The Shabak and Mandaeans: Iraq's Forgotten Minorities
By Hussein Zainulabdeen | Independent Researcher — Iraqi Minority Rights | husseinmonitor.com
When the world talks about Iraq's minorities, it usually means Christians and Yazidis. Occasionally Turkmen. Rarely Shabak. Almost never Mandaeans.
This is not because the Shabak and Mandaean communities have suffered less. It is because they have fewer advocates, less international visibility, and no powerful diaspora community lobbying on their behalf. In the hierarchy of attention that governs humanitarian response, they occupy the lowest rung — and they are paying the price for it.
Who Are the Shabak?
The Shabak are an ethnic and linguistic minority concentrated in the Nineveh Plains east of Mosul — a community whose name derives from the Arabic word for "intertwining," reflecting a heritage woven from multiple traditions. They speak a language that blends Arabic, Farsi, Kurdish, and Turkish. Approximately 70% are Shia Muslim; the remainder are Sunni. They have been recognized as a distinct ethnic group in Iraq since 1952.
Recognition has not meant protection.
Between 2003 and 2014 — before ISIS even arrived — an estimated 1,300 Shabak were killed. Those living in the disputed areas of Nineveh governorate, particularly in and around Mosul, faced persecution from militant groups actively seeking to displace minorities from the region. Many Shabak who once lived in Mosul were pushed to leave for nearby villages under threat.
Then ISIS came. And what had been a slow erosion became an acute catastrophe.
Who Are the Mandaeans?
The Sabean-Mandaeans are among the oldest religious communities in the world — practitioners of a pre-Islamic faith that venerates John the Baptist and centers on ritual purity and water. Their language, culture, and religion are considered by UN experts to be at risk of extinction in Iraq.
The numbers tell the story. In 2003, there were approximately 75,000 Mandaeans in Iraq. By 2022, fewer than 20,000 remained — a decline of more than 70% in less than two decades. Many fled to Jordan, Syria, and Western countries. Those who stayed faced targeted killings, kidnappings, and forced conversions.
The Mandaean community faces a unique vulnerability: their religion prohibits the use of weapons, including in self-defense. In a country where armed groups have operated with impunity for two decades, this has made them exceptionally exposed. Since 2003, the Mandaean Human Rights Group has documented 167 murders, 275 kidnappings, and 298 assaults and forced conversions.
Disputed Lands, Competing Claims
The Shabak situation is complicated by the broader contest over the Nineveh Plains — territory disputed between the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil. Both Arab and Kurdish actors have sought to extend land claims into the area, and the Shabak have found themselves caught between competing nationalisms that have little interest in their distinct identity.
In 2022, the commander of the 30th Brigade — a PMF unit operating in the area — took measures to prevent the municipality of Mosul from extending the city's administrative boundary toward the Nineveh Plains. The stated motivation was to protect Shabak communities from demographic changes. Whether such protection is genuine or serves other political interests is a question the Shabak community itself is divided on.
What is clear is that their land, their identity, and their political representation remain contested by forces far more powerful than they are.
Political Representation Without Power
Iraq's provincial council quota system reserves seats for minority communities — Christians, Sabean-Mandaeans, Faili Kurds, Yazidis, and Shabak each hold designated positions. On paper, this is inclusion. In practice, it is often something else.
In December 2023's provincial elections, a U.S.-designated human rights abuser led a political bloc to sweep all four Christian quota seats in Baghdad, Nineveh, Kirkuk, and Basra. The quota system, designed to protect minority representation, was used by a militia-linked actor to consolidate control over communities he had previously been accused of persecuting.
For Shabak and Mandaean communities, political representation in a system structured this way is not protection. It is the appearance of protection — a performance that satisfies international observers while leaving communities exposed to the same pressures as before.
The Services and Recognition Gap
The US State Department's 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom documented that minority groups including Turkmen, Yazidis, Shabak, and Christians continued to face discrimination from both federal government and KRG authorities. Armed groups harassed minority community members. Demographic changes were being promoted and enabled. Resources for stabilization and rehabilitation remained inadequate.
For Mandaeans specifically, the situation is acute. With fewer than 20,000 remaining in Iraq and a religion the UN has described as at risk of extinction, the community lacks the critical mass to sustain its institutions, educate its youth in its traditions, or maintain the religious infrastructure that defines its identity. Each family that leaves takes knowledge, practice, and community with it — losses that cannot simply be reversed when conditions improve, because the community needed to sustain them will no longer exist.
Conclusion
Iraq's minorities are disappearing. Not all at the same rate, and not all for the same reasons — but the direction is consistent across communities. Christians, Yazidis, Turkmen, Shabak, Mandaeans: each community smaller today than a decade ago, and smaller a decade ago than the decade before.
The Shabak and Mandaeans receive the least attention of all. They have no internationally recognized genocide designation. They have no major diaspora advocacy organizations. They have no equivalent of the Yazidi Survivors Law. They have quota seats in a parliament where militia-linked actors can sweep minority elections unopposed.
A country that cannot protect its smallest and most vulnerable communities is not on a path toward pluralism. It is on a path toward homogenization — one displacement, one emigration, one generation at a time.
The Shabak and Mandaeans deserve to be part of this conversation. Before there is no one left to have it with.
Independent Research & Analysis
Hussein Monitor
Hussein Monitor publishes in-depth field research on Iraqi minority rights, post-ISIS accountability, and the human cost of impunity. By Hussein Zainulabdeen — former UNAMI Liaison Officer and independent researcher.
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