[1] Yahya Bihram was born around 1811[2] as the son of the Mandaean ganzibra (high priest) Adam Yuhana (Classical Mandaic: ࡀࡃࡀࡌ ࡉࡅࡄࡀࡍࡀ), and belonged to the Qindila ("lamp"), Kamisia, and Riš Draz families.
His father, Adam Yuhana, had previously served as an informant for the British Vice-Consul John George Taylor in Basra and taught him to read the Ginza Rabba.
[3] From September 1831 A.D. (1247 A.H.) to January 1832, a catastrophic cholera epidemic, which Mandaeans call the muṭana (Classical Mandaic: ࡌࡅࡈࡀࡍࡀ), ravaged the lower Euphrates and Tigris regions of what is now Iraq and Iran.
[2] Immediately after the 1831 cholera epidemic, Yahya Bihram widely traveled in the Mandaean areas of Iraq and Iran as he worked to revive the community, including Muhammerah (Khorramshahr), Shushtar, Basra, and many other towns.
[2] In Suq eš-Šuyuk, Yahya Bihram and the Mandaean community endured persecution under the local tribal chieftain Thamir ibn Ghadban during the reign of Ottoman ruler Abdülmecid I, as they underwent forced circumcisions, robberies, murders, and starvation.
[3] In 1854, the German philologist Julius Heinrich Petermann worked with Yahya Bihram in Suq eš-Šuyuk to document the Mandaean religion, culture, and language.
Sheikh Negm was born in Huwaiza, Iran in 1892, lived in Khorramshahr during his early youth, and moved to Qal'at Saleh, Iraq in 1914.