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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 May 2019
Yahia Bihram, a pivotal figure in the Mandaean community of the 19th century, composed several autobiographical texts. This article presents a new edition of one of his lengthiest works, incorporating numerous corrected readings based upon close examination of the original manuscript. With the aid of recent linguistic research into Neo-Mandaic and contemporary documents, the article proposes many new interpretations and the correct identifications of historical names and places.
I wish to thank Tom Alfia, Maleen Schlüter and Livnat Barkan for their assistance in preparing the materials discussed herein, and Mark Hobbs of the British Library for drawing my attention to materials on the 1836 Euphrates Expedition. Tatiana Azarova, Ohad Abudraham and Hezy Mutzafi read drafts of this paper and made many helpful comments. Citations from the Rbai Rafid Collection are reproduced by kind permission of the custodian of the collection. This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation grant no. 329/17.
2 Buckley, J. J., “Glimpses of a Life: Yahia Bihram, Mandaean Priest”, History of Religions 39 (1999), pp. 32–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar and in an expanded form idem, The Great Stem of Souls (Piscataway, NJ, 2010), pp. 121–147.
3 For example, DC 36 was copied in 1088 ah (1677 ce) but was repaired by Yahia Bihram, who added his own narrative colophon in 1251 ah (1835–1836 ce).
4 For example, the colophon of DC 35, published in Drower, E. S., The Haran Gawaita and the Baptism of Hibil-Ziwa (Vatican City, 1953)Google Scholar.
5 Macuch, in his seminal review of Drower's edition of DC 35 published in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 105 (1955), pp. 357–363, was the first scholar to identify explicitly the Neo-Mandaic influences on the language of Yahia Bihram. A discussion of this mixed idiom is found in Morgenstern, M., “Neo-Mandaic in 19th Century Colophons”, Orientalia 86 (2017), pp. 253–273Google Scholar.
6 See previous note.
7 Buckley, Great Stem, pp. 134–140.
8 ialupa (yalufa) is a literate lay-Mandaean.
9 See Drower, E. S., The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran (Oxford, 1973), p. 83Google Scholar.
10 Compare rahem qo-bānen “they pray the devotions” in R. Macuch, Neumandäische Texte im Dialekt von Ahwaz (Wiesbaden, 1993), p. 212 l. 1189 (text accidentally left untranslated by Macuch); šītel qām rahem bená “Šitel [stand auf,] machte sein Gebet” (ibid. p. 224 l. 1273) etc.
11 The 17th century Leiden Glossarium 144:11 presents both aškunta and bmandi as translations of Arabic كنيسة, Latin ecclesia, while Drower 1959 distinguishes the šḵinta, used for the consecration of priests, and the mandi, a more elaborate construction used for other ritual purposes. Rabi Rafid Alsabti (personal communication) informs me that Drower's distinction is still used today. Mutzafi, H., Comparative Lexical Studies in Neo-Mandaic (Leiden, 2014), p. 20CrossRefGoogle Scholar notes that the cult-hut is called mandi in Mandaean Iraqi Arabic, while in the NM of Iran it is bemandɔ, bemánd.
12 The sixty days during which the postulant lives alone.
13 For the correct interpretation of this passage (up to drunu ʿuraba) see in detail Morgenstern, “19th Century Colophons”, pp. 265–267.
14 On the language of this passage see Ibid, p. 260.
15 Otiose word at the end of the line; a false start for the following word or a line filler.
16 Yahia Bihram frequently employs abihd- ‘with’ in his narrative colophons, including one example NM suffix –u, abihdu “with them”. In NM ork- or mork- is used in this meaning. See Macuch, R. with Boekels, K., Neumandäische Chrestomathie mit grammatischer Skizze, kommentierter Übersetzung und Glossar (Wiesbaden, 1989), p. 246Google Scholar, Macuch, Ahwaz, p. 392, Häberl, C., The Neo-Mandaic Dialect of Khorramshahr (Wiesbaden, 2009), p. 342Google Scholar; and Morgenstern, M.: ‘Neo-Mandaic in Early Mandaean Colophons. Part 1: Linguistic Features’ Aramaic Studies 16 (2018), pp. 1–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially p. 22 on the use of ork- already in the 17th century.
17 Drower, Haran Gawaita, p. 88 translated “I came with some peasants (fellāḥīn) belonging to the shaikh of the tribe”. For the correct interpretation of atit bpalah̤ia “I came to Fellāḥiyya” see Morgenstern, “19th Century Colophons”, p. 267. For š̤aʕab ‘(the tribe of) Kaʿeb’ see Idem., n. 41.
18 For k̤ašla ‘ein Goldschmuck’ see Macuch, “Review”, p. 362 and Macuch, Ahwaz, p. 407 s.v. xāšel ‘Schmuck’. Drower translated “cloak”.
19 For barsumaqa ‘copper’ see Mutzafi, Comparative Lexical Studies, p. 79. Drower translated “a son-of-red (gold coin?)”.
20 So grammatically and contextually, it would seem preferable to read “we had put them”, which would be bdaqnu in these texts. Compare qbarnu “we buried them” below.
21 Persian: قرض ‘debt’. Drower translated “and he charged me a hundred piasters for the peasants (fellāhīn)”.
22 A final i has been partially erased.
23 See Macuch, “Review of Drower”, p. 362 (who erroneously read asirdẖ) and Drower, E. S. and Macuch, R., A Mandaic Dictionary (Oxford, 1963), p. 186Google Scholar s.v. iasir. Drower had translated “made an example of it”,
24 For the interpretation of this passage (up to bpalah̤ia) see Morgenstern, “19th Century Colophons”, p. 267.
25 Macuch, “Review”, p. 362 correctly identified naziq as NM nazīq (from Persian nazdīk) ‘near’. The preposition is extremely common in the Leiden Glossarium, translating e.g. Arabic جنب , Latin latus (74:10) and Arabic عليَ , Latin iuxtà (126:1). Although Macuch cited several examples of this preposition in his Handbook of Classical and Modern Mandaic (Berlin, 1965), e.g. “adjoin nazīq aθθī”, “advance nazīq tāmmā” (p. 490), and “near nazīq, neheng” (p. 512), it is never found in his textual editions. Its absence from these editions suggests that his informants never actually used it in their speech, and it would appear to be extinct. Häberl, Khorramshahr, pp. 35, 42, 123, and 341 records nazdik for the dialect of Khorramshahr, though Hezy Mutzafi (p.c.) suggests that Häberl's informant Sobbi preferred to use Persian preposition nazdik rather than the form neheng commonly employed in his dialect.
26 Drower's translation of this passage, “I sent down Akrun the younger and I said to them …” indicates that she accidentally skipped the entire line bmh̤amra uatitinu lginzia ramia uiaqiria ulamṭun bʿdaihun ḏ-bnia akrun ṭura rba ḏ-bisra ubnia. Although Macuch, “Review”, p. 362 attempted to correct Drower's interpretation, he overlooked Drower's omission and his proposal is without worth. The omission of this line has given rise to the mistaken impression that Yahia Bihram lost his library with the capture of Muḥammara (e.g. Buckley, Great Stem, p. 138), while the manuscript clearly states that opposite is the case.
27 For the interpretation of this passage (up to npaqiun bmakuata) see Morgenstern, “19th Century Colophons”, p. 260 with previous bibliography.
28 For the correct interpretation of ʿ^n^šia dalu “old women” see Macuch, “Review”, p. 362. The exact NM form is dolú (Hezy Mutzafi, p.c.).
29 Arnaut, Arnavut, as correctly identified by Drower.
30 On the interpretation of this passage (up to bš̤amṣabia) see Morgenstern, “19th Century Colophons”, p. 268. A more detailed examination of the location of Čam-Ṣabbi is found in Idem., “Additional Notes on Neo-Mandaic in 19th Century Colophons,” Orientalia (forthcoming).
31 For himid ʿhualan “everything we had” see Drower and Macuch, Mandaic Dictionary, p. 145 s.v. himid, and Morgenstern, “19th Century Colophons”, pp. 266–267.
32 For the root PRD II ‘to flee’ (rather than Drower's translation “dispersed”) see Drower and Macuch, Mandaic Dictionary, p. 378 s.v. PRD. The verb is common in Neo-Mandaic; see Macuch, Neumandäische Chrestomathie, p. 249 s.v. PRD, Idem., Ahwaz, p. 426 s.v. PRD, Häberl, Khorramshahr, p. 343 s.v. p-r-d and Mutzafi, Comparative Lexical Studies, p. 102–103. The spelling prudnin with u appears to reflect a pronunciation closer to that of Ahvaz pərɔdni than Khorramshahr pəradni.
33 For the identification of Mandaic qaina (NM qenɔ) see Mutzafi, H. and Morgenstern, M., “Sheikh Nejm's Mandaic Glossary (DC 4)—An Unrecognised Source of Neo-Mandaic,” Aram 24 (2014), pp. 157–174Google Scholar, especially p. 173 n. 91.
34 Or: evil.
35 Yahia first wrote burkai but corrected his text to bukrai. In Classical Mandaic, the grammatically correct feminine singular form would be bukartai.
36 A literary expression drawn from the Ginza Rabba (Gy 94:19, Gy 95:16, Gy 163:12).
37 Lidzbarski, M., Mandäische Liturgien, mitgeteilt, übersetzt und erklärt (Berlin, 1920), p. 182Google Scholar n. 1 proposed that hilita may result from metanalysis of dihilta ‘fear, reverence’, which would also suit our context.
38 The correct interpretation of labigṣit was established by Macuch, “Review”, p. 362. Drower had translated “I made no lamentation”.
39 On the correct translation of this word see Morgenstern, “19th Century Colophons”, p. 258. Drower translated “the sons of our people”.
40 Translation following Macuch, “Review”, p. 363.
41 The names of the two Tarmidas would appear to be sobriquets: Ṣaġur “small” and Šabbūṭ “the barb (fish)”. On the latter noun see Mutzafi, Comparative Lexical Studies, pp. 73–75.
42 hbiṭiun “they mingled” appears to be an unusual usage of NM h-w-ṭ ‘to mix (tr. intr.); stir’, on which see Mutzafi, Comparative Lexical Studies, pp. 133–134. The verb also appears in a difficult narrative colophon composed by Yahia Bihram's contemporary, Ram Zihrun br Sam Bihram, in 1277 ah (1860–1861 ce): mandaiia hbiṭin ʿktinu bihdada “the Mandaeans were settled together” (DC 51: 817).
43 Compare hazia upariš almia udaria mahu ḏ-abdia “who sees and understands that which the worlds and generations do” (Sidra ḏ-Nišmata, CP 15:8–9).
44 Compare kul ḏ-ṣabia rbia abdia “All that the Great (Life) wishes it does” (Jb. 21:12).
45 This clan is already mentioned in the original colophon of DC 36 (see n. 3 above) in the form durakia, while in later manuscripts it is written durašia or duraš̤ia. According to Macuch's transcription, Sālem Čoḥeyli pronounced the name darrāğī́ (Macuch, Ahwaz, p. 322 l. 1963). We may cautiously reconstruct the history of the name as *durrāki > *durrāči > durrāji > darrāji (reanalysis as CaCCāC noun). Buckley, Great Stem, p. 52 notes that the Durakia lineage may be traced back to the 15th century.
46 I.e. priesthood.
47 Reading širšan for manuscript's širan.
48 This would seem to be the meaning required by the context. The verb normally means ‘teach’.
49 Drower translated: “For He forsaketh us not, uniting us together”. However, for this impersonal structure compare lášaḇqonnan allenni ekkaḵ “we weren't allowed to go there” (Häberl, Khorramshahr, p. 278, Text III:13).
50 The spelling uadiun probably represents vadyon <*əvadyon with the opening syllable lost through aphaeresis.
51 Drower and Macuch were unable to interpret this text, and Macuch misread the last word of the line as minda(i). The first letter is clearly b while the last letter is blurred. However, bandar br mhamad br tamir br saʕdun is mentioned as the Shekh of the Muntafiq in another colophon written by Yahia Bihram, RRC 4G.
52 arbaiia might be employed here in meaning of Bedouin.
53 For aklat “ruled” see Ford, J. N. “Another Look at the Mandaic Incantation Bowl BM 91715.” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 29 (2002), pp. 31–47Google Scholar, especially p. 34. The verb aklat here would appear to follow the Arabic rules of agreement, in which collectives may be construed as feminine singular.
54 Erased by underscoring.
55 Murad IV, reigned 1623–1640.
56 Shah Abbas I of Persia, reigned 1588–1629.
57 Suleiman I, reigned 1520–1566.
58 Selim I, reigned 1512–1520.
59 The superscript n is written above the a of qura, and it is equally possible to read taqla ʿl qur^n^a. I have not been able to decipher this epithet with either reading.
60 I am unable to identify this name.
61 Bayezid II, reigned 1481–1512, was in fact the son of Mehmed II.
62 Mehmed II, reigned 1451–1481.
63 He was the grandson of Fath Ali and died in 1264 ah (5 September 1848 ce).
64 In the colophon of RRC 4G Yahia Bihram similarly praises the British regime in India.
65 See Mutzafi, Comparative Lexical Studies, p. 30.
66 Reading aitia “it is” from ait- (Drower and Macuch, Mandaic Dictionary, p. 15 s.v.).
67 Drower, Haran Gawaita, p. 91 translated “a wooden box (?)”, but arzah here means ‘cedar’. gauaza is employed here with the meaning ‘wood (as material)’, a usage not found in Classical Mandaic but found for NM gowɔzɔ. See Mutzafi, Comparative Lexical Studies, p. 139.
68 guṭla is interpreted here as a guṭra, NM goṭrɔ ‘smoke’ (Drower and Macuch, Mandaic Dictionary, p. 83 and Mutzafi, Comparative Lexical Studies, pp. 148–149). For interchanges of l and r in the vernacular see Macuch, Handbook, pp. 52–54.
69 Yahia Bihram is certainly describing one of the two steamships, the Euphrates and the Tigris, which were built at Port William on the Euphrates near Birecik in Turkey. The ships were constructed from pre-prepared kits as part of the “Euphrates Project” under the direction of Captain Francis Rawdon Chesney in an attempt to develop a new trade route between Britain and India. The operation was described in detail in Chesney, F. R., Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition carried on by Order of the British Government. (London, 1868)Google Scholar. According to Pauline, N., The Travels of Doctor and Madame Helfer in Syria, Mesopotamia and Burmah and Other Lands (London, 1878), p. 182Google Scholar, the first steamer was launched on March 16th 1836. See Fig. 1.
70 The text has been corrected, perhaps to read gapa, but the correction is unclear.
71 The interpretation of this passage proposed in Macuch, “Review”, p. 363 must be rejected because Drower was correct in reading marauata rather than Macuch's tiaruata.
72 Yahia Bihram may be talking about the gliders designed and produced by George Cayley (1773–1857). The model closest to the description here was Cayley's ‘Governable Parachute’ of 1852, drawings of which appeared on the cover of Mechanics’ Magazine, no. 1520, dated 25th September 1852. See Ackroyd, J. A. D., “Sir George Cayley, the Father of Aeronautics. Part 2 Cayley's Aeroplanes,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 56 (2002), pp. 333–348CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially p. 345, and Fig. 2.
73 Following Macuch, “Review”, p. 151, ia is interpreted as the apocopated numeral ye ‘one’. Macuch's interpretation is supported by new evidence, e.g. ana ia abda ḏ-ansit hazin diuan “I, a servant, who copied this scroll” (RRC 2M colophon: 8). See Morgenstern, M., “Neo-Mandaic in Early Mandaean Colophons. Part 1: Linguistic Features”, Aramaic Studies 16 (2018), pp. 1–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially p. 16.
74 The name underlying the spelling iuspia uilip has previously defied identification, and Drower questioningly anglicised it as Joseph Ayliffe or Olaf. Buckley, Great Stem, p. 136 was similary uncertain about its original form. The name has been corrupted by Yahia Bihram in our text, and the clue to its correct interpretation is to be found in the colophon DC 47: ata had padria ḏ-mn angriz ḏ-šumẖ ualip lgriz iusip “One clergyman came from the English, by name Wolff the English Joseph”. Joseph Wolff (1795–1862) was a Jewish convert to Christianity whose extensive travels through the Middle East were described in his published missionary journals. Though German in origin, he was ordained into the Anglican church. See Emanuel, V. R., “Wolff, Joseph” in Singer, I. (ed.), The Jewish Encylopaedia (New York and London, 1906), Vol. XII, pp. 552–553Google Scholar. His encounter with the Mandaeans (Sabeans) in Baṣra (Bassora) are detailed in Wolff, J., Missionary Journal of the Rev. Joseph Wolff, Missionary to the Jews: Vol. II. Comprising His Second Visit to Palestine and Syria, in the Years 1823 & 1824 (London, 1828), pp. 310–326Google Scholar, wherein he relates that his contact with the Mandaeans was through Taylor.
75 The precise nature of this subduing is unclear.
76 Infinitive forms are rare in NM, but from the data in Macuch, Ahwaz, p. 432 the Ahvaz dialect appears to employ qərɔ́, while the bound form is qərɔy-. We may reconstruct Yahia Bihram's form as qərɔyɔ.
77 Robert Taylor was an important British political figure in Mesopotamia in the 1800s. Wolff, Missionary Journal, pp. 298–229, describes his meeting in Baṣra in May 1824 with “Captain Taylor, the resident of the East India Company”, who, he reports, “understands perfectly the Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hindostanee, Italian, French and Portuguese languages, he has moreover some knowledge of the Hebrew and Syriac”. Taylor's interest in languages was also noted by Petermann, H., Reisen im Orient (Leipzig, 1861), p. 87Google Scholar, who reported that Taylor had studied Mandaic with Adam Yuhana, Yahia Bihram's father, for 12 years. Three copies of the Ginza were purchased from Taylor's widow by the British Museum in April 1860 (Buckley, Great Stem, pp. 93–98). The third copy, BL Add. 23,601 was prepared by Adam Yuhana in Baṣra in 1241 ah (1825–1826 ce) and dedicated to Taylor. It also contains interlinear English glosses in Taylor's hand. Layard, A. H., Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia, including a Residence among the Bakhtiyari and other Wild tribes before the discovery of Nineveh, Volume 2 (London, 1887), p. 171Google Scholar noted that in 1842 he was the East India Company's political agent in Baghdad.
78 Following Macuch, “Review”, p. 363, though rather than a scribal error, this may be a metathesised form.
79 Following Macuch, ibid.
80 On such accusations against Yahia Birham in the 1860s, see M. Morgenstern, “Forgotten Sources for Mandaean-Western Relations in the 19th Century” (forthcoming). If our text makes reference to these events, then it was composed later previously known.
81 Compare ḏ-gaunia gaunia znia znia Gy. 74:22–23.
82 Layard, Early Adventures, p. 171, reports that through his and Taylor's intervention, he was able to gain protection and financial support for the Mandaean communities. BL Or. 1236, a Ginza Rabba copied in 1826 and acquired by the British Museum (now British Library) in 1873, contains the following dedication: “The Sacred Book of the Sabeans or followers of St. John the Baptist, Presented by Sheikh Yahya Chief and High Priest of the tribe with his petition to Her Majesty the Queen dated 10th December 1872 and forwarded to H M's Ambassador to Constantinople with dispatch no. 3 dated 29th January 1873 from Colonel Herbert Consul General at Baghdad”.