Hot on the heels of For­rest Gander’s appre­ci­a­tion of Eliot Weinberger’s An Ele­men­tal Thing comes this letter* in the new Harper’s:

Eliot Weinberger’s essay “Man­daeans,” which appeared in the May 2007 issue of Harper’s Mag­a­zine, con­tains the fol­low­ing incor­rect state­ments that vilify Mandaeans:

They dis­like the Jews, whom they call “an evil nation” founded by the rene­gade Man­daeans Abra­ham and Moses, a people “who do not agree on a single utter­ance,” who cir­cum­cise with swords and sprin­kle the blood on them­selves, whose hus­bands aban­don their wives and lie down with each other.

They say the Chris­tians have secret rites in which they wor­ship a female donkey with three legs.

They dis­like the Zoroas­tri­ans, who sleep with their moth­ers and sis­ters and eat the dead, who take vows of silence and abort their babies.

These alle­ga­tions are with­out foun­da­tion. Man­daeans hold no such views. Man­daeans do not enter­tain any hos­til­ity toward Jews, Chris­tians, or Zoroas­tri­ans. Man­daeans have noth­ing but good­will toward Jews, Chris­tians, and Zoroastrians.

Nor is it cor­rect to say, as Wein­berger does, that “each year they have a cer­e­mony to honor the Egyp­tians who drowned when the Red Sea closed over them as they pur­sued Moses and the Jews.” This state­ment implies that Man­daeans strongly sym­pa­thize with a tyrant who was pur­su­ing people who were escap­ing from slav­ery. Man­daeans do not hold such views. In fact, the annual com­mem­o­ra­tion of Nuh relates to those who drowned in Noah’s flood.

Some fol­low­ers of John the Bap­tist
via the Internet

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