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The Doctor Is In: Men & Good Health
Ford Field hopes to pack the stadium with men this Saturday, and it's not for football. It's the 6th annual Men's Health Event hosted by the MIU Men's Health Foundation.
It kicks off at 9 a.m.
It's all about the guys and good health. And best of all it's FREE!!!
Two of the doctors organizing this event will be joining Deena Centofanti on Fox 2 News Morning and The Nine Wednesday. They will also be answering questions involving men's health live in the chat room.
Beginning at 8:35, ask your questions in the chat room.
Dr. Mark Moyad
MIU Men's Health Event and U of M Doctor
Dr. Michael Lutz
Urologist, MIU Men's Health Event
On Saturday, September 24, 2016, MIU Men's Health Foundation hosts the 6th annual Men's Health Event at Ford Field from 9AM-3PM.
This FREE event provides men a better understanding of how to stay healthy, free health screenings to assess their current health, and information about advances in healthcare.
The event also provides free flu shots, free haircuts, "Ask a Healthcare Expert" and "Ask a Pharmacist" booths, raffle prizes, health and sport displays, fitness activities, guest speakers and more!
Fitness activities include a self-paced 5K run/walk, kids fitness clinics led by Detroit Body Garage, yoga classes including kids and partner yoga led by Detroit Community Yoga, a full body weight workout led by Jody Trierweiler, from Jody's FitLive on Comcast and Detroit Lions Football Drills from 10AM to 3PM.
Special guests include the Former Detroit Lions Kicker, Eddie Murray who will be signing autographs from 11AM to 12PM, Roary and the Detroit Lions Cheerleaders!


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This was the best activity I have ever done at a hen party. No improvements necessary: perfect!
Alternative Christmas Function
Treat the team to an alternative works party to see in the festive season! Create bespoke tree decorations, textile wreaths, customise Christmas stockings or even make a pair of fancy festive pants!
Select from our core range of festive craft workshop options, (or let us know if you have an alternative activity in mind) and get in touch for a personalised quote for your works do this year. A chance for the whole team to let their hair down, relax and get into the festive spirit!
We'll supply a wide range of materials, fabrics, buttons, paints and trims for everyone to select from on the day, as well as all the tools you'll need. On the day we will show you a number of creative and decorative techniques ranging from needle felting, hand sewing, surface decoration, appliqué, ceramic painting and more. We'll even bring along some sequins, sparkle and jingly bells for those finishing flourishes.
Run by our professional team of experience crafts people, our workshops are suitable for all abilities, ages and sizes. Sessions mainly involving sewing and textiles, jewellery making and a little bit of creative thinking! Perfect for experiencing a different way of thinking, and for igniting a spark of imagination in all our crafty teams!
Working nationwide, we'll come to you at your office space, a local venue or a community space to deliver your crafty Christmas experience.
Come say hello to tell us more about your festive party plans.

subset: commoncrawl


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Jamsie Hall has been alternating between hurdles and fences and is much better handicapped over the smaller obstacles though he's a massive 17lb higher than when scoring over the C&D on fast ground in June. Lady Olwyn won over the C&D on heavy going before following up at Sligo. She was beaten a long way when runner-up on her hat-trick bid but is still reasonably treated and has to be on the short-list. POINT THE TOES, who won this a year ago, was behind Lady Olwyn here but has a big weight advantage and has since run well behind Rare Symphony at Downpatrick. She can return to winning ways though Kilcross Boy ran very well behind Cerveza Dinero at Limerick and looks a threat as long as the going doesn't become too testing.
Limpopo Tom (IRE) 14-1 (11-12) Mid-division, ridden in moderate 7th 2 out, kept on one paced, 5th of 16, 22l behind Credit Box (10-9) at Ballinrobe 2m 4f hcp hdl 80-109 sft in Sep.
Jamsie Hall (IRE) 25-1 (10-9) Waited with towards rear, left closer 4 out, 6th next, disputing 3rd approaching straight, soon no impression under pressure, kept on same pace, 4th of 18, 11l behind Faltering Fullback (9-12) at Listowel 3m hcp chs hvy in Sep.
Ordinary Man (IRE) 5-1 (10-1) in a race won by Torphichen (10-13) at Listowel 2m 4f hcp chs sft in Sep, 7 ran.
Point The Toes (IRE) 6-1 (10-12) Waited with, niggled along to close into 3rd before 2 out, challenged run-in, kept on same pace in 3rd closing stages, 3rd of 8, 1l behind Rare Symphony (10-9) at Downpatrick 2m 2f mare hcp hdl 8Evens16 gd in Sep.
Masked Phantom (IRE) 9-2fav (11-8) Chased leaders, 6th before 3 out, soon no impression, kept on same pace, 9th of 16, 14l behind Glenbarrow (11-2) at Kilbeggan 2m 3f hcp hdl 80-109 gd in May.
Kilcross Boy (IRE) 8-1 (11-11) Waited with towards rear, headway to chase leaders going well into straight, soon not much room on inner, ran on well under pressure run-in without getting to winner, 2nd of 18, 3/4l behind Cerveza Dinero (11-5) at Limerick 2m 6f Amateur Handicap Hurdle (80-109) (4yo+) gd in Jul.
Hollyville (IRE) 33-1 (11-5) Chased leaders, 7th halfway, weakened after 4 out, 16th of 20, 38l behind Sea Stallion (11-8) at Gowran Park 2m 4f hcp hdl 80-102 gd.
Lady Olwyn (IRE) 7-1 (10-13) Tracked leaders, ridden in moderate 3rd 2 out, kept on same pace in 2nd before last, no chance with winner, 2nd of 16, 19l behind Credit Box (10-9) at Ballinrobe 2m 4f hcp hdl 80-109 sft in Sep.
Moyas Charm (IRE) 14-1 (10-13) Soon led, headed from 5th, no impression in 3rd from 3 out, kept on same pace, 4th of 15, 13l behind Lough Donnell Mist (10-13) at Sligo 2m 2f mdn hdl gd in May.
Without The Bop (IRE) 14-1 (11-5) Held up early, progress halfway, 4th 4 out, kept on same pace from next, 5th of 20, 7l behind Sea Stallion (11-8) at Gowran Park 2m 4f hcp hdl 80-102 gd.
Irish Poli (FR) 20-1 (11-2) Mid-division, no impression from 4 out, 11th of 17, 42l behind Handsome Dan (10-9) at Clonmel 3m Handicap Hurdle (80-109) (5yo+) gf in Sep.
Rudigreen (IRE) 20-1 (11-2) Mid-division, lost place before 3 out, 12th under pressure before 2 out, kept on past beaten horses, 8th of 20, 16l behind Sea Stallion (11-8) at Gowran Park 2m 4f hcp hdl 80-102 gd.
Aviatore (GER) 11-1 (10-13) Held up in rear, some progress after 3 out, moderate 9th and ridden entering straight, kept on, 5th of 17, 11l behind Handsome Dan (10-9) at Clonmel 3m Handicap Hurdle (80-109) (5yo+) gf in Sep.
Neighbourly (IRE) 8-1 (11-0) Rear of mid-division, ridden in moderate 8th 2 out, no impression, 6th of 16, 27l behind Credit Box (10-9) at Ballinrobe 2m 4f hcp hdl 80-109 sft in Sep.
Lea Lady (IRE) 16-1 (10-12) Mid-division, ridden along 5 out, no impression, 9th of 18, 19l behind Realt Den Chathair (11-10) at Clonmel 3m Handicap Hurdle (80-109) (5yo+) gf in Sep.
Academic Accolade 25-1 (11-12) Led, headed approaching 3 out, soon weakened and pulled up before 2 out, in a race won by North Star Lad (11-4) at Downpatrick 2m 7f mdn hdl sft in Sep, 10 ran.
Run Mary (IRE) 20-1 (10-2) Soon towards rear, ridden and dropped behind approaching 5 out, tailed off, 9th of 11, well behind Neighbourly (10-0) at Kilbeggan 2m 3f hcp hdl 80-109 sft in Aug.
Black Empress (IRE) 40-1 (11-5) Mid-division best, 12th from 6 out, no impression and kept on same pace from 4 out, 9th of 17, 47l behind He's Our Man (11-12) at Limerick 2m 2f mdn hdl in May.
Timaras Princess (IRE) 20-1 (10-13) In rear, unseated rider 5th, in a race won by Kai Li (11-0) at Ballinrobe 2m hcp hdl 80-95 sft in Sep, 16 ran.


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Car Forums / Acura / Acura TL
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Acura TL - Buy Now or Wait for 4th Generation?
Hi Acura TLers,
How long has the "new" TL body style been out for? I am in the market of buying a new car since I've had my Acura Integra for 11 years now. I had a great experience with my Integra which is why I'm naturally inclined to buy another Acura this year. I love the TL but I'm fearful that Acura will be changing the body style soon. Does anyone know if this is the case?
Thank you in advance for your help!
How long has the "new" TL body style been out for? I am in the market of buying a new car since I've had my Acura Integra for 11 years now. I had a great experience with my Integra which is why I'm naturally inclined to buy another Acura this year. I love the TL but I'm fearful that Acura will be changing the body style soon. Does anyone know if this is the case?
Thank you in advance for your help!
The 3GTL (third generation) was introduced in 03 as an 04 model. The 2007 is a mid-model change. The 4GTL will show up in 08 as an 09 model. The 4GTL is rumored to have SH-AWD and 300+ hp.
Hmmm...that makes sense. I knew it was coming up soon. Do you if the changes are drastic? This sounds silly but I don't want to spend $38K on a 2007 TL only to have the body style change on me next year. This is a big financial decision for me. I'm excited but a little scared.
IMHO, adding SH-AWD and 300+hp is drastic. Acura has released several concept designs and if that is an indication of where Acura is heading then the exterior will drastically change too. However, no official pics of the 4G TL have been released.
If you can wait- then wait OR wait until the 4GTL comes out and Acura will be practically giving away the current model with incentives and financing offers.
300+ hp! That's a lot of horses. I can barely 190 hp! That's good to know. I am itching to buy a 2007 car and I've narrowed it down to the BMW 328i (w/o nav) and the Acura TL (w/nav). Any opinions?
Congratulations on squeezing 11 years out of your Integra. We still own a 1995 Maxima w/ 155k miles that resides at our second home. It's a good feeling to know that you've gotten a good return on your investment rather than buying the latest and greatest every 2-3 years and suffering big depreciation hits.
If you like the current TL, I would not be too hesitant to go for it, regardless of whatever the 4th generation has in store for 2008/9 or beyond. From what an Acura rep tells me, the next TL is still 2+ years off. Rumors of a new MDX for 2005 and 2006 circulated in 2003 and 2004, but it wasn't until the 2007 model that it finally came out.
As for the 328i vs. TL, there are a lot of factors to consider. I am partial to the driving dynamics of BMW, but Honda/Acura has always served me well from a no-fuss maintenance and relaibility standpoint. If you intend to keep your next car 10+ years, or even 7-8+, the BMW will become more expensive to maintain after the 4 year included service runs out. But those are just a couple of a myriad of factors to consider.
Good luck.
taxesquire Posts: 681Based on the info and comments from all the posters in this stream, one thing the original poster may want to consider is this, get an '06, enjoy it for 3-4 years and by then the "next generation" TL will have been out for 2 years with all the kinks worked out.
Unless you are focusing on the TL-S, I don't think there's a big diff between the '06 and the '07 regular TL, and I am sure there are deals to be had on remaining '06s.
The next gen TL will not be out till fall 2008. So its about a little less than 2 years off. Nobody knows what it will have or look like this early.
2008's will be the same as 2007's.
kennyg8 Posts: 225Depending on where you live, there are few (if any) 06 TLs left near Gotham. You may get a good deal if you find an 06, but the color/combo probably won't be popular, or the car is an early production that has been sitting in the dealer's lot for a while. The 07 TL (except the TL-S) is not different from the 06 mechanically speaking, just a few added features that some may find useful or necessary. Car manufacturers frequently change body styles of their cars (sometimes major) to attract customers. So, waiting around will not do you much good. If you like the style, buy the car and drive it for at least 7-8 years.
One mechanical feature that I think is different IMHO is the new automatic transmission in the 07 TL's.
What's new about the 07 Auto?
I know they claim it holds gears longer for spirited driving but that's a simple computer update... and to be honest, I didn't notice any difference from the 06.
Anything else about the 07 Auto that's new?
Its a different transmission but I doubt anyone will notice a difference no faster or more HP or anything like that. maybe its easier to work on for mechancics who knows.
Good points kenny. Plus you may not even like the look of the next gen TL. I think the S type has 286 ponies, that's plenty hp. :P
sbtatter Posts: 47I was facing the same dilemna, but decided to go ahead and but the type s in dec. I haven't been disapointed with the decision yet. I love driving it and everywhere I go people ask about the car. If I like the TL I'll trade in for it a year after it's been out. My Acura dealers pretty good at limiting depreciation losses for us loyal customers....so far anyway!!
If I had to choose between a TL now, or waiting until late 08 for an 09, I'd buy now.
The odds of there being some first year bugs are high, considering the amount of changes and new technologies involved.
There are also too many unknown variables to make an educated decision right now.
We don't even know what the price tag on the next model will be.
It could be $10,000 more and that could take the car out of alot of people's budget.
Buy now, and then trade in for a 2010, once the first year bugs are worked out by the guinea pigs who just have to have the first year model. :P
Good points Scott, I know the 2004's problems that my 2005 TL does not.
pat Posts: 10,421Some posts have been moved to a new discussion. Here's the link: calidd, "Acura TL vs Lincoln MKZ" #2, 4 Mar 2007 11:44 am.
jvette Posts: 70Honda motor company is very slow in bringing new models to market. It is only expected that there will be a 09 redo that will go on sale in late 08. It could very well be a 10 model instead. Honda is very tight mouthed about their new cars. So buy now and enjoy.
Honda goes on a 5 year cycle for its models. The 3G TL was introduced in late 03 as an 04 model. The 4G TL WILL show up in late 08 as an 09 model.
"Honda goes on a 5 year cycle for its models."
Since when? I have no inside information on when the next TL will be introduced, but the MDX ran 6 model years (01-06) and the S2000 is on its 8th. There is NO certainty about when the next TL will come out - lots of people in the MDX forum stated with absolute certainty in 2004/5 that the 2006 would be a redesign. WRONG.
If I had to guess, a 2009 MY redesign would be a relatively minor one, but if they wait until 2010 (as I expect, given the 2007 introduction of the TL-S), we could see a RWD platform and/or other more major changes. But that's just my guess.
According to my Acura Salesman, 09 is the year.
He went to the most recent Acura convention and he said this has been stated.
Confirmed, who knows for sure.
Either way, I'm not gonna be a first year guinea pig for this big of a change.
If the car impresses me that much, I'll be in line for the 2010.
Man, just saying 2010 makes me feel old!
Starting to feel like a character from "Logan's Run"
... time to renew :P
Have you made a decision?
Pulling the trigger in 2-3 weeks.
Until then, nothing is definite, but if I was dropping cash on something this morning, it would be the 07 G35x w/ Prem/Nav/Tech/Wood packages.
Slate Blue on Black.
I've had too many little complaints with my 06 MDX.
The dealer is friendly, but 6 visits for the same problem is a little much. Nav losing power, Subwoofer and dash rattles, driver's seat movement, whistling windshield... $45,000 for what?!?!:sick:
Other than little quirks, it's very nice.
Owning a Honda for 7 years and 180,000 miles, I have to say they are amazing vehicles... they just dont stop.
I know the TL is rock solid in reliability.
With that being said, I've had TL loaners 5 times now. I have to say, I got bored with them.
I hope TL owners dont take offense by that, it's just my opinion.
I drove the G35 and was stunned... I loved it.
The TL, unfortunately, didn't give me that same feeling.
I hope Nissan/Infiniti reliability treats me as well as Honda/Acura has.
Countdown continues.
IMHO, both cars offer tremendous amount of value for the price. You really can't go wrong with either. Have fun w/ the G and see you when the 4G TL comes out
cyrus2 Posts: 3ggesq, What is a 4 generation TL? I purchased a 1st Gen. G35 in 03 and must say it is the best car I've ever owned. Now have 50000 miles and have not had any issues at all. In the last two months I've been looking into a new G or TL. I'm really leaning TL(different car,price 31500) Hope I'm making the right move...
It's just a fancy way of saying the next TL.
It should be out sometime in late 08 but Honda/Acura is keeping the lid on it tight.
The current TL (3G) body style started in 2004 and was introduced in late 03. If you can wait, you can pick up a 3G TL with a smoking deal when the new one arrives.
parviz Posts: 484".....or the car is an early production that has been sitting in the dealer's lot for a while. .."
Sorry if my question relates to an older post. I was just doig some reading on the TL. What do you mean by an early production? Why would it be sitting in the lot for long? Longer than any other ones, anythinfg wrong with them or else? Thanks.
rv65 Posts: 1,076I have nothing really to say about the next gen TL. Going to be interested. The people are being sworn to secrecy. Only info I have is a 304 hp v6 and a 6 speed auto transmission. SH-AWD and a Hard drive is likely.
Now for the TSX. Rumor has it that the RDX engine won't make it. Probably a small v6. No info on the Type-S. Should have a european/bmw look.
RL is going to be the biggest and most extensive MMC for acura/honda. 3.7L v6 and 6AT is likely. Expect a HDD to store music, enhanced SH-AWD, some more room and more.
Acura is looking into making Type-S into an AMG, M, or S brand etc. This means more than just the usual improvements. The people in Japan are very interested.
Acura wants to be better than the germans. They are now being run by Acura and not Honda. They are now do their own thing. New R&D and design labs should help them. A v8 and v10 are going to come. They are doing everything they can to make Acura destroy the europeans, japanese and even Caddy !
Hope this helps.
eroc69 Posts: 56I was at an Aucra dealer yesterday in Pittsburgh and they said to me and others I overheard that in April or so the new TSX is out and in the fall the new TL is out.
rajni Posts: 4Hello Friends,
I'm planning on getting a new Acura TL, but I recently heard that Acura is introducing a re-design in Fall 2008 or so.. Therefore, is it advisable to wait or get the current model in the market.. Acura 2008, is the most matured and complete model of the 3rd generation, probably with very few bugs in it, whereas the Acura TL 2009 might have high number of new bugs due to new technologies and features built into it.. but again, it will be a new design.. in my opinion, it will be best to get the 2010 or 2011 model, but I can't wait that long and have to decide between 2008 or 2009.. any suggestions/comments will be greatly appreciated!
Thank you,
Rajni Kamoze
maxman Posts: 11Yes there will be a new TL for 2009. The TL development program is on a five-year cycle. Basic rule of thumb when a new Accord debuts a new TL will be introduced the following year. To further hammer this point in everything in the Acura line up is fresh RL 05, MDX 07, RDX 07, and TSX 04. The TL was also new on 04 it has been traditionally the rice in Acura's meal so it will get priority over the TSX to help rejuvenate sagging sales. As for purchasing now this is the best time to get on board. Normally I would not have anything thing to do with Honda/Acura they are good cars but I am extremely brand loyal which is why I have owned 3 Nissan Maximas SE 5 & 6MTs and 2 Nissan Altima SE-R 6mts. However, I have turned the corner and only because I got the deal of a lifetime from a local dealer. After just wanting to take a peek at a 2007 TL Type- S 6mt in November of 07 I was sold and ordered a 2008 to keep deprecation in line as having a year old car with no equity is a bad thing. This car reminded me so much of my old 2002 Nissan Maxima SE 6mt, a luxurious car at a fair price that can haul [non-permissible content removed] and make the owner of a V8 powered Mustang GT blush. The only other car that could come close for the price was the 2007 G35S 6mt and being redone for 2007 dealers were not even negotiating at least in my area, I am sure it would have been a different story in a place like LA or NYC. So I ordered the Acura on the spot. The deal was amazing the dealer sold it to me for $100 above invoice incl the dealer fee plus he gave me the whole manufactures dealer incentive on the car, which came to $2000. So I got a $39000 for about the price of a non- navigation base 08 TL $34000. There are rumors of Awd for the next generation, I don't think that will happen as that will eat into the already poor sales of the RL and plus Acura always base there TL's on the front wheel drive only Honda Accord frames (except for the 96-98 versions). If all wheel drive is going to be avail on a non Acura SUV besides the RL, I think it will be the next TSX (2010). Since TSX will never get a V6 it will mostly share its drive train layout with the RDX, as 205hp nowadays is nothing, and Acura is not going to repeat the same mistake that Infiniti made with the old G20. So buy now get that order in as it takes about three months for your car to arrive and who knows by summer they may slap another 500 on top of the 2000 as that was the year end incentive on the 2007 TL models. For what I can see I think the next TL is going to pull what Nissan did to the 2004 Maxima it is going to grow in size and weight and lose some of the agility of the current generation. Hope this helps!
This discussion has been closed.


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Jeremy Corbyn's new shadow cabinet abandons him as another two MPs resign
PAT Glass has resigned as shadow education secretary after only being appointed to the role on Monday.
She said: "It is with a heavy heart that I have today resigned. My My dream job but the situation is untenable".
Miss Glass was joined by Emma Lewell-Buck, who said she was "heartbroken at the state of the party".
Pressure has intensified on Corbyn to resign after a string of shadow Labour cabinet walkouts.
These resignations are the latest of 47 cabinet ministers and frontbenchers quit their roles.
Mr Corbyn received these fresh resignations just before he was due to face David Cameron in the Commons for the Prime Minister's question time.
Former foreign secretary Margaret Beckett said there were "people around Jeremy who are prepared to see the Labour Party split rather than for him to go".
"People around Jeremy who are prepared to see the Labour Party split rather than for him to go"Margaret Beckett
She told BBC Radio 4's Today: "That is anathema to everybody who thinks that we need to get rid of this Government and the damage that they are doing."
The Labour leader has dismissed a vote of no confidence as having "no constitutional legitimacy" and said he would not leave.
He also said he would not "betray" the 60% of members and supporters who back him to win the leadership race.
Harriet Harman said Mr Corbyn had "no right or mandate" to stay in office.
She said: "Leading the party is a privilege not a right. You earn the opportunity to lead by being elected, to lead the whole party, our voters, members, councillors and MPs.
"But winning the leadership election does not give you the right to continue in post if you fail.
"If Jeremy goes now, he will earn the respect and admiration of the party.
"If he stays he will be responsible for damage to the party on the gravest scale."
But those closest to the Labour leader are supporting him.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said MPs had to "play by the rules".
He added: "It looks as though we will have a leadership election.
"All we are saying to Labour MPs is: play by the rules of our party and, if there is to be a democratic election, respect the decisions of our members."
At PMQs David Cameron called for the Labour leader to stand down for the sake of national interest saying: "For heaven's sake man, go."
He is due to address a rally organised by the Momentum movement and Fire Brigades Union.
Leaders of both organisations have come out in support of him.
Unite trade union general secretary Len McCluskey has also stated his support for Corbyn and accused MPs of "pointless posturing".


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Chelsea Campbell is an emerging artist that has been instructing youth art classes for the past five years. Though she describes herself as an 'undisciplined' artist she has had the chance to work with a number of professional artists and gain skills in various mediums. From stone carving to watercolour painting, encaustic and mosaic, Chelsea has had the opportunity to learn from the best and tried her hand at them all. She has been involved with the Elora Centre for the Arts teaching Art Camps, assisted in leading the Youth Arts and Entertainment Council and Rural Youth Artists Project, as well as co-instructed the Tutu in You program for young sewers.
"My son really enjoyed it and looked forward to going every day."
"My daughter truly enjoyed her art classes with Chelsea. She had fun and looked forward to going everyday."
"Our son loved his course...he wanted to have more. We couldn't have asked for a better first experience!"


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Packaging recyclers lose the right to issue PRNs
Fourteen recyclers or waste exporters that were authorised by the Environment Agency to issue packaging waste recovery notes (PRNs) have had their accreditation suspended or cancelled since last autumn.
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The Mandaeans, the last surviving Near Eastern Gnostic group from the time of late antiquity, still live in Iraq and Iran, and, due to increasing difficulties in their homelands, many have emigrated to other parts of the world. Never very numerous, the Mandaeans today total fewer than one hundred thousand. Possessors of a vast religious literature in their own language, Mandaic (an East Aramaic dialect), the Mandaeans succeeded early in achieving legal minority religion status as "a people of the book" under Islam. They convinced Muslim authorities that they possessed the prerequisites: a holy text (the Ginza or "Treasure")1 and a prophet, John the Baptist. At the time of confrontation with Islam (i.e., in the mid-seventh century) Mandaeism had already existed for centuries, originating in the Jordan/Palestinian area as an offshoot of baptismal, sectarian forms of Judaism.
About ten years ago, I began to reconstruct strands of Mandaean history, using sources no one had studied systematically. These are the Mandaean colophons, long lineages of named Mandaean scribes. Age-old standards call for these formulaic lists at the end of a copied text. Several colophons may appear if the text is a composite one, consisting of originally separate books or scrolls. The most recent scribe of a manuscript appends a postscript at the end of his copied work. To copy a text supplies religious merit, and Mandaean priests and scribes still write their texts by hand, as they have for nearly two thousand years. One may copy a text for one's own forgiveness of sins, or one may be hired to perform this task for someone else.
By comparing and correlating colophons, I have constructed a sort of weaving, a warp-and-woof "object" consisting of names and lineages of priestly families.' In time, this weaving stretches from the present century back to the third; in space, long sheets of paper placed across a sizeable floor contain a myriad of names. A computer screen is not large enough to hold sufficient information, though a film screen might be.
Among the many illustrious Mandaean priestly scribes I have found, few rival Yahia Bihram, son of Adam Yuhana.3 Together with his cousin and brother-in-law Ram Zahrun, son of Sam Bihram, Yahia Bihram was a survivor of the calamitous 1831 cholera epidemic sweeping much of Persia and present-day Iraq. The cholera erased the entire Mandaean priesthood, leaving a decimated and demoralized lay population and only three or four sons of priests. Initiating one another into priesthood, Yahia Bihram and Ram Zahrun rescued the Mandaean religion from extinction and therefore merit hero status in Mandaean history. For without priests who baptize, celebrate marriages, officiate at religious festivals and at ceremonies for the dead, Mandaean religion could not—and still cannot—be sustained.
The German orientalist Heinrich Petermann spent several months in 1854 in Suq es-Shuyuk, a village on the Euphrates in southern Iraq, where Yahia Bihram headed his Mandaean flock. Petermann had eagerly looked forward to working with a Mandaean priest, and the relationship between the two men is described in Petermann's travel account.' My object here is to transmit what I have found of Yahia Bihram's story by using information from his colophons and from Petermann's work. So, this article on Mandaean life in the nineteenth century forms a strand in an obscure part of the history of the Near East.
BRIEF NOTE ON HISTORICAL SETTINGDue to their religious duty of baptizing repeatedly in running, fresh water, Mandaeans live near rivers. In the time period I am treating, territories with Mandaean populations belong to the Ottomans, to the Persians, and to areas contested by the two powers. Bedouin tribal wars are also a factor, and Bedouins routinely challenge any power other than their own.
Yahia Bihram is born approximately 1811 and spends his childhood and early youth in his father's, the priest Adam Yuhana's, house in the important trading city of Basra on the waterway Shatt al-Arab, which empties into the Persian Gulf.5 Basra is the center of the southernmost of Iraq's three wilayats, "provinces" (the two others are Baghdad and Mosul) under the rule of the Ottoman empire. In 1817, Daud Pasha, "pious without effect,"6 the last of the Georgia-born Mamluks, begins his reign in Baghdad. No special wars with Persia occur during Daud's time, but in 1818, at least on Persian territory, all Mandaean high priests are thrown into exile.7 A year later, crime and terrorism reign in Basra, culminating as local Bedouin tribesmen attack the city in midsummer 1820.
In 1826 the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud destroys the Janissaries, the elite military corps, in Turkey and demands identical action in the provinces. The new army, constructed on European models, is trained by a French officer and also by the British colonel Taylor (whom we shall meet as a figure in Yahia Bihram's early life), the resident of the Basra-based East India Company. The British conduct surveys of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris for steam navigation possibilities in 1830-31, but the great mutana, the cholera, soon renders all life and projects chaotic. A most riveting British witness to the cholera is J. R. Wellsted, an Indian Navy officer, present in Baghdad when the epidemic strikes there.8Weakened by cholera, Daud Pasha is supplanted by Ali Pasha Ridha on September 14, 1831. This Pasha introduces modernizations to Iraq, such as relaxing Islamic customs and granting privileges to the East India Company. However, he loots Basra in 1837. Already four years earlier, Persians and Ottomans have fought over the town Muhammerah (present-day Khorramshahr) on the Shatt al-Arab.9
Rebellions in Iraq continue from 1833 on, with renewed outbreaks of plague, and the xenophobic Pasha Najib grasping power in Baghdad in 1842. The next ruler, Muhammad Rashid Pasha—honest, liberal, and a builder of canals—presides over a relatively quiet interim. During his reign, Petermann enters Iraq. The latter part of the decade sees much tribal warfare, and European interests in Mesopotamian river traffic come to an abrupt end with the opening of the Suez canal in 1869, which renders Iraq irrelevant to the British quest for easily controlled routes to India. Two years before this date, 1867, is the last year I have evidence for Yahia Bihram's activities, so I end my historical sketch here.
YAHIA BIHRAM'S COLOPHON TESTIMONIESAs noted, all of the Mandaean priests die in the far-sweeping cholera of 1831, the so-called Plague of Shushtar. Due solely to the efforts of Yahia Bihram and Ram Zahrun, the two surviving Shgandas (ritual helpers), the religion continues to this day. Both of them are sons of famous head priests, Ganzibras, and both are prolific copyists of texts in the aftermath of the epidemic. However, Ram Zahrun gives very little information on the effects of this cataclysm on the Mandaeans. In contrast, Yahia Bihram offers vivid and moving descriptions of this and other events, and of his own life.
As the cholera begins to subside, Yahia Bihram, just past twenty, links up with Ram Zahrun, who is twice Yahia Bihram's age. In Suq es-Shuyuk in 1831, devastated by their loss of family and fellow Mandaeans, the two men join forces as the chief carriers of the Mandaean priestly tradition, for they understand the immediate need to create a new leadership for the traumatized survivors. The two consecrate one another as Tarmidas, the lower rank of priesthood, and Yahia Bihram later elevates his older cousin into the Ganzivra. In a relatively short time, the two men train thirteen Shgandas in the village of Suq es-Shuyuk. But while this laborious training and consecrations occur, precious time and fellow religionists are lost, for Mandaeans cannot get married without a proper priesthood. Consequently, many convert to Islam.10
Still, the two newly minted priests manage to reestablish their religion. Starting in 1831 and continuing through the next several decades, the two men carry on text copying, with Yahia Bihram transcribing at least six documents that now belong in the Bodleian Library's Drower Collection (DC).'' The testimonies in his colophonic postscripts describe not only the
Conditions caused by the cholera, but also later times of other hardships, including cruel persecutions. Here, then, follows information from Yahia Bihram's postscripts, more or less in temporal sequence.
Dc 35: Masbuta of Hibil Ziwa12Yahia Bihram copies the copiously illustrated DC 35 in the year of the cholera, 1831, but his large postscript, obviously added onto later, tells of events during a time period stretching at least to the year 1848. At the beginning of his MHZ postscript, he includes the traditional formula, praying for Lightworld blessings on a number of people, including his father and mother, his teacher, his two wives, his offspring, and his siblings. At this point, a reader would not know that Yahia Bihram's parents and other mentioned persons are dead, victims of the cholera.
Despite having lost almost all of his relatives, Yahia Bihram retains at least a brother and a sister, Bibia Mudalal, the wife of Ram Zahrun. So, the two men are not only cousins but brothers-in-law. Why they were not initiated before the mutana, during the lifetime of their fathers, is a question that cannot be answered. Ironically, it is certain that the lack of early, traditional priestly status saved their lives, for otherwise they too would have perished along with the entire priesthood. Cholera contagion travels predominantly by water, and priests, who spend much of their time in and by running water and also drinking contaminated water, would become virtually instant victims.
As noted, Yahia Bihram's father and his initiator are two different men, his father having perished in the mutana. However, Yahia Bihram consistently calls himself "Yahia Bihram, son of Adam Yuhana," despite the unusual conditions of his initiation, for Yahia Bihram's cousin Ram Zahrun is his initiator. Ram Zahrun, too, designates his ancestry in the same manner, designating himself in relation to his own father. This is, of course, not orthodox, but it makes sense in the emergency situation in which the two men trained since childhood, in this way honor their fathers. The situation presents a kind of "double" teacher position, the two cousins being indebted both to their respective fathers and to one another.
Yahia Bihram copies MHZ from the text of his uncle, the Ganzivra Yahia Yuhana, son of Adam Zahrun. He concludes most of his work in the house of a fellow priest, Zahrun, in the village of Nihrat on the Tigris,13 but he draws the pictures while he is in Qurna, at the confluence of the Euphrates and the Tigris (perhaps a scroll there had illustrations of a better quality). For three months, Yahia Bihram stays in Zihrun's house, grateful to his host for food and kindness.14
Then, continuing his postscript, Yahia Bihram begins to tell about the past, remote and recent. His father's residence was in Basra, he says, a big house that sat next to the one inhabited by the British vice-consul J. E. Taylor, an excavator of the ancient city of Ur and a discoverer of nearby Eridu. Adam Yuhana, Yahia Bihram's father, conducted religious and philosophical discussions with the British official. In fact, when Yahia Bihram was a young man of fourteen (ca. 1825) Taylor had sent for the Ganzivra, wishing to be instructed in the religion of the Mandaeans. So successful was the Ganzivra that Taylor believed Mandaeism was the true religion,15 but for fear of the governor Taylor kept his insights to himself. Still, Yahia Bihram writes, the queen in London got wind of the events and became angry with Taylor. Yahia Bihram continues, "As for me, it was when he [Taylor] was in Basra that he taught me the language of the French, English, and the language of the Armenians—may Hibil Ziwa forgive me my sins! For when I was with these [people] I did not become an apostate. When I was little, I was with Christians and learned words of their language of all kinds and sorts; but I did not become an apostate ... nor did I eat of their food."16
Yahia Bihram does not always follow a linear trace when he recalls the past. But the MHZ postscript description of the aftermath of the cholera appears all in one piece. He begins,
And now, O, our brothers who come after us! Know that in the year [that began on a] Friday, A.H. 1247 [1831 c.E.] the great mutana came, and not one of the ganzibras or priests survived, and many people departed the body. Then, when the world was more quiet and there was calm, [we] literates17 [yalufas] rose up on the day of Parwanaiia [the intercalary five-day feast] and we prayed the devotions and we consecrated the cult-hut. After the consecration, one esteemed yalufa set the crown [raga] on one of the yalufas in the cult hut. He prayed the "Devotions" for sixty days and celebrated a death mass for his teacher,18 and they consecrated one another, one by one.19
Three or four years later in Margab, the Mandaean quarter of Suq es-Shuyuk, a quarrel breaks out between the priests and the local laypeople.20 As a result, the priests leave for Basra. Later, Yahia Bihram and some other
Mandaeans embark for Shushtar, but on the road to that town Arabs rob him. His loss is considerable, for he mentions that his parental house had been a rich one, and he had probably carried most of his belongings. Trying to recover his valuables, Yahia Bihram goes to the sheikh of the tribe of the Arabs who has stolen his goods. The thieves are apprehended, and Yahia Bihram receives a fraction of his possessions—only to the value of three hundred piastres, while the value of the entire loot is seven thousand piastres. But in the end Yahia Bihram ends up with near nothing, for fees and payments (baksheesh) take the rest—a perennial tale!
Worse is to come, dire threats being directed at Muhammerah. The governor of Syria and Iraq, Ali Pasha, is about to burn the town in retaliation for an unnamed crime.21 While in Shushtar, Yahia Bihram had obtained many Mandaean books and scrolls, which he has left behind in Muhammerah. Now, at the rumor of imminent conflagration, he sends a fellow Mandaean to warn the others to leave Muhammerah. But it is too late. The local Muslim tribes flee hastily in their barges across the Shatt al-Arab, leaving the Mandaeans behind. The only ones to escape are two Mandaean women and a seven-year-old boy. Later captured by soldiers, the boy is subsequently ransomed out of an army camp.
Yahia Bihram seems to travel ceaselessly during the years after the cholera. It is difficult to keep track of his movements. Many of the places he names are so far unknown to me and absent from accessible maps. At times, he is fleeing disasters; in other instances, he is obviously voyaging in order to instruct fellow Mandaeans. In 1837, persecuted by peasants (where is unclear) and, it seems, even harassed by fellow Mandaeans in league with local Muslims, Yahia Bihram and some other Mandaeans take refuge in the reed marshes. Returning to Basra alone, Yahia Bihram remains there for a year. Later, family members appear to have joined them. Then his daughter dies, and he despairs because the required four Mandaean bier-carriers cannot be found. At this point, he uses the traditional Mandaean expression of agony: "My heart fell from its support."22 He prays for his daughter, but, in faithful accordance with religious custom, restrains himself from lamentation.23
Again he travels, now to Upper Mesopotamia, the Jezirah. Two Mandaean priests appear, and they take him to Margab, the Mandaean quarter of Suq es-Shuyuk where, a few years before, Yahia Bihram and Ram Zahrun initiated one another and taught Shgandas. Later Yahia Bihram, at least, had to leave because of the laypeople's opposition.
A year after Yahia Bihram has arrived in Margab, the local ruler inflicts a special form of persecution on the Mandaeans. The Shaikh of the tribe, Thamir-ibn-Ghadban, circumcised all the Mandaeans that were on the lands of the tribe, women and men, boys and girls. There were a hundred souls, male and female, there. Then all the settlements where there were sons of Mars [i.e., Muslims] rose against them seeking to take us up out of the world. The Great Life quelled them.24 And those souls whom the tribe circumcised we took (them) in with us by baptism and marriage. For very fear not a person could go out on the roads, for if one did go out, they would circumcise him. For that reason we received them and took them in with us.25
To the Mandaeans, any form of bodily mutilation is a horror. Circumcision, which seems to have been a recurrent punishment meted out by hostile rulers, marks a forced conversion. Strictly speaking, such a measure would "unmake" a Mandaean, but it is a sign of great pity and solidarity that the Mandaean community takes their violated kinsmen back as their own. By baptizing their mutilated fellow religionists, the Mandaeans purify them in order to make them eligible for re-membership. Also, be-cause the Mandaean population is so decimated after the cholera, they can ill afford to lose any more of their coreligionists, even those rendered impure by forced circumcision.
While Yahia Bihram stays in southern Babylonia, in Suq-es-Shuyuk, Ram Zahrun remains in the Khuzistani towns of Shushtar and Dizful. Yahia Bihram says of his close friend, relative, and initiator, "For twelve years we have been divided and distant from one another, but the Great First Life and the Great, Precious Countenance inform us about one another and crush our enemy. For they do not forsake us but unite us together!"
Dc 24: Sharh d-ParwanaiiaIn a tiny script, Yahia Bihram copies Sharh d-Parwanaiia, the (so far unpublished) scroll of priestly instruction for the intercalary, five-day Parwanaiia ritual. He completes his task in 1832 in the house of his sister's son in Muhammerah.26
Convinced that he is living at the very end of the last of the four world ages when, according to Mandaean doctrine, things are as evil as they can be, Yahia Bihram keeps his faith, in spite of the conditions. "There is no peace and no serenity. People are striking one another, blaming one another. [Our] support is the elevated King. Life be praised for ever and ever!"
Yahia Bihram assures his readers that he has changed nothing of what his father, the deceased Ganzivra, taught him. But in Margab he finds that no one knows the rahmas, a particular category of prayers, as well as he does. The other yalufas cannot understand the liturgies and other texts very well, and the laypeople too seek his help. But when Yahia Bihram offers to put in order the defective, local baptism liturgy and the rahmas, the laypeople stop him. "They are confounded, because they live in the last age," Yahia Bihram sadly concludes.
On the final day of the Parwanaiia, Yahia Bihram prays the required liturgy in terror and agony because of the lack of correct ritual tools: he has neither the priestly staff, nor a new, silk priestly crown. "The Taga of cotton sufficed, one that I had consecrated before the cholera began." Bereft of the required priest colleagues at this special ritual time, he is all alone. "I was frightened and worshipped in fear, with tremblings, and I shivered and my tears flowed without end. I prayed for compassion from Life and I consecrated the crown, so that I might not be ruined. For the Life has pity in its compassion towards [its] sons and [knows] how much they are able to endure."
Reminiscing, Yahia Bihram recalls other, long gone days before the cholera when he and his father bravely went together to Babil (probably Baghdad) to retrieve a Ginza that had been confiscated by the Muslims. "Our tongues were not stuck," he says, which must mean that the two Mandaean men were able to speak for themselves. Whether they succeeded in regaining the book Yahia Bihram does not tell.
At the very end of his postscript he states that it is now twenty years since he consolidated the illustrated scrolls and books. If he is referring to his own possible victory in arranging the books of the confused Mandaeans of Margab, which happened right after the cholera, the date of this part of the postscript must be the early 1850s. He ends with the formula, "Anyone whose soul is able: do not change!27 Establish the lofty Truth! May Life be victorious above all created things!"
Dc 47: The Spell of RueDrower bought DC 47, The Spell of Rue (Pishra d-Shambra) in Baghdad in 1945. A year later, she published a translation of another copy of the same text,28 but DC 47 was copied in 1833 by Yahia Bihram from his father's scroll, and he seems to have brought it with him, unstolen, on his many travels. During these years, he looks in vain for Mandaean leaders and well-ordered texts.
"I prayed to the 'utras,29 my brothers, and I was unable to prevent the disgraces of what happened when I was alone by myself." Among other towering difficulties, it seems that he has been forced to leave behind his dead or dying father without the proper rites, which would have caused him nearly unbearable pain. His mother, too, has perished. Yahia Bihram stays with a few relatives in Basra where an Arab judge comes to him, apparently to arrange the matter of the dead parents.
Yahia Bihram insists that he is writing his postscript so that surviving Mandaeans or those living at an even later time may know what happened as a result of the cholera. Voyaging down the Tigris from Baghdad to Basra together with another Mandaean, Yahia Bihram sees "foul matter of the Arabs" (perhaps corpses) floating in the river. In Basra the two Mandaeans observe New Year's, Dehwa Rabba d-Nauruz.
Later in the postscript he mentions the Englishman Joseph Auliffe and Vice-Consul Taylor, encountered in the MHZ postscript. And again, Yahia Bihram returns to his memories of the cholera. As people are dying all around him, he leaves Basra and, he says, "[I] went with all my strength to the marsh and supported myself and was saved from evil deeds. There remained none of all of our houses and [our] tribe, all except for my cousin and his wife, who is my dear sister and his wife. So, I was in the marsh for a long time"
DC 43In 1853—the year before Petermann arrives in Suq es-Shuyuk—Yahia Bihram copies DC 43, entitled The Poor Priest's Treasury, a collection of twelve exorcisms. An Arabic talisman depicting a man with letters and numbers all over his body graces the back of the scroll. Inside it are several diagrams and drawings.30
Yahia Bihram copies DC 43 for himself and for his children; he has two wives and offspring. They live in a precarious time, for the Mandaeans of Margab have just been raided, with loss of three Mandaean lives. "We fled and prayed and gathered together from the sons of the sword, from town to town, seeing nothing but persecution and starvation." With his two wives, two sons, three daughters, and a donkey, Yahia Bihram arrives in a village by a marsh, where his younger wife gives birth. His cousin Ram Zihrun joins the family. He possesses the exorcism (probably the present one) that Yahia Bihram copies. All of Yahia Bihram's own scrolls and books have been lost, looted.After writing the last of the twelve exorcisms that make up The Poor Priest's Treasury, Yahia Bihram elaborates on the present situation. The
rulers responsible for the raid on Margab and for further persecution are the sons of Sad al-'Abas.31 "May my Lord and Manda d-Hiia save us from the sons of Krun!"32 Yahia Bihram asks Hibil Ziwa for rescue into the Lightworld (i.e., for death, which shows the depth of his desperation). "We endured robbery, murder, persecution, starvation, and disaster from them, in lower Mesopotamia . . . they broke apart the channels." Those who can, flee into the desert, suffering under the shadeless sun. Yahia Bihram him-self, along with some others, crosses a waterway on a raft made of bitumen. "Life was with us and saved us and delivered us into the marsh."
THE EUROPEAN SCHOLARSince boyhood, Heinrich Petermann (1801–76) had always dreamed of visiting the Orient. Three groups, especially, had caught his interest: the Druses, the Samaritans, and the Mandaeans.33 Finally, in 1851, his opportunity to travel materialized, and he obtained a gracious leave from his duties as professor of Oriental languages in Berlin, a post he had held since 1837. Petermann had royal permission to acquire Oriental antiquities, documents, coins, and other artifacts according to his own ability and discretion.
Petermann leaves Germany in June 1852 and after many adventures arrives in Baghdad, eager to meet Mandaeans. But he immediately finds that they are not there; rather, an estimated eight-day journey (it will take longer) to the village Suq es-Shuyuk is required.34 This village belongs to the Bedouin tribe of the Muntafiq, a people not to be trifled with, as Petermann will find. Cholera still persists in Hilla, south of Baghdad, where journeying by horse is substituted by a series of boat rentals. The sailing voyage takes Petermann through dangerous Bedouin territory. In the night, birds are rushed, shrieking, at the sound of the rudder. As jackals howl, Petermann's skipper is anxious about the Bedouins who, unseen on the darkened shores, cry threats toward the passing boat, "Get away from us!" Petermann relies on his two pistols and his jatagan (a type of long knife), which is used at least once to straighten out a boat rental about to go awry. The area teems with robbers.
On Tuesday, January 24, 1854, Petermann reaches Suq es-Shuyuk. Unfortunately, the powerful Sheikh Mansur of the Muntafiq is away at war camp three hours to the north, preparing to engage other, hostile Beduin tribes in battle. But Petermann desperately needs someone to accept his recommendation letters; otherwise, he will be without protection. He goes to the richest Shia in town, a hajji,35 who seems to give him a cool reception. No pipe is offered to him, for a non-Muslim would make the pipe impure and unfit for any further use. But the hajji does offer Petermann a house, a vermin-infested brick building partially used for the storage of dates. Petermann puts up his tent on the roof and together with his Maronite servant also occupies two rooms downstairs. Now, where are the Mandaeans? Petermann waits for the first one to show up.
He does. It is Yahia Bihram, who in Petermann's book goes only by his first name.36 The only priest in Suq es-Shuyuk, the forty-three-yearold Yahia is outfitted like the local Beduins in a brown-and-white cloak and a keffiyeh (head cloth). Silently analyzing Yahia's features, Petermann finds him characterized by "friendliness mixed with cunning"37 While in Baghdad, Petermann has already heard that Yahia recently promised two Englishmen all kinds of information about Mandaeism but left these matters unfulfilled.
However, the German visitor is horrified to hear that Petermann's rumor has preceded him, for Yahia already knows that the scholar is interested in the Mandaeans. Petermann worries that Yahia will tell him nothing substantial about the religion, as the Mandaeans are known to be reticent on the subject of their beliefs. Consequently, Petermann emphasizes that he is a philologist, for he wants, above all, to see the Mandaean sacred literature. Then Yahia voices his own worries. Is Petermann Jewish? Has he ever been Jewish? Or were any of his ancestors Jewish? Taken aback, Petermann in good conscience answers no.
Conscious of local custom, decorum, and the safety of his pupil, Yahia insists that Petermann must see the Muntafiq sheikh. The priest does not want to delve deeply into the Mandaean teachings with Petermann until clearance has been gained from the highest authority. Petermann waits, entertains people visiting him in his roof tent, and makes scattered observations on the weather and on the local scene. A lingering cholera still persists, with seven Mandaeans dead the past year, though it is nothing like the epidemic of twenty-three years earlier, which cut down two-thirds of Suq es-Shuyuk's population, now numbering approximately ten thousand, says Yahia.
Petermann doubts this number although he concedes that the town is of considerable size, with several markets. The Muslim population is divided roughly half and half between Sunni and Shia, and there are some Jews, who have their synagogue. A single Christian family from Baghdad also lives in the town. The rest are Mandaeans who reside in theirown quarter on the opposite river bank. Petermann's house is, of course, on the Muslim side of the river.
As the Muntafiq sheikh, Mansur ibn Sadun, does not show up, Yahia decides it is best to visit him upriver in his war camp. Yahia brings a large boat, equipped with a Persian rug and a pillow, so that his German pupil and himself may travel together in comfort. They arrive at the camp, and despite the warlike ambience, Petermann's visit goes well, and Yahia tells Petermann how much to tip the sheikh's servants. The two men return to Suq es-Shuyuk.Now, work can begin. Yahia comes every day for six hours, except on Sunday, the Mandaean holiday, to teach Petermann the language and to read with him the entire corpus of Mandaean literature, such as it is present in Suq es-Shuyuk. Yahia is paid for his services. Petermann dares not take any notes during the lessons but writes them down after the priest has left. Yahia soon acquires respect for Petermann, who learns speedily. But Yahia cautions Petermann that Yahia's own father, Adam Yuhana, taught Taylor in Basra for twelve years,38 so how can Petermann expect to learn it all in a mere few months? Twelve years will hardly suffice for initiation into the Mandaean mysteries, he says.39
Even though Petermann and Yahia do not work on Sundays, the two do see one another on those days. In a reversal of the visiting pattern, Petermann goes to the priest on Sundays. Yahia's twelve-year-old son comes to take the scholar across the river in a boat. However, Petermann is disappointed at being barred from entering the priest's house, for he is only allowed into its courtyard. Here he sits every Sunday, smoking cigars brought from Beirut, for he dares not bring his pipe. The cigars create a stir anyway. Shut out from the main house, unclean but meriting hospitality, Petermann smokes, is served food, drinks coffee, and ponders his position. He observes that Yahia uses neither tobacco nor coffee.
The Mandaeans must originally have been Christians, Petermann concludes, though it mystifies him how they could have strayed so far from the truth. He describes the features of the Mandaean cult-hut, the Mandi, in Suq es-Shuyuk; he is allowed to come to the burial ground to see a funeral; and he witnesses festivities during Parwanaiia. He observes Yahia going from house to house to slaughter cleansed lambs for that occasion. Sitting on a carpet and leaning on a cushion solicitously provided by Yahia, Petermann watches the ritual events by the river in the yard in front of the Mandi.
priest even lights Petermann's pipe with coals from the clay fire basin, the tariana. But as Yahia, in between ritual segments, relaxes, converses, and entertains himself with his fellow Mandaeans, the slightly scandalized Petermann is struck by the lack of any sustained air of piety.
Yahia's parishioners often come around while he works with Petermann in the tent pitched atop the house lent by the hajji. Yahia is the Mandaeans' only learned man, and they need him to write letters and other documents. He is also the community's doctor, and Petermann notes that Yahia has acquired a modicum of Western medical knowledge, which he pairs with exorcisms and other traditional methods. On one occasion, a distressed Mandaean man appears, for his wife, who has recently given birth, is possessed by the devil. Yahia administers bloodletting and exorcisms. He describes the woman's symptoms to Petermann, who is up-to-date with his own culture's high standards of diagnostics and remarks to his readers that "the milk had risen to her head.."40
Petermann has his own health concerns, but he does not become ill. Around him a great menagerie of animal life carries on. The place is so arid that flies settle immediately on Petermann's field notes to drink the ink before it dries off the page. Mindful of the abundant lice, Petermann wonders whether Yahia ever washes his long, braided hair tucked up in his headgear.
In three months, Petermann has read through almost the entire Mandaean literature owned by Yahia. But then his stay in Suq es-Shuyuk comes to an abrupt, surprising end. The Muntafiq sheikh has gone to the Pasha in Baghdad with tribute—exacted from the village population at great excess. In his absence, the shiekh's brother Nasir oppresses the locals even more. During the last days of April 1854 a black slave is murdered, but the crime remains unsolved. No one comes forward, and as a result heavy fines are imposed on the entire village population. Nasir's officials conduct house searches. Muslims hide, some Jews are jailed, and all the Mandaeans flee overnight to Amara.41 Before he leaves with his family, Yahia gives some of his valuables into Petermann's care. The two men will link up a few days later.
Without his Mandaean teacher, Petermann has no reason to stay on in the town. He rents a boat and heads north toward Baghdad. When he meets up with Yahia on a canal, the priest asks Mandaean spirits of light to protect Petermann, who also receives an amulet against demons and the dangers of travel. Yahia accompanies Petermann on the boat for a little while, but then the scholar is on his own, secured by his Mandaean blessings and the amulet. It is unlikely that he ever saw his Mandaean teacher again.Petermann's account reveals telling details about his own outsider status vis-â-vis Yahia and other village inhabitants. The Mandaeans themselves, dwelling on the river bank opposite the other villagers, remain separate from the Muslims. Together with the Jews and the single Christian family in Suq es-Shuyuk, the Mandaeans constitute the minority of "the people of the Book." Everyone—Sunni, Shia, and minorities alike—exists at the mercy of the powerful Muntafiq sheikh, as Suq es-Shuyuk lies far from any direct influence of the Baghdad Pasha.
An arresting image emerges from Petermann's account, a portrait of ever negotiated concentric circles of power and oppression. The visitor Petermann—unclean, Christian, a European scholar—merits respect and honor and depends entirely on the protection of the local ruler. At the same time, Petermann enjoys the immunity of the odd man out, for he remains secure and above suspicion in the matter of the murdered black slave. While all other Suq es-Shuyuk inhabitants suffer repercussions, Petermann calmly packs up and leaves, literally catching the next available vessel.
One might wonder why Petermann hardly ever dwells on the impact of the cholera or on any of the other kinds of calamities routinely visited on Yahia and his fellow religionists. That traditional Mandaeism would have perished without the agency of Yahia and his cousin Ram Zahrun does not appear to quite permeate the German scholar's consciousness. In passing, he notes that Yahia, "prevented by external circumstances," had been unable to become a priest until he was past the age of twenty.42 But Petermann must surely know something of the full weight of these "external circumstances."
LIFE GOES ONYahia Bihram makes no mention of Petermann, and the year 1854 is absent from the priest's postscripts. But in 1855, after Yahia Bihram and the rest of the Suq es-Shuyuk Mandaeans have fled, he and Ram Zahrun re-join (in Amara, it seems) and together copy DC 28: The Exorcism of "I sought to lift my eyes."43 Ram Zahrun is the main copyist, and at the end of DC 28 something specific is on his mind: intermarriage. Ram Zahrun warns against this practice, for a case of it has recently occurred in his community, a Mandaean having married a Muslim. "Guard the descendants!" Ram Zahrun admonishes. At the very end he addresses himself to the brothers (i.e., priest colleagues) who will succeed him and Yahia Bihram, and to "anyone who sees our book."
"The Scroll of the Great Over-thrower," DC 37,' comes from the hand of Yahia Bihram. The scroll contains strange diagrams and "graphics." Its date is 1861, and Yahia Bihram eschews his usual postscript but includes a lineage of sultans. Finally, as far as I know, the last of Yahia Bihram's copied texts is "The Scroll of the Great Baptism," the unpublished DC 50, copied in 1867. The text treats the purification ritual for a polluted priest, which consists of 360 baptisms. When Yahia Bihram in his postscript admonishes, "O my good brothers! Let it not be shed, the fruit that you bear, of your own!" I take his words to imply a warning against mixed marriages, a worry strongly expressed also in DC 28 above.
Again, Yahia Bihram reminisces about the effects of the 1831 cholera. As he briefly describes how he and his cousin celebrated the first Parwanaiia after the epidemic, he wants his readers to know that the priests did their utmost to perform the ritual correctly. Among other features, they included the stultifying—and now greatly increased—number of names of departed Mandaeans, a required act on that annual ritual occasion.45
Yahia Bihram finishes his 1867 postscript, "My Lord above all worlds! Behold and discern! And accept our spirits and souls! And may we be saved and rise up to the beginning!" Faithful until the end, Yahia Bihram shows no hint of self-aggrandizing; his humility remains intact. He has survived unimaginable horrors inflicted by demonic forces, while continuing to accept fully that the Lightworld rightly tests its children.
CONCLUDING REMARKWith sincere wonder, Mandaeans often ask me, why have we managed to survive? There is, of course, no simple answer. Never aspiring to worldly, political power, Mandaeans have merely wished to live in peace, at the mercy of varying political forces throughout the centuries. Today, the continued ethnic, religious, and cultural identity of the Mandaeans is threatened by fragmentation, due to difficulties in their homelands and to an increasing rate of emigration from them.
But efforts are afoot to export more Mandaean priests to countries out-side Iraq and Iran. A few are already in place in the Diaspora; whether temporarily or for a longer duration is difficult to tell at present. Mandaean priests continue to be initiated in numbers unthinkable even fifty or forty years ago. Baghdad still has the largest population of priests and laypeople. An upsurge of religious and cultural interest among the latter calls for widened opportunities to learn about their own texts and heritage. Traditionally, religious knowledge has been the sole privilege of priests and their families, but this situation is now changing.
Present-day scholars who routinely assume Mandaeism to be on the brink of extinction are so far proven wrong. Had Yahia Bihram been able to gaze into the future, he might have recognized the challenges facing Mandaeism today as different from those he experienced during his own lifetime. But while acculturation, secularization, and life in the Diaspora present new problems today, political pressures in the homelands continue to have effects that would surely be familiar to Yahia Bihram.
1. Ginza: Der Schatz oder das grosse Buch der Mandaer, trans. and ed. Mark Lidzbarski (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1925).
2 The present article forms a small part of an ongoing research project to reconstruct segments of Mandaean history.
3. Mandaean scribes (virtually all of whom are priests) are identified as "sons" of their initiators, regardless of biology, though in many cases priestly office runs from biological father to son. A priest may initiate many candidates, all of whom then become his "sons."
4. H. Petermann, Reisen im Orient (Leipzig: Von Veit, 1865), vol. 2.
5 Or, the Arabic Gulf, depending on whose viewpoint is taken.
6 Stephen H. Longrigg, Four Centuries of Modern Iraq (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925), p. 250. In the present section, I rely to a large extent on Longrigg.
7 Ganzibras, "treasurers," are the high-ranking priest level; the lower rank is that of the tarmida. Information on the exile comes from a Mandaean colophon by the priest Yahia Ram Zihrun, whose testimony of 1818 appears in his postscript to the illustrated scroll "The Scroll of the Great Exorcism (of) the Name of the Lord of Greatness and the Image of Truth," Ms. Asiat. Misc. C 12, the Bodleian Library, Oxford University. This extraordinary scroll has never been studied by scholars; until 1996 it was even unknown to present-day Iranian Mandaean priests.
8 J. R. Wellsted, Travels to the City of the Caliphs, along the Shores of the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean, vol. 1 (London: Henry Colburn, 1840), esp. pp. 280-302. He begins: "In April 1831, the plague, after lurking for some time around the southern shores of the Euxine, now ravaged Mesopotamia, and gradually approached Bagdat. It stalked its awful march of death from village to village, withering, like the lava flood, all life that came under its baleful flow" (p. 280).
9 As recently as the 1980—88 Iran-Iraq war, Khorramshahr still harbored a population of Mandaeans. I was there myself in 1973 and in 1996. In the latter year the Mandaean quarter was nonexistent, bombed out, with a few houses rebuilt, but sheltering no Mandaeans anymore.
10 Some of these details come from Petermann's Reisen, p. 464n.
11 The collection contains about fifty-three numbered items, handwritten Mandaean books and scrolls that Lady Drower, the preeminent scholar of Mandaeism, purchased in Iraq from the 1930s to the 1950s. For the relationship between Lady Drower and the priest who helped her secure many of the manuscripts, see my "A Mandaean Correspondence," in Gnosisforschung and Religionsgeschichte: Festschrift fur Kurt Rudolph zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. H. Preissler and H. Seiwert (Marburg: Diagonal-Verlag, 1994), pp. 55-60.
12 The Baptism of Hibil Ziwa (Masbuta of Hibil Ziwa), trans. and ed. E. S. Drower, in his The Haran Gawaita and the Baptism of Hibil Ziwa, Studi e Testi 176 (Cittd del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1953) (hereafter cited as MHZ). Hibil Ziwa is one of the major Mandaean Lightworld beings, a mediator inhabiting the roles of messenger, teacher, and protector. is So far, I am unable to ascertain its location.
14 This and subsequent information is in MHZ, pp. 86—92.15 Adam Yuhana also won a theological argument with a clergyman whose name seems to be Joseph Auliffe (MHZ, p. 92).16 Ibid. (I have modified Drower's translation just slightly).17 Learned layman or ritual helper; in practice, his duties are close to that of the shganda.18 Prescribed acts for priest initiation.19 MHZ, pp. 87—88 (slightly modified quotation).20 Yahia Bihram elaborates on this in another postscript; see DC 24, below.
21 Riza Ali Pasha had captured the last of the Mamluks in Baghdad. On October 12, 1838, he burned Muhammerah, probably because it had emerged as too strong a commercial competitor to Basra. (I gratefully owe this information to Prof. John E. Woods, the University of Chicago, Center for Middle Eastern Studies.)22 MHZ, p. 89.23 Tears and wailing for the dead create obstacles for its soul rising to the Lightworld.24 The Great Life is the Supreme Being in the Lightworld, the Mandaean heavenly realm.25 MHZ (n. 12 above), p. 90. The sheikh is one of the Muntafigs,25 The beginning of the copying work was started elsewhere.
27 Or, "Do not convert!"28 E. S. Drower, "A Phylactery for Rue: An Invocation of the Personified Herb," Orientalia 15 (1946): 324-46.
29 Mandaean Light beings.30 "Very curious," remarks Drower on DC 43 in her list of DC texts (DC 43 remains unpublished).
31 Not identifiable at present.32 Krun is the great mountain of flesh, the king of the lowest of the underworlds.33 However, Petermann was to become most famous as a specialist on Armenian.34 "The market of the sheikhs" or "the market of the elders," explains Petermann (Reisenim Orient [n. 4 above], p. 66).35 A man who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca.36 In fact, Petermann misunderstands Yahia Bihram's name, thinking that his name is "Yahia, son of Bihram."37 Petermann, Reisen im Orient, p. 86.38 The resident of the East India Company, as noted. 39 But Petermann produced the first European Ginza, furnishing a short introduction in Latin and then transcribing the entire Mandaic text, including the colophons. See Heinrich Petermann, Sidra Rabba (Leipzig: Weigel, 1867). For the Ginza colophons, see also my study, "The Colophons in H. Petermann's Sidra Rabba," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, series 3, vol. 5, pt. 1 (1995): 21-38.40 Petermann, Reisen im Orient, p. 122.41 Ibid.. p. 137n.42 Ibid., p. 464.42 The title is probably a reference to a specific prayer (no. 35) of this title in the regular collection of Mandaean liturgies. See E. S. Drower, The Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans (Leiden: Brill, 1962). DC 28 remains unpublished.44 Still unpublished.45 For the masiqtas recited at Parwanaiia, see my "The Mandaean Tabahata Masiqta," Numen 28, no. 2 (1981): 138-63.
It is not easy to speak about the origin and the history of the Mandaeans, because it is hardly discussed at all in their literature. They themselves believe that, as their religion was founded by the World of Light, they were not concerned with the history of this world. Up to the present day only one Mandaean text has emerged which refers, but in a very confused manner, to their history. It is the "Diwan of the great Revelation, called ' Inner Haran'" ("Haran Gawaita").
In "Haran Gawaita" there is a description of the Nasoraeans staying in the "Median hills", where they escaped under king Ardban from the rulers. King Ardban has been identified with the Parthian king Artaban III , IV or V. This seems to point to the existence of a legendary tradition which describes how the community, or part of it, penetrated into the Iranian territory of that time, that is during the period of the later Parthian kings, in the first or second centuries A. D. This same text describes how a Mandaean community was established in Mesopotamia and discusses its further history under the Sassanian rulers.
This tradition also includes events of the persecution of the community in Jerusalem by the locals in the course of which the city was destroyed as a punishment; the reference is probably to A. D. 70.
The emigration of the early Mandaean community from the Jordan valley in Palestine into eastern territories, brought about because of persecutions by locals, must have taken place during the second century A.D. at the latest, because several Mesopotamian and Parthian elements presuppose a fairly lengthy stay in these regions. The emigrants went first to Haran , and the Median hills, and then entered the southern provinces of Mesopotamia .
In the third centry, Mani , the founder of Manichaeism, had connections with the Mandaean community and was probably influenced by it in his system. The Manichaean 'Psalms of Thomas' show clearly both the friendly and the hostile relations between the two rival religions. In the ninth book of the 'right-hand' Ginza , the Mandaean holy book, there are polemics against the followers of Mar Mani . The pre-Manichaeam existence of a Mandaean tradition is more than assured today.
'Haran Gawaita' attests to the foundation of a community in Baghdad , i.e. In Mesopotamia, and the appointment of Mandaean governors in this region. In contrast to the Parthian rulers, under whom the Mandaeans obviously prospered, relations with the Sassanians were bad. The same scroll refers to considerable reduction in the number of the Mandaean Temples at that time. It is also clear from the inscription of the Zoroastrian high priest Kartar that those practicing non-Iranian religions – and the Mandaeans were among these – were persecuted during the reign of King Shahpur I.
Islam renewed oppression, in spite of its toleration of the Sabians as a "people of the book". In this way, the afflicted community retired more and more into the inaccessible marshes of southern Iraq and the river districts of Khuzistan, where the Mandaeans are even now to be found.
In the beginning of the twentieth century, however, the Mandaeans have returned again to the large cities ( Baghdad and Basra ), where they found opportunities to gain an education, earn money, and raise themselves socially.
The religious community of the Mandaeans today number, though difficult to determine, about 70,000 members who live in groups of varying size along the rivers of Iraq and Iranian Huzistan. Up into the 20 th century their range of distribution was predominantly in smaller market towns and villages of the marshland in southern Iraq , the Batiha, which corresponds to the ancient region of Mesene (Maisan). As a result of recent wars, political and religious persecution, some of them have chosen to live in other parts of the world. Their present-day centers are Baghdad , Basra , Nasiriya, and Ahwaz . Their Arabic neighbors call them "Subba", meaning "Baptists"; they call themselves "Mandaee" (Gnostics). What distinguishes them from the surrounding peoples is their religion and religious tradition, written in a sematic (East Aramaic) dialect with its own script.
We are indebted to T. Noldeke and M. Lidzbarski for the fundamental study of the language and literature of the Mandaean community. The former wrote the standard grammar (1875), the latter edited and translated the most important Mandaean works. Attempts were repeatedly made to gain access among the Mandaeans to better understand their texts. But it was the English scholar Lady Drower who was the first to succeed in opening up these almost inaccessible sources. By her exquisite skill and unceasing energy, she succeeded in taking exact notes of the cultural and religious manifestations of the Mandaeans. Also, she obtained and published a number of, up until then, unknown manuscripts, which were in part accessible only to the priests.
The extent of the Mandaean literature, considering the relative smallness of the community, is surprising; it forms a remarkable body of gnostic writings, the authors of which are not known to us by name. This extensive written tradition has a purely religious character. It comprises liturgies, prayers, hymns, commentaries, legends, theological-mythological tractates and priestly speculations.
The most important works of the Mandaean literature are the following:
The Ginza , which means the 'Treasure'. It is consisting of two main parts, the right Ginza and the left Ginza . The first part is a collection of eighteen tractates, predominantly preachy mythological and cosmological content. The second and smaller part consists essentially of the hymns for the mass for the dead. It is really a book which is devoted only to the soul and its ascent (masiqta) to the World of Light.
The Book of John (drasha dyahya), a mixed collection (perhaps a supplement to the Ginza ) of thirty-seven sections of varying size, chiefly mythological in content, among which are tractates about John the Baptist.
The canonical prayer book (Qolasta), which means 'collection', contains songs and prayers together with directions for religious ceremonies, above all for baptisms and masses for the dead.
Thousand and Twelve Questions ( Alf trisar shuiale ), a collection which consists of seven parts and is intended for priests only.
The chronology of the Mandaean literature is beset by difficulties, since it offers scarcely any specific historical references. However, some researchers can date it between the pre- Christian period and the third century A. D.
The Mandaean Community is divided into priests and laity. There are three different ranks of priests. They include ordinary priests (tarmide, 'disciples, pupils'), bishops or 'treasurers' (ganzibre) and the 'head of the people' (rishama). At the present time, Rishama Abdullah Negim of Baghdad is the only one that holds such an office. For a while, the number of priests seemed to be shrinking to half a dozen or less. However, in recent years, many young educated Mandaeans have entered the priesthood. The priest acts as the representative of heavenly messengers and angels (uthre) and thus he is equated with them repeatedly in the rituals.
The most important ceremonies, and also the oldest, are baptism (masbuta) and 'ascent of the soul ceremonies' (masiqta).
Baptism takes place on Sundays (habshaba), the first day of the week, which is for the Mandaeans, a holiday. Baptism consists of a threefold complete immersion in the white sacral robe (resta), a threefold "signing" of the forehead with water, a threefold draught of water and the crowning with a myrtle wreath. There follows on the bank an anointing of the forehead with oil, a simple communion of bread and water, and the handshake of "truth" (kushta). Baptism can take place only in flowing (=living) water, hence in rivers. All rivers fit for baptism bare the name Jordan (Yardana). It is believed that these Jordans are fed from the celestial World of Light. The chief purpose and significance of baptism is first that the Mandaean, by immersion in the Jordan , enters into close communion with the World of Light, thus receiving a share of salvation. And secondly, receives a purification from transgressions and sins. Thus as once in the primeval times beings of light first baptized Adam , the Mandaean believes that at his baptism the World of Light is present and takes an active part. Without baptism, no Mandaean (or his soul) may pass on to the next world.
The other important rite, the mass for the dead, or rather the ascent of soul to the World of Light. It is a characteristic feature of the Mandaean religion to resolve the problem of death by firm belief in the after life of the soul. For the Mandaeans, the fate of the soul is a chief concern. An extensive number of ritual performances are developed with this aim in view. These include, among few other rituals, certain ceremonial meals. Meals in memory of the dead, like baptism ceremonies, belong almost to every Mandaean feast and thus reveal an important side of the religion. The mass for the dead has a symbolic value in connection with the rebirth of the soul, and helps the soul in its dangerous journey through "places of detention" or purgatory (matarata) to the World of Light.
The Mandaean worldview is stamped by gnostic dualism. A World of Light (nhura) and a World of Darkness (hshuka) exist in mutual hostility. The World of Light is a world of light and brilliance, of goodness and truth, and eternity without death. Heading the World of Light is a sublime being, The King of Light "Life" (Haii). Countless number of light beings "angels" (uthra) surrounds this God. The World of Darkness is a similar construction to the World of Light, but it stems originally from the chaos or 'dark waters'. The World of Darkness is full of evil and falsehood. Hostile relations between light and darkness, life and death, good and evil have always existed. These relations led to the creation of the earthly world (Tibil). Earth was created as a result of joint actions from darkness and light. Basically, it was an evil act with the interference by the World of Light to tilt the balance in its favor. The Mandaean literature narrates different versions as to how this took place.
The high point of creation is the creation of the first man Adam , whose body ( adam pagria ) was produced by the evil beings, the wicked spirit-ruha- and the planets.
("We shall capture Adam and seize him And detain him with us in the world.
We shall install him in our assembly, We shall seize and lay hold of his heart.") ginza Rba-Right III
This purpose is prevented by the beings of light, in that they create for Adam a "companion", the soul or 'inner' (hidden) Adam (adam kasya), and impart to him the secrets of the world.
This event produces one of the major themes of Mandaean mythology. From the primeval couple Adam and Eve descend the Mandaeans; they comprise the 'family of Life' for their souls derive from the World of Light and ever since they have had to take up their residence in the 'darkness' or bodily (earthly) world.
The redemption of Adam is held to be a prototype of redemption in general. This event stands at the center of the Mandaean concern. After the soul's fall into the body of Adam, Manda dHaii – the 'Knowledge of Life' a personification of redemptive knowledge; gives the Ginza to Adam, revealing the 'mysteries' of cosmos to him. Adam is therefore assisted to knowledge and redemption. Redemption consists in the happy return of the soul to the World of Light, and every instruction has this object in view.
A few words may be devoted to the Mandaean ethics and morality. Unlike other gnostic sects they recognize no strict religious demands or for that matter free thinking. Monogamy and having children are directly prescribed, dispensing of alms (zidqa) is necessary for salvation, and also other works, observance of food laws, ritual slaughter, and rules pertaining to purification, to which belong the baptisms and lustrations. The Mandaeans are taught to love their neighbours. Among other things, a reservatio mentalis is sanctioned when oppressed by alien religions. A detailed 'moral code' is found in the first two sections of The Right Ginza.
Mandaean Moral Values
"And when ye , my chosen ones give alms, do not proclaim it to anybody. If ye proclaim it to anybody ye do not give. When ye give alms with your right hand do not tell your left hand: when you give alms with your left hand, do not tell your right hand. He who gives alms and proclaim it - to him the reward shall be denied and it shall not abscribed to him."
"Blessed are they that listen and believe"
"all things whatsoever that are hateful to you, do not ye do them to your neighbor"
"Honor thy mother and thy father and thy elder brothers as thy father"
"Perfect and faithful: do not deviate from your words and love not lies and falsehood. "
"If ye have children...then teach them, when they have grown up the wisdom of truth and let them wander the road of Kusta (truth): if ye do not teach them ye will be deem guilty in the house of judgment: if ye teach them and they do not learn they have to account for their sins themselves"
"Take a wife and found a family, so that the world may multiply through you"
"Love not gold and silver and the possessions of this world, for this world will come to nothing and perish and its possessions and its works will be abandoned. "
"Give bread, water, and shelter to poor and persecuted people who suffer persecution."
"Do not commit adultery or fornicate, do not sing or dance. Do not let your heart be fettered by Satan 's singing, which is full of magic, deception, and seduction ... "
"Do not eat the blood of animals, not one dead, not one pregnant, not one casting its young, not one standing (or, what has fallen), and not one which a wild animal attacked. But slaughter with iron and rinse, wash, purify, cook, and eat it."
Do not worship Satan , the idols, the images, the error, and the confusion of this world: whoever worships Satan falls into the blazing fire until the day of judgment, until the hour, the hours of release, as long as the sublime King of Light desires it."
Below is a very simple list (using English terminology) of the Mandaean belief system.
Their language is called Mandaic and Modern Mandaic is still spoken in Iran among the laypeople. Also all the priests still speak Mandaic.Please refer to Mandaean values pages to get a learn about their moral belief system
Please refer to Mandaean values pages to get a learn about their moral belief system
The Mandaeans are a religious sect of great antiquity that still exists in limited numbers in the border territories of southern Iraq and Iran . Neither Christian , Moslem, Jewish nor Zoroasterism, the Mandaean religion contains a variety of ancient elements that attest to their antiquity. Adherents to the faith can be found in the cities and villages in the lands of the lower Euphrates , the lower Tigris , the rivers that surround the Shatt-al-Arab, and in the adjacent Iranian Province of Khuzistan (once called Arabistan).
Their religion is a proto-religion in which they descended from Adam who was the first to receive the religious instructions of the Mandaeans. Their last great teacher and healer was John the Baptist. The origins of both the people and of the religion are one of the continuing mysteries of Mandaean research.
Other names used for the Mandaeans
It was through the Portuguese monks that the name Christians of Saint John or Chrsitiani S. Ioannis . The first time this term is used is in a report dated 1555 written by the Portuguese monks of Ormuz. Upon seeing their baptismal rites and hearing the stories of John the Baptist, the Portuguese called the Mandaeans "Christians of St. John" or Christiani di San Giovanni. Assuming that these people were simply the last remnants of John the Baptist followers and that they simply had not heard the word of Jesus, the monks decided all the Mandaeans needed was a little prodding to become good Catholicss.
We first seee this term in the the writings of Muhammad ' ibn Ishaq 'ibn 'al-Nadim (died 995 AD). 'Ibn al-Nadim wrote about a baptizing sect that he calls Sabat al-bata'ih—the Sabians of the Marshs. He also calls them informally al- Mughasilah "the Baptists" or "ones who wash themselves".


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A few weekends ago we had the honor and privilege of being invited to play at The 30th Annual Bridge School Benefit presented by Neil Young and Pegi Young. We dusted off our acoustic gear, stripped down some classic songs, played some covers and even jammed with our host, the man himself Neil Young.
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Egypt set to launch Arabic Internet domain name
.masr will confuse .com junkies for a while, as Egypt registers the world's first Arabic language Internet domain. Written in the Arabic alphabet, .masr translates as .Egypt. Internet regulator Icann has voted to allow non-Latin web addresses, so expect a proliferation of domain names in Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic and maybe even Sanskrit (and countless more scripts). We would love to give you a few examples, but none have immediately come to our attention. Egypt has 15 million Internet users out of a population of 80 million, which is a heck of a lot more than South Africa, and is nearly 25% of the African total. .masr was announced at the start of the Internet Governance Forum being held in Egypt. The forum also saw outraged international rights groups decrying heavy government censorship in Egypt that has seen bloggers and political dissidents arrested. Read more: BBC, Internet World Stats


text: I saw this question posted on another Christian forum site and it generated a lot of discussion. I wanted to see what people thought here. The question was: "Is the sexual behaviour of others a concern to you? Why is this? Where do you draw the line between moral sexuality and sexual immorality?"


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"It is a well known doctrine of the British Israelism in some Calvinist churches that since Israel is NOT relevant to the Bible anymore than God's promises to bless those who will bless Israel is invalid today, and that Israel means THE CHURCH."
What I am talking about has nothing to do with "British Israel."
I showed what the Bible says on that, your task is to show me where God's promises to Israel are ENDED and that God replaced Israel with the Church."
Mt. 21:33-43. There was landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect the fruit.
The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. "They will respect my son," he said.
But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, "This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and take his inheritance." So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?
"He will bring those wretches to a wretched end," they replied, "and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give his his share of the crop at harvest time."
Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the scriptures, 'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes'?
"Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit."