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Conversation with a Yazidi Kurd
19.1.2008
By Patrick Lair
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January
19, 2008
Ninewa, Northwest Iraq, -- A recent trip to
the northwestern corner of Iraq with soldiers from
the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, based out of Ft.
Hood, Texas, brought me into contact with a
different side of this country.
The area, located along the Syrian border with Iraq,
could in most places be adequately described as a
“sod desert.” The ground is made up of a fine, dry
silt, with no apparent source of water, no trees,
grasses or buildings, a barren landscape of gray
dust extending as far as the eye can see in some
places.
The scenery is only complimented by the Sinjar
mountains, rising dark-red and treeless on the
horizon, and the occasional adobe villages populated
by half a dozen families, chickens, turkeys,
donkeys, wild dogs and a lot of trash.
Most of the little adobe houses do have electricity,
though, and many have large television sattelite
dishes on the rooftops, likely powered by
generators.
The general area between Mosul and the Syrian border
is well-known to be an often-used supply line and
escape route for insurgents in Iraq. However, the
people who occupy that area seem to be less
well-known.
On my first evening in the town of Biaj, I met a
Yazidi soldier in the local Iraqi Army battalion. He
pronounced his name as “saa-baa” and said it meant
“morning” in English. He was very friendly. He asked
me where I was from. I told him the United States.
He smiled approvingly. “A Christian,” he said. “Very
good.” He indicated that he has no love for Muslims.
Four of his friends died recently in Mosul when
their car drove over an IED, he said. He blames the
insurgents.
He asked me what I thought of the area. I wrapped my
arms about my chest to simulate shivering and said
it is very cold in this place. The temperature
dropped below 30 degrees Fahrenheit at night. He
laughed and agreed. I forget what else we talked
about.
After he left I asked around about the Yazidis. One
of the sergeants told me there is an ancient Yazidi
temple on the highest point of the Sinjar mountains.
He asked our interpreter, David, who grew up in Biaj,
how old the temple is.
“2,000 years? 1,000 years? How old?”
David just shook his head. “I don’t know how old.
Too old.”
It turns out they were talking of the Chermera
Temple, which means something like “40 men” in
Yazidi dialect. It is thought that 40 men were
buried there at some point, but it is so old that
the story behind the name has been forgotten.
The meeting with “Saa-baa” sparked an interest in
the Yazidis, so next chance I got, I researched
them, (online of course).
The Yazidis are a dominant group in the northwest
region, a historically oppressed people who speak
Kurdish and are ethnically Kurd but follow their own
religion. In fact,www.ekurd.net
they are reputed to be
devil worshippers, not just by Iraqi Muslims but
they’ve been characterized that way by Western
scholars over the years.
After a hasty Google fact-finding mission, there
seem to be atleast a couple reasons for this
reputation.
First, they are a very closed and secretive society,
probably a result of repeated persecution by
different tribes, cultures and regimes over the
years. One online source said many Yazidis have
refused military service because of a fear it would
expose them to different cultures and religions.
Another reason found online seems to be a semantic
twist of their theology. Their creation story
closely resembles that of Christianity and Islam,
only with some significant variances.
The Yazidis believe the world was created by God and
put in the care of seven powerful angels. The most
powerful among these, Melek Taus,www.ekurd.net
was told by God to bow
to no one. Melek Taus has variously been represented
by artists as a peacock and come to be known as the
Peacock Angel. He also goes by the name of “Shaytan.”
When God created Adam from the dust of the Earth, he
supposedly told all the angels to bow to Adam. They
all did except for Melek Taus, who was applauded by
God for his obedience and seen as a symbol of
righteousness.
Under the Islamic creation story, Iblis likewise
refused to bow to Adam, but was condemned for it by
God and transformed into Satan, the symbol of evil.
All this aside, the Yazidis seem to have much in
common with other religions. They pray five times
per day, like Muslims, only they pray toward the
sun. Once in their lifetime, Yazidis are encouraged
to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of Sheikh Adi,
located in the town of Lalish, north of Mosul. This
obviously sounds a lot like the Hajj, the Muslim
pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
At the tomb in Lalish, the Yazidis perform ancient
rites, such as bathing in a sacred spring,
sacrificing an ox and filling this old tomb with a
myriad of candles.
The really amazing thing to me is that this culture
is alive at all. Looking around their countryside,
I’m astounded that people can eke out an existance.
In so much of the the U.S. we have streams and
rivers, rainy seasons, trees of all kinds, various
plant life, mineral wealth, access to the ocean,
etc. This place seems barren and devoid of all that.
And they are on not so cordial relations with their
neighbors, either. In August an Islamic extremist
suicide bomber near Mosul killed more than 200
Yazidis, the largest suicide attack since the U.S.
invasion.
(Incidentally, a sergeant from our MPAD unit was
there with a video camera and captured the footage
which aired on CNN).
In April of 2007 the Yazidis also made international
headlines when a Yazidi village in Iraq stoned a
girl to death because she converted to Islam.
The role of women is another interesting point here.
Female chastity is taken much more seriously in
northern Iraq than in the West from everything I’ve
heard. A Kurdish interpreter told me that in his
culture, if a woman is caught cheating on her
husband, it is permissible not only for the husband
to kill the wife but also the wife’s father.
That sounds pretty brutal. I can’t prove it’s true
but it did come from the mouth of a Kurd.
Anyway, the Yazidis struck me as a fascinating
cultural group which often gets overlooked in the
grand scheme of things. Online sources say there are
pockets of them in Turkey and Syria as well, and a
large refugee population in Germany, but no has
anything near exact numbers. Guesses range from
70,000 to 500,000 in Iraq alone.
jg-tc com
Religious significance
The Kurdish Yazidis consider Melek Taus to be a benevolent
angel that has redeemed himself from his fall, and
has become a demiurge who created the cosmos from
the Cosmic Egg. After he repented, he cried for 7000
years, his tears filling 7 jars, which then quenched
the fires of hell.
Melek Taus is sometimes transliterated Malak Ta'us
or Malik Taws. In Semitic languages, malik variably
means "king" or "angel". Taus is
uncontroversially translated "peacock"; however, it
is important to note that peacocks are not, at least
currently, native to the lands where Melek Taus is
worshipped.
This has lead some to speculate that the worship of
Melek Taus was imported from India, though it is
more likely the peacock iconography is a development
from earlier representations depicting the god as a
native fowl, such as a bustard.
The Yazidi believe
that the founder of their religion, Sheikh Adi Ibn
Mustafa, was an avatar of Melek Taus. In art and
sculpture Melek Taus is depicted as peacock. The
Yazidi are thought to be unique in their depiction
of their primary god as a bird.
More About Yazidi From Wikipedia
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