are sometimes dubious.^25 In par ticular, one cannot ignore the fact that
Masudi lived four centuries after the events on which his entire theory is
based. Moreover, Tardieu’s interpretation of Masudi’s assertions in these
lines is not supported by any other text. For example, it is diffi cult to un-
derstand the basis for his suggestion to identify the Sabian hall of meet-
ing (majma) as a Platonist academy.^26
Tardieu’s theory was accepted by a number of leading scholars,^27 and
rejected outright by others.^28 While it is diffi cult to refute a theory that
lacks proof, Dimitri Gutas has decisively proven that the designation
Harrani is also used in the sense of “pagan,” and therefore, when sources
associate the Sabians with the area of Harran, the name should be under-
stood as a general term, and not as denoting a par ticular religion or peo-
ple.^29 Joep Lameer refuted Tardieu’s theory from another angle, showing
that “we do not possess any positive evidence for the existence of a philo-
sophical ‘academy’ of any kind in Antioch or Harran in the eighth and
ninth centuries.”^30
(^25) No one, for example, proposes to accept Masudi’s fantastic descriptions regarding the
Sabian palaces on the Chinese border as historical evidence— see Masudi,Muruj al-
dhahab, 4:169 ff.; Corbin, “Rituel sabéen”, 181– 84.
(^26) Tardieu, “Sabiens,” 17– 18. The usual term to denote an encounter of intellectuals for
discussion, as well as the place where such encounters took place, is majlis. Masudi himself
uses this latter term when discussing the instruction of the Aristotelian tradition, in a pas-
sage quoted by Tardieu, “Sabiens,” 20– 21.
(^27) See, for example, G. W. Bowersock, Hellenism in Later Antiquity (Ann Arbor, 1990), 36;
J. Teixidor, Bardesane d’Edesse, la premièrephilosophie syriaque (Paris, 1992), 127 and
note 4; J. Jolivet “Esquisse d’un Aristote arabe,” in A. Sinaceur, ed., Penser avec Aristotle
(Toulouse, 1991), 179– 85, esp. apud note 18; J. Parens, Metaphysics as Rhetoric: Alfara-
bi’s Summary of Plato’s “Laws” (Albany, 1995), xxx– xxxi, and 151n4; J. Stern, “The Fall
and Rise of Myth in Ritual: Maimonides versus Nahmanides on the Huqqim, Astrology
and the War Against Idolatry,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 6 (1997): 189.
(^28) See, for example, C. Luna’s review of R. Thiel, Simplikios und das Ende der neuplatonis-
chen Schule in Athen (Stuttgart, 1999), in Mnemosyne 54 (2001): 482– 504; A. Becker,
Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School of Nisibis and Christian Scholastic
Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia (Philadelphia, 2006), 129, and note 25; K. van Bl-
adel,The Arabic Hermes (forthcoming), chap. 3 (“Hermes and the Sabians of Harran”);
I am indebted to Kevin van Bladel for allowing me to consult his book before publication.
See also C. D’Ancona Costa, “Commenting on Aristotle: From Late Antiquity to the Arab
Aristotelianism,” in W. Geerlings and C. Schulze, Der Kommentar in Antike und Mittela-
lter: Beiträge zu seiner Erforschung (Leiden, Boston, and Köln, 2002), 228– 29; and see
below.
(^29) D. Gutas, “Plato’s Symposion in the Arabic Tradition,” Oriens 31 (1988): 44n34.
(^30) J. Lameer, “From Alexandria to Baghdad: Refl ection on the Genesis of a Problematical
Tradition,” in G. Endress and R. Kruk, eds., The Ancient Tradition in Christian and Is-
lamic Hellenism: Studies on the Transmission of Greek Philosophy and Sciences, Dedicated
to H.J. Drossart Lutlofs on his Ninetieth Birthday (Leiden, 1997), 181– 91, esp. 189.
Lameer (ibid., 186) rightly states that “we do not know a single scholar’s name to be asso-
ciated with an academy at Harran in the period under consideration and neither do we