On Early Samaritan ʿAqīdah

Abstract The Samaritan theological treatises, written in Arabic between the 11th and 18th centuries, have been largely, and unjustly, overlooked by scholars. Unlike early hymnographic and midrashic literature, most of the works produced by this tradition’s representatives remain unpublished and unstudied. Meanwhile, Samaritan theology exemplifies an interesting model of interaction between a closed ethnic-religious community and its broader Muslim environment. The aim of this article is to analyse the sources of Ṣadaqah al-Ḥakīm’s The Book of Belief ( Kitāb al-Iʿtiqād ) to clarify its relationship with Islamic religious and philosophical discourse on the one hand, and with the works of Samaritans on the other.