Our Cousins, the Mandaeans
Mandeans practicing the rite of baptism in the United States.
A look at the followers of John the Baptist
By Adhid Miri, PhD
The Mandaeans are one of the world’s oldest and smallest religious communities. They are also known as Sabaeans (“conversion by submersion”) because of the importance of baptism to their teachings. They have lived for over 2,000 years in southern Iraq and Iran, alongside the rivers that play such an important role in their religious life.
Sabaeans (Subbi) share some similarities with both Muslims and Christians. Their beliefs are similar to Islam in describing God as one and indivisible, and like Christians, they believe in the power of baptism. However, differences seem to outweigh the similarities.
An archived photo of a Mandaean man from the Library of Congress.
Courtesy of Matson (G. Eric and Edith) Photograph Collection, Library of Congress
History
The Mandaeans may have originally come from Palestine, though there are different opinions on this question. Sabean-Mandaeans claim ancestry from Mesopotamia and are confined to lower Iraq, except for minuscule communities in Khorramshahr and Ahwaz, in southwestern Iran, and a community of silversmiths and their families in Baghdad.
Today, the principal centers of the Subba are in southern Iraq, in the marsh districts and on the lower reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris. Groups of them are found in the more northerly towns of Iraq.
From the 1960s onwards, the Mandaeans began to leave their traditional villages, settling in some of the larger cities such as Baghdad, Basra, and Ahvaz, where many Mandaeans found prosperity and success in the larger society of Iraq and Iran.
After the Islamic revolution of 1978-1979 in Iran, their status was unclear. Despite reports of persecution, the community survived. The Iran-Iraq war separated the two communities, and worse was to follow for the Iraqi Mandaeans; after 2003, the escalation of sectarian violence caused huge numbers to flee the country. Despite its dhimmi (“protected persons”) status, Shi’a and Sunni Islamic militants targeted the group. Making them a target was made easier by the fact that Sabean-Mandaeans are prohibited by their beliefs from armed self-defense.
Hundreds of killings, abductions and incidents of torture were accompanied by rhetoric accusing Sabean-Mandaeans of witchcraft, impurity, and systematic adultery. Sabean-Mandaean women were targeted for not covering their heads. In Baghdad, Sabean-Mandaean goldsmiths, silversmiths, and jewelers were targeted for theft and murder at much higher rates than their Muslim colleagues.
Faced with systematic pressure to convert, leave, or die, many Sabean-Mandaeans choose to leave Iraq.
Religion
The Mandaeans classify existence into two main categories: light and dark. They have a dualistic view of life that encompasses both good and evil; all good is thought to have come from the World of Light and all evil from the World of Darkness.
Sabaeans consider their religion to be one of the oldest in the world and hold themselves to be the followers of the message given to Adam. Mandaeans revere Adam, Seth (Adam and Eve’s third son), Noah, Shem, Enos, and especially John the Baptist. They believe that at the beginning of creation there was fire, followed by light, then the living heat, the living water, and finally the World of Light that others call the kingdom of God or Heaven.
According to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, God created the first man, Adam, and from his rib created the first woman, Eve. This story is different among the Mandeans. They believe that Eve was created from mud as an equal to Adam.
Similar to Christians, Mandaeans have their own temples and rituals. They acknowledge 17 deadly sins and believe salvation can be achieved through knowledge of truth and worship. Sabaeans are a lonely, peaceful, and reclusive community. The only one way to become a Sabaean is to be born to parents who both belong to the faith, which bans interreligious marriage. Sabaean Mandeans fast and pray three times a day to God in Aramaic, a language they share with Chaldeans. They are forbidden to kill, lie, commit adultery or theft, or consume alcohol. They must fast 36 days a year, abstaining from eating meat, eggs, and fish.
They are also forbidden to mourn the dead. In Mandaean beliefs, a person is born three times. First from the mother at the physical birth, second after the first baptism (usually during the first month after birth) and third upon death and ascension of the soul to the world of lights. Every living person has a body (Baghra) on earth and an equivalent half in the ethereal world of lights.
Mandaeism is an esoteric religion whose literature remains mostly in the hands of priestly families. Their sacred texts are written in a distinctive alphabet used only for that purpose. The contents and meaning of these works are largely unknown even to most Mandeans, never mind people outside the community.
But the Mandeans’ alternative view has periodically attracted popular interest. In the 19th century, their most important sacred text, the Great Treasure, or Ginza Rba, was translated to Latin. That is believed to have contributed to the heightened interest in esoteric mysticism and spirituality in that era, although contrary to popular belief, Mandaeans do not practice magic of any form.
The Mandaean religion entrusts priests with the responsibility of keeping religious knowledge and performing extremely complex rituals which help souls through this life and into the next. Few lay Mandaeans have any religious knowledge and there is a shortage of priests, whose number is believed to be fewer than 50 worldwide.
John the Baptist
The Mandaean community reveres John the Baptist, whom they call Yehyea or Yohanna, along with water’s purifying force. Baptism, or Masbuta, is the key ritual of this gnostic faith. Unlike Christians who receive the sacrament of Baptism once, the Mandaeans may be baptized hundreds of times over their lifetime.
John the Baptist, who was born in the 1st century BC and died between 28-36 AD, was a Jewish prophet of the Jordan River region, celebrated by the Christian Church as the forerunner to Jesus Christ. He emerged from the wilderness preaching a message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and offered a water baptism to confirm the repentant person’s commitment to a new life cleansed from sin.
John the Baptist is one of the most significant and well-known figures in the Bible, described to be a “lone voice in the wilderness” as he proclaimed the coming of the Messiah to a people who desperately needed a Savior.
Baptism
The Mandaeans’ central ritual is baptism: immersion in flowing water, which is referred to in Mandaic as “living water,” a phrase that appears in the Bible’s New Testament as well.
Baptism in the Mandaean faith is not a one-time action denoting conversion as in Christianity. Instead, it is a repeated rite of seeking forgiveness and cleansing from wrongdoing in preparation for afterlife. The purpose of the baptism is to contact the healing powers of the World of Light and to purify believers from sin. Without baptism, there is no hope of ascending to the Great Life.
Unlike Christian baptism, which is only done once, Mandaeans are baptized when they are born, before marriage, after marriage and frequently in between, but always in fresh water. The fresh and flowing water symbolizes that life is always flowing. This is also the reason why many Mandaean temples are built next to rivers. Most temples also have a pool in their courtyard.
Baptisms take place every Sunday and the performing priests are dressed in special white garments like those worn by the Levite priests. The ritual includes prayers, triple self-immersion, triple immersion by the priest, triple signing of the forehead with water, triple drinking of water, investiture with a myrtle-wreath, blessing by the priest laying his right hand on the head of the initiate, hymns, and formulas.
Mandaean priests are dressed completely in white, considered pure and representing faith and the cleansing of the soul. After the ceremony, Mandaeans return to their homes for 36 hours, marking the time it took for God to create the world and the first man, Adam.
Within those hours they teach Adam’s stories and continue in his path. Fasting is also key to this experience, but the word means more than abstention from food. Fasting does not mean fasting food and water, but real fasting is the great fast that includes fasting of the mouths (“shall not lie”), fasting of the eyes (“shall not see the wrongdoing”), and fasting of the legs (“we shall not walk into the wrong path”).
Survival
Since the outbreak of Iraq’s violence in 2003, most Sabean-Mandaeans have either fled the country or been killed. Today, there are fewer than 5,000 remaining in Iraq. As their small community is scattered throughout the world, the Sabean-Mandaeans’ ancient language, culture and religion face the threat of extinction, much like the Chaldeans’.
In 2006, UNESCO listed the Sabean-Mandaean language in its Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing. The departure of many Sabean-Mandaean religious leaders from Iraq also threatens the ability of the remaining community to retain their rituals.
Sabean-Mandaean families have also been affected by the rise of ISIS in Iraq since 2014. In Baghdad, they were targets for attacks and kidnappings. They also experience discrimination and negative stereotyping in all aspects of public life, with some reporting that other Iraqis will refuse to share food or drink from the same glass as a Sabean-Mandaean. These factors, combined with the effects of the ISIS advance, continue to drive them to leave Iraq.
Like Chaldeans, Mandaeans nowadays live all around the world. It’s estimated there are between 60,000 to 70,000 Mandaeans worldwide. Australia is home to 10,000, around half of whom live in or near Sydney’s western suburbs. The UK, the community is tiny and has no priest to serve it. In Europe and the United States, they number in the thousands but in the Middle East, especially Syria, they now face a highly uncertain future in a context of civil war.
This scattering, combined with Mandaeans’ dwindling numbers, has made it much harder for them to preserve their identity and pass their traditions along to the next generation.
My desire to write about our Mandaean cousins and brethren is driven by a need to communicate, to stimulate, to comfort ourselves in the dark and to reflect on what it means to exist. This was a short summary of a people’s struggle to survive loss and an outline of the unfolding tragedy of an ancient Mesopotamian community. It is part of our sad and shared history in scope and human scale. Many, including this author consider the genocide of Iraqi minorities to be the most significant event of the twenty-first century.
You can help keep family and friends informed by sharing this article. There is a reasonable chance that Mandaeans may be among your neighbors, whether you live in Sterling Heights, Warren, Rochester, West Bloomfield, Oak Park, or Southfield. Look for them, and you may get a chance to do more than catch a glimpse of living history.
Sources: Wikipedia, Saad Salloum, Habib Hannona, Bashar Harbi, E. S. Drower, Siobhan Hegarty, Matthew Bell, James F. McGrath, Jimmy Joe, Valentinas Mite, and The Monitor. Special editing by Jacqueline Raxter and Rand Isaq.