interest that this discovery requires, one might say that no one prior to
him could have made it.
The method of taking data acquired from a “secular” culture and using
them for understanding the religious tradition is typical of Maimonides.
Lawrence Berman has demonstrated that “[Maimonides] took the Alfara-
bian theory of the relationship between philosophy, religion, jurisprudence
and theology and applied it in a thorough manner to a par ticular religion,
Judaism.”^91 Berman further adds that “Maimonides did what no one else
did explicitly in medieval Middle Eastern culture.” In Maimonides’ study
of the Sabians, he uses the same method, with similarly revolutionary re-
sults. In identifying the magical or “agricultural” literature attributed to
the Nabateans and to others with Sabian culture, Maimonides believed
that he had discovered the textual basis for the study of paganism in antiq-
uity. The insights he developed on this basis suggest a line of thought simi-
lar to the one pursued by modern biblical scholarship in its quest for the
origins of Israelite religion, and its attempts to understand it in the context
of the polytheism in which it germinated. One might say that in this way
Maimonides developed the fi rst systematic Jewish attempt to carry out a
comparative study of the history of religion, an attempt to understand the
laws of the Torah within their cultural context.
Maimonides’ innovation has not been acknowledged by modern schol-
ars, who read the Guide within the confi nes of their specifi c areas of ex-
pertise. For scholars of Arabic culture, in pursuit of the Sabian nation,
Maimonides is only a late source who refl ects the confusion found in ear-
lier sources. Chwolsohn has already asserted that Maimonides’ Sabians
are useless in the attempt to identify the historical Sabians, and he dis-
misses him saying, “[Maimonides’] statements must therefore be viewed
as nothing but stories about the pagans and paganism, recounted by an
uncritical Jewish- Arab sage of the Middle Ages.”^92 Steinschneider, who
disagreed with Chwolsohn in other matters, shared his opinion regarding
Maimonides’ uncritical scholarly approach.^93 A similar judgment was is-
sued by Baron,^94 as well as by Tardieu.^95
(^91) Berman, “Maimonides the Disciple of al- Farabi,” 155; See also Kraemer, “On Maimo-
nides’ Messianic Posture,” 100– 109.
(^92) Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier, 1: 716.
(^93) Steinschneider, “Zur pesuepigraphischen Literatur,” 4– 5.
(^94) S. Baron, “The Historical Outlook of Maimonides,” PAAJR 6 (1935): 5– 113 (Reprinted in
S. W. Baron, History and Jewish Historians [Philadelphia, 1964], 109– 63, and esp. 115).
A similar reservation is also implied by Halbertal and Margalit, who do not mention the
topic of the Sabians in their book on idolatry. The summary of their analysis of Maimonides’
position begins with the words, “what ever historical validity Maimonides’ description may
have had,.. .”; see M. Halbertal and A. Margalit, Idolatry (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), 44.
(^95) See note 32, above.