Lady Ethel Stefana Drower’s Books about Iraq
AL - HA K I M F O U N D AT I O N ANGLO-IRAQI STUDIES CENTRE (AISC) JANUARY 2017 NEWSLETTER
AISC January 2017 Newsletter Page 6
Lady Ethel Stefana Drower (nee Stevens) (1879-1972) was a British cultural anthropologist, well known for her travels in the Middle East and her many books about this part of the world. She spent 25 years living in Iraq, from 1921 to 1946. Lady Drower’s lifelong interest in Iraq
and the Middle East began when she accompanied her husband, Sir Edwin
Drower, to Iraq in 1921, where he was advisor to the Justice Minister from 1921 to 1946.
During her 25 years living in Iraq, Lady Drower produced many books.Titles she published during this time included By Tigris & Euphrates (1923), Sophy: A Tale of Baghdad(1924), Ishtar (1927), Folktales of Iraq (1931), The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran (1937) and Peacock Angel(1941), about the Yazidi people of Iraq.
Lady Drower was well known for her studies of the religions and beliefs in Iraq and the Middle East. She was considered a specialist on the Mandaeans, an ancient religious minority living in Iraq and Iran. Her 1937 publication, The Mandaeans of Iraq & Iran, gives an insight into their religion, culture and ways of life. She translated their holy book, the Q’Olada, and collected many Mandaean manuscripts during her lifetime.
In addition, she collected and gathered folk tales of Iraq, which she published in 1931 in a book titled Folktales of Iraq.
Saturday, May 02, 2020
The Yezidis and the Peacock Angel - LAShTAL.COM
http://www.yeziditruth.org/
I have come across an interesting website about the Yezidis, created by them, expressing some of their difficulties in gaining fair political representation in the Iraqi Congress. What is of interest to Thelema is an in-depth description of their religious beliefs, including a page on the Peacock Angel named Melek Taws, also known as Shaitan.
According to Aleister Crowley, Thelema is a revival of the historic worship of Shaitan in the form of Aiwass. Given the dated sources Crowley had to draw upon while forming his views of the Yezidis, combined with the denial of the Yezidis that they were ever Devil worshipers of any sort, it would appear the Shaitan angle embraced by Crowley is unfounded; however, it is interesting how the author of the page on the Peacock Angel draws numerous connections between various deities from other religions and Melek Taws, embracing the syncretism Crowley was so fond of.
Fighting Back With Faith: Inside the Yezidis’ Iraqi Temple
The Daily Beast 21 Aug 2014 photos: Inside the Yezidi Temple
https://kdp.se/yazidi2.pdf
The following informative and enjoyable description of a visit to Lalish/Lalesh was received in response to the previous bulletin. Not too far from Erbil, Lalesh is a very pleasant and interesting destination point. About a 2-hour non-stop drive.
But along the way to Lalesh are a four other places worth visiting: Mar Matti (St. Matthew) Monastery, a massive complex high up on the side of Maqlub mountain that dates from the 4th century. On the other side in the plain down below is where Greek-Macedonian Alexander (the Great) defeated Persian King Darius III in 331 BC in the Battle of Gaugamela. The battle is well- portrayed in the film 'Alexander' with Colin Farrell and Angelina Jolie. Before reaching Lalesh there are impressive Assyrian rock sculptures at Khennis at the headwaters of a long canal that ran over the oldest aqueduct in the world at Jerwan constructed by Sennecherib in 700 BC. All in a day.
An academic paper on the Yezidis is also included
The Yazidis and India
Here I want to speak of the lesser-known connections between the Yazidis and Indians.
By Subhash Kak
-September 2, 2019
Here I want to speak of the lesser-known connections between the Yazidis and Indians.
By Subhash Kak
-September 2, 2019
Here I want to speak of the lesser-known connections between the Yazidis and Indians.
According to their folklore, the Great Flood compelled Yezidis to disperse to many countries including India, and they returned from these adoptive countries around 2000 BCE.
The Yazidis live far away from India in Iraq, Iran and Turkey. Even though they have legends connecting them to the east, the idea of a link with India appears ridiculous at first sight. But history has wheels within wheels and sometimes reality turns out to be vastly different from common belief.
The Yazidis speak a northern dialect of the Kurdish language, which some call a separate language with the name Ezdiki. Their religion, Yazidism, is also called Sharfadin (the religion of the cultured folks). Reviled as devil worshipers for centuries by their Muslim and Christian neighbours, they have endured over 70 genocides in which millions died and most others were compelled to abandon their culture.
It is not only the kings who had Sanskrit names; a large number of other Sanskrit names have also been unearthed in the records from the area.
The Yazidis were denounced as infidels by al-Qaeda in Iraq who sanctioned their indiscriminate killing. In 2007, a series of coordinated car bombs killed nearly 800 of them.
The Islamic State began a campaign of destroying their cities and villages in 2014. It murdered nearly 3,000 of them, abducted 6,500, and sold 4,500 Yazidi women and girls into sexual slavery. Many of the abducted girls committed suicide. Nadia Murad, the Yazidi human rights activist and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner, was kidnapped and used as a sex slave.
Here I want to speak of the lesser-known connections between the Yazidis and Indians. We are not speaking here of the links through the overarching Indo-Iranian language family, but even there it should be noted that in this family the earliest node on the Iranian side is Avestan, which is literally identical to Vedic Sanskrit, and so the family should really be called the Vedic family, of which Indo-Aryan and Iranian are two daughters. These two subfamilies are connected in multiple ways through shared notions and history [1].
In the second millennium BCE, we have the Mitanni of Syria worshipping Vedic gods. Even prior to that in the third millennium BCE, the figure of Paśupati (Lord of Animals), an epithet of the Hindu deity Śiva, is seen in the famous eponymous seal of the Sarasvati-Sindhu Civilization, a memory of which was retained in the Indic groups who lived across Central Asia. Śiva’s son Skanda (also known as Kumāra, Murugan or Kārttikeya), the general of the gods, has peacock as his amount. The main deity of the Yazidis is the Peacock Angel, Taus Melek.
The peacock is native to the Indian subcontinent and it has long served as a symbol of royalty. We find images of the peacock going all the way back to the 3rd millennium BCE sites of the Sarasvati Civilization. The peacock is worshipped in the Pongal Festival in Tamil Nadu and revered all over India.
The Atharvaveda describes Kumāra as Agnibhuh or born of Agni, the fire god. The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa refers to him as the son of Rudra and the ninth form of Agni. The Taittirīya Āraṇyaka contains a Gāyatrī mantra for him. The Chāndogya Upaniṣad refers to Skanda as the “way that leads to wisdom.” The Baudhāyana Dharmasūtra provides additional names of Skanda, such as Mahāsena and Subrahmanya. The Skanda Purāṇa is devoted to the narrative of Kārttikeya.
12th-century image of Skanda from Andhra Pradesh Vedic gods in West Asia
Mitanni ruled northern Mesopotamia (including Syria) for about 300 years, starting 1600 BCE, out of their capital of Vasukhāni[2]. In a treaty between the Hittites and Mitanni, Indic deities Mitra, Varuṇa, Indra, and Nāsatya (Aśvins) are invoked. Their chief festival was the celebration of Viṣuva (solstice) very much like in India. It is not only the kings who had Sanskrit names; a large number of other Sanskrit names have also been unearthed in the records from the area.
The list of the Sanskrit names used in Syria and elsewhere was published by P. E. Dumont of the Johns Hopkins University, in the Journal of American Oriental Society in 1947, and one may see a summary of that in my own book chapter on Akhenaten, Sūrya, and the Ṛgveda[2]. The names of the main kings are (with the standard Sanskrit form or meaning inside brackets): The first Mitanni king was Sutarna I (good Sun). He was followed by Baratarna I (Paratarṇa, great Sun); Paraśukṣatra (ruler with axe); Saustatar (Saukṣatra, son of Sukṣatra, the good ruler); Paratarṇa II; Artadama (Ṛtadhāman, abiding in cosmic law); Sutarṇa II; Tushratta (Daśaratha or Tveṣaratha, having ten or fast chariots); and finally Matiwazza (Mativāja, whose wealth is thought), during whose lifetime the Mitanni state became a vassal to Assyria.
The peacock imagery adorns Yazidi shrines and houses of worship and other places. The attacks on them are a consequence of the Christian and the Muslim belief that the Peacock Angel is Satan or Iblis.
Across India, Iran and West Asia in the ancient world, the worshipers of Veda were called Devayājñi (or Devayasni), or deva-worshiper, of which the terms Sanātana Dharma or Vedic Dharma are synonyms. The name by which the Zoroastrians call their own religion is Mazdayasna (Sanskrit, medhā-yajña), or the religion of Ahura Mazda (Sanskrit Asura Medhā, Lord of Wisdom). Zarathushtra presented his religion as a rival to the religion of the devas (spelt now as daeva in Avestan), that is Devayasna. One can assume that before Zarathushtra, the Indo-Iranian speakers in West Asia were all Devayasni.
Devayasni worship
The Yazidis call themselves Daseni (Dawasen, pl.) which is the same as Devayasni, which confirms what we know from the Mitanni records about the history of that period. The word Yazidi is cognate with Sanskrit Yajata (worthy of worship) which in Old Persian (and Kashmiri) is Yazata [3],[4].
According to their folklore, the Great Flood compelled Yezidis to disperse to many countries including India, and they returned from these adoptive countries around 2000 BCE. From the archaeological record, the most plausible spread of Devayasna from India took place about 1900 BCE, soon after which Vedic gods begin to be mentioned in Mesopotamia and Syria.
Zarathushtra came from Bactria near Afghanistan and his new religion split the Deva-worshipping communities in the West from the ones in India. The 4,000-year estimate of the Yazidis on when they returned from India is consistent with this figure.
After the rise of Zoroastrianism, Devayasna survived for a pretty long time in West Asia. The evidence of the survival comes from the Deva- or Daiva-inscription of Iranian Emperor Xerxes (ruled 486–465 BC) in which the revolt by the deva worshipers in West Iran is directly mentioned. Xerxes announces[15]: “And among these countries, there was a place where previously Daiva [demons] were worshipped. Afterwards, by the grace of Ahuramazda, I destroyed that sanctuary of Daiva, and I proclaimed: The Daiva shall not be worshipped!” This, nearly 2,500 years ago, is an early record of the persecution suffered by the Devayasni, the ancestors of the Yazidis. This accusation of demon or devil worship was repeated later by Christians and Muslims.
The peacock was a sacred symbol to the Jats[6], an Indic group on the Eurasian Steppe, who served as a mediating agency between India, West Asia, and Europe.
Skanda/Murugan, together with the peacock mount, has been a popular deity in South India, which was strongly linked by sea-trade to West Asia and Europe. The story of the spread of the reverence for the peacock from India to Persia and beyond to Europe is well-known.
We see the centrality of Śiva and Skanda in the representation of their coins of the first-century Kushana kings in the deities Οηϸο (Oesho, Īśa = Śiva) and Σκανδo koμαρo (Skando Komaro, Skanda Kumara). The rule of the Kushanas extended to regions that border on today’s Yazidi lands.
Skanda with his consorts (Painting by Raja Ravi Varma)
The Yazidi religion
The Yazidis have a rich spiritual tradition and their modern culture goes back to the 12th-century leader Shaykh Adi (died in 1162), a descendant of Marwan I, the fourth Umayyad Caliph, whose tomb is in Lalish in Northern Iraq that is now the focal point of Yazidi pilgrimage.
Some believe that Yazidism is a branch of the pre-Islamic, native religion of the Kurds. There are also similarities between the Yazidis and the Yaresan, that extends back in time to the pre-Zoroastrian Devayasnic religion of West Asia.
The Yazidis number approximately 800,000, including about 150,000 who have taken refuge in Europe. They describe themselves as believing in one true God, and they revere Taus Melek, the Peacock Angel who is an embodied form (avatar) of the infinite God. Six other angels assist Taus Melek and they are associated with the seven days of creation with Sunday as the day of Taus Melek. The peacock imagery adorns Yazidi shrines and houses of worship and other places. The attacks on them are a consequence of the Christian and the Muslim belief that the Peacock Angel is Satan or Iblis.
The Yazidi religion is a mystical, oral tradition consisting of hymns (qawls), that are sung by qawwāls. Parts of the tradition have now been transcribed as two holy books called the Kitab al-Jilwa (Book of Revelation) and the Mishefa Reş (Black Book).
The Yazidi calendar goes back to 4750 BCE. It appears that this is connected to the Indian King list that goes back to 6676 BCE, which is mentioned by the Greek historian Arrian in his account of Alexander’s campaign.
Tawûsê Melek, the Peacock Angel
Given that many Yazidis claim to have originated in India, the veneration of the peacock may be a memory of this origin. In India, apart from the peacock as the vehicle of Skanda, it is also associated with Kṛṣṇa, who wears a peacock feather in his hair or in the crown. Of the seven colours produced from the primal rainbow, Tausi Melek is associated with the colour blue, which is also the colour of Kṛṣṇa.
Through his manifestation as a snake, Taus Melek is consistent with the perspective of the yogis of India, for whom the serpent on the tree is a metaphor for the inner serpent (kundalini) that coils around the spine.
Yazidis pray in the direction of the sun, excepting for the noon prayer which is in the direction of Lalish. They believe in reincarnation and they take it that the angels (with the exception of Taus Melek) have been incarnated on earth as holy people or saints. Just like the Hindus, they use the metaphor of a change of garment to describe the process of rebirth.
Like other Indo-European cultures, the Yazidi society is tripartite, with the three classes of Shaykh (priests), Pir (elders), and Murid (commoners) and they marry only within their group. Their society does not allow conversion. The Shaykhs are divided into Faqirs, Qawwals, and Kochaks. The secular leader is a hereditary Mīr or prince, whereas Bābā Shaykh heads the religious hierarchy.
The Yazidi calendar goes back to 4750 BCE. It appears that this is connected to the Indian King list that goes back to 6676 BCE, which is mentioned by the Greek historian Arrian in his account of Alexander’s campaign. (More on this is in my book The Astronomical Code of the Ṛgveda.)
During the New Year celebration, bronze lamps crowned with peacocks, called Sanjaks, which are similar to the bronze peacock ārati-lamps, are taken from the residence of the Mīr in a processional by the qawwals through the Yazidi villages. It is believed that the Sanjaks came from India, and originally there were seven, one for each of the Seven Sacred Angels, but five were taken away by the Turks, and now only two remain.
The Yazidis are a symbol of mankind’s indomitable will. As a persecuted people in world history, they deserve praise and support for their courage and bravery in the face of the greatest odds.
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
References
[1] S. Kak, Vedic elements in the ancient Iranian religion of Zarathushtra. Adyar Library Bulletin 67: 47–63 (2003)
[2] S. Kak, Akhenaten, Sūrya, and the Ṛgveda. In G.C. Pande (ed.), A Golden Chain of Civilizations: Indic, Iranic, Semitic, and Hellenic up to C. 600. (2007)
[3] B. Acikyildiz, The Yezidis. I.B. Tauris (2010)
[4] E.S. Drower, Peacock Angel. London (1941)
[5] The Achaemenid Royal Daiva Inscription of Xerxes.
[6] P. Thankappan Nair, The peacock cult in Asia. Asian Folklore Studies 33: 93–170 (1974)
Author
Recent Posts
Subhash Kak
Padma Shri Awardee, Author, scientist. Quantum information, AI, history of science.
According to their folklore, the Great Flood compelled Yezidis to disperse to many countries including India, and they returned from these adoptive countries around 2000 BCE.
The Yazidis live far away from India in Iraq, Iran and Turkey. Even though they have legends connecting them to the east, the idea of a link with India appears ridiculous at first sight. But history has wheels within wheels and sometimes reality turns out to be vastly different from common belief.
The Yazidis speak a northern dialect of the Kurdish language, which some call a separate language with the name Ezdiki. Their religion, Yazidism, is also called Sharfadin (the religion of the cultured folks). Reviled as devil worshipers for centuries by their Muslim and Christian neighbours, they have endured over 70 genocides in which millions died and most others were compelled to abandon their culture.
It is not only the kings who had Sanskrit names; a large number of other Sanskrit names have also been unearthed in the records from the area.
The Yazidis were denounced as infidels by al-Qaeda in Iraq who sanctioned their indiscriminate killing. In 2007, a series of coordinated car bombs killed nearly 800 of them.
The Islamic State began a campaign of destroying their cities and villages in 2014. It murdered nearly 3,000 of them, abducted 6,500, and sold 4,500 Yazidi women and girls into sexual slavery. Many of the abducted girls committed suicide. Nadia Murad, the Yazidi human rights activist and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner, was kidnapped and used as a sex slave.
Here I want to speak of the lesser-known connections between the Yazidis and Indians. We are not speaking here of the links through the overarching Indo-Iranian language family, but even there it should be noted that in this family the earliest node on the Iranian side is Avestan, which is literally identical to Vedic Sanskrit, and so the family should really be called the Vedic family, of which Indo-Aryan and Iranian are two daughters. These two subfamilies are connected in multiple ways through shared notions and history [1].
In the second millennium BCE, we have the Mitanni of Syria worshipping Vedic gods. Even prior to that in the third millennium BCE, the figure of Paśupati (Lord of Animals), an epithet of the Hindu deity Śiva, is seen in the famous eponymous seal of the Sarasvati-Sindhu Civilization, a memory of which was retained in the Indic groups who lived across Central Asia. Śiva’s son Skanda (also known as Kumāra, Murugan or Kārttikeya), the general of the gods, has peacock as his amount. The main deity of the Yazidis is the Peacock Angel, Taus Melek.
The peacock is native to the Indian subcontinent and it has long served as a symbol of royalty. We find images of the peacock going all the way back to the 3rd millennium BCE sites of the Sarasvati Civilization. The peacock is worshipped in the Pongal Festival in Tamil Nadu and revered all over India.
The Atharvaveda describes Kumāra as Agnibhuh or born of Agni, the fire god. The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa refers to him as the son of Rudra and the ninth form of Agni. The Taittirīya Āraṇyaka contains a Gāyatrī mantra for him. The Chāndogya Upaniṣad refers to Skanda as the “way that leads to wisdom.” The Baudhāyana Dharmasūtra provides additional names of Skanda, such as Mahāsena and Subrahmanya. The Skanda Purāṇa is devoted to the narrative of Kārttikeya.
12th-century image of Skanda from Andhra Pradesh Vedic gods in West AsiaMitanni ruled northern Mesopotamia (including Syria) for about 300 years, starting 1600 BCE, out of their capital of Vasukhāni[2]. In a treaty between the Hittites and Mitanni, Indic deities Mitra, Varuṇa, Indra, and Nāsatya (Aśvins) are invoked. Their chief festival was the celebration of Viṣuva (solstice) very much like in India. It is not only the kings who had Sanskrit names; a large number of other Sanskrit names have also been unearthed in the records from the area.
The list of the Sanskrit names used in Syria and elsewhere was published by P. E. Dumont of the Johns Hopkins University, in the Journal of American Oriental Society in 1947, and one may see a summary of that in my own book chapter on Akhenaten, Sūrya, and the Ṛgveda[2]. The names of the main kings are (with the standard Sanskrit form or meaning inside brackets): The first Mitanni king was Sutarna I (good Sun). He was followed by Baratarna I (Paratarṇa, great Sun); Paraśukṣatra (ruler with axe); Saustatar (Saukṣatra, son of Sukṣatra, the good ruler); Paratarṇa II; Artadama (Ṛtadhāman, abiding in cosmic law); Sutarṇa II; Tushratta (Daśaratha or Tveṣaratha, having ten or fast chariots); and finally Matiwazza (Mativāja, whose wealth is thought), during whose lifetime the Mitanni state became a vassal to Assyria.
The peacock imagery adorns Yazidi shrines and houses of worship and other places. The attacks on them are a consequence of the Christian and the Muslim belief that the Peacock Angel is Satan or Iblis.
Across India, Iran and West Asia in the ancient world, the worshipers of Veda were called Devayājñi (or Devayasni), or deva-worshiper, of which the terms Sanātana Dharma or Vedic Dharma are synonyms. The name by which the Zoroastrians call their own religion is Mazdayasna (Sanskrit, medhā-yajña), or the religion of Ahura Mazda (Sanskrit Asura Medhā, Lord of Wisdom). Zarathushtra presented his religion as a rival to the religion of the devas (spelt now as daeva in Avestan), that is Devayasna. One can assume that before Zarathushtra, the Indo-Iranian speakers in West Asia were all Devayasni.
Devayasni worship
The Yazidis call themselves Daseni (Dawasen, pl.) which is the same as Devayasni, which confirms what we know from the Mitanni records about the history of that period. The word Yazidi is cognate with Sanskrit Yajata (worthy of worship) which in Old Persian (and Kashmiri) is Yazata [3],[4].
According to their folklore, the Great Flood compelled Yezidis to disperse to many countries including India, and they returned from these adoptive countries around 2000 BCE. From the archaeological record, the most plausible spread of Devayasna from India took place about 1900 BCE, soon after which Vedic gods begin to be mentioned in Mesopotamia and Syria.
Zarathushtra came from Bactria near Afghanistan and his new religion split the Deva-worshipping communities in the West from the ones in India. The 4,000-year estimate of the Yazidis on when they returned from India is consistent with this figure.
After the rise of Zoroastrianism, Devayasna survived for a pretty long time in West Asia. The evidence of the survival comes from the Deva- or Daiva-inscription of Iranian Emperor Xerxes (ruled 486–465 BC) in which the revolt by the deva worshipers in West Iran is directly mentioned. Xerxes announces[15]: “And among these countries, there was a place where previously Daiva [demons] were worshipped. Afterwards, by the grace of Ahuramazda, I destroyed that sanctuary of Daiva, and I proclaimed: The Daiva shall not be worshipped!” This, nearly 2,500 years ago, is an early record of the persecution suffered by the Devayasni, the ancestors of the Yazidis. This accusation of demon or devil worship was repeated later by Christians and Muslims.
The peacock was a sacred symbol to the Jats[6], an Indic group on the Eurasian Steppe, who served as a mediating agency between India, West Asia, and Europe.
Skanda/Murugan, together with the peacock mount, has been a popular deity in South India, which was strongly linked by sea-trade to West Asia and Europe. The story of the spread of the reverence for the peacock from India to Persia and beyond to Europe is well-known.
We see the centrality of Śiva and Skanda in the representation of their coins of the first-century Kushana kings in the deities Οηϸο (Oesho, Īśa = Śiva) and Σκανδo koμαρo (Skando Komaro, Skanda Kumara). The rule of the Kushanas extended to regions that border on today’s Yazidi lands.
Skanda with his consorts (Painting by Raja Ravi Varma)The Yazidi religion
The Yazidis have a rich spiritual tradition and their modern culture goes back to the 12th-century leader Shaykh Adi (died in 1162), a descendant of Marwan I, the fourth Umayyad Caliph, whose tomb is in Lalish in Northern Iraq that is now the focal point of Yazidi pilgrimage.
Some believe that Yazidism is a branch of the pre-Islamic, native religion of the Kurds. There are also similarities between the Yazidis and the Yaresan, that extends back in time to the pre-Zoroastrian Devayasnic religion of West Asia.
The Yazidis number approximately 800,000, including about 150,000 who have taken refuge in Europe. They describe themselves as believing in one true God, and they revere Taus Melek, the Peacock Angel who is an embodied form (avatar) of the infinite God. Six other angels assist Taus Melek and they are associated with the seven days of creation with Sunday as the day of Taus Melek. The peacock imagery adorns Yazidi shrines and houses of worship and other places. The attacks on them are a consequence of the Christian and the Muslim belief that the Peacock Angel is Satan or Iblis.
The Yazidi religion is a mystical, oral tradition consisting of hymns (qawls), that are sung by qawwāls. Parts of the tradition have now been transcribed as two holy books called the Kitab al-Jilwa (Book of Revelation) and the Mishefa Reş (Black Book).
The Yazidi calendar goes back to 4750 BCE. It appears that this is connected to the Indian King list that goes back to 6676 BCE, which is mentioned by the Greek historian Arrian in his account of Alexander’s campaign.
Tawûsê Melek, the Peacock AngelGiven that many Yazidis claim to have originated in India, the veneration of the peacock may be a memory of this origin. In India, apart from the peacock as the vehicle of Skanda, it is also associated with Kṛṣṇa, who wears a peacock feather in his hair or in the crown. Of the seven colours produced from the primal rainbow, Tausi Melek is associated with the colour blue, which is also the colour of Kṛṣṇa.
Through his manifestation as a snake, Taus Melek is consistent with the perspective of the yogis of India, for whom the serpent on the tree is a metaphor for the inner serpent (kundalini) that coils around the spine.
Yazidis pray in the direction of the sun, excepting for the noon prayer which is in the direction of Lalish. They believe in reincarnation and they take it that the angels (with the exception of Taus Melek) have been incarnated on earth as holy people or saints. Just like the Hindus, they use the metaphor of a change of garment to describe the process of rebirth.
Like other Indo-European cultures, the Yazidi society is tripartite, with the three classes of Shaykh (priests), Pir (elders), and Murid (commoners) and they marry only within their group. Their society does not allow conversion. The Shaykhs are divided into Faqirs, Qawwals, and Kochaks. The secular leader is a hereditary Mīr or prince, whereas Bābā Shaykh heads the religious hierarchy.
The Yazidi calendar goes back to 4750 BCE. It appears that this is connected to the Indian King list that goes back to 6676 BCE, which is mentioned by the Greek historian Arrian in his account of Alexander’s campaign. (More on this is in my book The Astronomical Code of the Ṛgveda.)
During the New Year celebration, bronze lamps crowned with peacocks, called Sanjaks, which are similar to the bronze peacock ārati-lamps, are taken from the residence of the Mīr in a processional by the qawwals through the Yazidi villages. It is believed that the Sanjaks came from India, and originally there were seven, one for each of the Seven Sacred Angels, but five were taken away by the Turks, and now only two remain.
The Yazidis are a symbol of mankind’s indomitable will. As a persecuted people in world history, they deserve praise and support for their courage and bravery in the face of the greatest odds.
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
References
[1] S. Kak, Vedic elements in the ancient Iranian religion of Zarathushtra. Adyar Library Bulletin 67: 47–63 (2003)
[2] S. Kak, Akhenaten, Sūrya, and the Ṛgveda. In G.C. Pande (ed.), A Golden Chain of Civilizations: Indic, Iranic, Semitic, and Hellenic up to C. 600. (2007)
[3] B. Acikyildiz, The Yezidis. I.B. Tauris (2010)
[4] E.S. Drower, Peacock Angel. London (1941)
[5] The Achaemenid Royal Daiva Inscription of Xerxes.
[6] P. Thankappan Nair, The peacock cult in Asia. Asian Folklore Studies 33: 93–170 (1974)
Author
Recent Posts
Subhash Kak
Padma Shri Awardee, Author, scientist. Quantum information, AI, history of science.
YAZIDI TATTOO DESIGNS (drawn by Lady Drower)
Author: Drower, E. S. (Ethel Stefana), Lady, 1879-1972., cultural anthropologist
Title: Peacock angel; being some account of votaries of a secret cult and their sanctuaries Published: London, J. Murray [1941]
http://www.avesta.org/yezidi/peacock.htm
Chapter VIII: "SAIREY GAMP" AGAIN.
Title: Peacock angel; being some account of votaries of a secret cult and their sanctuaries Published: London, J. Murray [1941]
http://www.avesta.org/yezidi/peacock.htm
Chapter VIII: "SAIREY GAMP" AGAIN.
"When we returned, the inevitable Sairey had arrived. I had already warned A. and apologized for our constant visitor. This afternoon, however, she was not alone: she had brought two daughters, one a married woman, and the other a bride. We prepared tea for them and ourselves.
This afternoon Sairey had all excuse, one of her daughters was a tattooist and she knew I was interested in the art. But that was not all: she wheedled a little, she had seen the silk that I had given to Rashid's wife, and surely I had a roll for her — was not the feast approaching? Now Sairey had at various times received money, and I had already earmarked my limited store of gifts, some of which were reserved for the visit to Shaikh ‘Adi. Regretfully, I refused, but A. immediately lightened the situation; she had brought with [75] her some charms in Hebron glass against the Evil Eye, a whole string of them in blue, black, white, and yellow, each bead representing an Eye. These proved an immediate salve, and never failed to give delight whenever and wherever she bestowed them.
We talked of tattooing. The women never admit that tattooing has a magic purpose, and tell you that they submit to the process for zîna (decoration) or hilwa (beauty). Here and there, however, marks have been tattooed to keep off pain, and the floriated cross and cross with a dot in each arm, both common designs, are undoubtedly magical and health-preserving signs. The married daughter explained how she worked. The ingredients were sheep's gall, lamp-black (from an olive-oil lamp only) and milk fresh drawn from the breast of the mother of a girl-child. If the baby is a boy, she said, the punctures would fester. The consistency of this mixture must be that of dough. A pattern is traced on the skin with this paste and then pricked in with a needle or two needles tied together with thread. These must draw blood. At first the surface swells up, but later settles down and the design appears in a deep blue. Yazidi women rarely tattoo the entire body as do the women of southern ‘Iraq, but content themselves with adorning the back of the hand, the wrist, forearm, chest, ankle, and lower leg. The favourite designs are these:
(1) The misht, or "comb". By the way, there is no hesitation in pronouncing this word, although I had always heard that it is one of the words which Yazidis will not utter because it contains the consonants sh and t, and suggests the forbidden name Shaitan (Satan). The "comb" is often joined to a circle called the qamr (full moon), or finished by a cross, sometimes plain.
(2) The cross.
(3) The gazelle. This is a conventionalized representation of the animal and is a favourite design. Those [76] that I saw had above the back of the animal a spot, called daqqayeh.
(4) The rijl al-qatai, "sand-grouse foot". This resembles the print left by a bird's foot in the sand.
(5) The moon, either full or crescent.
(6) The lâ'ibi, or "doll", a primitive outline of a human figure with extended arms and legs apart.
(7) The dulab katân, or kiûkiûukh: the spool or spindle.
(8) The rés daqqa, an inverted "V".
(9) The dimlich, a figure which looks like a bag suspended by two strings."
The Gnostic Science of Alchemy
The Gnostic Science of Alchemy Part I - from its origins in Alexandria to the Black Death
https://archive.org/details/GnosticScienceOfAlchemy/page/n3/mode/2up
Book Of Alchemy
A MYSTICAL CHRISTIAN INTERPRETATION
Topics alchemy, merlin, wizards, pyramids, giza, bablyon, saturn, astrology
Collection folkscanomy_offcenter; folkscanomy; additional_collections
Language English
A superior introduction to the art, science, and faith of alchemy.
https://archive.org/details/BookOfAlchemy/mode/2up
The Gnostic Science of Alchemy Part I - from its origins in Alexandria to the Black Death
https://archive.org/details/GnosticScienceOfAlchemy/page/n3/mode/2up
A MYSTICAL CHRISTIAN INTERPRETATION
Topics alchemy, merlin, wizards, pyramids, giza, bablyon, saturn, astrology
Collection folkscanomy_offcenter; folkscanomy; additional_collections
Language English
A superior introduction to the art, science, and faith of alchemy.
https://archive.org/details/BookOfAlchemy/mode/2up
MODERN YEZIDISM
http://kurdistanica.com/yezidism/
The followers of the Yezidi religion, who have variously referred to themselves also as the Yazidi, Yazdâni, Izadi, and Dasna’i, have often been pejoratively referred to by outsiders as “devil worshippers.” They constitute less than 5% of the Kurdish population. At present they live in fragmented pockets, primarily in northwest and northeast Syria, the Caucasus, southeast Turkey, in the Jabal Sanjâr highlands on the Iraqi-Syrian border, and regions north of the Iraqi city of Mosul.
As a branch of the Cult of Angels, Yezidism places a special emphasis on the angels. The name Yezidi is derived from the Old and Middle Iranic term yazata or yezad, for ,1 angel,” rendering it to mean “angelicans.” Among these angels, the Yezidis include also Lucifer, who is referred to as Malak Tâwus (“Peacock Angel”). Far from being the prince of darkness and evil, Lucifer is of the same nature as other archangels, albeit with far more authority and power over worldly affairs. In fact, it is Malak Tâwus who creates the material world using the dismembered pieces of the original cosmic egg, or pearl, in which the Spirit once resided.
Despite the publication of (reportedly) all major Yezidi religious scriptures, and the availability of their translations, the most basic questions regarding the Yezidi cosmogony are left to speculation. For example, it is left to deductive reasoning to figure out in which epoch of the universal life Lucifer belongs, or what his exact station is. He naturally cannot be the same as the Universal Spirit, as the Spirit does not enter into the act of creation. In Yârsânism and Alevism it is Khâwandagâr, the “Lord God,” who as the first avatar of the Spirit undertakes the task of Sâjnâri-world genesis. It is tempting to concluded that Lucifer replaces Khâwandagâr himself in the Yezidi cosmogony. Two Yezidi holy scriptures, Jilwa and Mes’haf, both discussed later, substantiate this conclusion. The following translations of these texts are adopted almost entirely from Guest (1987). Jilwa reads, “Malak Tâwus existed before all creatures,” and “1 (Malak Tâwus) was, and am now, and will continue unto eternity, ruling over all creatures …. Neither is there any place void of me where i am not present. Every Epoch has an Avatar, and this by my counsel. Every generation changes with the Chief of this world, so that each one of the chiefs in his turn and cycle fulfills his charge. The other angels may not interfere in my deeds and work: Whatsoever I determine, that is.” The implied attributes are all those of Khâwandagâr in Yârsânism and Alevism. Mes’haf asserts> “In the beginning God [which must mean the Universal Spirit] created the White Pearl out of his most precious Essence; and He created a bird named Anfar. And he placed the pearl upon its back, and dwelt thereon forty thousand years. On the first day [of Creation], Sunday, He created an angel named ‘Azâzil, which is Malak Tâwus, the chief of all….” Mes’haf goes on to name six other angels, each created in the following days of this first week of creation in the First Epoch. The names of these angels closely match those of Yârsânism and Alevism, as given in Table 6. The problem is that there are seven rather than six avatars, leaving out, therefore, the Spirit himself from the world affairs. This is, however, the result of the later corruption of the original cosmogony, perhaps under Judeo-Christian influence. The rest of the opening chapter of the Mes’haf provides a version of human origin close to the Judeo-Christian story of Adam and Eve, and their interaction with Satan, even though Satan, here Lucifer, serves them only as an honest councillor and educator. Thereafter, he is left in charge of all creatures of the world.
The real story of the First Epoch however surfaces rather inconspicuously, in a single sentence at the end of the Mes’hafs first chapter. As it turns out, the sentence is very much in agreement with the basic tenets of the Cult of Angels. It reads, “From his essence and light He created six Avatars, whose creation was as one lighten a lamp from another lamp.” It is then safe to assume that the original Yezidi belief was that Lucifer was the primary avatar of the Universal Spirit in the First Epoch, and the rest of the cosmogony of the Cult of Angels remains more or less intact. Lucifer himself, in the form of Malak Tawus, “Peacock Angel,” is represented by a sculptured bronze bird. This icon, called Anzal “the Ancient One,” is presented to worshippers annually at the major jam at Lâlish.
Lâlish and its environs are also the burial site of Shaykh Adi, the most important personage of the Yezidi religion. Adi’s role in Yezidism is similar to those played by Sahâk in Yârsânism and Ali in Alevism. To the Yezidis, Shaykh Adi is the most important avatar of the Universal Spirit of the epochs following the First Epoch. Adi being a primary avatar, he is therefore a reincarnation of Malak Tawus himself. In its modern, garbled form, Adi is assigned a founding role in Yezidism, and interestingly is believed to have lived at about the same time in history, as Sultan Sahâk is believed by the modern Yârsâns, i.e., sometime in the 12-13th centuries. (This is about the same time that Bektâsh of Alevism is believed to have lived and founded that branch of the Cult.) Both Adi and Sahâk are believed to have lived well in excess of a century.
In addition to the main sculptured bird icon Anzal, there are six other similar relics of the Peacock Angel. These are called the sanj’aqs, meaning “dioceses” (of the Yezidi community), and each is assigned to a different diocese of Yezidi concentration. Each year these are brought forth for worship to the dioceses of Syria, Zozan (i.e., Sasoon/Sasun or western and northern Kurdistan in Anatolia), Sanjâr, Shaykhân (of the Greater Zâb basin), Tabriz (Azerbaijan), and Musquf (Moscow, i.e., ex-Soviet Caucasus). The sanjaqs of Tabriz and Musquf no longer circulate, since there are not many Yezidis left in Azerbaijan, and the anti-religious Soviet government did not permit the icon to enter the bustling Yezidi community of the Caucasus.
Like other branches of the Cult of Angels’, Yezidism lacks a holy book of divine origin. There are however many sacred works that contain the body of their beliefs. There is a very short volume (about 500 words) of Arabic-language hymns, ascribed to Shaykh Adi himself and named lilwa, or “Revelation.” Another, more detailed book is the Mes’haf i Resh, “the Black Book” in Kurdish, which has been credited to Adi’s son, Shaykh Hasan ibn Adi (b. ca. AD II 95), a great-grandnephew of Adi.
Mes’haf is the most informative of the Yezidi scriptures, as it contains the body of the religion’s cosmogony, catechises, eschatology, and liturgy, despite many contradictions and vagaries (far more than in the works of the Yârsâns). The Mes’haf may in fact date back to the 13th century. Mes’haf was written in an old form of Kurmânji Kurdish. Kurmânji in the 13th century was primarily restricted to its stronghold in the ultra-rugged Hakkâri highlands (see Kurmânji) . But Hakkâri is in fact exactly were the most ardent followers of Adi and Hasan arose. Adi himself, despite the Yezidi’s belief that he was born in Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, came to be called Adi al-Hakkâri (“Adi of Hakkâri”).
Of the Yezidis’ four major annual celebrations, two are of special interest here, the Jam and the feast of Yezid.
The most important Yezidi feast is the seven-day-long feast of lam, when the bird icon of Anzal is presented to the worshippers. It occurs between the 6th and 13th of October, which is obligatory to all believers to attend, and is held at Lâlish, north of Mosul, the burial site of Adi and other important Yezidi holy figures, including Hasan. It coincides with the great ancient Aryan feast of Mithrâkân (Zoroastrian Mihragân, Nusayri Mihrajân; see Alevism), held customarily around the middle of October. Ancient Mithrâkân celebrated the act of world creation by the sun god Mithras, who killing the bull of heaven, used its dismembered body to create the material world. On the occasion of the feast at Lâlish, riding men pretend to capture a bull, with which they then circumambulate the Lâlish shrine of Shams al-Din (the “Sun of the Faith”), before sacrificing the bull and distributing its flesh to the pilgrims.
Yezid, a puzzling personage, is venerated by the Yezidis in a somewhat confused fashion. Yezid is credited with founding Yezidism (the religion, obviously, shares his name), or to have been the most important avatar of the Spirit after Malak Tâwus (some even claiming he is the same as Malak Tâwus). He is occasionally identified by the Yezidis as the Umayyad caliph, Yazid ibn Mu’awiyya (r. AD 680-683), the arch-villain to Shi’ite Muslims. This faulty identification is encouraged by the Syrian and Iraqi governments (who hopc thus to detach the Yezidis from other Kurds, and to connect them instead with the Umayyads, hencc the Arabs). It has also prompted the leading Yezidi family, the chols, to adopt Arabic costumes and Umayyad caliphate names. Yet, far from being the ‘Umayyad caliph, the name is certainly derived from yezad, “angel,” and judging by its importance, he must be the angel of the Yezidis. This comical confusion, which permeates the Yezidi leadership to the extent that they doubt their own ethnic identity, is not unexpected, given the intensity of their persecution in the past, and the destruction of whatever religious and historical literature Yezidism may have had in the past, in addition to the little that remains today.
Is it possible that Malak Tâwus, who created the material world in Yezidi cosmogony by utilizing a piece of the original cosmic egg or pearl that he had dismembered earlier, originally represented Mithras in early Yezidism, and only later Lucifer? The second most important Yezidi celebration points toward this possibility. It is held between middle and late December and commemorates the birth of Yezid. His birthday at or near the winter solstice, links him to Mithras. (Mithraism did after all expand into the Roman Empire from this general geographical area in the course of the first century BC, and Mithras’ mythical birth was celebrated on December 25 as already has . been discussed.)
The celebration parallels in importance the major jam ceremony in October. It is commemorated with three days of fasting before the jubilees.
In the Yezidi version of world creation, birds play a central role in all major events too numerous in fact to permit summary here. The reverence of the Yezidis for divine manifestations in the form of a bird, the Peacock Angel, and the sacredness of roosters are just two better-known examples. What is fascinating, but less known, is that within 30 miles of the shrines of Lâlish are the Shanidar-Zawi Chami archaeological sites of central Kurdistan, where the archaeologist Solecki has unearthed the remains of shrines and large bird wings, particularly those of the great bustards, dated to 10,800±300 years ago. The remains are indicative of a religious ritual that involved birds and employed their wings, possibly as part of the priestly costume (Solecki 1977).
The representation of bird wings on gods was later to become common in Mesopotamian art, and particularly in the royal rock carvings of the Assyrians, whose capital Nineveh can literally be seen on the horizon from Lalish. The artistic combination of wings and non-flying beings like humans (to form gods), lions (to form sphinxes), bulls (to form royal symbols), and horses (to form the Pegasus), as well as wing-like adornments to priestly costumes, are common in many cultures, but the representation of the supreme deity as a full-fledged bird is peculiarly Yezidi. The evidence of sacrificial rites practised at ancient Zawi Chami may substantiate an indigenous precursor to modern Yezidi practice.
The bird icon of Lâlish has always been readily identified, as the name implies, as a peacock. However, there are no peacocks native to Kurdistan or this part of Asia. In light of the discoveries at Zawi Chami, the great bustard is a much more likely the bird of the Yezidi icon. The great bustard (Kurdish shawtlt) is native to Kurdistan. It too possesses a colorful tail, similar to that of a turkey (similar to, though much smaller than, that of a peacock, which is seen on the icon). The great bustard far more logically suits the archaic tradition of the Yezidis than does the peacock, a native bird of India.
The practice of bowing three times before the rising sun and chanting hymns for the occasion is practiced by the Yezidis, as among the traditional Alevis (Nikitine 1956). The Yezidis also practice the rite of embracing the “very body of the sun,” by kissing its beams as they first fall on the trunks of the trees at the dawn (Kamurân Ali Badir-Khân 1934).
Another Alevi hallmark, the representation of the deity in the shape of a sword or dagger stuck into the ground, is also found among the Yezidis, albeit not for worship but to take oaths upon it (Alexander 1928, Bellino 1816).
In addition to an entrenched aristocracy, the social class system of the Yezidis shows interesting similarities to the rigid social stratification of the Zoroastrian Sasanian Empire. Zoroastrian priests forbade anyone who did not belong to the priestly or princely class to gain literacy, and traditionally Yezidism barred such luxury altogether. (Some Yarsans also believe that this should be so, and also practice it.) In fact, it has been asserted that until the beginning of this century only one man among the Yezidis, the custodian of the Jilwa, knew how to read (Guest 1987, 33). This ban is largely gone now, although through force of habit the Yezidi commoners are still not keen on literacy.
Interestingly, the wealthier Yezidi shaykhs and mullahs wear Arab Bedouin clothes and headdress, speak both Arabic and Kurdish, and usually have Arabic names. The poorer Yezidi social and religious leaders, on the other hand, have Kurdish names, speak only Kurdish, and wear Kurdish traditional clothes and headgear (Lescot 1938).
Leadership of the Yezidi community has traditionally rested with one of the old Kurdish princely houses, the Chols, who took over in the 17th century. They replaced the line of rulers who claimed descent from Shaykh Hasan, the author of Mes’haf. They are supported financially and otherwise by every Yezidi. The priestly duties reside, as in Yârsânism, with the members of the seven hereditary priestly houses, which include the Chols.
The relative smallness of the current Yezidi community can be misleading. At the time of Saladin’s conquest of Antioch, the Yezidis were dominant in the neighboring valleys in the Amanus coastal mountains, and by the 13th and 14th centuries Yezidis had expanded their domains by converting many Muslims and Christians to their faith, from Antioch to Urmiâ, and from Sivâs to Kirkuk. They also mustered a good deal of political and military power. In this period, the emirs of the Jazira region (upper Mesopotamia) were Yezidis, as was one of the emirs of Damascus. A Yezidi preacher, Zayn al-Din Yusuf, established Yezidi communities of converts in Damascus and Cairo, where he died in 1297. His imposing tomb in Cairo remains to this day. Of 30 major tribal confederacies enumerated by the Kurdish historian Sharaf al-Din Bitlisi in Sharafntlma (1596), he contends seven were fully Yezidi in times past. Among these tribes was the historic and populous Buhtans (the Bokhtanoi of Herodotus).
An early Muslim encyclopedist, Shahâb al-Din Fadlullâh al-‘Umari, declares as Yezidi in AD 1338 also the Dunbuli/Dumbuli. This reference carries a very important piece of information, which can be the only known reference to the Cult of Angels before its fragmentation into its present state and the loss of its common name. Since the Dunbuli were a well-known branch of the Alevi Daylamites, and since the reporting by al-‘Umari is normally astute, the declaration of this tribe as Yezidi may indicate that at the time the appellation Yazidi (“angelicans’) was that of the Cult of Angels in general. (The historical designation Yazdtlni here for the Cult of Angels has been used to avoid confusion with the modern Yezidism.)
There have been persistent attempts by their Muslim and Christian neighbors to convert the Yezidis, peacefully or otherwise. The Ottoman government and military schools recruited many Yezidis, who were then converted to Sunni Islam, while in the mountains the Yezidis maintained their faith. A petition submitted in 1872 to the Ottoman authorities to exempt the Yezidis from military service has become the locus classicus on the subject of Yezidi religious codes and beliefs (for the English translation of the text, see Driver 1921-23).
Failing peaceful conversion, the Ottomans carried out massacres against the Yezidis in the course of the 17th and 18th centuries. The massacres recurred in Ottoman domains in the middle of the 19th century, resulting in a great migration of Ottoman Yezidis into the Russian territories in the Caucasus. Twenty major massacres between 1640 and 1910 were counted by Lescot (see Deportations & Forced Resettlements).
Many Yezidis escaped into the forbidding mountain areas, but others converted, at least nominally, to Sunni Islam. The Ottoman Land Registration Law of 1859 particularly pressed for conversion by refusing to honor ownership claims of Yezidis. Many Yezidi shaykhs, who were the primary property owners, maintained their lands and property by converting. The Yezidi leaders whose holdings were in the inaccessible higher mountains were spared the need for conversion, and so were the landless sharecroppers or herders. Before 1858, the Yezidis in the Antioch-Amanus region on the Mediterranean littoral numbered 200,000, constituting the majority of the inhabitants. In 1938, Lescot counted only 60,000-a small minority.
Even today the Yezidis are still subject to great pressure for conversion. There is now also a movement to strip the Yezidis of their Kurdish identity by either declaring them an independent ethnic group apart from the Kurds or by attaching them to the Arabs. Hence, the Yezidis are now called “Umayyad Arabs” by the governments of Iraq and Syria, capitalizing on the aforementioned confusion that exists among the Yezidis with respect to the irrelevant Umayyad caliph Yazid ibn Mu’awiyya.
Most Yezidis are now in Syria, in the Jazira region and the Jabal Sanjar heights, and in the Afrin region Northwest of Aleppo. The next largest population of Yezidis is found in the Caucasus, where up to half the Kurds are followers of Yezidism. In Iraq, where the holiest Yezidi shrines of Lâlish are located, they are found in a band from eastern Jabal Sanjâr toward Dohuk and to Lâlish, northeast of Mosul. There used to be a large number of Yezidis in Anatolia, prior to the massacres of the last century. Those who now live within the borders of Turkey are thinly spread from Mardin to Siirt, and from Antioch and Antep to Urfâ. There are also a relatively small number of Yezidis in Iran, particularly between the towns of Quchdn and Dughâ’i in the Khurâsâni enclave, and in Azerbaijan province.
Further Readings and Bibliography: R.H.W. Empson, The Cult of the Peacock Angel (London, 1928); E.S. Drower, Peacock Angel (London, 1941); G.R. Driver, “The Religion of the Kurds,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and Studies 11 (1921-23); John S. Guest, The Yezidis (New York: KPI, 1987); Isya Joseph, Devil Worship (Boston, 1919); Alphonse Mingana, “Devil-worshippers: Their Beliefs and their Sacred Books,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1916); R.C. Zaehner, Zurv4n: A Zoroastrian Dilemma (New York: Oxford University Press, 1955); R. Lescot, Enquete 5ur les Yezidis de Syrie et du Djebel Sindjar, Memoires de L’Institut Francais de Damas, vol. 5 (Beirut, 1938); Hugo Makas, Kurdische Studien, vol. 3, Jezidengebete (Heidelberg, 1900); Ralph Solecki, “Predatory Bird Rituals at Zawi Chemi Shanidar,” Sumer XXXIII.L (1977); Rose Solecki, “Zawi Chemi Shanidar, a Post-Pleistocene Village Site in Northern Iraq,” Report of the VI International Congress on Quaternary (1964); Sami Said Ahmed, The Yazidis: Their Life and Beliefs, cd. Henry Field (Nfiami: Field Research Projects, 1975); E.S. Drower, Peacock Angel: Being Some Account of Votaries of a Secret Cult and Their Sanctuaries. (London, 1941); Cecil 1. Edmonds, A Pikdmage to Lalish (London: The Royal Asiatic Society, 1967); Thcodor Menzel, “Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis der jeziden,” in Hugo Grother, cd., Meine Vorderasienexpedition 1906 und 1907. Vol. 1. (Leipzig, 191 1); Basile Nikitine, Le5 Kurde5, etude 5ociologique et hi5torique (Paris, 1956); KamurAn Ali Badir Khdn, “Les soleil chez les Kurdes,” Atlantis 54, vii-viii (Paris, 1934); Constance Alexander, Baghdad in Bygone Days, from the Journals of the Correspondence of Claudius Rich… 1808-1821 (London, 1928); Charles Bellino letter, 16 May 1816, to Hammer, included in Fundgruben des Orients 5 (1816).
Sources: The Kurds, A Concise Handbook, By Dr. Mehrdad R. Izady, Dep. of Near Easter Languages and Civilization Harvard University, USA, 1992
http://kurdistanica.com/yezidism/
The followers of the Yezidi religion, who have variously referred to themselves also as the Yazidi, Yazdâni, Izadi, and Dasna’i, have often been pejoratively referred to by outsiders as “devil worshippers.” They constitute less than 5% of the Kurdish population. At present they live in fragmented pockets, primarily in northwest and northeast Syria, the Caucasus, southeast Turkey, in the Jabal Sanjâr highlands on the Iraqi-Syrian border, and regions north of the Iraqi city of Mosul.
As a branch of the Cult of Angels, Yezidism places a special emphasis on the angels. The name Yezidi is derived from the Old and Middle Iranic term yazata or yezad, for ,1 angel,” rendering it to mean “angelicans.” Among these angels, the Yezidis include also Lucifer, who is referred to as Malak Tâwus (“Peacock Angel”). Far from being the prince of darkness and evil, Lucifer is of the same nature as other archangels, albeit with far more authority and power over worldly affairs. In fact, it is Malak Tâwus who creates the material world using the dismembered pieces of the original cosmic egg, or pearl, in which the Spirit once resided.
Despite the publication of (reportedly) all major Yezidi religious scriptures, and the availability of their translations, the most basic questions regarding the Yezidi cosmogony are left to speculation. For example, it is left to deductive reasoning to figure out in which epoch of the universal life Lucifer belongs, or what his exact station is. He naturally cannot be the same as the Universal Spirit, as the Spirit does not enter into the act of creation. In Yârsânism and Alevism it is Khâwandagâr, the “Lord God,” who as the first avatar of the Spirit undertakes the task of Sâjnâri-world genesis. It is tempting to concluded that Lucifer replaces Khâwandagâr himself in the Yezidi cosmogony. Two Yezidi holy scriptures, Jilwa and Mes’haf, both discussed later, substantiate this conclusion. The following translations of these texts are adopted almost entirely from Guest (1987). Jilwa reads, “Malak Tâwus existed before all creatures,” and “1 (Malak Tâwus) was, and am now, and will continue unto eternity, ruling over all creatures …. Neither is there any place void of me where i am not present. Every Epoch has an Avatar, and this by my counsel. Every generation changes with the Chief of this world, so that each one of the chiefs in his turn and cycle fulfills his charge. The other angels may not interfere in my deeds and work: Whatsoever I determine, that is.” The implied attributes are all those of Khâwandagâr in Yârsânism and Alevism. Mes’haf asserts> “In the beginning God [which must mean the Universal Spirit] created the White Pearl out of his most precious Essence; and He created a bird named Anfar. And he placed the pearl upon its back, and dwelt thereon forty thousand years. On the first day [of Creation], Sunday, He created an angel named ‘Azâzil, which is Malak Tâwus, the chief of all….” Mes’haf goes on to name six other angels, each created in the following days of this first week of creation in the First Epoch. The names of these angels closely match those of Yârsânism and Alevism, as given in Table 6. The problem is that there are seven rather than six avatars, leaving out, therefore, the Spirit himself from the world affairs. This is, however, the result of the later corruption of the original cosmogony, perhaps under Judeo-Christian influence. The rest of the opening chapter of the Mes’haf provides a version of human origin close to the Judeo-Christian story of Adam and Eve, and their interaction with Satan, even though Satan, here Lucifer, serves them only as an honest councillor and educator. Thereafter, he is left in charge of all creatures of the world.
The real story of the First Epoch however surfaces rather inconspicuously, in a single sentence at the end of the Mes’hafs first chapter. As it turns out, the sentence is very much in agreement with the basic tenets of the Cult of Angels. It reads, “From his essence and light He created six Avatars, whose creation was as one lighten a lamp from another lamp.” It is then safe to assume that the original Yezidi belief was that Lucifer was the primary avatar of the Universal Spirit in the First Epoch, and the rest of the cosmogony of the Cult of Angels remains more or less intact. Lucifer himself, in the form of Malak Tawus, “Peacock Angel,” is represented by a sculptured bronze bird. This icon, called Anzal “the Ancient One,” is presented to worshippers annually at the major jam at Lâlish.
Lâlish and its environs are also the burial site of Shaykh Adi, the most important personage of the Yezidi religion. Adi’s role in Yezidism is similar to those played by Sahâk in Yârsânism and Ali in Alevism. To the Yezidis, Shaykh Adi is the most important avatar of the Universal Spirit of the epochs following the First Epoch. Adi being a primary avatar, he is therefore a reincarnation of Malak Tawus himself. In its modern, garbled form, Adi is assigned a founding role in Yezidism, and interestingly is believed to have lived at about the same time in history, as Sultan Sahâk is believed by the modern Yârsâns, i.e., sometime in the 12-13th centuries. (This is about the same time that Bektâsh of Alevism is believed to have lived and founded that branch of the Cult.) Both Adi and Sahâk are believed to have lived well in excess of a century.
In addition to the main sculptured bird icon Anzal, there are six other similar relics of the Peacock Angel. These are called the sanj’aqs, meaning “dioceses” (of the Yezidi community), and each is assigned to a different diocese of Yezidi concentration. Each year these are brought forth for worship to the dioceses of Syria, Zozan (i.e., Sasoon/Sasun or western and northern Kurdistan in Anatolia), Sanjâr, Shaykhân (of the Greater Zâb basin), Tabriz (Azerbaijan), and Musquf (Moscow, i.e., ex-Soviet Caucasus). The sanjaqs of Tabriz and Musquf no longer circulate, since there are not many Yezidis left in Azerbaijan, and the anti-religious Soviet government did not permit the icon to enter the bustling Yezidi community of the Caucasus.
Like other branches of the Cult of Angels’, Yezidism lacks a holy book of divine origin. There are however many sacred works that contain the body of their beliefs. There is a very short volume (about 500 words) of Arabic-language hymns, ascribed to Shaykh Adi himself and named lilwa, or “Revelation.” Another, more detailed book is the Mes’haf i Resh, “the Black Book” in Kurdish, which has been credited to Adi’s son, Shaykh Hasan ibn Adi (b. ca. AD II 95), a great-grandnephew of Adi.
Mes’haf is the most informative of the Yezidi scriptures, as it contains the body of the religion’s cosmogony, catechises, eschatology, and liturgy, despite many contradictions and vagaries (far more than in the works of the Yârsâns). The Mes’haf may in fact date back to the 13th century. Mes’haf was written in an old form of Kurmânji Kurdish. Kurmânji in the 13th century was primarily restricted to its stronghold in the ultra-rugged Hakkâri highlands (see Kurmânji) . But Hakkâri is in fact exactly were the most ardent followers of Adi and Hasan arose. Adi himself, despite the Yezidi’s belief that he was born in Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, came to be called Adi al-Hakkâri (“Adi of Hakkâri”).
Of the Yezidis’ four major annual celebrations, two are of special interest here, the Jam and the feast of Yezid.
The most important Yezidi feast is the seven-day-long feast of lam, when the bird icon of Anzal is presented to the worshippers. It occurs between the 6th and 13th of October, which is obligatory to all believers to attend, and is held at Lâlish, north of Mosul, the burial site of Adi and other important Yezidi holy figures, including Hasan. It coincides with the great ancient Aryan feast of Mithrâkân (Zoroastrian Mihragân, Nusayri Mihrajân; see Alevism), held customarily around the middle of October. Ancient Mithrâkân celebrated the act of world creation by the sun god Mithras, who killing the bull of heaven, used its dismembered body to create the material world. On the occasion of the feast at Lâlish, riding men pretend to capture a bull, with which they then circumambulate the Lâlish shrine of Shams al-Din (the “Sun of the Faith”), before sacrificing the bull and distributing its flesh to the pilgrims.
Yezid, a puzzling personage, is venerated by the Yezidis in a somewhat confused fashion. Yezid is credited with founding Yezidism (the religion, obviously, shares his name), or to have been the most important avatar of the Spirit after Malak Tâwus (some even claiming he is the same as Malak Tâwus). He is occasionally identified by the Yezidis as the Umayyad caliph, Yazid ibn Mu’awiyya (r. AD 680-683), the arch-villain to Shi’ite Muslims. This faulty identification is encouraged by the Syrian and Iraqi governments (who hopc thus to detach the Yezidis from other Kurds, and to connect them instead with the Umayyads, hencc the Arabs). It has also prompted the leading Yezidi family, the chols, to adopt Arabic costumes and Umayyad caliphate names. Yet, far from being the ‘Umayyad caliph, the name is certainly derived from yezad, “angel,” and judging by its importance, he must be the angel of the Yezidis. This comical confusion, which permeates the Yezidi leadership to the extent that they doubt their own ethnic identity, is not unexpected, given the intensity of their persecution in the past, and the destruction of whatever religious and historical literature Yezidism may have had in the past, in addition to the little that remains today.
Is it possible that Malak Tâwus, who created the material world in Yezidi cosmogony by utilizing a piece of the original cosmic egg or pearl that he had dismembered earlier, originally represented Mithras in early Yezidism, and only later Lucifer? The second most important Yezidi celebration points toward this possibility. It is held between middle and late December and commemorates the birth of Yezid. His birthday at or near the winter solstice, links him to Mithras. (Mithraism did after all expand into the Roman Empire from this general geographical area in the course of the first century BC, and Mithras’ mythical birth was celebrated on December 25 as already has . been discussed.)
The celebration parallels in importance the major jam ceremony in October. It is commemorated with three days of fasting before the jubilees.
In the Yezidi version of world creation, birds play a central role in all major events too numerous in fact to permit summary here. The reverence of the Yezidis for divine manifestations in the form of a bird, the Peacock Angel, and the sacredness of roosters are just two better-known examples. What is fascinating, but less known, is that within 30 miles of the shrines of Lâlish are the Shanidar-Zawi Chami archaeological sites of central Kurdistan, where the archaeologist Solecki has unearthed the remains of shrines and large bird wings, particularly those of the great bustards, dated to 10,800±300 years ago. The remains are indicative of a religious ritual that involved birds and employed their wings, possibly as part of the priestly costume (Solecki 1977).
The representation of bird wings on gods was later to become common in Mesopotamian art, and particularly in the royal rock carvings of the Assyrians, whose capital Nineveh can literally be seen on the horizon from Lalish. The artistic combination of wings and non-flying beings like humans (to form gods), lions (to form sphinxes), bulls (to form royal symbols), and horses (to form the Pegasus), as well as wing-like adornments to priestly costumes, are common in many cultures, but the representation of the supreme deity as a full-fledged bird is peculiarly Yezidi. The evidence of sacrificial rites practised at ancient Zawi Chami may substantiate an indigenous precursor to modern Yezidi practice.
The bird icon of Lâlish has always been readily identified, as the name implies, as a peacock. However, there are no peacocks native to Kurdistan or this part of Asia. In light of the discoveries at Zawi Chami, the great bustard is a much more likely the bird of the Yezidi icon. The great bustard (Kurdish shawtlt) is native to Kurdistan. It too possesses a colorful tail, similar to that of a turkey (similar to, though much smaller than, that of a peacock, which is seen on the icon). The great bustard far more logically suits the archaic tradition of the Yezidis than does the peacock, a native bird of India.
The practice of bowing three times before the rising sun and chanting hymns for the occasion is practiced by the Yezidis, as among the traditional Alevis (Nikitine 1956). The Yezidis also practice the rite of embracing the “very body of the sun,” by kissing its beams as they first fall on the trunks of the trees at the dawn (Kamurân Ali Badir-Khân 1934).
Another Alevi hallmark, the representation of the deity in the shape of a sword or dagger stuck into the ground, is also found among the Yezidis, albeit not for worship but to take oaths upon it (Alexander 1928, Bellino 1816).
In addition to an entrenched aristocracy, the social class system of the Yezidis shows interesting similarities to the rigid social stratification of the Zoroastrian Sasanian Empire. Zoroastrian priests forbade anyone who did not belong to the priestly or princely class to gain literacy, and traditionally Yezidism barred such luxury altogether. (Some Yarsans also believe that this should be so, and also practice it.) In fact, it has been asserted that until the beginning of this century only one man among the Yezidis, the custodian of the Jilwa, knew how to read (Guest 1987, 33). This ban is largely gone now, although through force of habit the Yezidi commoners are still not keen on literacy.
Interestingly, the wealthier Yezidi shaykhs and mullahs wear Arab Bedouin clothes and headdress, speak both Arabic and Kurdish, and usually have Arabic names. The poorer Yezidi social and religious leaders, on the other hand, have Kurdish names, speak only Kurdish, and wear Kurdish traditional clothes and headgear (Lescot 1938).
Leadership of the Yezidi community has traditionally rested with one of the old Kurdish princely houses, the Chols, who took over in the 17th century. They replaced the line of rulers who claimed descent from Shaykh Hasan, the author of Mes’haf. They are supported financially and otherwise by every Yezidi. The priestly duties reside, as in Yârsânism, with the members of the seven hereditary priestly houses, which include the Chols.
The relative smallness of the current Yezidi community can be misleading. At the time of Saladin’s conquest of Antioch, the Yezidis were dominant in the neighboring valleys in the Amanus coastal mountains, and by the 13th and 14th centuries Yezidis had expanded their domains by converting many Muslims and Christians to their faith, from Antioch to Urmiâ, and from Sivâs to Kirkuk. They also mustered a good deal of political and military power. In this period, the emirs of the Jazira region (upper Mesopotamia) were Yezidis, as was one of the emirs of Damascus. A Yezidi preacher, Zayn al-Din Yusuf, established Yezidi communities of converts in Damascus and Cairo, where he died in 1297. His imposing tomb in Cairo remains to this day. Of 30 major tribal confederacies enumerated by the Kurdish historian Sharaf al-Din Bitlisi in Sharafntlma (1596), he contends seven were fully Yezidi in times past. Among these tribes was the historic and populous Buhtans (the Bokhtanoi of Herodotus).
An early Muslim encyclopedist, Shahâb al-Din Fadlullâh al-‘Umari, declares as Yezidi in AD 1338 also the Dunbuli/Dumbuli. This reference carries a very important piece of information, which can be the only known reference to the Cult of Angels before its fragmentation into its present state and the loss of its common name. Since the Dunbuli were a well-known branch of the Alevi Daylamites, and since the reporting by al-‘Umari is normally astute, the declaration of this tribe as Yezidi may indicate that at the time the appellation Yazidi (“angelicans’) was that of the Cult of Angels in general. (The historical designation Yazdtlni here for the Cult of Angels has been used to avoid confusion with the modern Yezidism.)
There have been persistent attempts by their Muslim and Christian neighbors to convert the Yezidis, peacefully or otherwise. The Ottoman government and military schools recruited many Yezidis, who were then converted to Sunni Islam, while in the mountains the Yezidis maintained their faith. A petition submitted in 1872 to the Ottoman authorities to exempt the Yezidis from military service has become the locus classicus on the subject of Yezidi religious codes and beliefs (for the English translation of the text, see Driver 1921-23).
Failing peaceful conversion, the Ottomans carried out massacres against the Yezidis in the course of the 17th and 18th centuries. The massacres recurred in Ottoman domains in the middle of the 19th century, resulting in a great migration of Ottoman Yezidis into the Russian territories in the Caucasus. Twenty major massacres between 1640 and 1910 were counted by Lescot (see Deportations & Forced Resettlements).
Many Yezidis escaped into the forbidding mountain areas, but others converted, at least nominally, to Sunni Islam. The Ottoman Land Registration Law of 1859 particularly pressed for conversion by refusing to honor ownership claims of Yezidis. Many Yezidi shaykhs, who were the primary property owners, maintained their lands and property by converting. The Yezidi leaders whose holdings were in the inaccessible higher mountains were spared the need for conversion, and so were the landless sharecroppers or herders. Before 1858, the Yezidis in the Antioch-Amanus region on the Mediterranean littoral numbered 200,000, constituting the majority of the inhabitants. In 1938, Lescot counted only 60,000-a small minority.
Even today the Yezidis are still subject to great pressure for conversion. There is now also a movement to strip the Yezidis of their Kurdish identity by either declaring them an independent ethnic group apart from the Kurds or by attaching them to the Arabs. Hence, the Yezidis are now called “Umayyad Arabs” by the governments of Iraq and Syria, capitalizing on the aforementioned confusion that exists among the Yezidis with respect to the irrelevant Umayyad caliph Yazid ibn Mu’awiyya.
Most Yezidis are now in Syria, in the Jazira region and the Jabal Sanjar heights, and in the Afrin region Northwest of Aleppo. The next largest population of Yezidis is found in the Caucasus, where up to half the Kurds are followers of Yezidism. In Iraq, where the holiest Yezidi shrines of Lâlish are located, they are found in a band from eastern Jabal Sanjâr toward Dohuk and to Lâlish, northeast of Mosul. There used to be a large number of Yezidis in Anatolia, prior to the massacres of the last century. Those who now live within the borders of Turkey are thinly spread from Mardin to Siirt, and from Antioch and Antep to Urfâ. There are also a relatively small number of Yezidis in Iran, particularly between the towns of Quchdn and Dughâ’i in the Khurâsâni enclave, and in Azerbaijan province.
Further Readings and Bibliography: R.H.W. Empson, The Cult of the Peacock Angel (London, 1928); E.S. Drower, Peacock Angel (London, 1941); G.R. Driver, “The Religion of the Kurds,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and Studies 11 (1921-23); John S. Guest, The Yezidis (New York: KPI, 1987); Isya Joseph, Devil Worship (Boston, 1919); Alphonse Mingana, “Devil-worshippers: Their Beliefs and their Sacred Books,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1916); R.C. Zaehner, Zurv4n: A Zoroastrian Dilemma (New York: Oxford University Press, 1955); R. Lescot, Enquete 5ur les Yezidis de Syrie et du Djebel Sindjar, Memoires de L’Institut Francais de Damas, vol. 5 (Beirut, 1938); Hugo Makas, Kurdische Studien, vol. 3, Jezidengebete (Heidelberg, 1900); Ralph Solecki, “Predatory Bird Rituals at Zawi Chemi Shanidar,” Sumer XXXIII.L (1977); Rose Solecki, “Zawi Chemi Shanidar, a Post-Pleistocene Village Site in Northern Iraq,” Report of the VI International Congress on Quaternary (1964); Sami Said Ahmed, The Yazidis: Their Life and Beliefs, cd. Henry Field (Nfiami: Field Research Projects, 1975); E.S. Drower, Peacock Angel: Being Some Account of Votaries of a Secret Cult and Their Sanctuaries. (London, 1941); Cecil 1. Edmonds, A Pikdmage to Lalish (London: The Royal Asiatic Society, 1967); Thcodor Menzel, “Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis der jeziden,” in Hugo Grother, cd., Meine Vorderasienexpedition 1906 und 1907. Vol. 1. (Leipzig, 191 1); Basile Nikitine, Le5 Kurde5, etude 5ociologique et hi5torique (Paris, 1956); KamurAn Ali Badir Khdn, “Les soleil chez les Kurdes,” Atlantis 54, vii-viii (Paris, 1934); Constance Alexander, Baghdad in Bygone Days, from the Journals of the Correspondence of Claudius Rich… 1808-1821 (London, 1928); Charles Bellino letter, 16 May 1816, to Hammer, included in Fundgruben des Orients 5 (1816).
Sources: The Kurds, A Concise Handbook, By Dr. Mehrdad R. Izady, Dep. of Near Easter Languages and Civilization Harvard University, USA, 1992
THE PEACOCK ANGEL AND THE TEMPLARS
Ever since their primal creation the Seven Great Angels have been associated with the day of the week they were created. Tawsi Melek’s day is Sunday, etc.
What is the Peacock Angel?
THE PEACOCK ANGEL
Dee Finney's blog
start date July 20, 2011
Today's date October 29, 2011
TOPIC: THE PEACOCK ANGEL AND THE TEMPLARS
This topic came up because I listened to an interview of an Iraqiii man, now living in Canada. He was interviewed by an American Temp[lar who has a radio show on bbsradio.com The whole interview was about the religion based on the Peacock angel and how they are bringing this religion to America starting in 2012.
There is a lot of detailed information about the history below:
Tawsi Melek, the “Peacock Angel” and “Peacock King,” is the most import deity of the Yezidis. But he is not just the possession of the Yezidis, he belongs to the entire world. The Yezidis believe that they possess the oldest religion on Earth, the primeval faith that features Tawsi Melek, and that all other traditions are related to them through the Peacock Angel. They contend that Tawsi Melek is the true creator and ruler of the universe, and therefore a part of all religious traditions. He does not, however, always manifest within these diverse traditions as a peacock. Tawsi Melek has taken on many other forms throughout time.
The Yezidis do not believe that the Peacock Angel is the Supreme God. The Supreme God created him as an emanation at the beginning of time. He was brought into manifestation in order to give the invisible, transcendental Supreme God a vehicle with which to create and administer the universe. Tawsi Melek is thus a tangible, denser form of the infinite Supreme God. In order to assist Tawsi Melek in this important role, the Supreme Creator also created six other Great Angels, who were, like the Peacock Angel, emanations of the Supreme God and not separate from him. When recounting the creation of all Seven Great Angels, the Yezidis often summarize the emanation process as follows:
Tawsi Melek was the first to emerge from the Light of God in the form of a seven-rayed rainbow, which is a form he still today continues to manifest within to them (usually as a rainbow around the Sun). But the Yezidis also claim that Tawsi Melek and the six Great Angels are collectively the seven colors of the rainbow. Therefore, the six Great Angels were originally part of Tawsi Melek, the primal rainbow emanation, who bifurcated to become the rainbow’s seven colors, which are collectively the Seven Great Angels. Of the seven colors produced from the primal rainbow, Tawsi Melek became associated with the color blue, because this is the color of the sky and the heavens, which is the source of all colors.
Tawsi Melek was, therefore, both the first form of the Supreme God and one of the Seven Great Angels, which is a cosmic heptad mentioned within many religious traditions. The Jews, Christians, Persian, Egyptians all have their seven angels and creators. In the Meshefê Re, the Yezidis “Black Book,” there is one passage that describes the Seven Great Angels and associates their creation with the seven days of Creation. The text first states that the Supreme God first created a pearl containing the substance or substratum of the soon-to-be physical universe, ostensibly referring to the molten mass preceding the “Big Bang” championed by modern physics. The Yezidi text then maintains that for forty thousand years this pearl sat upon a primal bird, which is quite possibly an incipient form of Tawsi Melek before he divided into the Seven Great Angels. This pearl then exploded (or became dismantled) to become the physical universe. Then, states the Meshefê Re, came the seven days of creation:
“The first day which He (the Supreme God) created was Sunday. On that day He created an angel whose name was 'Azra'il. This is Melekê Taus, who is the greatest of all.
On Monday He created the Angel Darda'il, who is Shaikh Hasan.
On Tuesday He created the Angel Israfil, who is Shaikh Shams.
On Wednesday He created the Angel Mika'il, who is Shaikh Abu Bakr.
On Thursday He created the Angel Gibra'il, who is Sagad ad-Din.
On Friday He created the Angel Shimna'il, who is Nasir ad-Din.
On Saturday He created the Angel Nura'il, who is Yadin [Fakhr ad-Din].
And God made Melekê Taus the greatest of them.”
On Monday He created the Angel Darda'il, who is Shaikh Hasan.
On Tuesday He created the Angel Israfil, who is Shaikh Shams.
On Wednesday He created the Angel Mika'il, who is Shaikh Abu Bakr.
On Thursday He created the Angel Gibra'il, who is Sagad ad-Din.
On Friday He created the Angel Shimna'il, who is Nasir ad-Din.
On Saturday He created the Angel Nura'il, who is Yadin [Fakhr ad-Din].
And God made Melekê Taus the greatest of them.”
Ever since their primal creation the Seven Great Angels have been associated with the day of the week they were created. Tawsi Melek’s day is Sunday, etc.
Once the Seven Great Angels were created the Earth was produced by them out of the substratum of the original pearl. It remained barren and then suddenly entered a phase of intense continual shaking, perhaps coinciding with the violent earthquake and volcanic activity that was ubiquitous around the young Earth. In order to calm the planetary quaking, the Supreme God sent the Peacock Angel to Earth with orders to both sedate the Earth and endow it with multi-colored flora and fauna. As Tawsi Melek descended into the physical dimension his seven-colored rainbow self became manifest as a magnificent bird of seven colors, the peacock. He then flew around the globe in order to bless every part of it, finally landing in the area of what is now Lalish, the Yezidis most sacred part of Earth located in northern Iraq. Here Tawsi Melek was able to calm the Earth while simultaneously covering it with his peacock colors.
With the Earth in a more placid phase of its evolution the Great Angels proceeded to their next creation, Adam. The first human was created by all the Seven Great Angels, each of whom endowed him with a physical sense to experience life. One gave him an ear, one a nose, one a mouth, etc. But the first human was a lifeless heap without a soul, so Tawsi Melek transmitted the breath of life into him. When Adam then rose to his feet, Tawsi Melek quickly swung him around so that he was facing the Sun while informing him that there was something much greater than he and that praying daily to the Sun as a form of the Supreme God would help him to remember this truth. Tawsi Melek then verbalized the prayers that Adam and his descendants around the globe were to repeat during their worship, and he spoke them in 72 languages since Adam and Eve were destined to have 72 sons and 72 daughters who would populate the 72 regions or countries of the Earth. The Peacock Angel then informed Adam that if he and his descendants remained steadfast in righteousness they would eventually see and know the Supreme God personally. In the meantime, Tawsi Melek would be their protector and teacher even while residing in another dimension.
Future Prophecy of the Peacock Angel
Yezidi prophecy maintains that Tawsi Melek will come back to Earth as a peacock or rainbow during a time of intense conflict, poverty, famine and distress on the Earth. He will then transmit some prayers to a holy man, probably a Faqir, who will then take them around the Earth and give them to representatives of all religions.
The Peacock Angel Today
The Yezidis believe that Tawsi Melek is every place in the universe at every moment. He is, therefore, always available for support and protection to anyone who sincerely calls upon him. His greatest worshippers, the Yezidis, call upon his assistance to help meet all their needs.
To those who call upon him with great devotion, Tawsi Melek may manifest in a variety forms, including a bright light, a rainbow, a boy, a young man, a snake, and, of course, a peacock. He also will appear on occasion so his worshippers can remain secure regarding his existence. One of his most recent appearances of this sort occurred following a skirmish between the Yezidis and Turkish Moslems, when Tawsi Melek decided to appear to not to a Yezidi, but to one of the Moslem Turks so that all people would believe in his existence. During his appearance, Tawsi Melek “bid the bewildered man to go and tell the people that a big war was brewing, but that no harm would come on the heads of his people, the Yezidis, who would emerge from the conflagration unscathed.”
Although he is the eternal ruler of Earth, during the Yezidis New Year Tawsi Melek designates one of the six Great Angels to represent him as ruler for the coming year, so there is always guidance and protection coming from all the Seven Great Angels.
Is the Peacock Angel the Devil?
The Peacock Angel has been falsely accused of being Satan or the Devil for hundreds of years by censuring Moslems. But their distortion of his true nature was not made popular until the 18th century, so it appears that during earlier times Moslems may have had an entirely different view of the Peacock Angel. Unfortunately, Tawsi Melek is currently stuck in today’s world with the Devil banner.
It appears that the initial distortion regarding Tawsi Melek may have been generated by an Islamic defamation crusade against the Yezidis, initiated by the Moslem view that the Yezidis are not “People of the Book,” meaning that there is no revealed scripture at the center of their religion. In truth, Meshefê Re, the Yezidis “Black Book,” was written when Tawsi Melek first came to Earth and existed down to the time of a series of wars with the Turkish Moslems, when most of it was lost. The book was very thick with a black color, and embossed with red and gold.
The Moslems’ slanderous misunderstanding of Tawsi Melek appears to have gained momentum when certain Moslem leaders took some small aspect or characteristic of the Peacock Angel and related it to their conception of Satan. For example, Tawsi Melek is recognized by the Yesidis to be king of the entire universe, including Earth, but over the centuries both Moslems and Christians have ascribed Luciferian connotations to the “King of the World.” Moreover, the Yezidis belief that Tawsi Melek was the co-creator of the universe with the Supreme God could have inspired a dualistic Islamic philosopher to misconstrue him as an eternally separate and opposite spirit from God. Since God is eternally good, according to Islamic philosophy, this would automatically make Tawsi Melek the Evil One.
Here is a list of allegations against Tawsi Melek that have been part of the Moslems’ attempt to convince the world of his Satanic nature:
- The Moslems maintain that one of Tawsi Melek’s names is Azazel, a name of Satan.
Truth: The alternate name for Tawsi Melek they refer to is not Azazel, but Aziz, a name meaning “something precious.”
- The Yezidis honor the goat because it is Satan’s (Tawsi Melek’s) sacred animal.
Truth: The Yezidis honor the goat because, like the Hindus’ cow, it sacrifices itself and supplies many of their needs. It gives them milk, wool, etc.
- The Peacock Angel was in the Garden of Eden and because of his pride he refused God’s order to bow to Adam. This show of pride caused the fall of Lucifer and established an eternal enmity between God and the Peacock Angel.
Truth: In the Yezidi tradition it is indeed stated that the Peacock Angel was present in the Garden of Eden. He failed to bow down to Adam because he was obeying God. The Yezidis claim that previous to the creation of Adam the Supreme God had informed all Seven Great Angels never bow down to any other entity other than Him.
- The peacock is an evil bird.
Truth: In the East the peacock is the symbol of the Son of God, the savior of humanity. The peacock reflects the beneficent, immortal nature of the Son of God by devouring snakes, the enemies of humanity. Through its innumerable “eyes,” the peacock also symbolizes the omniscient nature of the Son of God. Apparently the misunderstanding of the bird’s evil nature arose because it naturally reflects the androgyny of the Son of God, who was born from the universal male/female polarity, i.e., Spirit and matter, dark and light, etc. It is for this reason that the “androgynous” peacock is said to possess the beauty of an angel but the demonic cry of the Devil.
- The Yezidis are the People of the Caliph Yezid whose unpopular reign made him an enemy of both Shiite and Sunni Moslems.
Truth: The Caliph Yezid was a Moslem who later became disenchanted with the Islamic teachings and converted to Yezidism. The name Yezidi has existed since the Yezidi people were first created.
In addition to the above, Moslems could have easily been mislead by the inaccurate anecdotes and propaganda regarding the Peacock Angel, some of which have been fabricated by other Moslems. A rumored Yezidi “Origin Myth,” for example, that alludes to a Yezidi shepherd finding an injured Peacock Angel in the form of a physical peacock and calling itself “the Spirit of Evil thrown out of heaven” is completely spurious and not associated with any authentic Yezidi texts or teachings.
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