SCTIW Review
Journal of the Society for Contemporary Thought and the Islamicate World
August 22, 2014
Garnik S. Asatrian and Victoria Arakelova, The Religion of the Peacock Angel: The Yezidis and
Their Spirit World, Acumen, 2014, 157 + x pp., $90.00 US (hbk), ISBN: 978-1844657612.
The Yezidis, a little-known Kurdish sect centered in northern Iraq and numbering some
half a million individuals throughout the Kurdish-inhabited regions, have been the subject of
several previous studies,1 but many basic questions about them remain unresolved. These
include the precise historical circumstances which gave rise to the tradition, its relationship
to ancient Iranian and non-Iranian sources, and even the etymology of the sect’s name.
The study of Yezidi beliefs and practices is problematic due to several factors. First, it is
an esoteric tradition practiced by an endogamous community that does not admit converts
and has a historical distrust of outsiders who have usually been hostile to them. Second, the
sources of their tradition are almost entirely oral, mainly in the form of hymns called qawls;
the two “sacred texts” attributed to the Yezidis, the so-called “Book of Revelation” (Kitēbā
ǰalwa) and “Black Book” (Mashafē Raš) are generally admitted to be modern forgeries, though
in the opinion of the authors they nevertheless “definitely reflect the genuine religious and
folk tradition” (viii). An additional challenge is that Yezidi beliefs and practices tend to
consist of many layers drawn from a wide range of sources, pre- and post-Islamic, Iranian
and Semitic, so that their origins and connections with other traditions are usually obscured.
Finally, there is no clearly identifiable “canon” of Yezidi religion that can be seen as
normative across the various Yezidi communities, among whom many variations can be
found.
Research on the Yezidi tradition thus requires a careful balance of ethnography,
linguistics, and comparative mythology. The authors of the work under review are uniquely
qualified to undertake this approach, having spent many years working together and
individually on various aspects of northwest Iranian languages and cultures and producing
many articles on the Yezidis and other Kurdish groups. To this they add a special familiarity
with the Yezidi community of their native Armenia, as well as knowledge of the Armenian
sources which relate in various ways to the Yezidi tradition. The authors are also able to
draw on materials in a wide range of ancient and modern Iranian languages and dialects. The
The most notable of these is Philip Kreyenbroek’s 1995 volume, Yezidism: Its Background, Observances and
Textual Tradition (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1995); other works include Birgül Açikyildiz, The Yezidis:
the History of a Community, Culture, and Religion (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010), Christine Allison, The Yezidi Oral
Tradition in Iraqi Kurdistan (London, Curzon Press, 2001), and Eszter Spät, Yezidis (London: Saqi Books, 2005).
1
2 result is a regrettably brief volume, but one packed with information and insights not readily
available elsewhere.
The book’s principal aim is to provide a systematic overview of the Yezidi pantheon,
sorting out the origins and functions of the various deities and the legends and rituals
associated with them. The Yezidi religion is, according to the authors, neither strictly
monotheistic (the Yezidis have often been simplistically and erroneously described as “devilworshippers”) nor polytheistic, but rather a complex and somewhat fluid system of key
figures whose identities are often mutli-layered and sometimes overlapping. As in
Gnosticism, the original Creator deity is remote and uninvolved in human affairs. The
Divine Essence is nevertheless perceptible in three major manifestations: as the “Peacock
Angel” (Malak Tāwūs), as Shaykh Adi (a twelfth century Sufi master who is considered the
founder of the Yezidi faith), and as Sultan Yezid, an obscure figure whose historical
connections (possibly with the Umayyad Caliph Yazid b. Mu’awiya), if any, remain
contested.
Within the Yezidi divine triad the Peacock Angel holds the supreme position, to the
extent that they are referred to as the milatē (tribe of) Malak Tāwūs. He bears some
association with the “fallen angel” of Sufism, Iblis, which is likely the source of historical
accusations that the Yezidis are devil-worshippers. The two texts mentioned above portray
the Peacock Angel as ruler of heaven and earth and dispenser of justice and reward, and also
as the principal teacher of the religion. He is assisted by seven angelic manifestations,
reflecting an old Iranian paradigm found in Zoroastrianism and in some later Sufi
cosmologies. As for the image of the peacock itself, though originally imported (the bird is
native to India) it has been present in western Asia as a symbol of ambivalence since ancient
times, representing both “exterior magnificence and the interior vices of pride and vanity”
(23). Despite its beauty, Zoroastrian texts categorize the peacock among the creation of
Ahriman. On the other hand, the Yezidi cult of the Peacock Angel shows some similarities
with that of Sraoša (symbolized by a cock) in Zoroastrianism.
One of the curious historical issues in the development of Yezidi religion is how the
tradition transformed its putative historical founder, Shaykh Adi (d. 1162), from an orthodox
Sunni Sufi teacher into an incarnation of the divine, a creator figure possessed of miraculous
powers. Although it is not uncommon among Sufi orders to attribute various superhuman
qualities to their masters, the Yezidi case takes them beyond the pale of what even the most
flexible interpretations of Islam can allow. It may be noted that the Kurds’ nomadic
Turkmen neighbours showed a similar tendency in the quasi-deification of Ali b. Abi Talib,
as seen among the Alevis, the Qizilbash, and others, and another irony of Yezidi folklore is
that the Sunni Shaykh Adi becomes posthumously endowed with a plethora of Shi‘ite
symbolic associations (41).
Regarding the mysterious figure of Yezid, the authors dismiss the commonly held notion
that this simply represents a corruption of the Persian term īzad (deity). Instead, they argue
that, counter-intuitive as it may seem, the reference is indeed connected to the Umayyad
Caliph of that name, cursed by Shi‘ites as the one who ordered the killing of Husayn at
Karbala in 680 CE. Not entirely convincingly, the authors suggest that the melding of the
historical Yezid with the eventual Yezidi deity resulted from an alliance between remnant
Umayyad supporters and followers of Shaykh Adi during the community’s formative period
(47). In this writer’s view the question is far from resolved by the authors’ proposed version
of events which seems no more likely than its alternates; it is perhaps equally possible that all
versions contain some elements of truth.
3 Part II of the book provides an overview of the remaining figures in the Yezidi pantheon
and the folklore and rites associated with them. Among these may be mentioned the thunder
god Māma-řašan, the wind god Šēxmūs, the solar deity Šēxšams and the lunar Farxadin, the
goddesses Pīrā-Fāt and Xatūnā-Farxā, and Šēx-Kirās, the “spirit of the garment,” apparently
related to the transmigration of souls. The cattle-lords Mamē-šivān and Gāvānē-Zarzān, the
phallic deity Milyāk’atē-qanǰ, and a number of other limited-function deities are also
discussed. There is a short chapter on symbolism drawn from nature and the cosmos, and a
brief concluding discussion on the Yezidis’ syncretism with reference to their specific
geographical and cultural environment.
Events of summer 2014 demonstrated just how dire is the need for more scholarship
about the Yezidis, with the worldwide media suddenly hungry for information in the wake of
the so-called Islamic State’s avowed attempt to exterminate them. The sudden emergence of
this hitherto obscure group into the global consciousness has opened the way to all kinds of
claims about them, many of which rest on shaky foundations. For example, they are being
regularly referred to as a “4,000-year-old sect,”2 a dating which has no basis and is quite
exaggerated. The existence of the Yezidis as a distinct group goes back no more than five or
six centuries; it would be more appropriate to speak of the great antiquity of many of the
ideas that found their way into the fascinating synthesis their tradition represents. Our own
recent work on the history of Iranian religions discusses the Yezidi system as a prime
example of how “Pool Theory”—that is, analyzing religious traditions in terms of how social
groups in diverse contexts variously draw upon the available “pool” of religious beliefs,
practices, and symbols when cobbling together particular local traditions—can be applied to
an analysis of religion amongst the Iranian peoples.3
All in all this book packs a lot of information into a relatively short work. The selection
of primary materials, in Kurdish and English translation, provides helpful illustrations of the
deities discussed. One might have hoped for more in the way of analysis and critical
engagement with other scholars in the field, but this can perhaps be found in the authors’
extensive bibliography of their own published articles on specific aspects of Yezidi religion.
In terms of the book’s stated aim to provide an overview of the Yezidi pantheon, it can be
considered a useful contribution to a field where much remains unclear. It will be of interest
to anyone concerned with the encounter of Iranian and Semitic ideas and practices in the
history of religions.
Richard Foltz
Professor and Director, Centre for Iranian Studies
Concordia University, Montréal
See, for example, Avi Asher-Schapiro, “Who Are the Yazidis, the Ancient, Persecuted Religious Minority
Struggling
to
Survive
in
Iraq?”
National
Geographic
News,
August
19,
2014
<http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140809-iraq-yazidis-minority-isil-religion-history/>.
3 Richard Foltz, Religions of Iran: From Prehistory to the Present (London: Oneworld, 2013); the “Pool Theory” is
discussed on pp. xii-xvi, and Kurdish religions in Chapter 16, pp. 218-27. See also the commentary by Eszter
Spät
on
the
University
of
Chicago
Divinity
School
webforum:
<https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/imce/pdfs/webforum/022014/Spaet%20response%20to%
20Foltz%20final%202.pdf>.
2
4 © 2014: Richard Foltz
Authors retain the rights to their review articles, which are published by SCTIW Review with their
permission. Any use of these materials other than educational must provide proper citation to the
author and SCTIW Review.
Citation Information
Foltz, Richard, Review of The Religion of the Peacock Angel: The Yezidis and Their Spirit World, SCTIW
Review, August 22, 2014. http://sctiw.org/sctiwreviewarchives/archives/212.