuss the "special knowledge" of sorcerers is one
which goes "He who learns knowledge from the stars learns a branch
of sorcery; the more of one, the more of the other."75
The pagan presence in early Islamic Iraq was as impressive as it was
71 Thomas of Margha, Governors, I, 109-10, 351-52, 370-71, 395-98; II, 242,
634-36,611,669-71,67.
72 QazwlnI, Athar al-bi/ad, II, 289.
73 Ibn an-Nadlm, Fihrist, II, 731.
74 Kennedy and Pingree, Astrological History, pp. 508.
75 A. Guillaume, The Traditions of Islam (Oxford, 1924), pp. 120-22.