Ashwaq Nasrat, an Iraqi Sabean-Mandaean, dried her face in her white robe for the Day of Prosperity after performing the ritual immersion in water.
Nasrat - a professor of linguistics at the University of Baghdad - explained that "Today is the Feast of the Mandaeans, which is a small feast, and it is called the Feast of Prosperity in which the earth flourished with all its plants and animals."
A few dozen Sabean-Mandaeans gathered in Baghdad on the bank of the Tigris River to celebrate the holiday of prosperity.
The Mandaeans settled in the low-lying Bodian swamp area of Babylon, and they lived and still live there.
But with the outbreak of the Iraq war in 2003, about 80% of the 60,000 followers of this religion who lived in Iraq before the US invasion fled.
Sect leader Sattar Jabbar Helou said, "People are few and we (we) in religious occasions reduce the number as much as possible, and even at weddings, although they are few, the number of people present is limited."
The sect is one of the oldest religious communities in the world, and little is known about this secret monotheistic religion, whose followers consider the Prophet of God Yahya bin Zakaria, peace be upon him, as their prophet.