YEZIDIS. The Yezidis or Devil-worshippers are a sect found chiefly in the Caucasus, Armenia, and Kurdistan, and having their headquarters in the province of Mosul, Mesopotamia. The origin of the name is obscure. It may be derived from Yazid or Yazd, a town in Iran. Among Christians in the villages near Mosul the name applied to the Yezidis is Daisanites or followers of Bardesanes. " According to the belief of the Yezidis, God, the creator of heaven and earth, first made from his own essence six other divinities, the sun, the moon, and the principal stars, and these joined with him in creating the angels. The devil, who was God's own creation, rebelled against his lord and was cast into hell. He afterward repented of his sin, did penance for seven thousand years, and shed tears of contrition which fill seven vessels that will be used at the Day of Judgment to quench the fires of the seven hells. God in his mercy pardoned the recreant, restored him to heavenly rank, made him one with himself. and forbade the angels to look with scorn upon their reinstated brother. Inasmuch as God's grace thus forgave and exalted even Satan him self, man should not look with hatred upon this so-called representative of evil. On this account the Yezldis never allow the name of Satan to pass their lips, avoiding even a syllable that suggests the word, and shrinking with horror from any mention of the devil by others " (A. V.
Williams Jackson, Persia Past and Present, 1906). The Yezidis are afraid to pour boiling water upon the earth lest they should scald the face of the little devils. They worship the sun, the moon, and the stars. They also pay divine honours to a metal cock called Thous. According to Williams Jackson, this is really a peacock conven tionalized so as almost to resemble a cock. But Lidz barski has suggested that Tfious is a corruption of Tamuz, the Babylonian deity. This lends support to Williams Jackson's statement that "the Yezidi religion shows distant survivals of the old Assyro-Babylonian worship of the sun, moon, and stars, for the faith appears to have retained the sun-god Shamash under the form of Sheikh Shems, and the moon-god Sin as Sheikh Sinn, an emanation of God himself." Alphonse Mingana contends that the Yezidi sacred books are spurious. See A. V. Williams Jackson, as cited above; Alphonse Mingana, " Devil-worshippers," in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, July, 1916.