Mandaeans in the context of "Tigris"

Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples or Proto-Semitic people were speakers of Semitic languages who lived throughout the ancient Near East and North Africa, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula and Carthage from the 3rd millennium BC until the end of antiquity, with some, such as Arabs, Arameans, Assyrians, Jews, Mandaeans, and Samaritans having a historical continuum into the present day.

Their languages are usually divided into three branches: East, Central and South Semitic languages.the oldest attested forms of Semitic date to the early to mid-3rd millennium BC (the Early Bronze Age) in Mesopotamia, the northwest Levant and southeast Anatolia.

Aramaic (Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: ארמית, romanized: ˀərāmiṯ; Classical Syriac: ܐܪܡܐܝܬ, romanized: arāmāˀiṯ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written and spoken in different varieties for over 3,000 years.

Aramaic served as a language of public life and administration of ancient kingdoms and empires—particularly the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Neo-Babylonian Empire, and Achaemenid Empire—and as a language of divine worship and religious study within Judaism, Christianity, and Gnosticism. Several modern varieties of Aramaic are still spoken. The modern eastern branch is spoken by Assyrians, Mandeans, and Mizrahi Jews. Western Aramaic is still spoken by the Muslim and Christian Arameans (Syriacs) in the towns of Maaloula, Bakh'a and Jubb'adin in Syria. Classical varieties are used as liturgical and literary languages in several West Asian churches, as well as in Judaism, Samaritanism, and Mandaeism. The Aramaic language is considered endangered, with several varieties used mainly by the older generations. Researchers are working to record and analyze all of the remaining varieties of Neo-Aramaic languages in case they become extinct.

Ethnic groups in the Middle East are ethnolinguistic groupings in the "transcontinental" region that is commonly a geopolitical term designating the intercontinental region comprising West Asia (including Cyprus) without the South Caucasus, and also comprising Egypt in North Africa. The Middle East has historically been a crossroad of different cultures and languages. Since the 1960s, the changes in political and economic factors (especially the enormous oil wealth in the region and conflicts) have significantly altered the ethnic composition of groups in the region. While some ethnic groups have been present in the region for millennia, others have arrived fairly recently through immigration. The largest ethnic groups in the region are Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azerbaijanis but there are dozens of other ethnic groups that have hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions of members.

Other indigenous, religious, or minority ethnic groups include: Antiochians, Armenians, Assyrians, Arameans in the Qalamoun Mountains, Baloch, Copts, Druze, Gilaks, Greeks (including Cypriots and Pontians), Jews, Kawliya, Laz, Lurs, Mandaeans, Maronites, Mazanderanis, Mhallami, Nawar, Samaritans, Shabaks, Talysh, Tats, Yazidis and Zazas.

Nasiriyah (UK: /ˌnæzɪˈriːə/ NAZ-irr-EE-ə, US: /ˌnɑːsɪ-/ NAH-sirr-; Arabic: ٱلنَّاصِرِيَّة, romanized: an-Nāṣiriyya, BGN: An Nāşirīyah, IPA: [ænnɑːsˤɪˈrɪjjæ]), also spelled Nassiriya or Nasiriya, is a city in Iraq, the capital of the Dhi Qar Governorate. It lies on the lower Euphrates, about 360 km (225 miles) south-southeast of Baghdad, near the ruins of the ancient city of Ur. Its population in 2018 was about 558,000, making it the ninth-largest city in Iraq. It had a diverse population of Muslims, Mandaeans and Jews in the early 20th century; today its inhabitants are predominantly Shia Muslims.

Nasiriyah was founded by the Muntafiq tribe in the late 19th century during the era of Ottoman Iraq. It has since become a major hub for transportation. Nasiriyah is the center of a date-growing area. The city's cottage industries include boat-building, carpentry and silver working. The city museum has a large collection of Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Abbasid artifacts. The ruins of the ancient cities of Ur and Larsa are nearby and the Euphrates merges with the Tigris for the final time about 10 kilometres from the city.

Allah (/ˈælə, ˈɑːlə, əˈlɑː/ A(H)L-ə, ə-LAH; Arabic: الله, IPA: [ɑɫˈɫɑːh] ) is the Arabic language term for God, specifically the monotheistic God of Abraham. Outside of Arabic languages, it is principally associated with Islam (in which it is also considered the proper name), although the term was used in pre-Islamic Arabia and continues to be used today by Arabic-speaking adherents of any of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism and Christianity. It is thought to be derived by contraction from al-ilāh (الاله, lit. 'the god') and is linguistically related to other semitic God names, such as Aramaic (ܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ ʼAlāhā) and Hebrew (אֱלוֹהַּ ʾĔlōah).

The word "Allah" now conveys the superiority or sole existence of one God, but among the pre-Islamic Arabs, Allah was a supreme deity and was worshipped alongside lesser deities in a pantheon. Many Jews, Christians, and early Muslims used "Allah" and "al-ilah" synonymously in Classical Arabic. The word is also frequently, albeit not exclusively, used by Bábists, Baháʼís, Mandaeans, Indonesian Christians, Maltese Christians, and Sephardic Jews, as well as by the Gagauz people.

Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek γνωστικός (gnōstikós) 'having knowledge'; Koine Greek: [ɣnostiˈkos]) is a collection of religious and philosophical ideas and systems that coalesced in the late first century AD among sects of early Christianity and other faiths. It is not a singular, homogeneous tradition or religion, but an umbrella term used by modern scholars to describe different groups and beliefs that shared certain characteristics. These diverse Gnostic groups generally emphasized personal spiritual knowledge (gnosis) above the authority, traditions, and proto-orthodox teachings of organized religious institutions. The Gnostic worldview typically distinguished between a hidden, uncorrupted supreme being and a flawed demiurge responsible for creating material reality. Gnostics held this material existence to be evil and believed the principal element of salvation was direct knowledge of the supreme divinity, attained via mystical or esoteric insight. Many Gnostic texts deal not in concepts of sin and repentance, but with illusion and enlightenment.

Although the exact origins of Gnosticism cannot be traced, Gnostic writings flourished among certain Christian groups in the Mediterranean during the second century. In the Gnostic Christian tradition, Christ was seen as a divine being that had taken human form in order to lead humanity back to recognition of its own divine nature. Judean–Israelite Gnosticism, including the Mandaeans and Elkesaites, blended Jewish-Christian ideas with Gnostic beliefs focused on baptism and the cosmic struggle between light and darkness. Syriac–Egyptian groups like Sethianism and Valentinianism combined Platonic philosophy and Christian themes, seeing the material world as flawed but not wholly evil. Other traditions include the Basilideans, Marcionites, and Thomasines. Manichaeism, which adopted Gnostic concepts such as cosmic dualism, emerged as a major religious movement in the third century, briefly rivaling Christianity.

Eastern Aramaic refers to a group of dialects that evolved historically from the varieties of Aramaic spoken in the core territories of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq, southeastern Turkey and parts of northeastern Syria) and further expanded into northern Syria, eastern Arabia and northwestern Iran. This is in contrast to the Western Aramaic varieties found predominantly in the southern Levant, encompassing most parts of modern western Syria and Palestine region. Most speakers are Assyrians (including Chaldean Catholics), although there is a minority of Bavlim Jews and Mandaeans who also speak modern varieties of Eastern Aramaic.

Mandaeism (Classical Mandaic: ࡌࡀࡍࡃࡀࡉࡅࡕࡀ‎ mandaiuta), sometimes also known as Nasoraeanism or Sabianism, is a Gnostic, monotheistic and ethnic religion with Greek, Iranian, and Jewish influences. Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enos, Noah, Shem, Aram, and especially John the Baptist. Mandaeans consider Adam, Seth, Noah, Shem, and John the Baptist prophets, with Adam being the founder of the religion and John being the greatest and final prophet.

The Mandaeans speak an Eastern Aramaic language known as Mandaic. The name 'Mandaean' comes from the Aramaic manda, meaning knowledge. Within the Middle East, but outside their community, the Mandaeans are more commonly known as the صُبَّة Ṣubba (singular: Ṣubbī), or as Sabians (الصابئة, al-Ṣābiʾa). The term Ṣubba is derived from an Aramaic root related to baptism. The term Sabians derives from the mysterious religious group mentioned three times in the Quran. The name of this unidentified group, which is implied in the Quran to belong to the "People of the Book" (ahl al-kitāb), was historically claimed by the Mandaeans as well as by several other religious groups in order to gain legal protection (dhimma) as offered by Islamic law. Occasionally, Mandaeans are also called "Christians of Saint John", in the belief that they were a direct survival of the Baptist's disciples. Further research, however, indicates this to be a misnomer, as Mandaeans consider Jesus to be a false prophet.