Mani (in
Middle Persian Māni and
Syriac Mānī,
Greek , Latin ; also , Latin , from Syriac
Mānī ḥayyā "Living Mani", ), of
Iranian origin, was the prophet and the founder of
Manichaeism, a
gnostic religion of
Late Antiquity which was once widespread but is now extinct. Mani was born in or near
Seleucia-Ctesiphon in
Parthian Babylonia (in modern
Iraq), at the time still part of the
Parthian Empire. Six of his major works were written in
Syriac Aramaic, and the seventh, dedicated to the
Sassanid shahanshah,
Shapur I, was written in
Middle Persian. He died in
Gundeshapur, under the
Sassanid Empire.