Prolegomena to a History of Islamic Manichaeism

This book provides an anthology of sources highlighting Manichaeism, a gnostic religion which flourished largely clandestinely in the Near East, Central Asia, and China until the beginning of the 17th century.

"Reeves is a superb scholar who has meticulously researched the literature relevant to this project. His extensive learning is manifest throughout. Nothing like this anthology exists in English for the Islamicate testimonia on Manichaeism, and therefore it fills an extremely important gap."---Michael A. Williams, Professor of Comparative Religion and Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, University of Washington

Prolegomena to a History of Islamicate Manichaeism provides an annotated anthology of primary sources highlighting Manichaeism, a dualist religion emerging in Mesopotamia in the third century and which spread rapidly throughout the Roman and Sasanian empires until it was violently suppressed by both polities. It nevertheless continued to flourish - largely clandestinely - in the Near East, Central Asia, and China until it finally disappeared at the beginning of the seventeenth century. This book translates and assesses the importance of a number of Arabic, Persian, Syriac, and even Hebrew language testimonies for a better understanding of the cultural importance of what many scholars characterize as the first world religion.