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SHAIKHAN, Iraq, May 23 (AFP) - 5h24 - At a
mountainside temple in the heart of Iraqi Kurdistan,
pilgrims from the minority Yezidi community come to
worship the peacock angel, also known as Lucifer.
As Iraq moves toward a new post-Saddam Hussein
political order, the Yezidis, long regarded by
Muslims as "devil-worshippers", are seizing on this
key moment in history to enshrine their community's
rights in a new constitution.
"Discrimination against the Yezidis must end, and
our political and religious rights must be
recognized in the constitution," the faith's
hereditary leader Mil (Prince) Hazem Tahsin Said
told AFP.
Wearing a yellow shirt and shiny brown tie, this
supposed prince of darkness greets visitors to his
expensive villa in the countryside north of Mosul
with a wide smile. Two Kurdish militiamen stand
guard at the door.
"As Kurds and as Yezidis, we were doubly victimised
by Saddam Hussein," says the 40-year-old chief, who
doubles as tribal and religious leader to his
people.
The ousted president's Sunni Arab-dominated regime
killed tens of thousands of Kurds, including Yezidis,
during the Anfal campaign in the late 1980s.
Saddam's regime persecuted the Kurds because of
their desire to preserve their ethnic identity and
the Yezidis even more so because they were also
viewed as heathens.
Yezidis follow a pre-Islamic religion, which some
believe was founded in the 12th century by Sheikh
Uday bin Masafel al-Amawi, although many scholars
trace its origins to the Zoroastrian religion of
ancient Persia.
Sheikh Uday was born in Damascus but died in the
town of Lalish, just 12 kilometres (eight miles)
from Shaikhan, where his tomb has become the Yezidis'
holiest shrine.
The community is still largely based in the
foothills north of Iraq's main northern city of
Mosul and in the Sinjar mountains on the border with
Syria.
But followers of the 100,000-strong faith can be
found throughout the Kurdish disapora, in
neighbouring Syria and Turkey as well as the former
Soviet republics of the Caucasus.
The Yezidis do not believe in heaven or hell, and do
not regard Satan as evil. In fact, they worship him.
"Please excuse me, but I cannot say this word
(devil) out loud because it is sacred. It's the
chief of angels," said Mil Hazem.
"We believe in Allah (God) and in (the chief of
angels)," he explained.
Unlike Muslims, Yezidis can eat pork. On the other
hand, they are prohibited from eating lettuce or
from wearing the color blue.
Fierce guardians of their traditions, Yezidis do not
permit outsiders to convert to their religion.
The faith has six distinct levels of initiation --
princes, sheikhs, senators, seers, ascetics and the
community of the faithful, which comprises about 70
percent of the Yezidi population.
Marriage across classes is forbidden.
Now, Yezidis count three members of the Iraqi
parliament, all of them elected as part of the
Kurdish alliance which came second in landmark
elections in January, as well as two members of the
Kurdish regional parliament in Arbil.
The community's lot had already improved since the
aftermath of the 1991 Gulf war, when Kurdish rebels
established an autonomous administration in three
northern provinces, including the Yezidi centres of
Lalish and Shaikhan.
But according to the head of security at the Lalish
temple, Yezidis don't want to risk being oppressed
again.
"Our religion is taught in schools and since 1991,
we have retaken villages we were forced out of
during Saddam Hussein's Arabisation campaign," said
Derman Racho, 52.
"Now we want the constitution to guarantee that we
can be Iraqis and Yezidis."
Racho guards the Lalish temple, where two sculpted
peacocks representing the "chief of angels" stand
watch over the entrance.
Worshippers remove their shoes and proceed inside,
where seven pieces of vividly colored fabric are
affixed to pillars, representing seven angels.
In the heart of the main chamber, men, women and
children offer prayers while knotting and unknotting
strips of material that cover the tomb of their
founding father, Sheikh Uday.
In the courtyard, two men and two women dressed in
white, who have taken an oath of celibacy, light 366
oil lamps.
"So that we don't forget the souls of our saints and
prophets," explained their superior, Pil Charo, 32.
Most Yezidis speak Kurmanji, the most widely spoken
dialect of Kurdish, but not all Sunni Muslim Kurds
accept the Yezidis as part of their own ethnic
group.
Asked about the Yezidis by an AFP correspondent,
several Sunni Kurds said they would not share a meal
with a Yezidi because they considered the community
"unclean".
"Our parents told us that we could go to eat at the
house of a Christian or a Jew, but not with them,"
said one Kurd.
AFP
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