John C. Reeves, University of North Carolina at Charlotte 

Students of Manichaeism during the early years of the twenty-first century enjoy and exploit a rich assemblage of scholarly resources for the study of that religion. The now famous archaeological recovery at Kellis has augmented the literary and documentary corpus surviving from early Egyptian Manichaeism, and has helped clarify some of the issues surrounding the translation of Manichaean scriptures from their Syriac Vorlagen into Greek and Coptic. The earlier discovery and publication of the Cologne Mani Codex has revolutionized our understanding of Mani’s religious roots within third-century Mesopotamia, and has posed intriguing questions regarding the influence of both biblical and extrabiblical writings upon nascent Manichaeism. Scholars continue to probe and extend our awareness of the great manuscript finds recovered during the early decades of this century—the gradual but continual publication, translation, and discussion of the Medinat Madi and Turfan texts have vastly increased the primary sources available for the study of Manichaeism in its western and eastern forms. Older monographic syntheses of data and analysis have been supplanted in many respects by the authoritative presentations of Lieu and Tardieu; the pace of discovery and publication is now such that each of these newer books is in need of fresh revision. An International Association of Manichaean Studies links scholars who are active in this discipline across the globe, while organizing and coordinating periodic conferences for the public dissemination of the latest discoveries and analyses; in this country, the Manichaeism Group program unit has fulfilled a similar role under the auspices of the Society of Biblical Literature. Finally, a monumental publishing effort—the Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum—promises to collect together and reissue the most important primary texts and testimonies pertaining to Manichaeism (many of which prove difficult for the individual student to assemble) in order to improve access to these materials.

In spite of these noteworthy and indeed praiseworthy events, one area of Manichaean studies remains remarkably underdeveloped even amidst the current renaissance of scholarly activity. This largely neglected realm of inquiry is the study of the history and influence of Manichaeism as a viable minority religion within the orbit of Islam.  Serious students of Manichaeism recognize that the information supplied by Islamicate sources constitutes some of the most important data we have pertaining to the history of Near Eastern gnostic sectarian movements.  It is clear that a number of these writers were privy to Manichaean writings—either authored in or at some point translated into Arabic—that in most cases are no longer extant.  Some of these works were translations of the original Manichaean scriptural canon whose titles are known to us from earlier sources, whereas other cited writings were apparently authored, presumably in Arabic, by later generations of Manichaean teachers and evangelists.  Several of these Islamicate writers—to judge from their comments—had the opportunity to interact with individual members of living Manichaean communities, or at least to participate in dialogues with other intellectuals who exhibited some alleged sympathy with Manichaean ideology, or what was most often termed in Muslim sources the heresy of zandaqa. This label, allegedly deriving from an Iranian loanword originally applied to the Manichaeans during the Sasanian period by Zoroastrian critics, was adopted and amplified by ‘Abbasid jurists to denote a broad spectrum of dualist speculation and antinomian behavior.  Given the fundamental importance of the information preserved by Muslim tradents, as well as the notices and testimonies contained in contemporaneous Jewish and Christian sources produced within the Islamicate realm, it is disappointing that, relatively speaking, so little attention has been devoted to date to the close analysis and integration of this material into comprehensive synthetic treatments of the history of Manichaeism, or even, at the most basic level, to the preparation of a history of Islamicate Manichaeism.  While certain advances have been made, Islamicate Manichaeism remains today largely unexplored and underexploited. 

I suspect that a close reading of the Muslim sources, as well as a careful study of certain strands of Muslim philosophical and theological literature, will enhance our appreciation for the influence of Manichaeism and other strands of what Ibn al-Nadim termed 'Chaldean dualism' upon Muslim thinkers. We should also gain through this effort a more nuanced understanding of the interrelationships among the various sects and their impact upon the generation of Jewish and Christian literary responses to their teachings.  Once the intertwined processes of textual transmission, intellectual influence, and interreligious dialogue are better understood, we can then devote close attention to the engrossing issues surrounding the possible adoption of Syro-Mesopotamian gnostic imagery, mythemes, and behavioral attitudes by certain intellectual and/or religious movements within the Islamicate sphere—a topic which periodically surfaces in the writings of influential scholars like Massignon and Corbin, and which presently languishes for lack of a systematically detailed treatment in at least a monograph-length study.

The present work is under contract with Equinox Publishing Ltd. and its long delayed but now completed manuscript was dispatched to them in September of 2009.

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

1. Chapter One: Introduction

a. Who was Mani?
b. Manichaean prophetology
c. The Manichaean worldview
d. Manichaeism and Islam

2. Chapter Two: Biographical Testimonia about Mani 

a. Chronological and synchronic notices
b. Authentic biographical trajectories 
c. The Acta Archelai and its satellites
d. Imagining Mani 

3. Chapter Three: Fragments of Manichaean Scripture -- A Classified Collection of Islamicate Testimonia

a. Generic remarks on Manichaean script and scriptures
b. Gospel
c. Shābuhragān 
d. Book of Mysteries
e. Treasure/y of Life
f. Book of Giants 
g. Pragmateia 
h. Epistles
i. Ardahang
j. Unattributed, ‘non-canonical,’ or post-Mani literary citations

4. Chapter Four: Testimonia about Manichaean Teachings 

a. Jewish discussions
b. Mandaean discussions
c. Christian discussions
d. Zoroastrian discussions
e. Muslim discussions 

5. Chapter Five: ‘Historical’ Testimonia about Manichaeism and Manichaeans

a. Post-Mani historical developments
b. Martyrological traditions
c. The Manichaean ‘blood-libel’
d. Individual Manichaeans and alleged Manichaeans
e. Manichaean sectarianism 
f. Mazdak as Manichaean? 

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