Sheikh (Rabbi) Abdullah bar Negm (Arabic: عبدالله ابن نجم; born in Qal'at Saleh, Iraq; died 2009, Nijmegen, Netherlands) was an Iraqi Mandaean priest who served as the Rishama (Mandaean patriarch) of Baghdad, Iraq during the latter half of the 20th century.[1][2]
Life
Rabbi Negm was born into the Khaffagi (written Mandaic: Kupašia) clan.[2]: 117 In 1947, his father, Rabbi Negm bar Zahroon, who had just become a ganzibra that same year, initiated him into the Mandaean priesthood.[2]: 113 Abdullah bar Negm's ordination was mentioned in his father's two-page letter to E. S. Drower, which was dated February 4, 1948.[2]
Abdullah bar Negm became Rishama of Baghdad after Dakhil Aidan's death in 1964.
Rabbi Abdullah bar Negm was known for initiating Sheikh Haithem (now known as Brikha Nasoraia, a ganzibra and professor living in Sydney, Australia) into the priesthood in Iraq, as well as the majority of well-known Mandaean priests in the diaspora.[2]: 118
He later emigrated with his wife to the United Kingdom. After his wife died in the United Kingdom, Abdullah bar Negm moved to Nijmegen, Netherlands to be with his family members. He died in the Netherlands in 2009.[3][4]
Family
Abdullah bar Negm's grandfather is the son of Ram Zihrun, one of the survivors of the 1831 cholera epidemic that nearly wiped out the Mandaean priesthood.[5]: 157
^ abcdefgBuckley, Jorunn Jacobsen (2010). The great stem of souls: reconstructing Mandaean history. Piscataway, N.J: Gorgias Press. ISBN978-1-59333-621-9.
