Worshippers Of The Peacock God

[Gauracandra]

I found this pretty interesting. The Yezidi Kurds are a pre-Islamic religion found in Iraq, Armenia and surrounding areas.

 

Here is a picture of a Yezidi mother and grandchild:

 

They worship a “peacock god” known as Melek Taus, also known as Lucifer. To them Lucifer fell, but then was forgiven by God. Unfortunately, they are often oppressed by Muslims and called devil worshippers.

 

Here is an encyclopedia entry for them:

 

The Yezidi or Yazidi are adherents of a small Middle Eastern religion with ancient origins. They are primarily ethnic Kurds, and most Yazidis live in Iraq and Syria with smaller communities in Turkey and Armenia. There are also Yazidi refugees in Germany. The Yazidi worship Malak Ta’us, apparently a pre-Islamic peacock god with links to Mithraism and, through it, to Zoroastrianism. The Yazidi maintain a well-preserved culture, rich in traditions and customs.

 

In the region that is now Iraq, the Yazidi have been oppressed and labeled as devil worshippers for centuries. During the reign of Saddam Hussein, however, they were considered to be Arabs and maneuvered to oppose the Kurds, in order to tilt the ethnic balance in northern Iraq. Since the 2003 occupation of Iraq, the Kurds want the Yazidi to be recognized as ethnic Kurds.

 

The Yazidi’s own name for themselves is Dasin. While folk etymology connects the religion to the Umayyad khalif Yazid I (680-683), the name Yazidi is actually most likely derived from the Pahlavi (Middle Persian) word "yezd," meaning angel, probably in reference to Malak Ta’us.

 

Religion

Yazidi faith contains elements of Zoroastrianism, Manicheism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Gnostic and local pre-Islamic beliefs. It might have originally been based on the original religion of the Kurds. In about 1162, Sheikh Adii Ibn Mustafa radically reformed the religion, so that some believe the previous form was a different religion from current belief. Different clans may also have different interpretations.

 

According to the Yazidi, Malak Taus is a fallen peacock angel who repented and recreated the world that had been broken. He filled seven jars with his tears and used them to quench the fire in Hell. Although primarily a monotheistic religion, Yezidism also includes minor deities and some clans venerate Sheikh Adii as a saint, subservient to Malak Ta’us.

 

The Yazidi holy books are the Book of Revelation and the Black Book. The latter forbids eating of lettuce or butter beans and wearing of dark blue. The historical status of the book is questionable.

 

Yazidi are exclusive and do not reveal most of their secrets to the uninitiated. The twice-daily prayer services must not be performed in the presence of outsiders, and are always performed in the direction of the sun. Wednesday is the holy day but Saturday is the day of rest. There is also a three-day fast in December.

 

The most important ritual is the annual six-day pilgrimage to the tomb of Sheikh Adii in Lalish, north of Mosul, Iraq. During the celebration, Yazidi bathe in the river, wash figures of Malak Ta’us and light hundreds of lamps in the tombs of Sheikh Adii and other saints. They also sacrifice an ox, which is one reason they have been connected to Mithraism.

 

 

Population and marriage customs

Historically, the Yazidis are a religious minority of the Kurds. Purportedly, they have existed since 2,000 B.C.. Estimates of the number of Yazidis vary between 100.000 and 800.000. The latter is the claim of their website. According to the same site, refugees in Germany number 30.000.

 

Feleknas Uca, a German Member of the European Parliament for the Party of Democratic Socialism is the world's only Yazidi parliamentarian.

 

Yazidi are dominantly monogamous but chiefs may have more than one wife. Children are baptized at birth and circumcision is common but not required. Dead are buried in conical tombs immediately after death and buried with hands crossed.

 

Yazidi are exclusive. Yazidi clans do not intermarry even with other Kurds and accept no converts. They claim that they are descended only from Adam. The strongest punishment is expulsion, which is also effectively excommunication because the soul of the exiled is forfeit.

 

Accusations and stereotypes

As a demiurge figure, Malak Ta’us is often identified by orthodox Muslims as a shaytan, a Muslim term denoting a devil or demon who deceives true believers, causing them to assign partners to Allah. Thus, the Yezidi have been accused of devil worship. Because of this and due to their pre-Islamic beliefs, they have been oppressed by their Muslim neighbors and the Ottoman Empire.

 

Due to their alleged connection to the Devil, in modern times the Yazidi have been accused of Satanism (like the Process Church of the Final Judgment). As a distant religious belief, many non-Yazidi people have written about them, and ascribed facts to their beliefs that have dubious historical validity. For example, horror writer H. P. Lovecraft made a reference to "... the Yezidi clan of devil-worshippers" in his short story "The Horror at Red Hook". The Yezidis have also been claimed as an influence on Aleister Crowley's Thelema.

 

Here are images of Melek Taus:

 

[Pankaja_Dasa]

 

 

That looks so nice. No way its devil worship. Must be made up by somebody. Anyway what do I know.

[Guest guest]

associated with peacocks?

 

Could he be the same Lucifer that they believe in?

 

 

[krsna]

KURDS AND VEDIC INDIA

by Rohini Priya d.d.

 

The mysterious relationship of the Kurds with Vedic India

 

The Kurd people live in some remote territorities of Eastern Turkey and Iraq. They are not actually at home in the Muslim environment, although at present there is hardly any possibility of establishing Kurdistan proper.

 

Some Kurds are nominally Muslims, but they have their own cult the centre of which is the Sanctuary of Sheikh Adi, north of Al Mawsil (Mosul). This is the site of a very old civilization, with the ruins of erstwhile Niniveh. The Kurds may be direct descendants of the Old Persians who used to call themselves Yezidis. Now, the word Yezidi comes from the Avestan Yazata and Persian Ized, meaning “worshippable”, and having its origin in the Sankskrit word jayatah, also meaning worshippable, i.e. deva. There are traces in the Yezidi cult of not the Avesta of Zarathustra, but of later Persian religious speculations called Zurvanism. The Zurvanite speculation is basically dualism, with constant struggle between Light and Darkness, forces of good and evil. Since these powers are equally strong, as they believe, there is no hope for peace in the near future.

 

These good and evil powers are of course the devas and the asuras of the Rgvedic time in India. They have even the same names, except that the devas of India have become devils and vice versa.

 

The predecessors of the present Kurd people must, in some point of history, have had close contacts with Gnosticism. So they have some idea about the serpent in the Paradise, but they call him the friend of mankind; the one who has brought enlightenment to the first human pair.

 

Islam had non lasting influence on these curious people, but some time in the 11th century Sheikh Adi, a famous Sufi mystic, organized them into an order, in a manner similar to that of the Sufi dervishes. The common people are called Murids (disciples), because everybody is considered to be a potential initiate. They have various leaders, kahanas and sheikhs, just like the Sufis. Some rituals are kept secret but it is clear that they depict the Supreme Being as a mystical peacock; so that sometimes they are termed as the followers of the Peacock Angel (Melek Taus). They believe in reincarnation and they dread having to come back as animals, since this is an indication of evil life. Their rites consist of dancing and chanting before the Peacock, while chanting is hardly anything but the repetition of the holy name, Melek Taus.

 

Rituals, teachings, customs must have been modelled on their counterparts in India. There are initiation ceremonies, even a holy thread of intertwined black and red wool is worn by the initiates, next to the bare skin. Scholars are notwithstanding convinced that the cult has its root only in old Persian religion, Gnosticism and Sufism.

 

There is, however, a very queer thing showing that the Yezidi cult has its origin, like every other religious system worthy of this name, in India. As Kali-yuga progresses and it gets harder and harder to preserve secrets, some more representations of the Supreme Being of the Yezidis left the antiquated gloom of the caves and appeared freely in the West. Now it is clearly seen that this Supreme Being is not a peacock, but a very beautiful four-armed person of blue colour with curly black hair, shown sitting in a cross-legged position, with the image of a red serpent on his body, which is obviously nothing else but the Kundalini of the more esoteric yoga schools. The peacock is standing right behind him, showing all his “sun-eyes” on its extended tail.

 

This beautiful blue person is surely Visnu-Narayana of India, since the other blue deity, Murugan (Karttikeya or Skanda) of South India, has rarely if ever been depicted with four arms.

 

 

Exiled Kurds have been performing their rituals in Europe since the beginning of the last century showing that the old Vedic teachings can never be quite forgotten and that they creep back into the human consciousness sometimes in rather devious ways.

 

Rohini Priya d.d.

Vrinda Budapest