Recurrent Patterns in Iranian Religions, From Mazdaism to Sufism: Proceedings of the Round Table held in Bamberg (30th September-4th October 1991).

• Author: Choksy, Jamsheed K.
• Position: Review

Edited by PHILIPPE GIGNOUX. Studia Iranica, Cahier, vol. 11. Leuven: PEETERS, 1992. Pp. 173, plates. FB 1200.

The volume under review contains ten of thirteen papers delivered at a round table meeting held during the second Conference Internationale des Etudes Iraniennes de la Societas Iranologica Europaea at the University of Bamberg, Germany. As the collection's title suggests, the articles examine a range of Iranian religious beliefs and practices. Since the presentations and resulting articles cluster around certain themes, this review will also be thematic rather than follow the order in which the articles are arranged in the volume.

Carsten Colpe's "Der 'iranische Hintergrund' der islamischen Lehre vom Vollkommenen Menschen" sets the stage with a brief overview of theories on Iranian contributions to the notion of the perfect man. Next comes an interesting study, "Imago dei: De la theologie nestorienne a Ibn al Arabi" by Philippe Gignoux. Though his article is, again, more a review of the state of scholarship than a new synthesis, Gignoux leads readers through the development of Nestorian thought on imago dei in the Syriac writings of Bardaisan, Aphraates, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Theodore bar Koni, among others. He then concludes that Nestorianism did not influence greatly Islamic views of the perfect man, but rather that Islam, in general, and Sufism, in particular, were more likely to have assimilated this notion from the Zoroastrian or Mazdean faith. In particular, he focuses on three books from the Zoroastrian priestly tradition of the ninth century A.D. - the Denkard or Acts of the Religion, the Dadestan i Denig or Religious Judgments, and the Saddar Bundahishn or book of Primal Creation in One Hundred Chapters. Gignoux relies heavily on earlier work, especially that by Marijan Mole and Henry Corbin. The eventual conclusion, not surprisingly, is that the issue needs further study. It is unfortunate that Gignoux did not consider fully the possibility that Iranian forms of Islam drew upon well-entrenched Muslim notions that divine images are reflected in God's creations - images that would have been reinforced by the presence of parallel ones among Christians and Zoroastrians. Annemarie Schimmel's account of Muhammad as the ideal model, And Muhammad is his Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1985), garners considerable evidence to support this position. Todd...