The Interesting Yezidis
September 17, 2004 5:44 AM Subscribe
Devil Worship: The Sacred Books and Traditions of the Yezidiz, by Isya Joseph, 1919. 'This is one of the only public domain sources of information on the religious beliefs of the Yezidi, a small group originally from the northern region of Iraq. Although they speak Kurdish, they are a distinct population from the Kurds. The Yezidi are notable because they have been described as devil-worshippers, which has naturally led to constant persecution by the dominant Islamic culture of the region ... They have many unique beliefs, such as that the first Yezidi were created by Adam by parthenogenesis separately from Eve ... ' New on sacred-texts.com.
Since it looks like the Gurdjieff/Yezidism links from the past thread are dead (as well as the ones in y2karl's Gurdjieff post), I'll go ahead and post this nice link, that begins with this intriguing account:
IN 1888 THE 16-YEAR-OLD GURDJIEFF WITNESSED a strange incident: he saw a little boy, weeping and making strange movements, struggling with all his might to break out of a circle drawn around him by other boys. Gurdjieff released the boy by erasing part of the circle and the child ran from his tormentors. The boy, Gurdjieff learned, was a Yezidi.
posted by taz at 6:28 AM on September 17, 2004
IN 1888 THE 16-YEAR-OLD GURDJIEFF WITNESSED a strange incident: he saw a little boy, weeping and making strange movements, struggling with all his might to break out of a circle drawn around him by other boys. Gurdjieff released the boy by erasing part of the circle and the child ran from his tormentors. The boy, Gurdjieff learned, was a Yezidi.
posted by taz at 6:28 AM on September 17, 2004
"Adam was troubled because his belly was inflated, for he had no outlet. God therefore sent a bird to him which pecked at his anus and made an outlet, and Adam was relieved." from MASHAF REŠ
It goes on to explain why men have nipples, a problem that has confounded Christian Creationists.
posted by eatitlive at 7:42 AM on September 17, 2004
It goes on to explain why men have nipples, a problem that has confounded Christian Creationists.
posted by eatitlive at 7:42 AM on September 17, 2004
There is even a brief reference to this tribe in the original Ripley's. In addition to the "devil worship" attribute, they said that the tribe kills members who use the letter "S", as an individual letter. "S" being an abbreviation of "Satan". (Which seems to be a big jump in logic: that their language would have a letter "S", or something similar, and that it is the first letter of a word in their language akin to "Satan".)
This would make sense to those aware of the prohibitions against certain letter and numbers in early Judaism and other religions of that area, which could be taken to symbolically represent God.
It can be hard finding rationalizations for ignorant assumptions.
posted by kablam at 8:07 AM on September 17, 2004
This would make sense to those aware of the prohibitions against certain letter and numbers in early Judaism and other religions of that area, which could be taken to symbolically represent God.
It can be hard finding rationalizations for ignorant assumptions.
posted by kablam at 8:07 AM on September 17, 2004
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posted by plep at 5:48 AM on September 17, 2004