Followers of Mandaeism are performing baptism in Karun River, southwestern Khuzestan province. According to Encyclopedia Iranica, the Mandaeans must have arrived into Iran from the west (i.e., Jordan, Palestine) as early as the 1st and 2nd centuries CE.

The Mandaeans, whose official designation by their Iranian and Iraqi neighbors is “Sabeans” (“dippers,” “dyers,” “baptizers”), call themselves “Mandaeans” (“the knowledgeable ones”). 

Today, the Mandaeans, whose population in Iran is estimated at 14,000 persons, are found chiefly in Khuzestan’s capital city of Ahwaz.