RESOURCESducee" and gnostic affinities of Karaism have been related to the
ancient Qumran texts by N. Wieder, The Judean Scrolls and Karaism
(London, 1962) and A. Paul, Ecrits de Qumran et sects juives aux
premiers siecies de I'Islam: Recherches sur l'origin du Qaraism (Paris,
1969). But even if someone did discover one of these texts in the ninth
century, it is difficult to see how that could have influenced those
Karaites who stayed in Iraq and Iran. On related issues, see G. Scholem,
Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1954), especially the
chapter on "Merkabah Mysticism and Jewish Gnosticism," pp. 40-
79.
There are general discussions of Jews in the early Islamic period by
S. Goitein, "Jewish Society and Institutions under Islam," Cahiers
d'Histoire Mondiale 11 (1968): 170-84, and by G. E. von Grunebaum,
"Eastern Jewry under Islam," Viator 2 (1971): 365-72.Christians
The largest single body of source material composed in sixth-and
seventh-century Iraq is the Christian Syriac literature of the Nestorians
.and Jacobites (Monophysites). Modern scholarship on these materials
is immense but deals almost entirely with issues of church history and
religious life and thought, with very little attention given to how these
materials could be used for comparative religion, social and economic
history, or wider issues in intellectual history. The major Syriac chron-
icles and lives of Christian martyrs have already been cited. Published
collections of texts begin with J. S. Assemanus (G. S. Assemani), Bi-
bliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana (Rome, 1719-28j', in three
volumes with Latin translation. Volume 2 (Rome, 1721) contains
Monophysite texts; volume 3, part I (Rome, 1725) and part 11 (Rome,
1728), contains Nestorian texts. There is a German translation in two
volumes by A. Pfeiffer called Joseph Simonius Assemanns orientalische
Bibliothek; oder Nachrichten von syrischen Schriftstellern (Erlangen,
1776-77). Texts are also collected in J.P.N. Land's four-volume Anec-
dota Syria ca (Leiden, 1862-75), and in R. Graffin, ed., Patrologia
Syria ca, vol. I. (Paris, 1894); 11 (Paris, 1907); III (Paris, 1926). The
verse catalogue of 'Abhd-Ish6' (Ebedjesu), ca. 1300, surveys authors
and many works which no longer survive, so it gives a better idea of
what kind of works were being written. This text is in Assemani, BO,
Ill: 1-362. Selections from Syriac texts are translated into English in
W. G. Young's Handbook of Source Materials for Students of Church
History (Serampore, 1969).