Barbara Walters chats with Forward Syria
Swaying between art and seduction
Discussing monetary policy with the man in charge
Where the earth screams in horror
07/14/2010 - Issue 41
Mandaeans struggle on
by Stephen Starr
Followers of John the Baptist continue to survive as religious refugees in Syria, against the threat of total extinction
Photography by John Wreford
At a rundown restaurant on the outskirts of Damascus, a unique gathering is taking place. Men and women, young and old are dressed in snow white cloth from head to toe. A small swimming pool is being readied with water flowing in, and out. A bamboo tent frame is being constructed with nine mud plates laid down on a make-shift table inside.
People are buzzing around as an atmosphere of expectation builds. Rare, becoming rarer events are about to take place on this warm and peaceful Sunday morning in May: Mandaean weddings and baptisms.
Sabean Mandaeans, the followers of John the Baptist, are a little-known group that migrated from Palestine to the regions of today’s southern Iraq in the second century AD. They are pacifists: handling a weapon is illegal and in the war zones that have been Baghdad, Mosul and Ramadi for the past several years, as such, were and are at a distinct disadvantage.
Reading from the Kinsa—the Mandaeans holy book—Sheikh Selim Ghata prepares to start the mass baptisms. Today there are over 20 men and almost the same number of women to be baptised in a truly unique ceremony. Mandaeans can be baptised as many times as they wish.
Under Saddam Hussein, Mandaeans held a solid, if circumspect position in Iraqi life. They were lawyers, university professors (indeed, Baghdad University was co-founded by a Mandaean man) and most prominently, goldsmiths.
Mandaeans pray three times a day and fast from animal food during their “lent” each spring. Mandaeanism is a monotheistic religion but different from the holy trinity, as the jovial Hamed (second name withheld for security reasons) is keen to point out. There are the concepts of heaven and hell, of giving alms and of course, baptism.
“We can’t exactly say that we are a completely independent religion— John’s mother and Jesus’ mother were sisters so, there is a link,” said Hamed from the spartan office of the Mandaean Society in Syria organization. Hamed receives an extremely important $300 for his pension each month which has been transferred to a Syrian bank from Baghdad. He is grateful for the hospitality shown to him in Syria—and so he might be.
A letter signed by the Islamic Mujahedeen and distributed to Mandaean houses and businesses in March 2005 demanded Mandaeans to convert, leave Iraq or be slaughtered.
Others have even been injured by attacks from American troops.
Suhair, a former coordinator with USAID in Baghdad, told us of how on the 1,500 kilometer journey to Damascus, she had to wear a hijab so as to not attract attention from hijackers in the vast expanses of al-Anbar province, once one of the most dangerous places in Iraq.
“Many people died on the trip over to Syria and Jordan, not many people know of this,” said Suhair. True enough, the roads of western Iraq have been deadly. According to the Mandaean Associations Union’s November 2009 report, in June 2006 one man and his three young children were killed near Ramadi on the way to Jordan. They were shot dead by insurgents after it had been discovered they were Mandaeans. One of the children was two-years-old.
Other Mandaeans have been threatened for taking part in the American film, “Battle for Haditha,” a 2007 production about the slaughter of 24 Iraqis in the said town and which was filmed in Jordan.
But more pressing, in 2010, Mandaeans are facing a very real and present existential threat.
The war in Iraq has seen their numbers reduced to around 10% of pre-2003 levels. Mandaeans have been raped, sodomized, kidnapped and forced to convert. Women have been murdered for not wearing headscarves. Children of barely walking age have been slaughtered. Men have been taken out of their shops, called to convert or “die by sword” and then disemboweled. Few, if any groups in Iraq have experienced the horror of war like the Mandaean community.
For this reason, between 5 and 7,000 today live as refugees in Syria, the majority holed up in the working class neighborhood of Jaramanah.
“Here in Syria we can’t dream or plan for anything,” said Suhair. “Because we are becoming more and more dispersed, I think there will be no Mandaeans in 30 years,” added Hamed.
Back at the wedding and baptism ceremonies there are smiles all round. “Repeat after me” booms Sheikh Selim Ghata to the groom, minutes away from wedded life. “I promise to be faithful to my wife, to take care of her at all times, to take care of my children and to be a true Mandaean.”
In a separate “tent” several yards away from her groom, the bride-to-be is holding up a mirror to her face while facing into a white sheet. The mirror is to cleanse her of her past sins in preparation for married life. The groom moves over to the bride’s “tent” and she holds the rope from her groom’s cloth dress as the Sheikh continues praying for them. And then it ends. The groom picks up his new wife and runs off across the garden to the laughter of relatives. A new Mandaean union is formed.
