Who was Mani?

Mani (216–274 CE), 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, 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.