THE MANDAEAN IDENTITY CHALLENGE FROM RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM TO SECULAR POLICIES *
Mehrdad Arabestani
Published 2010


In 2002, when I started my field work among the Mandaeans of Iran, the first thing that struck me was the highly ritualistic tone of Mandaean religion with a stress on purification rites. I found out that the rituals have a pivotal and irreplaceable status in Mandaean religiousness. When one asks the Mandaean about their religion, the immediate answer is usually an account of the Mandaean rites rather than the Mandaean beliefs and theology. Drower, as the leading researcher in Mandaean ethnography, had noted this point in her introduction to The Haran Gawaita and the Baptism of HIbil-Ziwa





https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/THE-MANDAEAN-IDENTITY-CHALLENGE-FROM-RELIGIOUS-TO-*-Arabestani/f9d41261bd7c9105050df0997e996941c4410cec