E. S. Drower

"Indeed, modern methods, modern ways, nationalistic education, cinemas, cars, and all that make up the new Iraq, threaten the existence of this already dwindling community. In Government schools, boys conform to a pattern in dress, manners, and thought. Mandaean boys (including those of priestly caste) take to European dress and wear the sidāraḥ cap, and, when they return to their homes, neglect and slight the precepts of the priests. In the stress of school, or later business or office life, ceremonial ablutions are seldom performed, while sons of priests cut their hair and shave, and so become ineligible for priesthood (see Chapter IX). One by one, as priestly perquisites diminish and incomes lessen, the calling becomes unpopulär. If these conditions persist, the priesthood will gradually die out, and without priests to baptize, marry, and bury them, the Mandaeans as a sect must disappear. There is a further drain on the community in the shape of apostates. Ṣubbiyah girls marry outside the faith and adopt their husbands’ creeds, and youths forsake a religion so incompatible with worldly advantage and town life. In big towns the publicity of the river-side makes the prescribed ablutions and baptisms all but impossible."

"According to the last census (April 1932) the number of Ṣubba in Iraq is given as 4,805. I incline to think this an understatement, which will be revised when we get the results of the new census recently taken by the Iraqi Government. Under the mandate, communities like those at Amarah and Qal‘at Salih took on a new prosperity, and independent Iraq promises protection and tolerance. The danger to the flock lies within the fold rather than from wolves without."

"When I was about 7 years old, I remember Lady Drower’s visit to our village (Liṭlaṭa) in Kalaatsalah in the south of Iraq. All the people in the village celebrated and welcomed Lady Drower. And as a child we sat around her chair, which was woven of palm leaves. I remember seeing Lady Drower in the Mandaean temple, she was a beautiful, slim woman in her white dress and white hat. We saw her as an angel and studied her every move. She visited my uncle [Sheikh Negm bar Zahroon] from time to time."