A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE MANICHAEAN CONCEPT TAUM (“TWIN”) AND ṬABĀʿ AL-TĀM IN THE ISLAMIC WORKS

Manichaeism abounds with the names of the deities and angles that individually possess eminent positions in this religion. Undoubtedly, however, in regard to the role, place, and importance, none of them is comparable with At-tawm or Nar-jamīg who is the spirit through which the revelations were delivered to Mani. Mani claimed that via “taw’am” he had received his first revelation at the age of twelve, and then later the edict of his prophecy at the age of twenty four. In Middle Persian the name of this angle of revelation is Nar-jamīg which means “Twin”. Mani believed himself to be the Paraclete that Jesus Christ had annunciated the good news of his apparition. In the Coptic Manichaean Kephalaia, this Paraclete is the same Mani’s twin and he has the characteristics of nar-jamīg in Middle Persian texts. In this thesis, through an analytical descriptive approach and the use of library resources, the subject was explained, and moreover we discussed the technical term Pasāgrīw that means the person who comes “after him” (Jesus) and is equivalent to the Paraclete. Mani saw himself behind the term Pasāgrīw. However, studies show that the concept of At-Tawm has been present in pre-Manichaean thoughts including Hermeticism and Gnostic-Christian ideas, and a considerable number of Muslim mystics used this concept to present and extend their own mystics topics. In this thesis, through a scientific analysis we try to explain the nature of the relationship between the concept of Tabāʿ al-Ṭām in some Muslim philosophers’ thoughts, e.g. Shahab al-Din Suhrewardi as the originator of the Iranian school of Illuminationism on the one hand, and the concept of At-Tawm in Manichaean, Hermetic, and Gnostic-Christian texts on the other.