Cosmology, identity and food related rituals among the Mandaeans

Bibliographic Data

ID3784560
AuthorsMehrdad Arabestani (0000-0002-1654-8375, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume189
Pages203-226
Publication date2020-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueArchives de sciences sociales des religions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0335-5985 • E-ISSN: 1777-5825
PublisherOpenEdition (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.4000/assr.50397
OpenAlexW3011912379
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited26

The Mandaeans are members of a Gnostic ethnoreligious group who live in Iran and Iraq. They have always been a small minority under the threat of cultural extinction. Recent wars and political unrest in their homeland have intensified the situation and accelerated the emigration and dissemination of the community. They practice elaborate religious rituals that revolve around the recurrent theme of bodily purity, including ritual concern for food and its preparation. On the one hand, using a Geertzian approach to the study of religion with ethnographic data, the mutual relationship between the food-related rituals, Mandaean cosmology and the formation of a "religious world" is considered. On the other hand, the very formation of a "religious world" can be seen as a social construction based on the historical experience and socio-political situation of the people. The ritual obsession with the purity of body and food symbolically represents a preoccupation with the purity and integrity of the community, while at the same time it re-establishes the boundaries of a distinct group identity in a threatening milieu. Therefore, food-related rituals not only symbolically represent Mandaean worldview and simultaneously set up a specific ethos for the people, but they also create and recreate this distinct identity

Aesthetics · Environmental ethics · Ethnography · Ethos · Homeland · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Unrest · Anthropology · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · Law · Philosophy · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices

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