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Mandaeism
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Mandaeism or Mandaeanism (Mandaic: Mandaiuta, Manda'iyya) is a monotheistic religion with a strongly dualistic worldview. Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enosh, Noah, Shem, Aram and especially John the Baptist.
Mandaeism has historically been practiced primarily in the country around the lower Euphrates and Tigris and the rivers that surround the Shatt-al-Arab waterway. This area is currently part of southern Iraq and Khuzestan Province in Iran.
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Mandaeism or Mandaeanism (Mandaic: Mandaiuta, Manda'iyya) is a monotheistic religion with a strongly dualistic worldview. Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enosh, Noah, Shem, Aram and especially John the Baptist.
Mandaeism has historically been practiced primarily in the country around the lower Euphrates and Tigris and the rivers that surround the Shatt-al-Arab waterway. This area is currently part of southern Iraq and Khuzestan Province in Iran. Persecution in Iraq and Iran has caused many Mandaeans to leave for diaspora populations in Europe, Australia and North America.
There are thought to be between 60,000 and 70,000 Mandaeans worldwide, and until the 2003 Iraq war, almost all of them lived in Iraq. The 2003 Iraq War reduced the population of Iraqi Mandaeans to approximately 5,000 by 2007. Most Iraqi Mandaeans fled to Syria and Jordan under the threat of violence by other Iraqis and the turmoil of the war.
The Mandaeans have remained separate and intensely private—what has been reported of them and their religion has come primarily from outsiders, particularly from the Orientalists J. Heinrich Petermann, Nicholas Siouffi, and Lady Ethel Drower.
Origin of the term "Mandaean"
The term "Mandaean" comes from Classical Mandaic Mandaiia and appears in Neo-Mandaic as Mandeyana. On the basis of cognates in other Aramaic dialects, Semiticists such as Mark Lidzbarski and Rudolf Macuch have translated the term manda, from which Mandaiia is derived, as "knowledge" (cf. Aramaic ???????? in Dan. 2:21, 4:31, 33, 5:12; cpr. with typical assimilation of /n/). This etymology suggests that the Mandaeans may well be the only sect from late Antiquity to identify themselves explicitly as Gnostics. Certainly, the Mandaean religion shares much with the ensemble of sects labelled as Gnostics, which date to the 1st century AD and the following centuries; however, there are crucial differences, particularly in the realm of the behavioral ethics of the laity.
It should be emphasized that this identification is largely a product of western scholarship, and was not current in the Mandaean community itself until comparatively recently. Other scholars derive the term mandaiia from Manda d-Heyyi (Mandaic manda "Knowledge of Life", reference to the chief divinity hiia rbia "the Great Life") or from the word (bi)manda, which is the cultic hut in which many Mandaean ceremonies are performed (such as the baptism, which is the central sacrament of Mandaean religious life). This last term is possibly to be derived from Pahlavi m’nd mand ("house").
Other associated terms
Within the Middle East, but outside of their community, the Mandaeans are more commonly known as the ubba (singular ubbi). The term ?ubba is derived from the word mu?battah , the baptism ritual of the Mandaeans. In Islam, the term "Sabians" ( ) is used as a blanket term for adherents to a number of religions, including that of the Mandaeans, in reference to the Sabians of the Qur'an. Occasionally, Mandaeans are called Christians of Saint John, based upon preliminary reports made by members of the Discalced Carmelite mission in Basra during the 16th century.
A mandá is a place of worship for followers of Mandaeism. A mandá must be built beside a river in order to perform ma?battah because water is an essential element in the Mandaeic faith. Modern mandás sometimes have a bath inside a building instead.
Mandaean beliefs
Mandaeism, as the religion of the Mandaean people, is based more on a common heritage than on any set of religious creeds and doctrines. A basic guide to Mandaean theology does not exist. The corpus of Mandaean literature, though quite large, covers topics such as eschatology, the knowledge of God, and the afterlife only in an unsystematic manner, and, apart from the priesthood, is known only to a few laypeople.
Fundamental tenets
According to E.S. Drower, the Mandaean Gnosis is characterized by nine features, which appear in various forms in other gnostic sects:
- A supreme formless Entity, the expression of which in time and space is creation of spiritual, etheric, and material worlds and beings. Production of these is delegated by It to a creator or creators who originated in It. The cosmos is created by Archetypal Man, who produces it in similitude to his own shape.
- Dualism: a cosmic Father and Mother, Light and Darkness, Right and Left, syzygy in cosmic and microcosmic form.
- As a feature of this dualism, counter-types, a world of ideas.
- The soul is portrayed as an exile, a captive: her home and origin being the supreme Entity to which she eventually returns.
- Planets and stars influence fate and human beings, and are also places of detention after death.
- A saviour spirit or saviour spirits which assist the soul on her journey through life and after it to 'worlds of light'.
- A cult-language of symbol and metaphor. Ideas and qualities are personified.
- 'Mysteries', i.e. sacraments to aid and purify the soul, to ensure her rebirth into a spiritual body, and her ascent from the world of matter. These are often adaptations of existing seasonal and traditional rites to which an esoteric interpretation is attached. In the case of the Naoreans this interpretation is based upon the Creation story (see 1 and 2), especially on the Divine Man, Adam, as crowned and anointed King-priest.
- Great secrecy is enjoined upon initiates; full explanation of 1, 2, and 8 being reserved for those considered able to understand and preserve the gnosis.
Mandaeans believe in marriage and procreation, and in the importance of leading an ethical and moral lifestyle in this world, placing a high priority upon family life. Consequently, Mandaeans do not practice celibacy or asceticism. Mandaeans will, however, abstain from strong drink and red meat. They look forward to a future liberated from the influence of the Torah, which they regard as evil in origin. While they agree with other gnostic sects that the world is a prison governed by the planetary archons, they do not view it as a cruel and inhospitable one.
Mandaean scriptures
The Mandaeans have a large corpus of religious scriptures, the most important of which is the Genza Rabba or Ginza, a collection of history, theology, and prayers. The Genza Rabba is divided into two halves—the Genza Smala or "Left Ginza" and the Genza Yemina or "Right Ginza". By consulting the colophons in the Left Ginza, Jorunn J. Buckley has identified an uninterrupted chain of copyists to the late 2nd or early 3rd c. AD. The colophons attest to the existence of the Mandaeans during the late Arsacid period at the very latest, a fact corroborated by the Harran Gaweta legend, according to which the Mandaeans left Judea after the destruction of Jerusalem in the 1st c. AD, and settled within the Arsacid empire. Although the Ginza continued to evolve under the rule of the Sassanians and the Islamic empires, few textual traditions can lay claim to such extensive continuity.
Other important books include the Qolasta, the "Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans", which was translated by E.S. Drower. One of the chief works of Mandaean scripture, accessible to laymen and initiates alike, is the Draša d-Iahia "the Book of John the Baptist", which includes a dialog between John and [Jesus]]. In addition to the Ginza, Qolusta, and Draša, there is the Divan, which contains a description of the 'regions' the soul ascends through, and the Asfar Malwashe, the "Book of the Zodiacal Constellations". Finally, there are some pre-Muslim artifacts which contain Mandaean writings and inscriptions, such as some Aramaic incantation bowls.
The language in which the Mandaean religious literature was originally composed is known as Mandaic, and is a member of the Aramaic family of dialects. It is written in a cursive variant of the Parthian chancellory script. The majority of Mandaean lay people do not speak this language, though some members of the Mandaean community resident in Iran (ca. 300–500 out of a total of ca. 5,000 Iranian Mandaeans) continue to speak Neo-Mandaic, a modern version of this language. It is from this that some people may be named Aram.
Cosmology
As noted above (under Mandaean Beliefs) Mandaean theology is not systematic. There is no one single authoritative account of the creation of the cosmos, but rather a series of several accounts. Some scholars, such as Edmondo Lupieri, maintain that comparison of these different accounts may reveal the diverse religious influences upon which the Mandaeans have drawn and the ways in which the Mandaean religion has evolved over time.
In contrast with the religious texts of the western Gnostic sects formerly found in Syria and Egypt, the earliest Mandaean religious texts suggest a more strictly dualistic theology, typical of other Iranian religions such as Zoroastrianism, Zurvanism, Manichaeism, and the teachings of Mazdak. In these texts, instead of a large pleroma, there is a discrete division between light and darkness. The ruler of darkness is called Ptahil (similar to the Gnostic Demiurge), and the originator of the light (i.e. God) is only known as "the great first Life from the worlds of light, the sublime one that stands above all works". When this being emanated, other spiritual beings became increasingly corrupted, and they and their ruler Ptahil created our world. The similarity between the name Ptahil and the Egyptian Ptah should also be noted—the Mandaeans believe that they were resident in Egypt for a while.
The issue is further complicated by the fact that Ptahil alone does not constitute the demiurge but only that he fills that role insofar as he is the creator of our world. Rather, Ptahil is the lowest of a group of three "demiurgic" beings, the other two being Yushamin (a.k.a. Joshamin) and Abathur. Abathur's demiurgic role consists of his sitting in judgment upon the souls of mortals. The role of Yushamin, the senior being, is more obscure; wanting to create a world of his own, he was severely punished for opposing the King of Light.
Chief prophets
Mandaeans recognize several prophets, among whom Iahia or Iuhana "John the Baptist" is accorded a special status, higher than his role in Christianity and Islam. In contrast to common belief, Mandaeans do not consider John to be the founder of their religion but merely revere him as one of their greatest teachers, tracing their beliefs back to Adam.
Mandaeans maintain that Jesus was a mšiha kdaba "false messiah" who perverted the teachings entrusted to him by John. The Mandaic word k(a)daba, however, derives from two roots: the first root, meaning "to lie," is the one traditionally ascribed to Jesus; the second, meaning "to write," might provide a second meaning, that of "book"; hence some Mandaeans, motivated perhaps by an ecumenical spirit, maintain that Jesus was not a "lying Messiah" but a "book Messiah", the "book" in question presumably being the Christian Gospels. This seems to be a folk etymology without support in the Mandaean texts.
Likewise, the Mandaeans believe that Abraham, Moses, and Muhammad were false prophets, but recognize other prophetic figures from the monotheistic traditions, such as Adam, his sons Hibil (Abel) and Šitil (Seth), and his grandson Anuš (Enosh), as well as Nuh (Noah), his son Sam (Shem) and his son Ram (Aram). The latter three they consider to be their direct ancestors.
Priests and laymen
There is a strict division between Mandaean laity and the priests. According to E.S. Drower (The Secret Adam, p. ix):
[T]hose amongst the community who possess secret knowledge are called Nauraiia—Naoreans (or, if the heavy '' is written as 'z', Nazorenes). At the same time the ignorant or semi-ignorant laity are called 'Mandaeans', Mandaiia—'gnostics'. When a man becomes a priest he leaves 'Mandaeanism' and enters tarmiduta, 'priesthood'. Even then he has not attained to true enlightenment, for this, called 'Nairuta', is reserved for a very few. Those possessed of its secrets may call themselves Naoreans, and 'Naorean' today indicates not only one who observes strictly all rules of ritual purity, but one who understands the secret doctrine.
There are three grades of priesthood in Mandaeism: the tarmidia "disciples" (Neo-Mandaic tarmidana), the ganzibria "treasurers" (from Old Persian ganza-bara "id.", Neo-Mandaic ) and the rišamma "leader of the people." This last office, the highest level of the Mandaean priesthood, has lain vacant for many years. At the moment, the highest office currently occupied is that of the , a title which appears first in a religious context in the Aramaic ritual texts from Persepolis (ca. 3rd c. BCE) and which may be related to the kamnaskires (Elamite kapnuskir "treasurer"), title of the rulers of Elymais (modern Khuzestan) during the Hellenistic age. Traditionally, any who baptizes seven or more may qualify for the office of rišamma, though the Mandaean community has yet to rally as a whole behind any single candidate.
The contemporary priesthood can trace its immediate origins to the first half of the 19th century. In 1831, an outbreak of cholera devastated the region and eliminated most if not all of the Mandaean religious authorities. Two of the surviving acolytes (šgandia), Yahia Bihram and Ram Zihrun, reestablished the priesthood on the basis of their own training and the texts that were available to them.
Related groups
According to the Fihrist of ibn al-Nadim, Mani, the founder of Manichaeism, was brought up within the Elkasaites (Elcesaites or Elchasaite) sect. The Elkasaites were a Christian baptismal sect which may have been related to the Mandaeans. The members of this sect, like the Mandaeans, wore white and performed baptisms. They dwelled in east Judea and northern Mesopotamia, whence the Mandaeans claim to have migrated to southern Mesopotamia, according to the Harran Gawaita legend. Mani later left the Elkasaites to found his own religion. In a remarkable comparative analysis, Mandaean scholar Säve-Söderberg demonstrated that Mani's Psalms of Thomas were closely related to Mandaean texts. This would imply that Mani had access to Mandaean religious literature.
Other groups which have been identified with the Mandaeans include the "Nasoraeans", described by Epiphanius, and the Dositheans, mentioned by Theodore Bar Koni in his Scholion. Ibn al-Nadim also mentions a group called the Mughtasila, "the self-ablutionists", who may be identified with one or the other of these groups. The members of this sect, like the Mandaeans, wore white and performed baptisms.
Whether groups such as the Elkasaites, the Mughtasila, the Nasoraeans, and the Dositheans can be identified with the Mandaeans or one another is a difficult question. While it seems certain that a number of distinct groups are intended by these names, the nature of these sects and the connections between them are less than clear.
Mandaeans today
Recent persecution
Mandaeans in Iraq are being subjected to some forms of harassment by Islamic extremists. There are also reports of attacks on women who refuse to veil themselves. Most Iraqi Mandaeans have fled as a result, and the Mandaean community in Iraq faces extinction.
Mandaeans in Iran are not subject to sectarian violence as they are in Iraq, but are prohibited from fully participating in civil life in Iran by the Gozinesh Law (passed in 1985). This law and other gozinesh provisions make access to employment, education, and a range of other areas conditional upon a rigorous ideological screening, the principal prerequisite for which is devotion to the tenets of Islam. These laws are regularly applied to discriminate against religious and ethnic groups that are not officially recognized, such as the Mandaeans.
Diaspora and Iraq War
Out of the over 60,000 Mandaeans in Iraq in the early 1990s, only about 5,000 to 7,000 remain there; as of early 2007, over 80% of Iraqi Mandaeans were refugees in Syria and Jordan as a result of the Iraq War. There are small Mandaean diaspora populations in Australia (c. 3,500 as of 2006), Canada, the USA (c. 1,500), the UK (c. 1,000) and Sweden (c. 5,000).
The contemporary status of the Mandaeans has prompted a number of American intellectuals and civil rights activists to call for their government to extend refugee status to the community. In 2007, The New York Times ran an op-ed piece in which Swarthmore professor Nathaniel Deutsch called for the Bush administration to take immediate action to preserve the community:
See also
Other related religions
External links
- - The Mandaean Association Union is an international federation which strives for unification of Mandaeans around the globe. Information in English and Arabic.
- - Information on the Mandaeans including history, the Mandaic language and Literature.
- - A video by News21.
- - CNN
- Shahab Mirza'i, Ablution of Mandaeans (Ghosl-e Sabe'in - ??? ??????), in Persian, Jadid Online, December 18, 2008, .
Slide show (showing Iranian Mandaeans performing ablution on the banks of the Karun river in Ahvaz): (4 min 25 sec).
Books about Mandaeism available online
- : Ginza Rba and Haran Gawaitha texts and fragments -- Take note the book titled Ginza Rba is not the Ginza Rba but is instead "The Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans" as translated by E.S Drower.
- : This is the complete 1924 edition of G.R.S. Mead's classic study of the Mandćan John-Book (in The Gnosis Archive collection - www.gnosis.org).
- a complete version (with old and new errors), contains information on Mani, Manichaeism, Elkasaites, Nasoraeans, Sabians and other gnostic groups. Published in 1901, still considered authoritative.
- Leiden, 1962
- by Lady Drower, 1937 - the entire book
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