Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Darulfunun Ilahiyat, cilt.36, sa.2, ss.293-312, 2025 (Scopus)
The Mandaean religion is traditionally known to be closed to conversion and marriage with people of other faiths, emphasising that one can only become a Mandaean by descent, and therefore does not allow missionary work. It is known that this traditional approach is accepted both by various Mandaean scholars who conduct specialised research on their religion and by the overwhelming majority of the Mandaean community. However, some scholars as well as some specific members of the Mandaean community have occasionally challenged this traditional understanding, arguing that people from other cultural environments might be accepted by the Mandaean religion. It is also known that the Mandaean community, which is under intense secularisation and assimilation pressure in the diaspora, is gradually losing blood and almost disappearing, and the Mandaean youth’s desire to marry from different circles from time to time, especially in the USA and European countries, pushes the community to seek a way out in these issues. In this direction, some scholars, as well as some Mandaean clergymen, suggest that such narratives from various Mandaean sacred texts as the stories of Anush Uthra and Meryey, which have mythological elements, even though they have remained in the depths of history, could be used as a reference for the possibility of conversion. In this way, it is thought that at least the current problem of the exclusion from the Mandaean community of spouses and children born from such marriages can be resolved, apart from the traditional approach. This study discusses the current debates on the possibility of conversion and marriage with people from different faith groups in the Mandaean religion and analyses the arguments used as a reference in these debates. It is argued that the social conditions and problems faced by the Mandaean community, especially in the diaspora, are effective in the arguments put forward in contrast to the traditional view that being a Mandaean is only dependent on lineage and that according to the Mandaean religion, intercultural marriage is not permissible.