Abstract
Several religious minorities are threatened in contemporary Iraq as a result of the exactions of the lslamic State -including Mandeans. A monotheist religion founded on baptismal rituals, Mandaeism has a long been known to Westerners. ln the seventeenth century, it fascinated Western missionaries and travellers passing through Basra. Examining the works of four French travellers -François de La Boullaye-Le-Gouz, Jean de Thévenot, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and Jean Chardin-, this article investigates the perspective through which these looked at Mandaeism, a perspective shaped by a Christian prism. As a starting point, we will consider the names used by these travellers to describe the Mandeans. A close reading of their texts will also lead us to survey three distinct descriptive methods used in these sources, here termed axiological neutrality, normative approach, and heuristic approach.
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