Every Sunday morning on the bank of the Karun river in the south-western Iranian city of Ahwaz scenes like from the ancient world take place. Men and women dressed in their white ceremonial robes perform rites during which they immers themselves into the river’s water. They are Mandaeans – adherants of the last gnostic religion, which has survived since the antique times. Not many people have heard about them, even historians are not quite sure about their origin.

Mandaeans claim they are descendents of Adam and they also revere Abel, Seth, Enosh, Noah, Shem and Aram. Their greatest prophet and teacher however is John the Baptist. After his death the Mandaeans have continued to baptise themselves until nowadays and they do it the same unchanged way as they used to do 2,000 years ago. They believe that the rivers (Yardanas) are fed from the celestial World of Light (i.e. God) and that the flowing water is a life-creating force of the world. Baptism (masbuta) is essential religious practice. When they immerse in flowing water of a river they connect themselves with the God and receive a purification of their souls.


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