Mani (prophet)

Mani (in Middle Persian Māni and Syriac Mānī, Greek Μάνης, Latin Manes; also Μανιχαίος, Latin Manichaeus, from Syriac ܡܐܢܝ ܚܝܐ Mānī ḥayyā "Living Mani", c. 216–274 CE), of Iranian origin, was the prophet and the founder of Manichaeism, a gnostic religion of Late Antiquity which was once widespread but is now extinct. Mani was born in or near Seleucia-Ctesiphon in Parthian Babylonia (in modern Iraq), at the time still part of the Parthian Empire. Six of his major works were written in Syriac Aramaic, and the seventh, dedicated to the Sassanid shahanshah, Shapur I, was written in Middle Persian. He died in Gundeshapur, under the Sassanid Empire.

Sources

Until the 20th century, no reliable information on Mani's biography was known. Such medieval accounts as were known are either legendary or hagiographical, such as the account in Fihrist by Ibn al-Nadim, purportedly by al-Biruni, or were anti-Manichaean polemics, such as the 4th century Acta Archelai. Among these medieval accounts, Ibn al-Nadim's account of Mani's life and teachings is generally speaking the most reliable and exhaustive. Notable in this account is the near-complete absence of the "Third Ambassador", who is merely mentioned with the name bašīr, "messenger of good news", and the absence of the topos of "Mani the Painter" (which in other Islamic accounts almost completely replaces that of "the founder of a religion").