Yezidis

“ In other words the actual religion of the Yezidis is syncretism in which it is easy to recognize130 Yezidi, Christian, Moslem, especially sufism and pagan elements.
Like the master they believe in the true God and in the Resurrection, honor the angels and the stars, disbelieve in the mission of Mohammed and ignore ‘Ali, regard every sin, small or great, as idolatry or infidelity, and expect the appearance of a prophet from Persia. The fact of their connection with such a religious leader explains the reason why they are hated by both the Sunnites and the Shiites. ”

“ This hatred of the presumed worshiper of the devil has not yet been outlived, and a devout Mohammedan will today spit upon the ground and mutter a curse whenever the abhorred name crosses his lips.
The Yezidis enjoy fame as agriculturists who know how to exact good yield from their mountain farms. They live a retired life and rarely allow strangers to travel through the Sinjar range. The modern armament of Turkish expeditions has cowed the present generation into a submission which their fathers would have scorned. ”

“ One can see the hills of Ba‘adrie and Šeiḫ ‘Adi. Among the sacred places of this district are two villages: Assofa, where two ziarahs are found, and distinguished from afar by their white spires, and Aldina, where one ziarah exists. In almost every Sinjar village, there is to be found a covered water which they use as a fortress during their fights with the Kurds or with the Turkish army. The devil-worshippers of this locality are commonly called Yezidis, while those of Šeiḫan are known both as Yezidis and Dawaseni. ”

“ Though Kurdish is the general language of the Yezidis, their religious mysteries are in Arabic. Both languages are spoken by those living in the Sinjar hills and in Šeiḫan.
VII
Occupation
Generally speaking, the Yezidis are an industrious people, but they do not engage in business. This is due to their belief that any form of business leads to cheating and lying, and hence to cursing Melek-Ṭâ ́ûs, i. e., the devil. Their usual occupation is agriculture and cattle-raising. The Yezidis of Sinjar, who constitute almost the entire population, raise fruit, such199 as figs and grapes ”

“ THE MASSACRE OF THE YEZIDIS NEAR MOSUL, 1892. “The Yezidis are a remnant of a heathen sect, who have never been converted to the Moslem faith.
“Their holy place is not far from the city of Mosul, 107one day’s journey, and their principal villages are also close by. In the summer of 1892 the Sultan sent a special officer, called Ferik Pasha, to Mosul to correct certain abuses in the government, to collect all back taxes, and to convert the Yezidis. ”

“ The Yezidis, frequently called “Devil-Worshippers,” are a small and obscure religious sect, numbering about 200,000. [3] They are scattered over a belt of territory three hundred miles wide, extending in length from the neighborhood of Aleppo in northern Syria to the Caucasus in southern Russia. The mass of them, however, are to be found in the mountains of northern and central Kurdistan and among the Sinjar Hills of Northern Mesopotamia.
By reason of their mysterious religion, the Devil-Worshipers have been an object of interest and investigation for several generations. ”

“ He exercises a secondary184 authority over the Yezidis. He is a mediator between his sect and the Turkish government. He has the power to cut off any refractory member from the community. He has charge of fifty ḳawwals who try to collect for him at their annual visits to each Yezidi district a certain amount of money. The money received by them is divided into two equal parts, one of which goes to the support of the tomb of Šeiḫ ‘Adi, and the second part is divided, one-half being for the amir, the other half being shared equally by the ḳawwals. ”

“ The theory is also refuted by our understanding of the nature of the affinity in question between the Yezidis and the Christians. It is not a matter of sympathy but of religion. They believe in some forms of Christianity; and when they visit a church, they want to exercise their faith and not to express their sympathy. What is more, the eastern Christians have no sympathy for the devil worshippers, at least,103 not more than they have for any other religious body. Such an affinity is wanting between the Jews and the Christians or the Yezidis, yet they all live under the same conditions. ”

“ Certainly the Christians are not cherishing this theory with any expectation of receiving honor by assuming relation with the Yezidis. The devil-worshippers are utterly despised by all their neighbors. Nor do they do it out of love, that they may arouse the sympathy of the dominating race for this degraded people. Oriental Christians themselves despise the Yezidi sect. ”

“ Again, the Yezidis kiss the stones that satisfy their imagination, and make vows to them (see pp. 41, 50) . Nor is this all. The shouting of the Yezidi pilgrims, as they reach the sacred territory, and the noisy ceremony of their ḥajj, with its dancing127 and its excitement—a rite which has brought against them all sorts of accusations128—are nothing but the remnants of Pre-Islamic paganism.129
Such, then, are the steps which the religion of Yezid took before it came to shape itself into its present form. ”

“ According to their own traditions the Yezidis came originally from the districts of the lower Euphrates. Certain Sabean features of their religion indicate intimate contact with Semitic populations. Little is known about their curious religious celebrations, to which strangers are never admitted. Their practice of bowing before the rising sun is a clear relic of Zoroastrian influence. They also perform rites which have analogy to [304] Christian commemorations. In a land overrun in all directions no simple feature of the views they hold can account for their origin. ”

“ Small as their sect has always been, they can count their martyrs by hundreds of thousands. And seldom indeed has any Yezidi of full age been known to abjure his religion, either under stress of torment or through fear of death. The massacre of 1892 was but the latest (and one of the mildest) of a long list of similar inflictions. Less than fifty years previously all the Yezidis of the Sheikhan were driven from their villages by a great irruption of Kurds under the Beg of Rowandiz, and fled for refuge to Mosul. ”

“ Edgeworth, not less than they puzzle all Smithfield, and the rest of the learned "whose speech is of oxen," has imported those extraordinary grand-junction specimens, which, with their countryfolk, the Yezidis, Dr. Layard has particularly described in his book on Nineveh. When speaking of the Yezidis, he has observed, "The name of the evil spirit is, however, never mentioned; and any allusion to it by others so vexes and irritates them, that it is said they have put to death persons who have wantonly outraged their feelings by its use. ”

“ Some survive but in fragments of fantastic folk-lore, still lingering on ineradicably as the parasites of more modern creeds. But one of the oldest and weirdest of all is still a living reality—the religion of the Yezidis or “Devil-worshippers” who congregate principally in the vilayet of Mosul.
“Devil-worshippers” they are indeed; for they themselves do not scruple to admit that the Being whom they seek to propitiate is actually identical with the Sheitan of the Christians and Moslems and Jews. ”

“ Not only Yezidi, Persian, Moslem, and Christian elements are to be found in modern Yezidism, but there are many remains of the old pagan religions which find expression in the devil-worshippers of to-day. Such is the notion of the sacredness of the number seven, an idea which belongs to the common stock of the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia. The Yezidis have seven sanjaks, each has seven burners; their cosmogony shows that God created seven angels or gods ”

“ The Yezidis had assembled in less numbers this year than when I had last met them in the valley. Only a few of the best armed of the people of Sinjar had ventured to face the dangers of the road now occupied by the Bedouins. Abde Agha and his adherents were fully occupied in defending their villages against the Arab marauders, who, although repulsed after we quitted Semil, were still hanging about the district, bent upon revenge. The Kochers, and the tribes of Dereboun, were kept away by the same fears. The inhabitants of Kherzan and Redwan were harassed by the conscription. ”

“ There are four ranks in the priesthood of the Yezidis: Pir, Shaikh, Qawwal, and Faqir. The first, a Kurdish and Persian word signifying an elder or a saint, are persons of great sanctity and abstention. The Shaikhs (leader, chief) , correspond to resident priests, while the Qawwal (speaker) are itinerant, and are expected to sing and dance in the festivals which demand those exercises. The last order, the Faqir (poor, humble) , perform menial tasks in attendance upon the tomb of Shaikh Adi, at the valley of that name near Mosul. ”

“ Some are as far west as Aleppo; some as far north as Tiflis (where all the town scavengers are Yezidis) ; some as far east as Teheran. Their nucleus is in the Sinjar mountains, in the desert south-west of Mosul; where they are secured from invasion by the barricades of rock, and the waterless wastes which environ them. But the central shrine of their faith, the Jerusalem of their vows and offerings, is the cryptic Temple of Sheikh Adi, hidden just within the fringe of the northern mountains which overlook the great Mosul plain. ”

“ The Yezidis render to Melek Isa a sort of secondary worship. His reign is not yet; and being good He is not so formidable as evil. Thus at their great feast they sacrifice one sheep to Him, while to Melek Taüs they sacrifice seven. Melek Isa is merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, but Melek Taüs is a jealous and exacting god.
Sheikh Adi is a semi-mythical personage who may be described as the Yezidi Prophet. ”

“ There is not only enmity between tribe and tribe, but between village and village, and, as in parts of the Bakhtiari country, guides refuse to conduct travellers beyond certain spots, declaring that "blood" bars their farther progress.
Besides the Kurdish and Ashiret inhabitants of these mountains of Kurdistan there are Yezidis, usually called devil-worshippers, and a few Jews and Armenians. Probably there is not a wilder population on the face of the earth, or one of whose ideas, real beliefs, and ways Europeans are so ignorant. ”

“ We may admit, I think, that some Yezidis are Persian in their origin. But as to who was the originator of their religion this theory helps us not a whit. So also we have found that the relation of Šeiḫ ‘Adi to this sect is not that of a founder. He is only one of many whom their ignorance led to class as deities. ”

“ One point the myth repeatedly emphasizes, as an explanation of the origin of the sect, is that it was descended from Adam alone; while the other sects were descended from Adam and Eve. For this reason, the same tradition implies, the Yezidis are nobler than the others. But how they have come to be such unique descendants is a question not easily answered. One account has it that when Adam and Eve disputed as to the generation of the human race, each claiming to be the sole begetter of the race, they finally agreed to put their seed in separate jars and seal them with their own seals. ”

“ Among the three branches of the deity in the second degree, Melek Ṭâ ́ûs holds an important place in the theology of the Yezidis. The language used in his praise is so elevated that one is led to think that he is identical with God. Some scholars deny this theory on the ground that the principal prayer of these people is directed to God and no mention is made of King Peacock. ”

“ The reason why this record is hidden, it is explained, is the fear that the Nestorians may see it and reclaim the church.84
Such is the eastern Christian’s tradition relative to the origin of the Yezidis. It is, of course, merely a legend; but its character is such as to require careful examination and critical study. It may embody a measure of truth that will indirectly throw some light on the subject in hand. ”

“ But the Yezidis of the Sinjar are now very poor, and nearly all the trinkets of the women have long since fallen into the hands of the Turkish soldiery, or have been sold to pay taxes and arbitrary fines. The men have a dark complexion, black and piercing eyes, and frequently a fierce and forbidding countenance. They are of small stature, but have well proportioned limbs strongly knit together, and are muscular, active, and capable of bearing great fatigue. Their dress consists of a shirt, loose trowsers and cloak, all white, and a black turban, from beneath which their hair falls in ringlets. ”

“ The other religion, that of a more numerous branch, the Yezidis, is, in some respects, like the Mendajaha, but with the addition of the evil principle, the exalted doctor, who, as an instrument of the divine will, is propitiated rather than worshiped, as had been once supposed. ”

“ The language of the Yezidis, in common with the Kurds, is Kurdish, which belongs to the Iranian group of the Indo-European or Indo-Germanic stock. This Kurmanji possesses a number of dialects not differing much from one another, except the zaza dialect, which is spoken in eastern Mesopotamia by the Kurds, called Ali Alla. The main characteristic of the Kurmangi are the great brevity of its words and the simplicity of its grammatical forms. It is fairly rich in vowels, and richer in deep guttural sounds. ”