Nasser Sobbi | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1924-03-13)March 13, 1924 Khorramshahr, Iran |
| Died | December 22, 2018(2018-12-22) (aged 94) Flushing, Queens, New York, United States |
| Other names | Adam bar Mahnuš |
| Occupation | Scribe |
| Notable work | Ginza Rabba (1989 handwritten copy) |
| Spouse | Shukrieh Sobbi |
| Children | 5 |
Nasser Sobbi (Persian:ناصر صبي; born March 13, 1924,Khorramshahr; died December 22, 2018,Flushing, Queens) was an Iranian-AmericanMandaean scribe, manuscript collector, and goldsmith[1]: 65 who was known as one of the last remaining fully fluent native speakers ofNeo-Mandaic in the United States. He was ayalufa (learned Mandaean layman), though not a formally ordainedMandaean priest.[1]
Nasser Sobbi was born inMuḥammara (now known asKhorramshahr), Iran on March 13, 1924. HisMandaean baptismal name is Adam bar Mahnuš (Classical Mandaic:ࡀࡃࡀࡌ ࡁࡓ ࡌࡀࡄࡍࡅࡔ,romanized: Adam br Mahnuš,lit. 'Adam, son of Mahnuš'). During his childhood and adolescence, he lived in both Khorramshahr andAbadan. In 1932, he was present at awedding ceremony in Khorramshahr that was attended byE. S. Drower andAbdullah Khaffagi, and led by Ganzibra Masboob, the last Mandaean priest of Khorramshahr (and also the grandfather of Sheikh Fawzi Masboob of Detroit, United States).[1]: 39 Starting from 1938, he was an apprentice at his uncle Abdolkarim Moradi's jewellery shop in Abadan. During World War II, Sobbi went toBasra andBaghdad, Iraq to look for work, and returned to Iran in 1945. From 1952 to 1970, Sobbi and his family lived in Kuwait. They immigrated to New York, United States in 1970.[2]: 29–30
On July 16, 1989, Sobbi finished copying a handwritten copy of theGinza Rabba, the only one of its kind in North America.[1]: 65 Sobbi also owned the largest private collection of Mandaean manuscripts in North America, including a handwritten manuscript of theMandaean Book of John that was copied by Sheikh Mhatam bar Yahya Bihram on April 9, 1910.[1] Sobbi also owned a copy of theHaran Gawaita from 1930[1]: 340 that was copied by Mulla Sa’ad, the grandfather ofJabbar Choheili.[3]
Sobbi became acquainted with Norwegian-American scholarJorunn Jacobsen Buckley in 1994. For decades, he assisted Buckley with her research on Mandaean manuscriptcolophons.[3]
Sobbi was a fluent native speaker, reader, and writer of Mandaic.[4]: 113 He spokeNeo-Mandaic regularly with his wife Shukrieh, his brother Dakhil A. Shooshtary, and his uncle Abdolkarim Moradi, a resident ofSyosset, New York. Throughout the 2000s, Sobbi worked asCharles G. Häberl's Neo-Mandaic language informant for Häberl's 2006 Harvard doctoral dissertationThe Neo-Mandaic Dialect of Khorramshahr, which was later published as a monograph byHarrassowitz Verlag in 2009.[2]
Sobbi died on December 22, 2018, in Flushing at the age of 94.[5]
Nasser Sobbi was the father of one son, Isa, and four daughters, Freshteh, Juliette, Labiba, and Nabila. Labiba's husband grew up in a Neo-Mandaic-speaking household and could understand the language, but was not a fluent speaker himself.[2]
Sobbi married Shukrieh Sobbi in 1950.[6] The couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2000.[3]: 34
His brother,Dakhil A. Shooshtary (d. January 26, 2022),[3]: xxviii was also a fluent speaker of Neo-Mandaic and compiled various Mandaic dictionaries, including an English-Mandaic dictionary,[7] Arabic-Mandaic dictionary,[8] and Farsi-Mandaic dictionary.[9]
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