Mandaeism

Nem só espécies animais ou vegetais correm o risco de extinção hoje, também gente, culturas, línguas sofrem a mesma ameaça...só a nossa inteligência nos pode salvar, porque no fim morremos todos.


"Mandaeism or Mandaeanism (Mandaic: Mandaiuta, Arabic: مندائية‎ Mandā'iyya, Persian: مندائیان) is a monotheistic religion with a stronglydualistic worldview. Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enosh, Noah, Shem, Aram and especially John the Baptist. They are sometimes identified with the Sabian religion, particularly in an Arabian context, but actually Mandaeism and Manichaeism seem to be independent – to some degree opposing – developments out of the mainstream Sabian religious community, which is extinct today.

Mandeans seem to be indigenous to Mesopotamia and are certainly of Pre Arab and Pre Islamic origin. They may well be related to theAssyrians who are also Semitic, Aramaic speaking indigenous Pre Arab and Pre Islamic inhabitants of Iraq. They are Semites and speak a dialect of Aramaic known as Mandaic.

Mandaeism has historically been practised primarily around the lower Karun, Euphrates and Tigris and the rivers that surround the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, part of southern Iraq and Khuzestan Province in Iran. There are thought to be between 60,000 and 70,000 Mandaeans worldwide,^[1] and until the 2003 Iraq war, almost all of them lived in Iraq.^[3] Many Mandaean Iraqis have since fled their country (as have many other Iraqis) because of the turmoil of the war and terrorism.^[4] By 2007, the population of Mandaeans in Iraq had fallen to approximately 5,000.^[3] Most Mandaean Iraqis have sought refuge in Iran with the fellow Mandians there. There has been a much smaller influx into Syria and Jordan, with smaller populations in Sweden, Australia, the United States, and other Western countries.

The Mandaeans have remained separate and intensely private—reports of them and of their religion have come primarily from outsiders, particularly from the Orientalists J. Heinrich Petermann, Nicholas Siouffi, and Lady Drower. An Anglican vicar, Rev. Peter Owen-Jones, included a short segment on a Mandaean group in Sydney, Australia, in his BBC series "Around the World in 80 Faiths.""

Wikipedia entry