‘The Samaritan Hexameron’ as an Arab-Muslim Anthropological Manifesto: Reading of the first Chapters of Ṣadaqah al-Ḥakīm’s Commentary on Genesis

Abstract

The offered to the reader article analyzes the first chapters of monumental commentary by Ṣadaqah b. Munajjā al-Ḥakīm on Genesis (XIII c.). On the base of the conducted analysis of the Middle Age Arab-speaking theologian, philosopher and doctor, the author comes to the conclusion that Samaritan thought depends on the most important achievements of Muslim one — especially, on Mu‘talizi and peripatetic natural- philosophical and metaphysical theories that don’t become less of an issue until the decline of classical era of Arab culture. For the first time in the history of orientalism it is shown that the basic principles of anthropological theories by al- Hakim retroduce the conceptions by Mu‘tazili Mu‘ammar ibn ‘Abbād alSulamī, faylasuf al- Kindī and ‘the Main Sheikh’, Ibn Sīnā. Separately is observed the connection between the ‘Hexameron’ by Ṣadaqah and works by other Samaritan theologians: the author notices that some particular anthropological notes by the theologian made a basis for an unpublished commentary by Muslim ibn Murjān and Ibrāhīm al-‘Ayyah (XVIII c.) on ‘Grizim’s’ Pentateuch. The conclusion of the work is dedicated to the general eclectic character of early and late exegetic tradition of Samaritan who accepted Muslim study of God and human as the most important for them.