Reflections on Multiple Readings of the Mani Movement in the Historiography of the First Centuries

In the representation and retelling of the Mani religious movement in the first centuries' historiography, three main approaches can be identified except in a few narrations. These representations (at least in two approaches) are formulated with the central concept of "Zandiq." These three approaches are: First, the approach of conscious transition and conciseness, based on attitudes and narrations with anti- Zandiq content, with prominent representatives such as Tabari, Abu Hanifa Dinevari, Muskawiyyah, and Ibn Athir; Second, a historical-theological approach based on a heretical reading of the Mani movement with the world - influential historians such as Abu Rihan al-Biruni, al-Maqdisi, Tha'labi, Ya'qubi, and Khawaja Nizam al-Mulk al-Tusi; Third, a relatively descriptive-historical approach with a comparably lower value of judgments with historians such as Masoudi and Gardizi. In a deep entanglement with the discourse of this age, these three approaches create a set of propositions and narratives around the issue of Mani, of which this character and his religious movement are the focal points. The problem of this study is to explain why and how the Mani religious movement is represented in the historiography of the first centuries; With the hypothesis that the various aspects of this re-reading have been the product of the political, theological, and cultural space of this period as well as the ideas, methods, and insights of the historians of this period.