The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World) [Hardcover]

T. M. Green (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 9004095136 | ISBN-13: 978-9004095137 | Publication Date: August 1997

This study treats the religious and intellectual history of the city of Harran (Eastern Turkey) from biblical times down to the establishment of Islam. The author starts from the well-known reference in the Q'uran and the early Islamic histories to the people of Harran as Sabians, one of the "peoples of the book". He unravels strands of religious tradition in Harran that run from the old Semitic planetary cults through Hellenistic hermeticism, gnosticism and Neo-Pythagoreanism and Christian cults to esoteric Islamic sects such as the Sufis and Shia.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'..".I welcome Green's book, which should spur scholars to renewed efforts.'
Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, "Religious Studies Review, 1994.
'"Tamara Green est en effet bien qualifiie pour nous offrir de nouveaux ouvrages sur les rapports entre les Sabiens et les Musulmans et dans cette perspective on souhaite voir les risultats de ses recherches futures.'
Cosmas Megalommatis, "Journal of Oriental and African Studies, 1993.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: Brill Academic Pub (August 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9004095136
• ISBN-13: 978-9004095137
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,817,018 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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This review is from: The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World) (Hardcover)

One might be tempted to ask, why study the long lost city of Harran? Certainly the greatness of many ancient cities has vanished as completely as that of Harran, cities richer, more powerful and more famous; but the fascination of Harran is not in its political or economic history, but rather, in what it has come to represent in the history of ideas, for the religious and intellectual history of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Harran offers the opportunity to examine the development of diverse symbolic universes, the various and competing conceptual machineries constructed for their maintenance, and the simultaneous persistence and transformation of traditions. The city of Harran compels the attention of both the intellectual historian and the sociologist of religion for two reasons: first, although we know very little about the intellectual traditions of Harran prior to the Muslim conquest, the city suddenly emerges as a likely candidate in the difficult search for the points of transmission of the multi-form legacy of the late antique Greek world into Islam; secondly, in an investigation of ideological and religious continuity in the face of changing social structures, the city will provide an extraordinary case study.