CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Neo-Mandaic and Its Speakers Among the rarest and most seriously endangered languages of the world spoken at the present time is Neo-Mandaic. This unique Aramaic idiom, spoken by a few hundred adherents of Mandaeism, an indigenous gnostic religion of Lower Mesopotamia, was probably still the vernacular of most Mandaeans until late in the 19th century.1 Since then it has been com- pletely superseded by Arabic in Iraq, and more recently by Khuzestani Arabic and Persian among the vast majority of Iranian Mandaeans. At least as far back as the late 15th century the vicissitudes of the Man- daean inhabitants of Khuzestan, the southwestern Iranian province where Neo-Mandaic is still barely spoken today, were often tragic and fraught with hardship.2 Records of heavy oppression and persecution of the indig- enous Mandaean population at the hands of the Persian authorities and local rulers continue until the closing decades of the 19th century.3 In the more recent part of that period, persecution of the Mandaean priesthood in 1782 and 1818 by Persian rulers and, most tragically, the massacre of the Mandaeans of the northern Khuzestani town of Shushtar in 1870, were coupled with natural disasters, most notably epidemics that ravaged the inhabitants of the Shushtar in 1831 and 18324 and decimated the Man- daean priesthood of the province. The large Mandaean communities of Shushtar and Ḥoweyza (presently Hoveyzeh), which thrived as the cultural centres of the Persian Mandae- ans between the 15th and early 19th centuries,5 as well as those of Dezful 1 See Mutzafi and Morgenstern, forthcoming. 2 See Buckley 2002: 6 and Buckley 2005. 3 See Lupieri 2002: 70–71, 73, 77, 104, Layard 1887, vol. 2: 162, 357–360. 4 See de Bode 1845, vol. 2: 149 and Buckley 2002: 6. 5 As regards early evidence—a source dating to 1480 testifies to large Mandaean com- munities in these towns, which are also the source of some of the earliest Mandaean manuscripts (see Buckley 2005 and Buckley 2010: 233–234), and in 1625 the Portuguese missionary Basil of St. Francis reported that the chief priests of the Mandaeans resided in Ḥoweyza (Chick 1939, vol. 1: 326). 2 chapter one and Shah Vali (Shawali),6 had all been in numerical decline during—and quite possibly already before—the 19th century,7 and most of these had ceased to exist by the end of that century. Some other Mandaean com- munities of the area are mentioned by missionaries in lists dating back to the years 1625 and 1636,8 but there is no further record of their con- tinued existence. These lists attest to a much wider geographical distri- bution of Mandaeans, and by inference of the Neo-Mandaic language, in the 17th century in comparison with the 19th century, and include loca- tions as far flung and deep into Persian territory as Deh Dasht (188 km. south-east of Ahvaz), Behbehan (170 km. south-east of Ahvaz), Hendijan (155 km. south-east of Ahvaz), Jafarabad, which might be a village of this name near Lali (ca. 120 km. north-east of Ahvaz), Mansurabad, which seems to be a village of this name in the Khuzestani county of Masjed Soleyman (ca. 100 km. north-east of Ahvaz), Ramhormuz (ca. 90 km. east of Ahvaz), Khalafabad (near Ramshir, 80 km. south-east of Ahvaz), and some other places which could not be located on available modern maps.9 By the year 1877 fewer than 50 Mandaean families were reported to be living on Persian soil, including only 2 Mandaean families remain- ing in Shushtar, 7 families in Dezful, 10 in Ḥoweyza and 30 families in Moḥammara (presently Khorramshahr).10 In 1880 these 4 towns, as well as Shah Vali, Gibar (possibly Gobeyr, presently Gobeyr-e Zahir, a village 16 km. north of Ahvaz) and a few other locations in the area, were men- tioned by the French vice-consul in Mosul, Nicholas Siouffi, as places where Mandaeans were to be found in Persia.11 All these communities were probably small in the extreme by that year, and, as far as is known, by the end of the 19th century only Moḥammara and Ḥoweyza were still inhabited by Mandaeans, in addition to a new community in Ahvaz. Oral tradition has it that the persecuted and dwindling northern Khuzestani communities of Shushtar, Dezful and Shah Vali had to turn southward to Moḥammara (Khorramshahr) and later to Ahvaz for a safer residence. Khuzestani Mandaeans were also moving to Ottoman controlled 6 For a map with the location of these and other Khuzestani towns see Macuch 1993: 447. 7 See Curzon 1892, vol. 2: 305–306, Layard 1887, vol. 2: 359. 8 See Chick 1939, vol. 1: 325–326, 331. 9 Although some of these towns are not near a river, which is crucial for Mandaean baptismal rituals, perhaps local water canals, such as the one that runs through Behbehan, and brooks or streams in the rural vicinity, were used for this purpose. 10 See Houtum-Schindler 1892: 665. 11 See Siouffi 1880: 159. .