Pockets of paganism survive in the MENA region till Muslim times

the definition of Paganism is always confusing.

if some bedouin or farmers say their Muslims, but give gift/sacrifice/respect to sacred well, sacred tomb, or sacred mountain, or Hidden Imam, is it really Paganism or just Folk Superstition ? Nejd Bedouin and Qarmatian would certainly think of themselves as Muslims.

another difficult boundary is 'polytheistic'. late-Roman religion is not always polytheistic, worship of APollo, Isis, or Sol Invictus is very close to 'normal' monotheistic worship. if they survive would we consider them 'monotheistic' like Yezidiz or Zoroastrian ?

some problem appear with boundary between Religious Reformer or Cults, Qarmatians is no more weird than Joseph Smith Mormons or Munster Anabaptists, relying on enemy accusation of 'polytheism' might not be good standard.

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if Afghanistan considered MENA, then pre-Nuristani people seems good candidate for 'True Polytheism'.
Comparing the Qarmatians to Mormons is a bit of a stretch, last time I checked the Mormons didnt sack Jerusalem or Rome or execute plans to kill pilgrims to holy sites........
 
the definition of Paganism is always confusing.

if some bedouin or farmers say their Muslims, but give gift/sacrifice/respect to sacred well, sacred tomb, or sacred mountain, or Hidden Imam, is it really Paganism or just Folk Superstition ? Nejd Bedouin and Qarmatian would certainly think of themselves as Muslims.

another difficult boundary is 'polytheistic'. late-Roman religion is not always polytheistic, worship of APollo, Isis, or Sol Invictus is very close to 'normal' monotheistic worship. if they survive would we consider them 'monotheistic' like Yezidiz or Zoroastrian ?

some problem appear with boundary between Religious Reformer or Cults, Qarmatians is no more weird than Joseph Smith Mormons or Munster Anabaptists, relying on enemy accusation of 'polytheism' might not be good standard.

---

if Afghanistan considered MENA, then pre-Nuristani people seems good candidate for 'True Polytheism'.

Qarmatians actually had the opinion of millenialism. They believed that they lived within a new era and that Islam was the last millennium. Thus, they would not see themselves as Muslim.
 
another difficult boundary is 'polytheistic'. late-Roman religion is not always polytheistic, worship of APollo, Isis, or Sol Invictus is very close to 'normal' monotheistic worship. if they survive would we consider them 'monotheistic' like Yezidiz or Zoroastrian ?
Probably not, just as we don't consider Hindus "monotheistic" despite the presence of currents like Vaishnavism or Shaivism that, at the very least, skirt quite close to the line in some forms. Of course, surviving Greco-Roman paganism likely involves changes significant enough that paganism would mean something wholly different, anyway...
 
I like the idea of paganism in the Berber areas (high mountains inhabited by a culturally and linguistically distinct people). Likewise, the French may have seen pagans in the area as a natural buffer against Islam as an anti French unifying force. As a result, the more secular French may well have been willing to protect it.

As a side note, though Ossetians in the Caucaus (sp) mountains identify as Russian Orthodox today, they still retain pagan fold practices including constructing altar where a bull's head is garlanded with flowers.
 
But that act did not instantly cause everyone to drop pagan practices.

Right. Though the rule of Islam did stop overt pagan activities aside from those of rebels or more veiled practices. No longer, would you have temples to other deities as such was forbidden within sharia of both Umayyad and Abbasid dominions.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05230a.htm

From Catholic Encyclopedia article on Eastern Church :

At Mardin still linger the remains of an <b> old pagan community of Sun-worshippers </b> who in 1762 (when the Turks finally decided to apply to them, too, the extermination that the Koran prescribes for pagans) preferred to hide under the outward appearance of Jacobite Christianity. They were, therefore, all nominally converted, and they conform the laws of the Jacobite Church, baptize, fast, receive all sacraments and Christian burial. But they only marry among themselves and every one knows that they still practise their old pagan rites in secret. There are about one hundred families of these people, still called Shamsiyeh (people of the Sun).

If this True, then a crypto-pagan pseudo-christian community survive until 1762.
 
I think there's a distinction to be made between folk beliefs and rituals, and paganism. They are clearly related in origins, but the continued existence of the former usually shouldn't be considered the survival of the latter. Christianity absorbed many such practices as it christianized new areas, and so did Islam, even though no Islamic purist would ever recognize that. A side effect of the Protestant reformation was to eliminate many local customs.

And on that note, sectarian evangelicals in the US, like Jack Chick, always attacked both Catholicism and Islam as "pagan".
 
I was discounting the Baltic states and Sweden. There is research that pagan practices survived in the west(among the peasantry) into the medieval ages.
I once read an article in Archaeology Magazine where a dig was conducted at a minor site in Cornwall. In the course of the excavation, they uncovered evidence in the form of ashes, pottery, animal bones etc. that the site (not surprisingly) continued to be used for ritual purposes long after the Mesolithic period.

Animal sacrifices and ritual offerings continued to be conducted at the site through the middle ages and into the renassiance (sp) despite various witch scares. The latest dates involving sacrificed dogs were from the 1950s. Though the people making the sacrifices in the 1950s undoubtably self identified as Anglicans or Catholics, they still retained ritual pagan based folk practices.

http://archive.archaeology.org/0811/etc/witches.html
 
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