[269] Sheheristáni derives the name صابيا _sábía_ from the Syriac verb _sábá_, “to love, to desire.” It has also been deduced from _saba_, “a host,” (meaning the stars); commonly it means “an apostate from another religion;” so was called Muhammed for having abandoned this very Sábéan religion, before him dominant in Arabia, to which religion, however, he granted protection in his Koran, associating it there with Judaism and Christianism. According to Maimonides (who died A. D. 1208), this religion was very ancient, and once pervaded nearly the whole world. It is said to have been founded by _Seth_, Adam’s son (who is also called the _Egyptian Agathodémon_, master of _Hermes_), whose son was _Sábí_. It was propagated by Enoch (also Hermes). The most ancient books of this creed are reported to be written in the language which Adam and his sons spoke: the Arabians still show a book of Seth. The original religion of the Sabaians consisted in the veneration of the stars and of angels, and coincided in its principal notions with the ancient system of the Persians, as described in vol. I. Pursuant to Sheheristáni, the Sabaians were worshippers of _chapels_ and of _images_. The bodies of the seven planets they called _chapels_; these they held to be inhabited by intelligences, by which they were animated in the same manner as our bodies are by souls. They observed the rising, setting, and motion of the stars, for the division of time, and, mixing superstitious notions and rites with their observations, made seals and talismans, and used incantations and particular prayers; they not only built chapels of different figures, but also formed images of different metals appropriated to each of the planets; by the mediation of the images they had access to the chapels; by means of the chapels to the intelligences or lords; and by aid of these to the supreme God, the Lord of lords. In this manner they held the planets to be inferior deities, mediators between man and the supreme God. According to the before-mentioned Maimonides, they acknowledged no deities except the stars, among which the sun was the greatest. Abul faraj says that they firmly believed the unity of God. Among the sects of this religion is that of the _Harbanists_, or _Harnanites_: these believe one God manifesting himself in different bodies, heavenly and terrestrial, his creatures; he committed the government of the inferior world to the first: these are the fathers, the elements the mothers, and the compound beings the children of both. After the period of 36,425 years, the universe perishes; nature is then renewed by a couple of each species of beings; thus centuries succeed each other, and there is not any other _resurrection_.