community
Shushtar
Shushtar, Iran · Mandaeans & Nasoraia (southern Mesopotamia/Khuzestan)
32.050, 48.850
Attested. Attested by Mandaean colophons and 19th-century reports.
Mandaean colophons show Shushtar as a busy Mandaean religious and scribal center in the 17th and 18th centuries. Some of the earliest Mandaean manuscripts in European collections came from here. A cholera outbreak in 1831 killed the whole local priesthood, and a massacre in 1870 ended the community. The city was earlier also a Church of the East bishopric.
Source stance: insider. Mandaean colophons, with European travelers as neutral witnesses.
People and groups named here
- Yahya Bihram (restorer of the priesthood after 1831)
Sources
- MANDAEANS iv. Community in Iran
Jorunn J. Buckley, Encyclopaedia Iranica (2005, upd. 2016). Accessed 2026-11-11.
- Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System (UNESCO World Heritage List no. 1315)
UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Accessed 2026-11-11.
- Pleiades place 912941: Sostrate/Shushtar
Pleiades Gazetteer (ISAW, NYU). Accessed 2026-11-11.
Further reading
Councils here
None in this list.