User:Ichthyovenator/Mesopotamian religion

Ancient Mesopotamian religion refers to the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, particularly Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia. [more intro]

The ancient Mesopotamian religion is believed to have developed in early forms as early as the 6th millennium BC, coinciding with the beginning of permanent settlement in Mesopotamia due to improvements in irrigation and preceding the invention of writing by about two millennia. The earliest surviving recognizable evidence of the religion dates to the 4th millennium BC. Several developments within the religion were the result of geopolitical history, such as changes in political structure and the rise and fall of empires. Though the Mesopotamian pantheon included more than two thousand deities, there were a much smaller number of prominent and important deities; often, the arrangement of deities at the top of the pantheon varied depending on time and location. In some cases there developed near-monotheistic sects, such as the veneration of Ashur in Assyria and the veneration of Marduk in Babylonia. The ancient religion survived long after the fall of the last native Mesopotamian state (the Neo-Babylonian Empire) in the 6th century BC. Despite widespread Christianization from the 1st century AD onwards and Mesopotamia subsequently falling under Christian, Zoroastrian and Muslim rule, it continued to persist throughout the Islamic period in remote areas. Its last known adherents, the sun-worshipping Shamsīyah of Mardin, converted to Syriac Orthodox Christianity in the 18th century to avoid persecution in the Ottoman Empire.

[myths, cosmology, morality]

[cultic practice, scholarly studies]

History [WIP]
Alt division: A Origins and development sections, section on different version and a section on "decline and disappearance" at the end

Origins and development [WIP]
The ancient Mesopotamian religion is believed to have developed in the 6th millennium BC, roughly in the period 6000–5500 BC, coinciding with the beginning of permanent settlement in Mesopotamia due to improvements in irrigation. Since this preceded the invention of writing by about two millennia, the early history and developments within the religion are entirely unknown. The earliest surviving evidence of the Mesopotamian religion comes from the 4th millennium BC, in the form of sparse ruins of temples and representations of deities on reliefs and seals. Because the early evidence is so scanty and only comes from a handful of sites it is only recognizable and understandable as religious evidence through what is known based on finds from later times. Understanding of the oldest attested forms of ancient Mesopotamian religion is as a result poor, especially for Mesopotamia as a whole.

The oldest traditions in ancient Mesopotamian religion can be ascertained through determining what is old and original in later traditions. It is likely that the chief deities of the most ancient known Mesopotamian cities have their roots in the founding of those cities, given that temples in such cities are often among the oldest local buildings. The city gods of Mesopotamia's earliest settlements appear to be tied to the environment in which the settlements are situated. Eridu, founded c. 5400 and situated in the far south, for instance worshipped Enki, god of fresh water and marsh life. Names such as "Enki" and "Enlil" may not have been the original names of deities; the development of the Mesopotamian religion was intimately connected to Mesopotamian politics and the incorporation of the word en ("lord") in the names of the deities implicitly connected them to geopolitical rulers and may as such have been a development of the Early Dynastic Period (c. 2900–2350 BC). Later Mesopotamian tradition maintained that a general assembly of the gods met in the city of Nippur, a tradition which must have begun in the Early Dynastic Period since the city does not predate that time.

Survival into the Christian period
Syria and Mesopotamia underwent Christianization from the 1st century AD onwards. Around the time of Assur's destruction in the 3rd century, it is clear that Christianity was becoming the major religion of the region, with the Christian God replacing the old Mesopotamian deities. Christianity in Syria and Mesopotamia long developed alongside vestiges the ancient Mesopotamian religion and the faiths were in competition until at least the 7th century. Aspects of the old religion, particularly worship of the sun-god Shamash, architecturally influenced early Christianity in Mesopotamia and elsewhere. Many of the earliest churches were repurposed pagan temples and the association of God with the sun helped many local pagans to seamlessly transition into Christianity. The cult of Shamash not only paved the way for the Christianization of Mesopotamia and Syria, but certain aspects of it were also retained to make Christianity more palatable. A prominent example is that churches still today face the direction of the sunrise, just like ancient temples dedicated to Shamash. Some ancient Mesopotamian rituals, such as the "medicine of life", found their way into later Christianity in the region.

Despite the ease of conversion and the increasing dominance of Christianity in the region, the ancient Mesopotamian religion continued to survive for centuries under Christian, Zoroastrian and subsequent Muslim rule, lingering on in remote country and mountain areas. Christianization, and later Islamization, was slow in rural regions and was never completed in swamp areas. Prominent sites that continued to be sites of ancient Mesopotamian rites well into the Christian period include Hatra, Kirkuk and Nippur. Edessa, one of Christianity's earliest strongholds in the region, continued to be the site of ancient Mesopotamian practices such as divination, medicine and magical charms until at least the 5th century.

Harran was one of the most prominent sites where the ancient Mesopotamian religion survived largely unimpeded and flourished. In 363, Julian, the last pagan Roman emperor, visited Harran at the beginning of his campaign against the Sasanian Empire. He consulted with the oracles of the city's moon temple, who warned him of impending disaster. When Julian was killed shortly thereafter, Harran was the only city in the Roman Empire to declare citywide mourning. Harran remained a seat of Mesopotamian religion deep into the Islamic period. The local version of the religion was mainly derived from the city's ancient cult of Sîn, but also had some influence from Greek philosophy and Biblical tradition. In 830, Caliph Al-Ma'mun arrived outside Harran with an army, intent on razing the city. Since only People of the Book were protected under Islamic law, Al-Ma'mun demanded to know whether its inhabitants were Christians, Jews or Muslims, and that he would sack the city if they were neither. In response to this, the Harranians claimed that they were "Sabians", an obscure religious group mentioned in the Quran who no one at the time knew who they were. The Harranians subsequently maintained their deliberately appropriated identity as "Sabians", a term which became virtually synonymous with "Harranian" and "astrologer".

Last holdouts
Many muslims considered the Harranians to be pagans, not "Sabians", with no special claim to protection or toleration; Al-Ash'ari (c. 874–936) for instance commented on their tenuous connection to the Sabians of the Quran and Al-Biruni (c.  973–1050) explicitly rejected their identity as "Sabians", instead associating them with Mesopotamian paganism. In 933, the Harranians were ordered through a decree to convert to Islam, but a visitor to the city in the following year found that there were still pagan religious leaders operating a remaining public temple. Toleration of them appears to have been renewed in the late 10th century. This toleration was finally revoked in the 11th century and the last moon temple in the city was destroyed. When this happened and in what context is not known; various different proposals place it between the city falling under Fatimid rule in 1032 to the aftermath of a 1083 rebellion. When the Spanish Arab geographer Ibn Jubayr (1145–1217) visited the city in the 1180s he found it fully devoted to Islam with no trace or memory of the moon cult.The last known holdout of the ancient Mesopotamian religion was the city of Mardin in southereastern Turkey, where worshippers of the old religion persisted until as late as the 18th century. This group of sun-worshippers referred to themselves as Shamsīyah, "sons of the Sun" or "Sun-people", and had previously been numerous in the upper Tigris region. An unrecognized religious minority in the Ottoman Empire, the Shamsīyah first came to the attention of the Ottoman government when Sultan Murad IV ((r. 1623 – 1640)) visited Mardin on his return after capturing Baghdad in 1638. Murad observed that the city was home to around a hundred families who adhered to the sun-worshipping cult. Since the Shamsīyah were not People of the Book they were under Islamic law formally condemned to choose exile or death. Their dilemma was resolved about a century later in the 18th century, when a patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church overlooked their paganism and agreed to baptize them and admit them into the church in order to safeguard them from Ottoman persecution. The Shamsīyah thus became Christians and conformed to all Syriac Orthodox practices, though they also kept some of their own traditions and their name. The hundred or so families observed in Murad's time still lived in the city and, although now Christians, still referred to themselves as Shamsīyah as late as the early 20th century. In 1965, the historian Thomas Bois remarked that the Shamsīyah "seem to have completely disappeared" and that it is probable that they merged with the rest of the Syriac Orthodox Christians, "at least to outward appearances".

In addition to influence on Syriac Christianity, aspects of the ancient Mesopotamian religion also survive in some other religions. Mandaeism, a Gnostic religion originating in the 1st century AD, is believed to in part have been influenced by the old Mesopotamian religion. It is possible that Yazidism also bears ancient Mesopotamian influence.