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medieval worlds • no. 17 • 2022
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Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Austrian Academy of Sciences Press
A-1011 Wien, Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2
Tel. +43-1-515 81/DW 3420, Fax +43-1-515 81/DW 3400 https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at, e-mail: verlag@oeaw.ac.at |
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DATUM, UNTERSCHRIFT / DATE, SIGNATURE
BANK AUSTRIA CREDITANSTALT, WIEN (IBAN AT04 1100 0006 2280 0100, BIC BKAUATWW), DEUTSCHE BANK MÜNCHEN (IBAN DE16 7007 0024 0238 8270 00, BIC DEUTDEDBMUC)
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medieval worlds • no. 17 • 2022, pp. 97-119, 2022/11/30
This article uses Arabic sources to examine the Islamic-era mowbed (Zoroastrian chief priest) in Abbasid society, in what I argue is the conscious continuation of the mowbed’s pre-Islamic role as judge, scholar, sage, and advisor to kings. Moreover, I argue that the mowbed used his status to promote the standing of the Zoroastrian community, as well as to assert the authority of the priesthood within that community – an authority which was negotiated under Muslim rule and through Islamic and particularly Shiʿi figures, above all ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 661 CE). Muslims were already debating the status of Zoroastrians, or Magians, as part of the ahl al-dhimma – with Shiʿi strands of tradition supporting more favorable views of the Magians. We should understand mowbeds as part of this dialectic, seeking the favor of caliphs, amirs, and sometimes rival sectarian leaders. As well as providing a survey of Arabic references to mowbeds in the Islamic period, this article will study two relevant Arabic texts: the first is a previously untranslated risāla composed in 986 on behalf of the Buyid amir Ṣamṣām al-Dawla by Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm al-Ṣābi ̉ (d. 994), in which Magians, and specifically »the sons of Ādhurbādh b. Mārsfand«, claim to have a letter of protection from ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib which grants them an exemption from paying the jizya; the second is a passage in al-Bīrūnī’s (d. 1048) al-Āthār al-bāqiya, which also asserts that the Zoroastrian priesthood was descended from Ādhurbādh b. Mārsfand – and moreover that access to knowledge of the Avesta was certified through written documents.
Keywords: Zoroastrians, priesthood, authority, mowbed, dhimma, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, Buyids, Ṣamṣām al-Dawla, Shiʿism