Country: Iraq
Group: Sabian Mandaeans
Date Finalized: 11/8/2021
Team: Jocelyn Chen (Lead), Mason McNeel
The Sabian Mandaean group currently has approximately 5,000 members in Iraq. However, they were not always at such a low population numbers (Minority Rights Group,2017). The Sabian Mandaeans were once craftsmen who specialized in carpentry, boat-building, and silversmithing (Minority Rights Group,2017). Various factors including the modernization of Iraq, draining of local water in the environment, and most impactfully, discrimination and violence towards their people led to displacement of Sabian Mandaeans from their country (Minority Rights Group,2017). At the start of 2003 and onwards, Islamic militants have targeted the Sabeans and their religion by killing, abducting, torturing, and forcefully converting the ethnic minority. The devastation of their persecution is exacerbated by their religious rule that states they are not to arm themselves with weaponry (Taneja, 2007). To avoid persecution, many of them avoid speaking their language, alter their appearance, and change their customs (Hanish, 2018). Today, the advance of ISIS has forced many to leave the country out of fear.
The Sabian Mandaean minority group presents a clear case of an ethnic group forced away from their home country and are now facing extinction of their language and traditions. Due to the large volume of data, the data quality for this synthesis is rated 3/3.
Sources
- Hanish, S. (2018). The Mandaeans in Iraq. In Routledge Handbook of minorities in the Middle East (1st ed.). essay, Routledge.
- Minority Rights Group. 2017. Sabian Mandaean. (2017, November). https://minorityrights.org/minorities/sabian-mandaeans/
- Taneja, P. (2007). Assimilation, Exodus, Eradication: Iraq’s minority communities since 2003. Minority Rights Group International. https://doi.org/10.1163/2210-7975_hrd-0209-0222