Derrig Renounces Santa & all his works

A Yezidi sweeps out the entrance to the tomb of Sheik Adi at Lalish - male Mrs Doyle doing the needful

Despite popular demand, we have, once again, let Derrig back into print at what should be a time of year for peace and harmony among men and women. Regular readers will know that An Phoblacht's resident Glaswegian doesn't do that sort of stuff. So here he is again on his annual anti-Crimbo rant. You should probably turn the page now, but his therapist said that writing this stuff actually helps.

Greetings little consumers! I started this journey in the millennial year by dismantling any idea of the Christian Christ by examining belief systems that pre-dated the Christian period historically but had all of the components of the Christ fable.

The following year, I looked at this time of year and what it meant for the majority of the planet's tenants who are not, in any way, connected to the Christ myth.

Last year, I rounded it up with looking at Santa Claus as the Real Thing, discussing how the red-faced portly bearded one was a creation of the marketing department of Coca-Cola Inc.

This year, I have decided to introduce you to some very fine folk who, like me, will not be celebrating the 25 December as a birthday of anyone important.

Allow me to introduce the Yezidis, a Kurdish tribe of little wealth and eccentric tastes.

Scholars believe that the Yezidis' strange and ancient religion is one of the last surviving offshoots of a faith even older then Judaism or Zoroastrianism, which it heavily influenced. Yezidism (alternative spellings: Yazidism or Ezidism) is an ancient religion that has existed amongst the Kurds of Kurdistan — taking in areas of Northern Iraq, Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, Iran and Syria. The Yezidi religion was, in the past, regarded as the main religion of the Kurds scattered across these various countries and areas.

Known as "the cult of the angels", this early Indo-European faith holds that there was only one God but that he created seven angels to serve him. Chief among these, for Yezidis, is the angel who disobeyed his maker: the fallen angel.

"They are devil worshippers," confides Yussuf Saleem, a Muslim restaurateur in Arbil in northern Iraq. "It's well known that they pray to Satan. Apart from that, they seem to be nice people."

So these people are REAL Devil worshipers. Not some Freemason in a frock behaving sadly in a forest. Oh No!

This is the genuine article. Now, little Christian, read on...

Allegations of devil worship have dogged the Yezidis for at least 1,000 years. While most of their fellow Kurds converted to Sunni Islam centuries ago, the Yezidis have preserved the essence of their ancient faith through wave after wave of religious persecution.

"Yezidism is a valid religion, and at the time when people were being forced to become Muslim, because we were near the mountains we were able to keep it," says Hashim Hassan, a resident of the small Yezidi capital, Shekhen.

Half an hour's drive north of Mosul, Shekhen stands where the last ripple of the Zagros Mountains meet the flat Mesopotamian plain. To this day, some Yezidi clans maintain secret caves in the mountains, stocked with supplies for when they are needed again. Many Yezidis were swept up in Saddam Hussein's anti-Kurdish crackdown of the 1980s, including the notorious Anfal massacres, in which 180,000 people are believed to have died.

The Yezidis' hereditary ruler, Emir Tasseen Sayid Ali Bak, bemoans the loss of more than 30,000 hectares of the tribe's best land in recent years, to Sunni Arabs transplanted from the south.

The emir says that most of the Arabs fled shortly after the beginning of the United States-led invasion, many taking refuge in nearby Mosul. He hopes that Shekhen will now be incorporated into the nearby Kurdish autonomous zone.

The emir is still recognised as the worldly leader of Yezidis living not only in the faith's Iraqi heartland but also in Turkey, Syria, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Russia. There are several thousand Yezidis in Germany, and a few in Australia.

The religion's holy city is Lalish, near the northern Iraqi city of Mossul and the ancient site of Nineveh.

It is believed that the Yezidi religion grew out of the ancient religion of Mithras, and over the centuries took on board and/or adapted concepts from Zoroastrianism/Zarathushtraism, Gnosticism, Christianity and Islam.

The Yezidis reject the widespread Iraqi belief that their faith lacks organisation, theology and scripture — that it is not a proper religion at all. The community maintains a strict caste system and three orders of priesthood, headed by the spiritual leader known as the Bab el-Sheik.

The present Bab el-Sheik, Kurto Haji Ismail, lives in Shekhen in an old house whose front doors are decorated with peacocks, symbol of Melek Taus, "The Peacock Angel".

"All the other religions - the Jews, the Muslims and the Christians - at the beginning they were all one religion," he says. "They are the sons of Abraham. We are older than Abraham. We came before."

The main reason for the persecution of Yezidism, he says, is confusion between its account of the creation and the very similar - but crucially different - Judaeo-Christian-Islamic one.

"God created the seven angels and he told them that they must worship no one else but him," the Bab el-Sheik explains.

"After that, to test the angels, God told them that they should pray to Adam, and all the angels obeyed the order but one. The Peacock Angel refused. He said to God, you told us not to pray to anyone but you. And because of that he passed the test, God forgave him and he became the greatest of the Angels... it is not true to say that the Peacock Angel broke the will of God. We say that the Peacock Angel passed the test of God, and is the good angel."

Isolation, religious and political opposition, plus their own claims and past reluctance to discuss their beliefs and rituals, have all led to the Yezidis being labelled as Satanic and Devil worshippers.

Active opposition to the Kurds, and especially the Yezidis, has led to the deaths of many. Forced Islamisation has also significantly affected Yezidi numbers. Complexities of their faith and popular fears have given rise to misrepresentation and further opposition.

The Yezidis generally believe that there is one God, who created seven angels to help him run the universe. The first, and apparently most beautiful angel, is equated with Lucifer, because he became a fallen angel.

Somehow he became known, and symbolised, as Malak Ta'us, the Peacock Angel. God, the Yezidis apparently believe, is no longer an active force, having lost interest in his creation and handing it over to Malak Ta'us - who many Yezidis believe, now rules the universe and must be worshipped and appeased to avert his wrath, otherwise he could kill them, destroy their homes and punish them.

Given that their home place is Iraq, I also hope for their own Satanic sakes that they also have a line into the Yanks, who have a habit of bringing down hellfire on even their closest friends...

Yezidis are forbidden to refer to Malak Ta'us as Shaytan (the Islamic term for Satan), even though he is clearly linked to Lucifer.

Many Yezidis believe they are directly descended from Adam only, while the rest of humanity are descendants of Eve, and therefore are inferior.

Sometimes, it appears, God, Adam, Lucifer, and even Gabriel end up as one conglomerate deity under the name Malak Ta'us.

Another central figure in Yezidi thinking and worship is Shaykh (Sheikh) Adi ibn Musafir, the founding figure and major Saint of 'modern' Yezidism, who probably lived in the 12th Century (though the Yezidis claim to have existed long before that). The Yezidis seem to have deified Shaykh Adi, with some regarding him as having equal power and authority to uMalak Ta'us.

An annual pilgrimage is made, in late August, to the temple believed to house the remains of Shaykh Adi in the Yezidi holy city of Lalish. The entrance to the temple is adorned with the relief image of a black snake, which is rubbed for good luck. This pilgrimage, with its various rituals, is probably the most important event in the Yezidi religious calendar. It includes ceremonial washing in the river; processions with music and singing; dances performed by the priests; the lighting of oil lamps at the conical roofed tombs of Shaykh Adi and other Yezidi Saints; special food offerings and feasts - including the slaying, cooking and eating of a sacred and sacrificed bull, and more. (I think this should be incorporated into the West Belfast Festival - it would keep the DUP away for sure...)

Doorways into the inner areas of Yezidi temples are generally small and low - so that the men (only) who go through them must 'bow down in humility' to enter the inner sanctum. Peacocks feature in decorations of walls, doorways and various items related to worship and rituals. So, Fr Ted fans, no Mrs Doyles here. The picture shows a male Mrs Doyle cleaning out the ould shrine. (Ah go on - a wee animal sacrifice - do ye no harm. Ah go on. ye will...)

Normal religious activities include daily prayers, at dawn and sunset, facing the sun. There are also daily temple activities led by white robed priests. Wednesday is the holy day of the week, while Saturday is a day of rest.

Yezidis allow proxy worshippers to perform rituals and prayers for others who are unable to attend activities at temples. Such proxy worshippers are usually paid for the various prayers to be uttered, and sins for which they may seek forgiveness on behalf of the person not able to attend.

There are no converts to the Yezidi faith - one can only be born into it. They also refuse to marry outside their faith community - in order to preserve the purity of their bloodlines and their faith.

The Yezidis practice infant baptism, and young boys are circumcised - though this is not compulsory.

For reasons lost in time and obscurity, Yezidis are forbidden to eat lettuce, wear dark blue clothing, pass water standing up, put on underclothes while seated, wash alone in the bath, as well as the aforementioned uttering of the name, Shaytan (Satan).

The Yezidi boys are also apparently very fond of footie. Given that they are already established in the Fatherland, the next time Champion's League comes around for my Bhoys, Bayern Munich might well be fielding a fully fledged Satanist in midfield to oppose the Pope's Eleven.

Now that the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein has been overthrown, will there be more freedom for the Yezidis, followers of the 'Peacock God'? Was this the real reason for Bush and Blair going into Iraq? (He's clearly lost it now - Ed.)

I remember an ex-staffer at An Phoblacht who cannot be named for Regal Reasons telling me in the early 1990s that Blair was a dead ringer for Sam Neil in the Omen and was - in all probability - the Devil himself. I thought at the time he had been spending far too much time on his own with economics books for a young bloke. However, an undoubted beneficiary of the conquest of Iraq - apart from Halliburton, Bechtel and the big oil companies, of course - are out of the closet Devil worshipers.

Those Yezidis still in Iraq now hope for greater freedom and no persecution, while those outside the country hope for greater freedom in being allowed to return and visit their sacred sites.

So here we have a belief system that is older than Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Are its claims preposterous? Of course!

All of the foregoing is, in the age of DNA and space travel, beyond the realm of reason. Such nonsensical beliefs are part of the human journey to where we are at the moment. Smart apes with nukes. However, we remain apes nonetheless.

The beliefs of the Yezidis are no more or less nonsensical that those of Catholics or Free Presbyterians on our own dysfunctional, religion ridden wee island.

By the time you are reading this, the shortest day might have come and gone and each new day will have five minutes more light in it. That is real. Celebrate that with you and yours - that the darkest, worst part of the year is over and we can all agree that we need more light.

See ye all next year, comrades.