Jabbar Choheili

Biography

Jabbar Choheili held the Mandaean clergical ranks of Ganzibra (head priest) and Rishama (patriarch), the highest Mandaean clergical rank. He was born in 1923 in the city of Ahvaz, Khuzestan Province, Iran into the Kuhailia (Persian pronunciation: Choheili) family. His malwasha (baptismal name) is Mhatam Yuhana (Classical Mandaic: ࡌࡄࡀࡕࡀࡌ ࡉࡅࡄࡀࡍࡀ; full name: Rabbi Ganzibra Mhatam Yuhana bar Sharat; also known as Mhatam Yuhana bar Yahya; or in Arabic: Shaikh Jabar (= Šabur), the son of Ṭawoos) (note: Mandaeans typically have both a birth name and a baptismal name).

Jabbar Choheili's father died in 1924 due to an armory explosion in Ahvaz during the Sheikh Khazal rebellion, a conflict between Reza Shah and Khazʽal Ibn Jabir. Mulla Sa’ad, his grandfather, raised him and his brothers during his childhood. Mulla Sa’ad was also a scribe and in 1930 had copied a version of the Haran Gawaita that was owned by Nasser Sobbi (1924–2018) in New York (Sobbi was the owner of the most extensive private collection of Mandaean manuscripts in the United States).

In 1948, he traveled from Iran to Qal'at Saleh, Iraq to become initiated as a tarmida by Sheikh Abdullah, son of Sh. Sam Sh. Jabbar (a ganzibra who was the father of physicist Abdul Jabbar Abdullah). After he was ordained, Jabbar Choheili returned to Ahvaz, where he completely copied the Ginza Rabba by hand. Carlos Gelbert's Ginza Rabba (2011, 2021) is primarily based on the "Mhatam Yuhana Ginza" (2004).

Ganzibra Jabbar Choheili was the chairman and secretary general of the Mandaean Council of Ahvaz. He was also a goldsmith by profession.

He died on the morning of Sunday, December 27, 2014. He was buried in a Mandaean cemetery in Ahvaz.