Mandaeism or Mandaeanism (Modern Mandaic: Mandaʻiūtā‎ (מנדעיותא); Arabic: مندائية‎ Mandāʼīyah/Mandāʾiyyah; Persian: مندائیان‎ Mandâ'iyân) is a gnostic religion^{[citation needed]} (Aramaic manda means "knowledge", as does Greek gnosis) with a strongly dualistic worldview.

Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enosh, Noah, Shem, Aram and especially John the Baptist, but reject Jesus of Nazareth and are hostile to Christianity.^[1][2] They are sometimes identified with mentions in the Quran of the Sabian religion, particularly in an Arabian context, but the Sabian religious community is extinct today.

According to most scholars, Mandaeans migrated from the Southern Levant to Mesopotamia in the first centuries CE and are certainly of pre-Arab and pre-Islamic origin. They are Semites and speak a dialect of Eastern Aramaic known as Mandaic. They may well be related to the "Nabateans of Iraq" who were pagan, Aramaic speaking indigenous pre-Arab and pre-Islamic inhabitants of southern Iraq.^[3]

Mandaeans appear to have settled in northern Mesopotamia, but the religion has been practised primarily around the lower Karun, Euphrates and Tigris and the rivers that surround the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, part of southern Iraq and Khuzestan Province in Iran. There are thought to be between 60,000 and 70,000 Mandaeans worldwide,^[4] and until the 2003 Iraq war, almost all of them lived in Iraq.^[5] Many Mandaean Iraqis have since fled their country (as have many other Iraqis) because of religious persecution by the Muslim majority and turmoil created by the War on Terror.^[6] By 2007, the population of Mandaeans in Iraq had fallen to approximately 5,000.^[5] Most Mandaean Iraqis have sought refuge in Iran with the fellow Mandaeans there. Others have moved to northern Iraq. There has been a much smaller influx into Syria and Jordan, with smaller populations in Sweden, Australia, the United States, and other Western countries.

The Mandaeans have remained separate and intensely private—reports of them and of their religion have come primarily from outsiders, particularly from the Orientalist Julius Heinrich Petermann, Nicolas Siouffi a Yazidi (1880), and Lady Drower. An Anglican vicar, Rev. Peter Owen-Jones, included a short segment on a Mandaean group in Sydney, Australia, in his BBC series Around the World in 80 Faiths.

Origin of Mandaeism[link]

The term Mandaeism comes from Classical Mandaic Mandaiia and appears in Neo-Mandaic as Mandeyānā. On the basis of cognates in other Aramaic dialects, Semiticists such as Mark Lidzbarski and Rudolf Macuch have translated the term manda, from which Mandaiia derives, as "knowledge" (cf. Aramaic מַנְדַּע mandaʻ in Dan. 2:21, 4:31, 33, 5:12; cpr. Hebrew: מַדַּע‎ maddaʻ without the nasal insert). This etymology suggests that the Mandaeans may well be the only sect surviving from late Antiquity to identify themselves explicitly as Gnostics.

Other scholars^[who?] derive the term mandaiia from Mandā d-Heyyi (Mandaic manda ḏ-hiia "Knowledge of Life", reference to the chief divinity hiia rbia "the Great Life") or from the word (bi)manda, which is the cultic hut in which many Mandaean ceremonies are performed (such as the baptism, which is the central sacrament of Mandaean religious life). This last term is possibly to be derived from Pahlavi m’nd mānd ("house").^{[citation needed]}

Other associated terms[link]

Within the Middle East, but outside of their community, the Mandaeans are more commonly known as the Ṣubba (singular: Ṣubbī). The term Ṣubba is derived from the Aramaic root related to baptism, the neo-Mandaic is Ṣabi.^[7] In Islam, the term "Sabians" (Arabic: الصابئون‎ al-Ṣābiʾūn) is used as a blanket term for adherents to a number of religions, including that of the Mandaeans, in reference to the Sabians of the Qur'an (see below). Occasionally, Mandaeans are called Christians of Saint John, based upon preliminary reports made by members of the Discalced Carmelite mission in Basra during the 16th century.

A mandá (Arabic: مندى‎) is a place of worship for followers of Mandaeism. A mandá must be built beside a river in order to perform maṣbattah (baptism) because water is an essential element in the Mandaeic faith. Modern mandás sometimes have a bath inside a building instead.

Mandaean history[link]

The evidence about Mandaean history has been almost entirely confined to some of the Mandaen religious literature. Suggestions that Mandaeism had a pre-Christian origin are rejected by most scholars.^[8]

Arab sources of early Qur'anic times (7th century) make some references to Sabians. They are counted among the Ahl al-Kitāb (People of the Book), and several hadith feature them. Some scholars hold that these Sabians are those currently referred to as Mandaeans, while others contend that the etymology of the root word 'Sabi'un' points to origins either in the Syriac or Mandaic word 'Sabian', and suggest that the Mandaean religion originated with Sabeans who came under the influence of early Hellenic Sabian missionaries, but preferred their own priesthood. The Sabians believed to "belong to the prophet Noah";^[9] similarly, the Mandaeans claim direct ancestry from Noah.

Early in the 9th century, a group in the northern Mesopotamian city of Harran declared themselves Sabians when facing persecution; an Assyrian Christian writer^{[who?][when?]} said that the true 'Sabians' or Sabba lived in the marshes of Lower Iraq. The earliest account we have about the Mandaeans is that of the Assyrian writer Theodore Bar Konai (in the Scholion, A.D. 792). In the Fihrist ("Book of Nations") of Arabic scholar Al-Nadim (an c.987), the Mogtasilah (Mughtasila..., "self-ablutionists") are counted among the followers of El-Hasaih. Called a "sect" of "Sabians", they are located in southern Mesopotamia.^[10] No verbatim reference to Mandaeans, which were a distinct group by then, seems to have been made by Al-Nadim; Mogtasilah was not that group's endonym, and the few details on rituals and habit are similar to Mandaeans ones. Mogtasilah may thus have been Al-Nadim's term for the Mandaeans, but they may just as well have been a related group which does not exist anymore today.

In any case, Elchasai's religious community seems to have prospered but ultimately splintered; early on, the prophet Mani renounced Judaism and departed with his followers. Likewise, the Mandaeans may have originated in a schism where they renounced the Torah, while the mainstream Sampsaeans^{[citation needed]} held on to it (as Elchasai's followers did); this must have happened around the mid-late 1st millennium AD. Al-Biruni (writing at the beginning of the 11th century AD) said that the 'real Sabians' were "the remnants of the Jewish tribes who remained in Babylonia when the other tribes left it for Jerusalem in the days of Cyrus and Artaxerxes. These remaining tribes...adopted a system mixed up of Magism and Judaism."^[11] It is not clear what group he referred to exactly, for by then the Elchasaite sects may have been at their most diverse. Some disappeared subsequently, the Sampsaeans for example are not well attested in later sources. The Ginza Rba, one of the chief holy scriptures of the Mandaeans, appears to originate around the time of Elchasai or somewhat thereafter (see below); unfortunately, none of the Manichaean scriptures has survived in its entirety, and as it seems the remaining fragments have not been compared to the Ginza Rba.

Around 1290, a learned Dominican Catholic from Tuscany, Ricoldo da Montecroce, or Ricoldo Pennini, was in Mesopotamia where he met the Mandaeans. He described them as follows:

“A very strange and singular people, in terms of their rituals, lives in the desert near Baghdad; they are called Sabaeans. Many of them came to me and begged me insistently to go and visit them. They are a very simple people and they claim to possess a secret law of God, which they preserve in beautiful books. Their writing is a sort of middle way between Syriac and Arabic. They detest Abraham because of circumcision and they venerate John the Baptist above all. They live only near a few rivers in the desert. They wash day and night so as not to be condemned by God, …”

Some Portuguese Jesuits had met some "Saint John Christians" or Mandaeans around the Strait of Hormuz in 1559, when the Portuguese fleet fought with the Ottoman Turkish army in Bahrain. These Mandaean seemed to be willing to obey the Catholic Church. They learned and used the seven Catholic sacraments and the related ceremonies in their lives.^[12]

Mandaean beliefs[link]

Mandaeism, as the religion of the Mandaean people, is based more on a common heritage than on any set of religious creeds and doctrines. A basic guide to Mandaean theology does not exist. The corpus of Mandaean literature, though quite large, covers topics such as eschatology, the knowledge of God, and the afterlife only in an unsystematic manner, and, apart from the priesthood, is known only to a few laypeople.^[13]

Fundamental tenets[link]

According to E.S. Drower, the Mandaean Gnosis is characterized by nine features, which appear in various forms in other gnostic sects:^[14]

1. A supreme formless Entity, the expression of which in time and space is creation of spiritual, etheric, and material worlds and beings. Production of these is delegated by It to a creator or creators who originated in It. The cosmos is created by Archetypal Man, who produces it in similitude to his own shape.
2. Dualism: a cosmic Father and Mother, Light and Darkness, Right and Left, syzygy in cosmic and microcosmic form.
3. As a feature of this dualism, counter-types, a world of ideas.
4. The soul is portrayed as an exile, a captive: home and origin being the supreme Entity to which the soul eventually returns.
5. Planets and stars influence fate and human beings, and are also places of detention after death.
6. A saviour spirit or saviour spirits which assist the soul on the journey through life and after it to 'worlds of light'.
7. A cult-language of symbol and metaphor. Ideas and qualities are personified.
8. 'Mysteries', i.e. sacraments to aid and purify the soul, to ensure rebirth into a spiritual body, and ascent from the world of matter. These are often adaptations of existing seasonal and traditional rites to which an esoteric interpretation is attached. In the case of the Naṣoreans this interpretation is based upon the Creation story (see 1 and 2), especially on the Divine Man, Adam, as crowned and anointed King-priest.
9. Great secrecy is enjoined upon initiates; full explanation of 1, 2, and 8 being reserved for those considered able to understand and preserve the gnosis.

Mandaeans believe in marriage and procreation, and in the importance of leading an ethical and moral lifestyle in this world, placing a high priority upon family life. Consequently, Mandaeans do not practice celibacy or asceticism. Mandaeans will, however, abstain from strong drink and red meat. While they agree with other gnostic sects that the world is a prison governed by the planetary archons, they do not view it as a cruel and inhospitable one.

Mandaean scriptures[link]

The Mandaeans have a large corpus of religious scriptures, the most important of which is the Genzā Rabbā or Ginza, a collection of history, theology, and prayers (German translation available here).^[15] The Genzā Rabbā is divided into two halves—the Genzā Smālā or "Left Ginza" and the Genzā Yeminā or "Right Ginza". By consulting the colophons in the Left Ginza, Jorunn J. Buckley has identified an uninterrupted chain of copyists to the late 2nd or early 3rd c. AD. The colophons attest to the existence of the Mandaeans or their predecessors during the late Arsacid period at the very latest, a fact corroborated by the Harrān Gāwetā legend, according to which the Mandaeans left Judea after the destruction of Jerusalem in the 1st c. CE, and settled within the Arsacid empire. Although the Ginza continued to evolve under the rule of the Sassanians and the Islamic empires, few textual traditions can lay claim to such extensive continuity.

Other important books include the Qolastā, the "Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans", which was translated by E.S. Drower (much of it is found here).^[16] and here^[17] One of the chief works of Mandaean scripture, accessible to laymen and initiates alike, is the Draša D-Iahia "The Book of John the Baptist" (text; German translation), which includes a dialogue between John and Jesus. In addition to the Ginza, Qolusta, and Draša, there is the Dīvān, which contains a description of the 'regions' the soul ascends through, and the Asfar Malwāshē, the "Book of the Zodiacal Constellations". Finally, there are some pre-Muslim artifacts which contain Mandaean writings and inscriptions, such as some Aramaic incantation bowls.

The language in which the Mandaean religious literature was originally composed is known as Mandaic, and is a member of the Aramaic family of dialects. It is written in a cursive variant of the Parthian chancellory script. Many Mandaean lay people do not speak this language, though some members of the Mandaean community resident in Iran and Iraq continue to speak Neo-Mandaic, a modern version of this language.

Cosmology[link]

As noted above (under Mandaean Beliefs) Mandaean theology is not systematic. There is no one single authoritative account of the creation of the cosmos, but rather a series of several accounts. Some scholars, such as Edmondo Lupieri,^[18] maintain that comparison of these different accounts may reveal the diverse religious influences upon which the Mandaeans have drawn and the ways in which the Mandaean religion has evolved over time.

In contrast with the religious texts of the western Gnostic sects formerly found in Syria and Egypt, the earliest Mandaean religious texts suggest a more strictly dualistic theology, typical of other Iranian religions such as Zoroastrianism, Zurvanism, Manichaeism, and the teachings of Mazdak. In these texts, instead of a large pleroma, there is a discrete division between light and darkness. The ruler of darkness is called Ptahil (similar to the Gnostic Demiurge), and the originator of the light (i.e. God) is only known as "the great first Life from the worlds of light, the sublime one that stands above all works". When this being emanated, other spiritual beings became increasingly corrupted, and they and their ruler Ptahil created our world. The name Ptahil is suggestive of the Egyptian Ptah—the Mandaeans believe that they were resident in Egypt for a while—joined to the semitic El, meaning "god".

The issue is further complicated by the fact that Ptahil alone does not constitute the demiurge but only fills that role insofar as he is the creator of our world. Rather, Ptahil is the lowest of a group of three "demiurgic" beings, the other two being Yushamin (a.k.a. Joshamin) and Abathur. Abathur's demiurgic role consists of his sitting in judgment upon the souls of mortals. The role of Yushamin, the senior being, is more obscure; wanting to create a world of his own, he was severely punished for opposing the King of Light. Lupieri observes that he is generally considered a positive figure nevertheless. The name may derive from Iao haš-šammayim (in Hebrew: Yahweh "of the heavens").^[19]

Chief prophets[link]

Mandaeans recognize several prophets. Yahya ibn Zakariyya, known by Christians as John the Baptist, is accorded a special status, higher than his role in Christianity and Islam. Mandaeans do not consider John to be the founder of their religion but revere him as one of their greatest teachers, tracing their beliefs back to Adam.

Mandaeans maintain that Jesus was a mšiha kdaba "false messiah"^[20] who perverted the teachings entrusted to him by John. The Mandaic word k(a)daba, however, might be interpreted as being derived from either of two roots: the first root, meaning "to lie," is the one traditionally ascribed to Jesus; the second, meaning "to write," might provide a second meaning, that of "book"; hence some Mandaeans, motivated perhaps by an ecumenical spirit, maintain that Jesus was not a "lying Messiah" but a "book Messiah", the "book" in question presumably being the Christian Gospels. This seems to be a folk etymology without support in the Mandaean texts.^[21]

Likewise, the Mandaeans believe that Abraham and Moses were false prophets,^[22] but recognize other prophetic figures from the Abrahamic traditions, such as Adam, his sons Hibil (Abel) and Šitil (Seth), and his grandson Anuš (Enosh), as well as Nuh (Noah), his son Sam (Shem) and his son Ram (Aram). The latter three they consider to be their direct ancestors.

Mandaeans consider the holy spirit that is known as Ruha d-Qudsha in the Talmud and Bible to be an evil being.

Priests and laymen[link]

There is a strict division between Mandaean laity and the priests. According to E.S. Drower (The Secret Adam, p. ix):

[T]hose amongst the community who possess secret knowledge are called Naṣuraiia—Naṣoreans (or, if the emphatic ‹ṣ› is written as ‹z›, Nazorenes). At the same time the ignorant or semi-ignorant laity are called 'Mandaeans', Mandaiia—'gnostics'. When a man becomes a priest he leaves 'Mandaeanism' and enters tarmiduta, 'priesthood'. Even then he has not attained to true enlightenment, for this, called 'Naṣiruta', is reserved for a very few. Those possessed of its secrets may call themselves Naṣoreans, and 'Naṣorean' today indicates not only one who observes strictly all rules of ritual purity, but one who understands the secret doctrine.^[23]

There are three grades of priesthood in Mandaeism: the tarmidia "disciples" (Neo-Mandaic tarmidānā), the ganzibria "treasurers" (from Old Persian ganza-bara "id.", Neo-Mandaic ganzeḇrānā) and the rišamma "leader of the people." This last office, the highest level of the Mandaean priesthood, has lain vacant for many years. At the moment, the highest office currently occupied is that of the ganzeḇrā, a title which appears first in a religious context in the Aramaic ritual texts from Persepolis (ca. 3rd c. BCE) and which may be related to the kamnaskires (Elamite <qa-ap-nu-iš-ki-ra> kapnuskir "treasurer"), title of the rulers of Elymais (modern Khuzestan) during the Hellenistic age. Traditionally, any ganzeḇrā who baptizes seven or more ganzeḇrānā may qualify for the office of rišamma, though the Mandaean community has yet to rally as a whole behind any single candidate.

The contemporary priesthood can trace its immediate origins to the first half of the 19th century. In 1831, an outbreak of cholera devastated the region and eliminated most if not all of the Mandaean religious authorities. Two of the surviving acolytes (šgandia), Yahia Bihram and Ram Zihrun, reestablished the priesthood on the basis of their own training and the texts that were available to them.

In 2009 there were two dozen Mandaean priests in the world, according to the Associated Press.^[24]

Possibly related groups[link]

Elcesaites[link]

According to the Fihrist of ibn al-Nadim, the Mesopotamian prophet Mani, the founder of Manichaeism, was brought up within the Elkasaites (Elcesaites or Elchasaite) sect, this being confirmed more recently by the Cologne Mani Codex. The Elkasaites were a Judeo-Christian baptismal sect which seem to have been related, possibly ancestral, to the Mandaeans (see Sabians). The members of this sect, like the Mandaeans, wore white and performed baptisms. They dwelt in east Judea and Assyria, whence the Mandaeans claim to have migrated to southern Mesopotamia, according to the Harran Gawaitā legend. Mani later left the Elkasaites to found his own religion. In a comparative analysis, Mandaean scholar Säve-Söderberg indicated that Mani's Psalms of Thomas were closely related to Mandaean texts ^[25]. This would imply that Mani had access to Mandaean religious literature, or both derived from the same source.

4th-century Nazarenes[link]

The Haran Gawaita uses the name Nasoreans for the Mandaeans arriving from Jerusalem. Consequently the Mandaeans have been connected with the 4th-century Nazarenes (sect) described by Epiphanius^{[citation needed]}.

Dositheans[link]

They are connected with the Dositheans by Theodore Bar Kōnī in his Scholion.

Mughtasila, baptizers[link]

Ibn al-Nadim also mentions a group called the Mughtasila, "the self-ablutionists", who may be identified with one or the other of these groups. The members of this sect, like the Mandaeans, wore white and performed baptisms.

Identifications[link]

Whether groups such as the Elkasaites, the Mughtasila, the Nasoraeans, and the Dositheans can be identified with the Mandaeans or one another is a difficult question. While it seems certain that a number of distinct groups are intended by these names, the nature of these sects and the connections between them are less than clear. At least according to the Fihrist (see above), these groups seem all to have emerged from or developed in parallel with the "Sabian" followers of El-Hasaih; "Elkasaites" in particular may simply have been a blanket term for Mughtasila, Mandaeans, the original Sabians and even Manichaeans.

Mandaeans today[link]

Mandaeans
Mandeyānā

Mandeans.JPG Mandeans in Iraq
Total population
60,000 to 70,000[4]
Regions with significant populations
Iraq	70,000 (until 2003); 7,000 (as of 2010[update])
Iran	5,000 to 10,000,[24] 60,000 (2011)[26]
Jordan	?
Syria	?
Sweden	5,000[27]
Australia	3,500 to 5,000 [28][29]
United States	1,500 to 2,000
United Kingdom	1,000[30]
Canada	1,500[28]
Germany	1,200[31]
Denmark	150–200
Indonesia	23 [31]
Religions
Mandaeism
Scriptures
Ginza Rba, Qolusta
Languages
Mandaic Arabic and Persian are also spoken

Mandaeans in Iraq[link]

The pre-Iraq War Iraqi Mandaean community was centered around Baghdad.^[32] Mandaean emigration from Iraq began during Saddam Hussein's rule, but accelerated greatly after the American invasion and subsequent occupation.^[32] Since the invasion Mandaeans, like other Iraqi ethno-religious minorities (such as Assyrians, Armenians, Yazidi, Roma and Shabaks), have been subjected to violence, including murders, kidnappings, rapes, evictions, and forced conversions.^[32][33] Mandaeans, like many other Iraqis, have also been targeted for kidnapping since many worked as goldsmiths.^[32] Mandaeism is pacifistic and forbids its adherents from carrying weapons,^[32][34]

Many Iraqi Mandaeans have fled the country in the face of this violence, and the Mandaean community in Iraq faces extinction.^[6][35] Out of the over 60,000 Mandaeans in Iraq in the early 1990s, only about 5,000 to 7,000 remain there; as of early 2007, over 80% of Iraqi Mandaeans were refugees in Syria and Jordan as a result of the Iraq War. There are small Mandaean diaspora populations in Sweden (c. 5,000), Australia (c. 3,500 as of 2006), the USA (c. 1,500), the UK (c. 1,000), and Canada.^{[6][36][37][38][39]} Sweden became a popular destination because a Mandaean community existed there before the war and the Swedish government has a liberal asylum policy toward Iraqis.^[40] The scattered nature of the Mandaean diaspora has raised fears among Mandaeans for the religion's survival.^[24][33] Mandaeism has no provision for conversion, and the religious status of Mandaeans who marry outside the faith and their children is disputed.^[24][33]

The contemporary status of the Mandaeans has prompted a number of American intellectuals and civil rights activists to call upon the U.S. government to extend refugee status to the community. In 2007, The New York Times ran an op-ed piece in which Swarthmore professor Nathaniel Deutsch called for the Bush administration to take immediate action to preserve the community:

The United States didn’t set out to eradicate the Mandeans, one of the oldest, smallest and least understood of the many minorities in Iraq. This extinction in the making has simply been another unfortunate and entirely unintended consequence of our invasion of Iraq—though that will be of little comfort to the Mandeans, whose 2,000-year-old culture is in grave danger of disappearing from the face of the earth. . . . . When American forces invaded in 2003, there were probably 60,000 Mandeans in Iraq; today, fewer than 5,000 remain. . . . Of the mere 500 Iraqi refugees who were allowed into the United States from April 2003 to April 2007, only a few were Mandeans. And despite the Bush administration’s commitment to let in 7,000 refugees in the fiscal year that ended [September 30, 2007], fewer than 2,000, including just three Iraqi Mandean families, entered the country. If all Iraqi Mandeans are granted privileged status and allowed to enter the United States in significant numbers, it may just be enough to save them and their ancient culture from destruction. If not, after 2,000 years of history, of persecution and tenacious survival, the last Gnostics will finally disappear, victims of an extinction inadvertently set into motion by our nation’s negligence in Iraq.

—Nathaniel Deutsch, professor of religion, Swarthmore College, October 7, 2007^[5]

Iraqi Mandaeans were given refugee status by the US State Department in 2007. Since then around 1200 have entered the US.^[24] Many Mandaeans have began returning to Iraq during the past two years, as the circumstances in Iraq have improved.

Iranian Mandaeans[link]

There were an estimated 5,000 and 10,000 Mandaeans in Iran.^[24] Until the Iranian Revolution, Mandaeans had mainly been concentrated in the Khuzestan province,^[26] where the community used to exist by side with the local Arab population.^[26] They had mainly been practising the profession of goldsmith, passing it from generation to generation.^[26] Since the fall of the shah, its members faced increased religious discrimination, and many sought a new home in Europe and the Americas. In 2002 the US State Department granted Iranian Mandaeans protective refugee status; since then roughly 1,000 have emigrated to the US,^[24] now residing in cities such as San Antonio, Texas.^[41]

Overall, the Mandaean community in Iran has significantly increased over the last decade, due to the exodus of the main Mandaean community from Iraq, which used to be 60,000-70,000 strong. Today, the Mandaean population of Iran is estimated at 60,000.

In Iran the Gozinesh Law (passed in 1985) has the effect of prohibiting Mandaeans from fully participating in civil life. This law and other gozinesh provisions make access to employment, education, and a range of other areas conditional upon a rigorous ideological screening, the principal prerequisite for which is devotion to the tenets of Islam.^[42] These laws are regularly applied to discriminate against religious and ethnic groups that are not officially recognized, such as the Mandaeans, Ahl-e Haq, and Baha'i.^[43]

See also[link]

• Abatur
• Aramaic
• Iraqi people
• Marsh Arabs

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (November 2011)

• Mandaean Association Union – The Mandaean Association Union is an international federation which strives for unification of Mandaeans around the globe. Information in English and Arabic.
• An Ancient Religion Endangered by Iraq War – A video by News21.
• BBC: Iraq chaos threatens ancient faith
• BBC: Iraq's Mandaeans 'face extinction'
• BBC: Mandaeans – a threatened religion
• The Mandaeans: True descendents of ancient Babylonians
• Commentary: The woes of a peaceful and persecuted people – CNN
• Shahāb Mirzā'i, Ablution of Mandaeans (Ghosl-e Sābe'in – غسل صابئين), in Persian, Jadid Online, December 18, 2008
• Audio slideshow (showing Iranian Mandaeans performing ablution on the banks of the Karun river in Ahvaz): (4 min 25 sec)
• :Mandaeans in Australia 2003
• :Mandaeans in Australia 2011

Mandaean scriptures[link]

• Mandaean scriptures: Qolastā and Haran Gawaitha texts and fragments (note that the book titled Ginza Rba is not the Ginza Rba but is instead Qolastā, "The Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans" as translated by E.S Drower).
• Gnostic John the Baptizer: Selections from the Mandæan John-Book: This is the complete 1924 edition of G.R.S. Mead's classic study of the Mandæan John-Book, containing excerpts from the scripture itself (in The Gnosis Archive collection – www.gnosis.org).
• The Genzā Rabbā (1925 German translation by Mark Lidzbarski) at the Internet Archive
• The John-Book (Draša D-Iahia) – complete text in Mandaic and German translation (1905) by Mark Lidzbarski at the Internet Archive
• Mandaic liturgies in German translation (1925) by Mark Lidzbarski at the Internet Archive

Books about Mandaeism available online[link]

• Kurt Rudolph, Mandaeism. [1]
• Fragments of a Faith Forgotten by G. R. S. Mead a complete version (with old and new errors), contains information on Mani, Manichaeism, Elkasaites, Nasoraeans, Sabians and other gnostic groups. Published in 1901, still considered authoritative.
• Extracts from E. S. Drower, Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, Leiden, 1962
• The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran by Lady Drower, 1937 – the entire book

Bibliography[link]

• Häberl, Charles G. (2009), The neo-Mandaic dialect of Khorramshahr, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, ISBN 978-3-447-05874-2, http://books.google.nl/books?id=BBjwrJY6-sYC 
• Buckley, Jorunn Jacobsen. 2002. The Mandaeans: Ancient Texts and Modern People. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Buckley. J.J. "Mandaeans" in Encyclopædia Iranica
• Drower, Ethel Stefana. 2002. The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran: Their Cults, Customs, Magic Legends, and Folklore (reprint). Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press.
• Lupieri, Edmondo. (Charles Hindley, trans.) 2002. The Mandaeans: The Last Gnostics. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
• Newmarker, Chris, Associated Press article, "Faith under fire: Iraq war threatens extinction for ancient religious group" (headline in The Advocate of Stamford, Connecticut, page A12, February 10, 2007)
• Petermann, J. Heinrich. 2007 The Great Treasure of the Mandaeans (reprint of Thesaurus s. Liber Magni). Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press.
• Segelberg, Eric, 1958, Maşbūtā. Studies in the Ritual of the Mandæan Baptism. Uppsala
• Segelberg, Eric, 1970, "The Ordination of the Mandæan tarmida and its Relation to Jewish and Early Christian Ordination Rites", in Studia patristica 10.
• Yamauchi, Edwin. 2004. Gnostic Ethics and Mandaean Origins (reprint). Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press.

References[link]

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David Livingstone
Born	(1813-03-19)19 March 1813 Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, Scotland
Died	1 May 1873(1873-05-01) (aged 60) near Lake Bangweulu, North-Western Rhodesia
Cause of death	Malaria and internal bleeding due to dysentery
Resting place	The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster 51°29′58″N 0°07′39″W / 51.499444°N 0.1275°W / 51.499444; -0.1275
Nationality	Scottish
Known for	Exploration of Central Africa
Religion	Congregationalist

David Livingstone (19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

Perhaps one of the most popular national heroes of the late 19th century in Victorian Britain, Livingstone had a mythic status, which operated on a number of interconnected levels: that of Protestant missionary martyr, that of working-class "rags to riches" inspirational story, that of scientific investigator and explorer, that of imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader, and advocate of commercial empire.

His fame as an explorer helped drive forward the obsession with discovering the sources of the River Nile that formed the culmination of the classic period of European geographical discovery and colonial penetration of the African continent. At the same time his missionary travels, "disappearance" and death in Africa, and subsequent glorification as posthumous national hero in 1874 led to the founding of several major central African Christian missionary initiatives carried forward in the era of the European "Scramble for Africa".^[1]

Early life[link]

David Livingstone was born on 19 March 1813 in the mill town of Blantyre, under the bridge crossing into Bothwell, Lanarkshire, Richmond.^[2] Born to Neil Livingstone (1788–1856) and his wife Agnes Hunter (1782–1865), David, along with many of the Livingstones, was at the age of ten employed in the cotton mill of H. Monteith – David and his brother John worked twelve-hour days as "piecers," tying broken cotton threads on the spinning machines.

Livingstone's father Neil was very committed to his beliefs, a Sunday School teacher and teetotaller who handed out Christian tracts on his travels as a door to door tea salesman, and who read extensively books on theology, travel and missionary enterprises. This rubbed off on the young David, who became an avid reader, but he also loved scouring the countryside for animal, plant and geological specimens in local limestone quarries. Neil Livingstone had a fear of science books as undermining Christianity and attempted to force him to read nothing but theology, but David's deep interest in nature and science led him to investigate the relationship between religion and science.^[3] When in 1832 he read Philosophy of a Future State by the science teacher, amateur astronomer and church minister Thomas Dick, he found the rationale he needed to reconcile faith and science, and apart from the Bible this book was perhaps his greatest philosophical influence.^[4]

Other significant influences in his early life were Thomas Burke, a Blantyre evangelist and David Hogg, his Sabbath School teacher.^[4] At age nineteen, David and his father left the Church of Scotland for a local Congregational church, influenced by preachers like Ralph Wardlaw who denied predestinatarian limitations on salvation. Influenced by American revivalistic teachings, Livingstone's reading of the missionary Karl Gützlaff's "Appeal to the Churches of Britain and America on behalf of China" enabled him to persuade his father that medical study could advance religious ends.^[5]

Livingstone's experience from age 10 to 26 in H. Monteith's Blantyre cotton mill, first as a piecer and later as a spinner, was also important. Necessary to support his impoverished family, this work was monotonous but gave him persistence, endurance, and a natural empathy with all who labour, as expressed by lines he used to hum from the egalitarian Rabbie Burns song: "When man to man, the world o'er / Shall brothers be for a' that".^[6]

Livingstone attended Blantyre village school along with the few other mill children with the endurance to do so, but a family with a strong, ongoing commitment to study also reinforced his education. After reading Gutzlaff's appeal for medical missionaries for China in 1834, he began saving money and in 1836 entered Anderson's College (now University of Strathclyde) in Glasgow, founded to bring science and technology to ordinary folk, and attended Greek and theology lectures at the University of Glasgow.^[7] In addition, he attended divinity lectures by Wardlaw, a leader at this time of vigorous anti-slavery campaigning in the city. Shortly after he applied to join the London Missionary Society (LMS) and was accepted subject to missionary training. He continued his medical studies in London while training there and in Essex to be a minister under LMS.^[5] Despite his impressive personality, he was a plain preacher and would have been rejected by the LMS had not the Director given him a second chance to pass the course.^[4]

Livingstone hoped to go to China as a missionary, but the First Opium War broke out in September 1839 and the LMS suggested the West Indies instead. In 1840, while continuing his medical studies in London, Livingstone met LMS missionary Robert Moffat, on leave from Kuruman, a missionary outpost in South Africa, north of the Orange River. Excited by Moffat's vision of expanding missionary work northwards, and influenced by abolitionist T.F. Buxton's arguments that the African slave trade might be destroyed through the influence of "legitimate trade" and the spread of Christianity, Livingstone focused his ambitions on Southern Africa.^[5] He was deeply influenced by Moffat's judgment that he was the right person to go to the vast plains to the north of Bechuanaland, where he had glimpsed "the smoke of a thousand villages, where no missionary had ever been."^[4]

David Livingstone also lived in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire from 1862 until his death on 1 May 1873, the house still stands and has a plaque can be seen outside the house (17 Burnbank Road). He was also awarded the freedom of the town of Hamilton.

Exploration of southern and central Africa[link]

The journeys of Livingstone in Africa between 1851 and 1873

After the Kolobeng mission had to be closed because of drought, he explored the African interior to the north, in the period 1852–56, and was the first European to see the Mosi-oa-Tunya ("the smoke that thunders") waterfall (which he renamed Victoria Falls after his monarch, Queen Victoria), of which he wrote (later), "Scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight." (Jeal, p. 149)

Livingstone was one of the first Westerners to make a transcontinental journey across Africa, Luanda on the Atlantic to Quelimane on the Indian Ocean near the mouth of the Zambezi, in 1854–56.^[4] Despite repeated European attempts, especially by the Portuguese, central and southern Africa had not been crossed by Europeans at that latitude owing to their susceptibility to malaria, dysentery and sleeping sickness which was prevalent in the interior and which also prevented use of draught animals (oxen and horses), as well as to the opposition of powerful chiefs and tribes, such as the Lozi, and the Lunda of Mwata Kazembe.

Preaching from a waggon.

The qualities and approaches which gave Livingstone an advantage as an explorer were that he usually travelled lightly, and he had an ability to reassure chiefs that he was not a threat. Other expeditions had dozens of soldiers armed with rifles and scores of hired porters carrying supplies, and were seen as military incursions or were mistaken for slave-raiding parties. Livingstone on the other hand travelled on most of his journeys with a few servants and porters, bartering for supplies along the way, with a couple of guns for protection. He preached a Christian message but did not force it on unwilling ears; he understood the ways of local chiefs and successfully negotiated passage through their territory, and was often hospitably received and aided, even by Mwata Kazembe.^[4]

Livingstone was a proponent of trade and Christian missions to be established in central Africa. His motto, inscribed in the base of the statue to him at Victoria Falls, was "Christianity, Commerce and Civilization." At this time he believed the key to achieving these goals was the navigation of the Zambezi River as a Christian commercial highway into the interior.^[8] He returned to Britain to try to garner support for his ideas, and to publish a book on his travels which brought him fame as one of the leading explorers of the age.

Believing he had a spiritual calling for exploration rather than mission work, and encouraged by the response in Britain to his discoveries and support for future expeditions, in 1857 he resigned from the London Missionary Society after they demanded that he do more evangelizing and less exploring.^[4] With the help of the Royal Geographical Society's president, Livingstone was appointed as Her Majesty's Consul for the East Coast of Africa.

Zambezi expedition[link]

The British government agreed to fund Livingstone's idea and he returned to Africa as head of the Zambezi Expedition to examine the natural resources of southeastern Africa and open up the River Zambezi. Unfortunately it turned out to be completely impassable to boats past the Cabora Bassa rapids, a series of cataracts and rapids that Livingstone had failed to explore on his earlier travels.^[8]

Burial site of Mary Moffat Livingstone in Chupanga, Mozambique.

The expedition lasted from March 1858 until the middle of 1864. Expedition members recorded that Livingstone was an inept leader incapable of managing a large-scale project. He was also said to be secretive, self righteous, moody and could not tolerate criticism which severely strained the expedition and which led to his physician, John Kirk, writing in 1862, "I can come to no other conclusion than that Dr. Livingstone is out of his mind and a most unsafe leader".^[9] The artist Thomas Baines was dismissed from the expedition on charges (which he vigorously denied) of theft. The expedition became the first to reach Lake Malawi and they explored it in a four-oared gig. In 1862 they returned to the coast to await the arrival of a steam boat specially designed to sail on Lake Malawi. Mary Livingstone also arrived along with the boat. She died on 27 April 1862 of malaria and Livingstone continued his explorations. Attempts to navigate the Ruvuma River failed because of the continual fouling of the paddle wheels from the bodies thrown in the river by slave traders, and Livingstone's assistants gradually died or left him.^[9] It was at this point that he uttered his most famous quote, "I am prepared to go anywhere, provided it be forward." He eventually returned home in 1864 after the government ordered the recall of the expedition because of its increasing costs and failure to find a navigable route to the interior. The Zambezi Expedition was castigated as a failure in many newspapers of the time, and Livingstone experienced great difficulty in raising funds further to explore Africa. Nevertheless, the scientists appointed to work under Livingstone, John Kirk, Charles Meller, and Richard Thornton did contribute large collections of botanic, ecological, geological and ethnographic material to scientific Institutions in the United Kingdom.^[9]

The River Nile[link]

In January 1866, Livingstone returned to Africa, this time to Zanzibar, from where he set out to seek the source of the Nile. Richard Francis Burton, John Hanning Speke and Samuel Baker had (although there was still serious debate on the matter) identified either Lake Albert or Lake Victoria as the source (which was partially correct, as the Nile "bubbles from the ground high in the mountains of Burundi halfway between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria"^[10]). Livingstone believed the source was further south and assembled a team of freed slaves, Comoros Islanders, twelve Sepoys and two servants, Chuma and Susi, from his previous expedition to find it.

This house in Mikindani in southern Tanzania was the starting point for Livingstone's last expedition. He stayed here from 24 March to 7 April 1866.

Setting out from the mouth of the Ruvuma river Livingstone's assistants began deserting him. The Comoros Islanders had returned to Zanzibar and informed authorities that Livingstone had died. He reached Lake Malawi on 6 August, by which time most of his supplies, including all his medicines, had been stolen. Livingstone then travelled through swamps in the direction of Lake Tanganyika. With his health declining he sent a message to Zanzibar requesting supplies be sent to Ujiji and he then headed west. Forced by ill health to travel with slave traders he arrived at Lake Mweru on 8 November 1867 and continued on, travelling south to become the first European to see Lake Bangweulu. Finding the Lualaba River, Livingstone mistakenly concluded it was the high part of the Nile River; in fact it flows into the River Congo at Upper Congo Lake.

The year 1869 began with Livingstone finding himself extremely ill whilst in the jungle. He was saved by Arab traders who gave him medicines and carried him to an Arab outpost.^[11] In March 1869 Livingstone, suffering from pneumonia, arrived in Ujiji to find his supplies stolen. Coming down with cholera and tropical ulcers on his feet he was again forced to rely on slave traders to get him as far as Bambara where he was caught by the wet season. With no supplies, Livingstone had to eat his meals in a roped off open enclosure for the entertainment of the natives in return for food.^[9]

On 15 July 1871, according to Livingstone's recently released original handwritten diaries,^[12] while he was visiting the town of Nyangwe on the banks of the Lualaba River, he witnessed 400 Africans being massacred by slavers.^[13] The massacre horrified Livingstone, leaving him too shattered to continue his mission to find the source of the Nile.^[12] Following the end of the wet season, he travelled 240 miles from Nyangwe – violently ill most of the way – back to Ujiji, an Arab settlement on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika, arriving on 23 October 1871.

Geographical discoveries[link]

Although Livingstone was wrong about the Nile, he discovered for Western science numerous geographical features, such as Lake Ngami, Lake Malawi, and Lake Bangweulu in addition to Victoria Falls mentioned above. He filled in details of Lake Tanganyika, Lake Mweru and the course of many rivers, especially the upper Zambezi, and his observations enabled large regions to be mapped which previously had been blank. Even so, the furthest north he reached, the north end of Lake Tanganyika, was still south of the Equator and he did not penetrate the rainforest of the River Congo any further downstream than Ntangwe near Misisi.^[14]

Livingstone was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London and was made a Fellow of the society, with which he had a strong association for the rest of his life.^[4]

Stanley meeting[link]

Henry Morton Stanley meets David Livingstone

David Livingstone memorial at Victoria Falls, the first statue on the Zimbabwean side

Livingstone completely lost contact with the outside world for six years and was ill for most of the last four years of his life. Only one of his 44 letter dispatches made it to Zanzibar. One surviving letter to Horace Waller, made available to the public in 2010 by its owner Peter Beard, reads: "I am terribly knocked up but this is for your own eye only, ... Doubtful if I live to see you again ..."^[15][16]

Henry Morton Stanley, who had been sent to find him by the New York Herald newspaper in 1869, found Livingstone in the town of Ujiji on the shores of Lake Tanganyika on 27 October 1871,^[17] greeting him with the now famous words "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" to which he responded "Yes, and I feel thankful that I am here to welcome you." These famous words may have been a fabrication, as Stanley later tore out the pages of this encounter in his diary.^[18] Even Livingstone's account of this encounter does not mention these words. However, the phrase appears in a New York Herald editorial dated 10 August 1872, and the Encyclopædia Britannica and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography both quote it without questioning its veracity. The words are famous because of their tongue-in-cheek humorous nature: Dr. Livingstone was the only white person for hundreds of miles.

Despite Stanley's urgings, Livingstone was determined not to leave Africa until his mission was complete. His illness made him confused and he had judgment difficulties at the end of his life. He explored the Lualaba and, failing to find connections to the Nile, returned to Lake Bangweulu and its swamps to explore possible rivers flowing out northwards.^[19]

Death[link]

David Livingstone died in that area in Chief Chitambo's village at Ilala southeast of Lake Bangweulu in present-day Zambia on 1 May 1873 from malaria and internal bleeding caused by dysentery. He took his final breaths while kneeling in prayer at his bedside. (His journal indicates that the date of his death would have been 1 May, but his attendants noted the date as 4 May, which they carved on a tree and later reported; this is the date on his grave.) Britain wanted the body to give it a proper ceremony, but the tribe would not give his body to them. Finally they relented, but cut the heart out and put a note on the body that said, "You can have his body, but his heart belongs in Africa!".^[20] Livingstone's heart was buried under a Mvula tree near the spot where he died, now the site of the Livingstone Memorial. His body together with his journal was carried over a thousand miles by his loyal attendants Chuma and Susi to the coast to Bagamoyo, and was returned to Britain for burial. After lying in repose at No.1 Savile Row—then the headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society, now the home of bespoke tailors Gieves & Hawkes— his remaining remains were interred at Westminster Abbey.^[4][21]

Livingstone and slavery[link]

"And if my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery should lead to the suppression of the East Coast slave trade, I shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery of all the Nile sources together." – Livingstone in a letter to the editor of the New York Herald.^[22]

Arab slave traders and their captives.

"We passed a slave woman shot or stabbed through the body and lying on the path. [Onlookers] said an Arab who passed early that morning had done it in anger at losing the price he had given for her, because she was unable to walk any longer".^[23]

Livingstone's letters, books, and journals^[19] did stir up public support for the abolition of slavery;^[24] however, he became humiliatingly dependent for assistance on the very slave-traders whom he wanted to put out of business. Because he was a poor leader of his peers, he ended up on his last expedition as an individualist explorer with servants and porters but no expert support around him. At the same time he did not use the brutal methods of maverick explorers such as Stanley to keep his retinue of porters in line and his supplies secure. For these reasons from 1867 onwards he accepted help and hospitality from Mohamad Bogharib and Mohamad bin Saleh (also known as Mpamari), traders who kept and traded in slaves, as he recounts in his journals. They in turn benefited from Livingstone's influence with local people, which facilitated Mpamari's release from bondage to Mwata Kazembe.^[19]

A new statue of David Livingstone on the Zambian side of Victoria Falls

Livingstone was also furious to discover some of the replacement porters sent at his request from Ujiji were slaves.^[19]

Legacy[link]

By the late 1860s Livingstone's reputation in Europe had suffered owing to the failure of the missions he set up, and of the Zambezi Expedition; and his ideas about the source of the Nile were not supported. His expeditions were hardly models of order and organization.^[8]

His reputation was rehabilitated by Stanley and his newspaper,^[8] and by the loyalty of Livingstone's servants whose long journey with his body inspired wonder. The publication of his last journal revealed stubborn determination in the face of suffering.^[4]

He had made geographical discoveries for European knowledge. He inspired abolitionists of the slave trade, explorers and missionaries. He opened up Central Africa to missionaries who initiated the education and health care for Africans, and trade by the African Lakes Company. He was held in some esteem by many African chiefs and local people and his name facilitated relations between them and the British.^[4]

Livingstone statue, Edinburgh

Partly as a result, within fifty years of his death, colonial rule was established in Africa and white settlement was encouraged to extend further into the interior.

On the other hand, within a further fifty years after that, two other aspects of his legacy paradoxically helped end the colonial era in Africa without excessive bloodshed. Livingstone was part of an evangelical and nonconformist movement in Britain which during the 19th century changed the national mindset from the notion of a divine right to rule 'lesser races', to ethical ideas in foreign policy which, with other factors, contributed to the end of the British Empire.^[25] Secondly, Africans educated in mission schools founded by people inspired by Livingstone were at the forefront of national independence movements in central, eastern and southern Africa.^[26]

Posthumous portrait of David Livingstone by Frederick Havill

The church which Livingstone attended as a boy closed in 1966. It merged with a local Congregational Church, situated in South Park Street, Hamilton, of which his parents had been amongst the founder members. A small but active congregation continues worshipping and serving as Hamilton United Reformed Church.^[27] The Church situated in Park Street originally belonged to the Evangelical Union when it was known as Park Street E.U.Church. In 1896 the Evanglical Union and the Scottish Congregationalists united to form the Congregational Union of Scotland. A member of the Park Street E.U. Church was the young Keir Hardie the founder of the Labour Party in Britain. The majority of Scottish Congregational Churches formed a new United Reformed Church by joining with the existing United Reformed Church in April 2000.

The David Livingstone Centre in Blantyre celebrates his life and is based in the house in which he was born, on the site of the mill in which he started his working life. His Christian faith is evident in his journal, where one entry reads: "I place no value on anything I have or may possess, except in relation to the kingdom of Christ. If anything will advance the interests of the kingdom, it shall be given away or kept, only as by giving or keeping it I shall promote the glory of Him to whom I owe all my hopes in time and eternity."^[28]

Family life[link]

While Livingstone had a great impact on British Imperialism, he did so at a tremendous cost to his family. In his absences, his children grew up missing their father, and his wife Mary (daughter of Mary and Robert Moffat) endured very poor health, and died of malaria trying to follow him in Africa. He had six children: Robert reportedly died in the American Civil War;^[29] Agnes (b.1847), Thomas, Elizabeth (who died two months after her birth), William Oswell (nicknamed Zouga because of the river along which he was born, in 1851) and Anna Mary (b.1858). Only Agnes, William Oswell and Anna Mary married and had children.^[30]

His one regret in later life was that he did not spend enough time with his children, whom he loved immensely.^[31]

Archives[link]

The archives of David Livingstone are maintained by the Archives of the University of Glasgow (GUAS). On November, 11, 2011, Dr. Livingstone's 1871 Field Diary, as well as other original works, was published online for the first time by the "David Livingstone Spectral Imaging Project – a unique, eighteen-month, transatlantic collaboration between scholars, scientists and educational and archival institutions"

Places named in his honour and other memorials[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2011)

Livingstone in Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh

In Africa[link]

• Livingstone Hall, Men's Hall of residence at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.
• The Livingstone Memorial in Ilala, Zambia marks where he died.
• The city of Livingstone, Zambia which includes a memorial in front of the Livingstone Museum and a new statue erected in 2005.^[32]
• The Rhodes–Livingstone Institute in Livingstone and Lusaka, Zambia, 1940s to 1970s, was a pioneering research institution in urban anthropology.
• David Livingstone Teachers' Training College, Livingstone, Zambia.
• The David Livingstone Memorial statue at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, erected in 1954 on the western bank of the falls.
• A new statue of David Livingstone was erected in November 2005 on the Zambian side of Victoria Falls.^[32]
• A plaque was unveiled in November 2005 at Livingstone Island on the lip of Victoria Falls marking where Livingstone stood to get his first view of the falls.^[32]
• The town of Livingstonia, Malawi.
• The city of Blantyre, Malawi is named after his birthplace in Lanarkshire, Scotland, and includes a memorial.
• The David Livingstone Scholarships for students at the University of Malawi, funded through Strathclyde University, Scotland.
• The Kipengere Range in south-west Tanzania at the north-eastern end of Lake Malawi is also called the Livingstone Mountains.
• Livingstone Falls on the River Congo, named by Stanley.
• The Livingstone Inland Mission, a Baptist mission to the Congo Free State 1877–1884, located in what is now Kinshasa.
• A memorial in Ujiji commemorates his meeting with Stanley.
• The Livingstone–Stanley Monument, Mugere, Burundi marks a spot that Livingstone and Stanley visited on their exploration of Lake Tanganyika, mistaken by some as the first meeting place of the two explorers.
• Scottish Livingstone Hospital in Molepolole 50 km west of Gaborone, Botswana
• There is a memorial to Livingstone at the ruins of the Kolobeng Mission, 40 km west of Gaborone, Botswana.
• The church tower of the Catholic Holy Ghost Mission in Bagamoyo, Tanzania, is called Livingstone Tower because his body was laid down there for one night before it was shipped to London.
• Livingstone House in Stone Town, Zanzibar, provided by the Sultan for Livingstone's use, January to March 1866, to prepare his last expedition; the house was purchased by the Zanzibar government in 1947.
• Plaque commemorating his departure from Mikindani on his final expedition on the wall of the house that has been built over the house he reputedly stayed in.
• David Livingstone Primary School in Harare, Zimbabwe.
• David Livingstone Secondary School in Ntabazinduna about 40 km from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
• David Livingstone Senior Secondary School in Schauderville, Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
• Livingstone House in Harare, Zimbabwe, designed by Leonora Granger.

In New Zealand[link]

• Livingstone Street in Westmere, Auckland

In Scotland[link]

Livingstone statue, Glasgow

• A statue stands near the base of the Scott Monument in the Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, Scotland.
• The David Livingstone Centre in Blantyre, Scotland, is a museum in his honour.
• David Livingstone Memorial Primary School in his birthplace, Blantyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland.
• David Livingstone Memorial Church of the Church of Scotland, in Blantyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland.
• A statue of Livingstone is sited in Cathedral Square, Glasgow.
• A bust of David Livingstone is among those of famous Scotsmen in the William Wallace Memorial near Stirling, Scotland.
• Strathclyde University, Glasgow (successor to Anderson's University), commemorates him in the David Livingstone Institute for International Development Studies, the David Livingstone Centre for Sustainability, and Livingstone Tower.
• The David Livingstone (Anderson College) Memorial Prize in Physiology commemorates him at the University of Glasgow.
• Livingstone Street in Addiewell.
• A memorial plaque commemorating the centenary of Livingstone's birth was dedicated in St. James's Congregational Church, the church he attended as a boy. When St. James's closed in 1966 the congregation merged with the Congregational Church in South Park Street, Hamilton, and the memorial plaque is now situated there. The South Park Road Church originally belonged to the Evangelical Union of Scotland which merged with the Congregationalists in Scotland in 1896 to form the Congregational Union of Scotland. The South Park E.U. Church was attended by the young Keir Hardie, founder of the Labour Party in Britain. In 2000 the combined church became part of the United Reformed Church with the union of the Scottish Congregational Church and the existing United Reformed Church. http://hamilton.urc.org.uk

In Canada[link]

• The Livingstone Range of mountains in southern Alberta.
• David Livingstone Elementary School, Vancouver
• David Livingstone Community School, Winnipeg
• Bronze bust in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

In the USA[link]

• Livingstone College, Salisbury, North Carolina.
• Livingstone Adventist Academy, Salem, Oregon.

Banknotes[link]

From 1971–1998 Livingstone's image was portrayed on £10 notes issued by the Clydesdale Bank. He was originally shown surrounded by palm tree leaves with an illustration of African tribesmen on the back.^[33] A later issue showed Livingstone against a background graphic of a map of Livingstone's Zambezi expedition, showing the River Zambezi, Victoria Falls, Lake Nyasa and Blantyre, Malawi; on the reverse, the African figures were replaced with an image of Livingstone's birthplace in Blantyre, Scotland.^[34]

Biology[link]

• The Lake Malawi Cichlid Nimbochromis livingstonii is named in honour of David Livingstone.

See also[link]

• Thomas Baines
• John Kirk
• Livingstone Inland Mission
• The Historical Background to Church Activities in Zambia

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Eynikel, Hilde (2005). Mrs. Livingstone: een biografie. Leuven: Davidsfonds. ISBN 90-5826-347-9 (Dutch)
• Holmes, Timothy (1993). Journey to Livingstone: Exploration of an Imperial Myth. Edinburgh: Canongate Press. ISBN 978-0-86241-402-3
• Jeal, Tim (1973). Livingstone. London: Heinemann. pp. 427p. ISBN 0-434-37208-0. 
• Livingstone, David (1905) [1857]. Journeys in South Africa, or Travels and Researches in South Africa. London: The Amalgamated Press Ltd. 
• Livingstone, David and James I. Macnair (ed.) (1954). Livingstone's Travels. London: J.M. Dent.
• Livingstone, David (1999) [1875]. Dernier Journal. Paris: Arléa. ISBN 2-86959-215-9 (French)
• Maclachlan, T. Banks. David Livingstone, Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1901, ("Famous Scots Series").
• Martelli, George (1970). Livingstone's River: A History of the Zambezi Expedition, 1858–1864. London: Chatto & Windus. ISBN 978-0-7011-1527-2
• Morrill, Leslie, and Madge Haines (1959). Livingstone, Trail Blazer for God. Mountain View: Pacific Press Publication Association.
• Philip, M. NourbeSe (1991). Looking for Livingstone: An Odyssey of Silence. Stratford: The Mercury Press. ISBN 978-0-920544-88-4
• Ross, Andrew C. (2002). David Livingstone: Mission and Empire. London and New York: Hambledon and London. ISBN 978-1-85285-285-6
• Waters, John (1996). David Livingstone: Trail Blazer. Leicester: Inter-Varsity. ISBN 978-0-85111-170-4
• Wisnicki, Adrian S. (2009). "Interstitial Cartographer: David Livingstone and the Invention of South Central Africa". Victorian Literature and Culture 37.1 (Mar.): 255–71.

External links[link]

Wikisource has original works written by or about: David Livingstone

• Livingstone's 1871 Field Diary Online November, 11, 2011
• Livingstone Online – Explore the medical writings of David Livingstone Offers images of original documents alongside transcribed, critically edited versions
• DAVID LIVINGSTONE (c.1956) (archive film from the National Library of Scotland: SCOTTISH SCREEN ARCHIVE)
• Stanley and Livingstone Original reports from The Times
• Works by or about David Livingstone at Internet Archive (scanned books original editions colour illustrated)
• Works by David Livingstone at Project Gutenberg (plain text and HTML)
  • Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa
  • A Popular Account of Dr Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries
  • The Personal Life of David Livingstone
• A Brief Biography of David Livingstone
• The Life of David Livingstone
• David Livingstone biographies
• Livingstone Tower at University of Strahclyde
• "Dr. Livingston (obituary, Wed., 28 Jan. 1874)". Eminent persons: Biographies reprinted from the Times. Vol. 1–6. D. Vol I, 1870–1875 (Macmillan & Co.): 225–236. 1892. http://books.google.com/books?id=0CMYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA225 
• Livingstone's Letter from Bambarre - A Multispectral Critical Edition

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Lynn Picknett is a writer, researcher, and lecturer on the paranormal, the occult, and historical and religious mysteries.^[1]

Life[link]

Born in Folkestone, Kent, England in April 1947, Picknett grew up in a haunted house in York, attending Park Grove Junior School and Queen Anne Grammar School. After graduating from university with an Upper 2nd (hons) degree in English Literature, she briefly became a teacher, a shop assistant, and a stand-up comic before moving to London in 1971 to join Marshall Cavendish Publications as a trainee sub-editor.

In the 1980s, she was Deputy Editor on The Unexplained and contributor to many other publications. She was also a regular contributor on various radio shows, including Michael van Straten and Clive Bull's on LBC and Talk Radio. She was also a television presenter for both Anglia and Southern TV.

In 1990 she was guest curator for the Royal Photographic Society's exhibition The Unexplained at Bath, performing the same function in 1999 for the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television at Bradford.

In the early 1990s, she teamed up with fellow researcher and writer Clive Prince. Their first book, Turin Shroud: How Leonardo da Vinci Fooled History was the first mainstream work to reveal how all the so-called miraculous characteristics of the Turin Shroud could easily be reproduced only using a pinhole camera (camera obscura), and argued that Leonardo da Vinci not only faked it, but used his own face for the model of Jesus'.

Their 1997 The Templar Revelation was credited by Dan Brown, both in The Da Vinci Code and in the 2006 court-case (Baigent & Leigh v. RandomHouse), as the main inspiration for his novel.

Between 1999 and his death in 2003, she and Clive Prince worked with Stephen Prior, described in book blurb as "a historian specialising in intelligence matters".

Picknett and Prince perform most of the research for their books themselves, though they are sometimes helped by several friends and fellow researchers. They have credited Keith Prince as a main contributor for their work on the Turin Shroud, Philip Coppens in The Stargate Conspiracy, and Robert Brydon for their work on Rudolf Hess.

She nurtures her interest in the paranormal through her membership of The Ghost Club.

Picknett, as well as Prince, makes a brief appearance in the film The Da Vinci Code. The pair appear on a London bus as the protagonists are traveling to the Temple Church in London. Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) leaves his seat to join Sophie (Audrey Tautou) at the back of the bus, and Picknett and Prince are seen sitting on the left.

Works[link]

She is the co-author of:

• Turin Shroud: In Whose Image? the Truth Behind the Centuries-Long Conspiracy of Silence (with Clive Prince)
• The Templar Revelation (with Clive Prince)
• Stargate Conspiracy: The Truth about Extraterrestrial Life and the Mysteries of Ancient Egypt (with Clive Prince)
• Double Standards: The Rudolf Hess Cover-Up (with Clive Prince and Stephen Prior)
• War of the Windsors: A Century of Unconstitutional Monarchy (with Clive Prince and Stephen Prior)
• Encyclopedia of Dreams
• Friendly Fire (2004) (with Clive Prince and Stephen Prior)
• The Sion Revelation (2006) (with Clive Prince)
• The Masks of Christ: Behind the Lies and Cover-ups About the Man Believed to Be God (2008)(with Clive Prince)
• The Forbidden Universe (2011) (with Clive Prince)

She is the author of:

• The Loch Ness Monster (Pitkin Guides)
• Royal Romance an Illustrated History of the Royal Love Affairs
• Mary Magdalene: Christianity's Hidden Goddess
• The Secret History of Lucifer
• Mammoth Book of UFOs
• Flights of Fancy? 100 Years of Paranormal Experiences

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website of Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince

Saint Gabriel or Mor Gabriel (Aramaic: ܡܪܝ ܓܒܪܐܝܠ; Saint Gabriel) (634– 23 December 668) was the 7th bishop of Mor Gabriel Monastery and Tur Abdin in Southeastern Turkey. ^[1]

Early years[link]

Saint Gabriel was born in Alagöz. There he attended a local school and learned how to read and write in a relatively short time. His Parents wanted him to get married and build a family, but he chose to become a monk. When he was 15 years of age he left his parents' house while they were sleeping, and went to a cloister. There he met a man called Gewargis. Gabriel asked Gewargis to let him stay in the cloister and later the same year Gabriel became a monk.

He was sleeping just two hours daily and the rest of the time he spent it praying God and reading books. He was so humble and he always walked barefoot and tortured himself, sometimes until he started to bleed. After seven years of staying at Gewargis' cloister, he decided to leave the area because of the pressure his parents were applying on him. So he went to Saint Simon's monastery, the same monastery was renamed Mor Gabriel Monastery as a tribute to Saint Gabriel. ^[2]

His miracles[link]

Saint Gabriel performed many miracles in his life. He brought to life three people after they died, and once he spoke to a dead monk after one year of his death.

Death[link]

Saint Gabriel died on Tuesday 23 December 668, at three o'clock PM. Thousands of people gathered on that day with ten bishops and hundreds of monks, nuns, and priests.

See also[link]

• Syriac Orthodox Church
• Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac people

External links[link]

• [1]
• [2]

References[link]

1. ^ http://www.morgabriel.org/history.html
2. ^ http://www.u-i.nu/?page=arkiv&id=161