Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/202

 But there were other influences of a secondary character at work in 'Iraq and Persia which become important when we remember that it was the subject population of those parts which had, to a large extent, replaced the Arabs as the leaders of Islam during the 'Abbasid period. In connection with the Sufis probably we cannot refer any influence to the Zoroastrian religion proper, which had a non-ascetic and national character; but the Manichæan and Masdekite religions, the two "free churches" of Persia, show a definitely ascetic tone, and when we find, as is the case, that many of the early Sufis were converts from Zoroastrianism, or the sons of such converts, we are inclined to suspect that, though professing that recognised religion, they were in all probability actually Zindiqs, that is to say secretly heretics and initiates of the Manichæan or Masdekite sect making external profession of the more recognised cult, as was the common practice of these Zindiqs. Note must also be made of the Gnostic influences transmitted through the Saniya of the fen country between Wasit and Basra, the Mandæans, as they are called to distinguish them from the so-called Sabians of Harran. The Sufi Ma'ruf of Karkh was himself the son of Sabian parents. And again we must not ignore the probability of Buddhist influences, for Buddhist propaganda had been active in pre-Islamic times in Eastern Persia and Transoxiana. Buddhist monasteries existed in Balkh, and it is noteworthy that the ascete Ibrahim b. Adham (d. 162—cf. supra) is