the people of Harran (1); he served as the tutor of Marwan ibn Muhammad (2), and for that reason he was sometimes called al-Jaʿdī (3). In those days Harran was the seat of the Sabians (4)—philosophers who clung to the creed of their forefathers and were enemies of Abraham the Friend. Abraham (5) had been one of them and summoned them to ḥanīf monotheism, and his story is as Allah has related in His Book. The argument advanced by the idolaters of India is false, and so is the reply offered by the Sabian innovators and by the innovators of this Ummah who have followed them. Their claim that “whatever a servant does not perceive (6) with his senses he will not acknowledge, or he denies it altogether” can only mean one of two things: either that every individual affirms nothing except what he himself has perceived with one of his five senses, or that a person affirms only what people, in general, have perceived—or what could, in principle, be perceived (7).
(1) Harran: a major city renowned on the route between Mosul, Syria, and Byzantine territories, once inhabited by the ṣābiʾa (Sabians). It is mentioned by the authors of works on sects and creeds (kutub al-milla wa-al-niḥal). Conquered during the caliphate of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb by ʿIyāḍ ibn Ghannam, it was also the birthplace of several scholars. See: Muʿjam al-Buldān, Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī, 2:234–236.
(2) Abu ʿAbd al-Malik Marwān ibn Muḥammad ibn Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam al-ʿUmayyad, the last Umayyad caliph, known as Marwān al-Ḥimār for his boldness in warfare and as Marwān al-Jaʿdī after his tutor Jaʿd ibn Dirham. Born 72 AH, assassinated 132 AH. See: Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (al-Dhahabī), 6:74–77; al-Bidāya wa’l-Nihāya (Ibn Kathīr), 10:54–56; al-Aʿlām (al-Zarkalī), 8:96–97.
(3) In S: “al-Jaʿd.”
(4) In T: “al-ṣābiʾa.”
(5) In S and T: “Ibrāhīm al-Khalīl.”
(6) In S: “lahu.”
(7) In the original manuscript: “imma an yurād”; in T: “aw an yurīd.” The reading adopted here is that of S.