He is a community leader among Iraq’s Mandaeans, monotheists who believe in spiritual purification through ritual baptism. Mandaeanism is one of Iraq’s earliest religions, predating Christianity. Adherents, who’ve lived mainly in areas of southern Iraq for roughly two millennia, look to John the Baptist as the faith’s great teacher. According to Hussein, roughly 15,000 Mandaeans were living in Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion. They were a relatively wealthy community. Many Mandaeans worked as goldsmiths. Criminals began targeting Mandaeans because of their wealth in the lawlessness following the U.S. invasion. Further threats came in later years because of their faith, as minority sects drew the attention of Islamic militants.
I WAS IN OUR MAIN TEMPLE one afternoon in the spring of 2007 with the head sheik of our order when three men visited. They were clearly conservative Sunnis by the way they dressed, and wanted to talk to us, the leaders of the temple. They were not armed as far as I could see, but they told us they were with the holy warriors fighting the occupation. They were very direct and did not take long to say what they had come to relate. They told us that they knew we were good Iraqis and would want to help our fellow countrymen in a time of need. They said they needed our support in their fight. We could offer either men or money. They were not asking. They were demanding. They said plainly that if we could not offer help to the holy warriors, then Hell’s doors would open onto us.
We told them respectfully that we could not give them what they wanted. We don’t believe in violence of any kind, so there was no way we could offer fighters. And because we’re basically pacifists there is no way we could give money knowing it would fund violence, no matter what the cause.
They didn’t like our answer, naturally. They began accusing members of our community of being involved in witchcraft and other evil practices forbidden by Islam. They said at the very least we had to call together a meeting of our congregation and tell those among them practicing black magic to stop. I argued with them a little bit, saying to call such a meeting would suggest that some Mandaeans were in fact doing such things, which was absurd. They did not budge on this last demand. Before they left they said we’d be dead if we failed to call the meeting or if we told anyone about their visit. And they promised to send spies among us to ensure we did as we were told.
Once they were gone I discussed what to do with our sheik. He was very scared. He had already been beaten up badly in 2006 by the Mahdi Army, who mistook him for a radical Sunni because of his long hair and beard. Now the actual radical Sunnis were visiting our temple with threats. He didn’t want anything to do with any of it. He fled to Syria shortly after that visit, and I was left to deal with the situation.
I didn’t inform the Iraqi government or the police. There was no point. All order had broken down at that point. I did inform the U.S. embassy, and American forces would sometimes visit our temple after that. That was the only help we could really hope to get, and it would not be enough to protect our followers. I decided to call a meeting as those men had demanded. I did not believe doing so would satisfy them enough to withdraw their threats, but I had to try. Roughly fifteen days after that visit I summoned about one hundred followers to the temple. I gave a speech saying that, if any Mandaeans had been tricked into believing superstitions and such that we should help them back onto the right path. In a roundabout way I delivered the message I was told to give by those men without directly accusing anyone of being involved in witchcraft.
I had only called males from the community to that meeting, but one girl appeared and slipped in. I noticed her and recognized who she was. She was the daughter of a family in our community who had married a man from Ramadi and converted to Islam. She and her husband had lived together in Ramadi for many years during Saddam’s time, but had moved back to Baghdad shortly before the collapse. Throughout the meeting she was discreetly taking pictures and video with her mobile phone. I assumed she was the spy they had promised to send. Seeing her there for that meeting made me remember that I saw her hanging around the temple the day we were visited, too. I think she must have brought these men to us through ties of hers or her husband’s back in Ramadi, which was a base for many Sunni fighters then. I didn’t throw her out or anything. She was welcome to hear what was said. The followers who came to the meeting were told to spread the word among the rest of the community about the message as they left.
The day after the meeting we got word from these holy warriors. They called us and said they were satisfied with what we had told our congregation. They had clearly been listening either with this girl or some other way. We were left to believe after that call that we were no longer under threat. But of course you cannot trust such people. They are terrorists, killers. We knew they would still be after us.
Within a week of that meeting, three members from one family in our congregation were murdered together in their neighborhood. That was the first in a string of killings. Within a month fifteen members of our congregation were dead, all murdered. Also, around this time strange lists started appearing in different neighborhoods where members of our community lived. The lists had the names of people who were supposedly victims of black magic by Mandaeans. They were mostly Sunni names. I think they were fake. In any case the lists were meant to incite our neighbors against us, all of us. Our community had already suffered a lot before this episode. We had been heavily targeted because people wanted our money. But after this, things got much worse. We were now being publicly denounced by so-called holy warriors. It was open season on us. None of us could feel safe in Iraq anymore.
Hussein Radhi Zuboon saw the Mandaean community quickly dwindle as thousands fled the country shortly after the ominous temple visit by Sunni militants. Hussein remained in Iraq out of a sense of duty to lead the remaining congregation. As few as five thousand remained in Iraq as of 2009, he said. There was little hope of seeing the Mandaeans return in significant numbers. Hussein said most of those who had fled remained wary of coming home, as violence appeared to be rising in the summer of 2009 ahead of the U.S. troop withdrawal.