Nasser Sobbi

Nasser Sobbi (Persian: ناصر صبي; born March 13, 1924, Khorramshahr; died December 22, 2018, Flushing, Queens) was an Iranian-American Mandaean scribe, manuscript collector, and goldsmith[1]: 65  who was known as one of the last remaining fully fluent native speakers of Neo-Mandaic in the United States.

During World War II, Sobbi went to Basra and Baghdad, Iraq to look for work, and returned to Iran in 1945.

[1]: 65  Sobbi also owned the largest private collection of Mandaean manuscripts in North America, including a handwritten manuscript of the Mandaean Book of John that was copied by Sheikh Mhatam bar Yahya Bihram on April 9, 1910.

[4]: 113  He spoke Neo-Mandaic regularly with his wife Shukrieh, his brother Dakhil A. Shooshtary, and his uncle Abdolkarim Moradi, a resident of Syosset, New York.

[5] Nasser Sobbi was the father of one son, Isa, and four daughters, Freshteh, Juliette, Labiba, and Nabila.