Iraq's Mandaean community marks Golden Baptism feast in white robes and running water
Shafaq News- Baghdad
Dressed in white and wading into flowing water, Iraq's Mandaean community joined Mandaeans around the world Sunday in marking Dihba Idimana (Dehwa Daimana) —the Golden Baptism feast— under mild spring skies.
Baptism is the central pillar of the Mandaean faith, obligatory from birth and repeated throughout a believer's life. On this occasion, community members gather at the Mandi, the Mandaean temple, to undergo the baptismal rite and prepare Thwab, a ritual meal of atonement offered on behalf of the dead. The feast commemorates the baptism of the Prophet John the Baptist, Yahya ibn Zakariya, who holds the role of central prophet in the faith. It is observed as a day of spiritual purification, cleansing the soul of all sin, according to Mandaean religious belief.
The rite itself requires the baptized to enter flowing water alongside a clergyman who recites scripture throughout the ceremony. All participants, men, women, and children, wear a white garment specific to the occasion called the Rasta.
Mandaeanism is one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions. Its liturgical language is Aramaic, the same language used in its holy scripture, the Ginza Rabba, meaning "the Great Treasure" in Arabic. The text contains the scriptures of the Prophet Adam: its first section addresses the creation, the teachings of the Eternal Living God, and the struggle between good and evil; its second concerns the fate of the soul after death, its journey from the body to the world of light, and the divine reckoning it faces. The Ginza Rabba was translated into Arabic under the linguistic supervision of the late poet Abdul Razzaq Abdul Wahid.
Iraq's Mandaean community has faced sustained hardship over recent decades, driving the majority of its members to emigrate or to relocate from southern Iraqi cities to the Kurdistan Region. An estimated 10,000 to 20,000 Mandaeans remain in Iraq today —a fraction of a once-larger presence— with Erbil receiving thousands of those who stayed, opening a Mandi for their worship and becoming home to hundreds of Mandaean goldsmiths. Gold-working is the community's traditional and predominant trade.
Migration waves beginning in the late 1990s have dispersed the community across Sweden, Germany, Australia, and the United States, where members have established Mandis, obtained official recognition, and secured the legal right to practice their rituals and meet their religious needs.
