96 CHAPTER FOUR
According to Maimonides’ description, at the basis of Sabian theurgy
is the belief in the ruhaniyyat associated with the various planets and
governing the diverse objects of the world. This belief is often mentioned
in Arabic literature, which sometimes (but not always) associates it with
the Sabians and with Hermetic literature.^54 This belief was clearly known
to contemporary Jews and Muslims as related to astrological and magi-
cal theories.
The description of the Sabians as believing in the eternity of the
world appears already in the oldest extant theological summa in Ara-
bic,Twenty Chapters, written in the fi rst half of the ninth century by
Dawud al- Muqammas. Muqammas, a Jew who was educated by Chris-
tians in Nisibis, identifi es the Sabians with ashab al- hayula, and associ-
ates them with the Manicheans.^55 The appearance of this association in
the writings of al- Muqammas indicates that already in the ninth cen-
tury such a description of the Sabians existed among the Oriental
Christians. These Christians are therefore a likely source from which
Jewish and Muslim heresiographers could draw their information re-
garding the Sabians.
As Pines has shown, the origin of Maimonides’ concept of talattuf is
probably Alexander of Aphrodisias’ On the Principles of the All, a work
that Maimonides mentions explicitly in a different context. Theoreti-
cally, his direct sources for this concept could also be some commentar-
ies on either Aristotle or Alexander.^56
In addition to the philosophical sources that he mentions explicitly,
Maimonides had recourse to other sources that he leaves unmen-
tioned,although some of them seem to have had a profound impact on
moving principle of the eternal motion of rotation, but I was unable to fi nd the opinion to
which Maimonides refers in either of the published texts.
(^54) For example, Shahrastani,Kitab al- milal wa’l-nihal, 203– 6. Shahrastani actually identi-
fi es the Sabians as “ashab al- ruhaniyyat”; and cf., for example, Judah Halevi (al-Kitab al-
Khazari), 20. See also S. Pines, “On the Term Ruhaniyyot and its Origin and on Judah
Halevi’s Doctrine,” Tarbiz 57 (1988): 511– 40. On the Arabic Hermetic literature, see van
Bladel,The Arabic Hermes.
(^55) See Stroumsa, Dawud ibn Marwan al- Muqammis‘s Twenty Chapters, 107 and note
30, 130 and note 12. On the association of the Sabians with this belief, see also Sayed
Nomanul Haq, Names, Natures and Things: The Alchemist Jabir b. Hayyan and His
Kitab al- ahjar (Book of Stones) (Dordecht and Boston, 1994), 156 (=Arabic 38:14),
246.
(^56) Pines, “Translator’s Introduction,” lxii– lxxiv; “Maqalat al- Iskandar al- afrudisi fi al- qawl
fi mabadi al- kull,” Abd al- Rahman Badawi,Aristuindal-Arab (Cairo, 1947), 253– 77,
esp. 265 ff; Ch. Genequand, Alexander of Aphrodisias on the Cosmos (Leiden, Boston, and
Köln, 2001), 16, 168; Guide 2.3; and see note 41, above. Maurice Kriegel has pointed to
Galen as a possible source for Maimonides’ concept of talattuf. See M. Kriegel, “Messian-
isme juif, dissidence chrétienne et réformes: les usages d’une thèse de Maïmonide,” Pardès
24 (1998): 197– 98 and note 5.