Yazidi Religion Explained

the yazidis are an ethno-religious people group indigenous to the kurdish regions of northern iraq syria and turkey we don't know exact population numbers but there are anywhere between 200 000 and 1 million yazidis worldwide the largest populations are in the shaikhan region northeast of mosul and the sinjar region west of mosul but there are large populations in syria armenia and especially now in germany as more and more yazidis live in diaspora from their homeland they hit mainstream news in 2014 when the terrorist organization the so-called islamic state seized the regions in northwest iraq and proceeded to commit a genocide against the yazidis killing and enslaving thousands of them this genocide sent western journalists scrambling to understand the yazidis and they published a bunch of articles with varying degrees of quality but i think a lot of us are still wondering who are the yazidis and what do they believe and practice this was one of the more difficult videos for me to research because yezidism is primarily an oral religion this means that they passed down their sacred history and teachings by word of mouth over the course of centuries they don't have a central text like the bible or the quran that records official versions of their myths there is no creed or statement of orthodox belief in yazidism like how christianity has the nicene creed so you'll notice throughout this video i'll say things like some yezidis believe this others believe that this is because there is a lot of variation within yazidism there is a greater emphasis on religious practice and identity rather than belief but having said that i'm organizing this video around the 3b framework of religious identity that religions are comprised of beliefs behaviors and a sense of belonging to a greater community so we'll start with the basic beliefs before transitioning to religious practice and ending with yazidi's society and identity first their basic beliefs yazidism is a monotheistic religion they believe in one god sometimes called hua de the kurdish word for god but god and yazidism is a fairly transcendent god he doesn't interface with humans directly but rather through seven angels also called the seven mysteries or seven emanations i say emanations because according to some versions of the creation myth god created the seven angels from his own light as if lighting seven candles from one chief among these angels is meliktawus the peacock angel who is often literally depicted as a peacock melektawis is considered to be a manifestation of god but he acts as a separate agent from god god put melaktawus in charge of the world as its custodian and melatawus acts as an intermediary between humans and god in some of the foundational myths of the azidism melatawas is the key actor in the origins of humanity itself yazidis believe that they are descended from the first man adam and melech tawas was with adam in paradise at the beginning of humanity some of you may be familiar with the story of adam from the book of genesis in the hebrew bible in that version adam eats the forbidden fruit and is expelled from the garden of eden genesis portrays this as a catastrophe brought on by an evil snake but the story is very different in yazidi mythology god puts adam in paradise but malik tawas convinces adam to leave it some versions say that god forbade adam from eating grain but the peacock angel was concerned that adam would never grow and flourish without this food so he successfully convinces adam to eat it rather than a catastrophe that dooms humanity this is viewed as part of god's divine will malik tawas plays a central role in yazidism and yazidi prayers are sometimes addressed both to god and malik taus however over the course of history outsiders apparently confused him with the evil character satan for centuries outsiders such as neighboring muslim communities and european travelers accused yazidis of being devil worshipers however this is a completely false representation yazidi mythology has no all-encompassing evil being comparable to satan and christianity or iblis in islam nevertheless muslim empires throughout history use this stereotype to justify violence against yazidis it's such a sore spot in their history that the scholar christine robbins one of the leading scholars of yazidism reports that the name satan is so offensive that some yazidis forbid even pronouncing it these terrible stereotypes continued well into the 1990s in fact during my own research for this video i discovered this new york times article from 1993 that straight straight-up calls meliktawus a representative of satan which is just completely false he is a holy being an emanation of god yazidis also believe in reincarnation the human soul passes to another body after death and you can secure a more or less favorable rebirth based on how you live according to some scholars it appears that many yazidis also believe in heaven and hell apparently this is more common among yetis living outside of their homelands like in armenia some believe that melaka was created heaven and hell others say hell no longer exists because malak tawas extinguished its fires so different beliefs about the afterlife apparently co-existed throughout yazidi history many yazidis also believe that holy beings can assume the likeness of humans so for example jesus and the virgin mary are considered to be holy beings as well as one of the most important individuals in their history the sufi mystic sheikh adi even musafir the modern yazidi community stems from a community that sheikh adi founded in the town of lalish in northern iraq around the 12th century ce if you've watched my video on the introduction to islam you'll know that sufis are muslims who practice a more mystical path of devotion to god sufism is not exactly a separate sect of islam but can refer to a variety of organizations that emphasize devotional piety and direct experience of god sheikh adi studied in baghdad under a sufi master but moved to lalesh where he gathered a big following that eventually became known as the adoea sufi brotherhood as far as we can tell both sheikh adi and the adulya sufis were muslims for all intents and purposes they didn't consider themselves a separate religion of any sort but it seems that the local members of sheikh adi's community continued living out their traditional beliefs and practices while rejecting mainstream islamic teaching after sheikh adi died the neighboring muslim communities increasingly classified adi's community as a heretical group and persecuted them which culminated in 1415 ce when a muslim army attacked the community and destroyed sheikh adi's sanctuary in lalesh it's not entirely accurate to call yazidism an offshoot of islam growing out of this community most of the modern scholarship that i consulted for this video acknowledges that much of yazidism pre-dates sheikh adi's lifetime the local indigenous beliefs of northern iraq never disappeared and sheikh adi's community must have incorporated them dr philip kriembrock describes yazidism as comprised of ancient pre-islamic elements informed by the worldview of medieval sufism specifically sheikh adi and his community many yazidis today consider sheikhadi more of a reformer and not so much a founder of their religion but he remains an important figure nevertheless yazidi hymns call him a divine being or even a manifestation of malatawas the problem is yazidi history before sheikh adi is pretty hazy the scholar esther spate argued that we see hints of gnosticism in yazidi mythology specifically the idea of emanations the seven angels that god creates are described as emanations of god's light which is how some gnostic texts from late antiquity describe holy beings proceeding from a transcendent godhead another parallel with gnostic theology is the idea that the human soul has a divine origin or spark of divinity for example some yazidi versions of the creation of adam say that god molded the body of adam which was then animated by an angel entering into him so you can probably see by now that yazidism incorporates a lot of elements from other big religions from the region stories like the garden of eden from the hebrew bible important figures from the new testament as well as ideas and terminology from sufism dr philip kriembrock also argues that yazidism reflects influence from iranian religions such as zoroastrianism although yazidism is not a dualistic religion like zoroastrianism both have a heptad of seven divine beings in their cosmology in yazidism it's malachtawis with six other angels in zoroastrianism it's six holy beings called the amesha spentas that emanated from the creator god ahura mazda thus many scholars have classified yazidism as a syncretic religion one scholar i read even labels it a religion of extreme syncretism i take issue with this framing of yazidism though syncretism generally means the blending or merging of different religious ideas practices or beliefs i'm not denying that yazidism integrates ideas from other religions that part is undeniable but why call yazidism a religion of extreme syncretism but not call christianity a religion of extreme syncretism when it borrowed the entire hebrew bible and water rituals like baptism from jewish mikvah i think this framing tacitly obscures that all religions involve some level of creative active engagement with their surrounding cultures in the words of my phd advisor dr david frankfurter syncretism is a creative synthetic process by which any idea symbol or idiom is appropriated and embraced in a culture so i'm comfortable categorizing yazidism as a syncretic religion as long as we understand syncretism as an active process rather than a passive one yazidism is not sitting there like a sponge absorbing influence from surrounding religious systems it is the result of indigenous rural peoples of the kurdish regions actively integrating some aspects of neighboring religions and rejecting others okay now for the second be in the 3b framework behaviors or religious practice yazidism is sometimes described as a way of life that emphasizes right practice instead of right belief some of these practices include a variety of taboos or prohibitions things you're not supposed to do in order to maintain purity for example yazidis are not supposed to marry outside of the religion and accepting converts into the religion is also forbidden some taboos may reflect local religious practice from their neighboring muslim communities so like muslims some yazidis abstain from eating pork though others claim yezidism does not specifically mandate this and it was only done to protect themselves from persecution throughout yazidi history prayers are said facing the sun sometimes at sunrise and sunset but daily prayers are not mandatory oral performance of sacred hymns is also a big part of yazidi religious practice remember at the start of this video i said yazidism is an oral religion the yazidis transmitted much of their sacred history and teachings through sacred hymns traditionally a class of yazidis called the kowals memorized and performed these hymns accompanied traditionally with the flute and tambourine some rituals can't even be performed without koalas being present [Music] one scholar says that the kowals are almost like the living memory of the yazidi community preserving their culture for generations by passing the hymns from father to son as an oral religion there are a bunch of different variations of these hymns which is why there are different versions of even the big foundational myths like the creation of adam nevertheless despite this long history of orality and performance yazidism is becoming an increasingly scriptural religion dr christine robbins reports that since the 1970s yazidis have started to write down and publish collections of their hymns this has not only resulted in standardized versions of their stories but also has led to efforts within the religion to form a canon of sacred texts this of course is a reminder that all religions change over time and also demonstrates how difficult it is to standardize religious belief and practice without writing their holiest site the valley of lalish is also important for religious practice not only is it the location of sheikh adi's tomb but yazidis also believe it is the birthplace of adam and where the holy beings descended to earth the whole region is filled with shrines to holy beings and ancestral tombs where yazidis can visit and pray lawless is also the epicenter of one of their most important festivals the feast of the assembly it's held over the course of seven days in october during which they perform hymns and dances and processions yazidis are highly encouraged to visit lalish for this festival in fact some of the scholarship i consulted says it used to be mandatory to make a pilgrimage there almost like the hajj for muslims however the political situation of the area has made it increasingly difficult for yazidis outside of iraq to visit lalish for the feast of the assembly in this absence yazidi populations in georgia and armenia have built their own shrines as centers for prayer and devotion these shrines are modeled after what we see in la lesh with these conical architectural elements another important ritual is the parade of the peacock this is a religious procession during which kowals carry a sacred image representing malak tawas called a sanjok or peacock standard from village to village the peacock standards are bronze objects that kind of look like a candle stick with a peacock on top traditionally there were seven standards each assigned to a different yazidi region generally the peacock standards are only displayed during important times like the feast of the assembly during which yazidis visit and venerate the object though yazidis are quick to emphasize that they are not worshipping it as an idol but paying it respect as a symbol of melaktawus turning now to our final b in the 3b framework belonging what does it mean to belong to the yazidi community and identify as yazidi yazidis are often called an ethno-religious people group because the religion and ethnicity go hand in hand like i said it's forbidden to convert into the religion and it's forbidden to marry outsiders so you're born into it kurdish identity also comes up again and again in scholarship on yazidis after all yazidis speak a northern kurdish dialect called karmanji and their holiest city and largest populations are located in the heart of the kurdish regions of northern iraq the scholar christine robbins reports that when she interviewed yazidis during the 1990s almost every yazidi she met said that they were the original kurds and some kurdish nationalists claim yazidism is the original kurdish religion however many yazidis reject the identity of kurdish and insist that yazidi constitutes its own ethnicity for example the yazidis of armenia successfully lobbied the government to recognize yazidis as their own minority which is now reflected on official documents such as passports while i was scrolling through some yazidi facebook groups for research one yazidi guy had a great point when he said if an american speaks english that doesn't make him english just because i speak kurdish doesn't make me kurdish so there's no doubt that kurdish language and kurdish regions are very important to yazidis but kurdish identity is contested among yazidis some claiming it for themselves and others rejecting it even the name yazidis is contested it may derive from the persian word for divine being but whatever it means lots of yazidis actually don't like the name and prefer to describe themselves with the kurdish term ezidi yazidi identity is also tied to your caste yazidi society is divided into three hereditary castes the sheikhs the peers and the murids terminology which is borrowed from sufi brotherhoods the first two are religious castes and perform all manner of religious functions for their communities with the shakes being the highest caste the morids encompass everybody else the lay people there are no rules around general social mixing between castes you're allowed to eat together hang out together but marriage between castes is strictly forbidden you must marry someone from your own group another part of yazidi identity is unfortunately a long history of being a persecuted minority there's almost a communal trauma around this historical fact the ottoman empire targeted them in the 1800s with forced conversions the iraqi dictator saddam hussein persecuted them in the 1970s displacing them from their homes and destroying their shrines al-qaeda murdered hundreds since 2007 and then in 2014 they faced heinous massacres sex slavery and dislocation at the hands of the terrorist group the islamic state thousands of yazidis were murdered and many now live in refugee camps and many are afraid to return to their homelands around lalish some scholars estimate that the majority of yazidis now live in diaspora all of this should remind us that religions are not all about belief while religions like christianity place a great deal of emphasis on correct belief yazidism emphasizes the second and third b's of the 3b framework yazidi identity and practice matter the most as i said this was one of the more difficult religions for me to research so i'm including the bibliography of my research in the video description below so you can both check my research but also get a head start on your own research to save yourself some time as always thanks for watching and i'll see you next time i want to thank dr esther spate for making this video possible she's the woman here on the left all of the b-roll footage that you see in this video comes from her documentary following the peacock which she gave permission for me to use so if you want a longer more throw going analysis of the yazidis and to see some really cool on-the-ground footage of their daily lives i highly recommend that you watch it link in the description below thank you dr spade

Channel: ReligionForBreakfast

Views: 515,851

Keywords: Yazidi, Yezidi, Yazidism, Yezidism, who are the yazidis, yazidi religion, yezidi religion, Iraq, Melek Tawus, Tawusi Melek, Sinjar, Eszter Spat, Christine Robins

Id: QRB9e9Ol4Hs

Length: 18min 18sec (1098 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 10 2020