point, the various and varying testimony of both Mussulmans and Christians; and then, with all the facts and opinions before us, we shall be able to come to our conclusions.

a son of

Reports of the Mohammedans. They are accustomed to say that they are descendants of Yezid, the Moowiyan caliph, who unlawfully slew Hosein, descendant of the prophet and heir to the caliphate; for which act he has been regarded as a parricide, and held in horror by orthodox Mussulmans. It is, therefore, a sufficient curse to call one whom you hate, Yezid."* This story to be consistent must mean that these Mussulmans left their faith to adopt this new one which did not then exist. Haji Kalfa says that Sheikh Hadi was descended from one of the Merwanian kings, a Kurdish dynasty, which ended not till the eleventh century. He possibly might have meant from Merwan the last of the family of the Ommiades. The Sinjar, they say, was once full of Mussulmans. Some say they gave up their faith, vexed with Islam on account of the murder of Hosein. Others that certain Jezira chiefs, Kurds, having quarrelled in their own country, fled to the Sinjar, and induced the people to leave their faith for their own, which was like the present Yezidi faith.

The Sheikh Abd es Selani, Mufti, or Judge of Mardin, loaned me an Arabic MS. history of Mesopotamia of his own authorship. In this work, after speaking of the origin and history of the Kurds, and giving many extravagant fables as to their origin, he thus speaks of the Yezidies:

"There is a branch of the Kurds, who are called Yezidies. They first appeared in Syria in the days of the Ommiades, and the names of some of their tribes are the Khaledi, the Denbeli, Mahmudi, Dasini, Paspani, Keshaghi, called also Muvessan, Sherkiyan, Sinjari, etc. Thence they returned to their own country and originated their sect. They date themselves from the distinguished Sheikh Adi ben Mûsafir, who was descended from the Merawiyan caliphs. Among their notions, they hold as abominable the heaven-descended books and the divine laws, which they regard as designed for the government of the world; and therefore they hate the orthodox doctors of the law. They have a book called Jelû, which they pretend was written by Sheikh Adi, who was not guilty of it. And in it they are allowed the use of wine, and of adultery, in case of mutual agreement. They are forbidden prayers and fasting, and say that nothing else is necessary than purity of heart. They prohibit pilgrimage to Mecca. They

* Gibbon's Dec. and Fall, chap. 50. Ockley's Hist. of Sara

cens.

*

have sheikhs whom they call Fûgara, or poor, and it is said they are descended from Berkat ben Mûsafir, a brother of Sheikh Adi. It is lawful for these sheikhs to raise up children from other families, which the people permit and glory in. They describe the most high God with the attributes of eating, drinking, sleeping, etc. Their sect resembles much that of the Haluliye. They love the Christians, and are attached to some of their articles of belief, while they profess to be Mohammedans, and pronounce the creed of the one God and his Prophet. And this they think is lawful to keep off from them evil and war. So that when they meet with believers they say unto them, 'we believe,' but when they are alone with their Satans, they say, 'we are with you: verily, we were jesting.' They honor Sheikh Adi more than all the prophets. They possess most shocking narratives in contempt and ridicule of God and his prophet. And seeing how they degrade them between the hands of Adi, and prefer him to the rejection of both of them, according to their foolish stories and corrupt belief, may God be highly and greatly exalted above what these wicked blasphemers say! They honor Iblis more than all the angels. Whosoever speaks evil of him is by them treated as an infidel. They honor Yezid ben Moawiyah more than the prophets. They hate men of orthodox learning, and love dervishes and their saints and whatever bears any relation to the Sûfis or their monastic orders. And they will worship any place esteemed sacred, or any distinguished created being. The Yezidies are of four sects: some who honor Yezid more than Sheikh Hadi, and some who honor the latter more than the forThen a third, who suppose that Sheikh Adi is God. And the fourth, that he is created, but is the most noble of all the prophets, and suppose that he has the office of Vezir, and that the Deity does nothing without having consulted with him, and they call him the Sheikh Hadi (guide). And they pretend that Lalesh the place of his burial is instead of the Caaba. Lalesh is a village near Mosul, north of the Diglé, Tigris,-where is the tomb of Sheikh Adi. There is at Lalesh a fountain called Ain el Beidh, which with them is used instead of the waters of Zemzem. And in Lalesh is one of their wise men, who presents himself every year to whom he pleases, bearing with him the gold image of a calf. And he collects property from them, while whosoever does not honor him, and worship the calf, is treated by them as an infidel.

mer.

"In short, they have no sacred books and no religion, and they are all infidels of one mind. The Sultan has a right to their possessions and their blood, until they return from their fatal delusions: in accordance with the fetwas of Mohammed el Bergeli, the Kurd, and of others of the Ulema, who say, 'They are one of the sects of heretics from the religion of Islam. Of whom the prophet (on whom be peace) has signified in his word: The children of Israel were divided into seventy-two sects; but mine shall be divided into seventy-three sects, all of whom except one are reserved for fire.'"

*

A sect of Mohammedans who made forbidden practices al

lowable.

This extract from the credulous and bigoted Mufti's manuscript accords nearly with our own facts, although many are not worthy of belief, and their practices, of Christian origin, are explained as they would be understood by a Mussulman. The various spelling of the sheikh's name exists in all manuscripts.

Reports of the Christians. All the Christians of that country pretend that the Yezidies were once Christians, and the Syrian Jacobites and Nestorians claim them as having belonged peculiarly to their several churches. One of the fables narrated to me by a bishop, and from which truth may be elicited, is the following. There were two convents near to each other in the Sinjar, containing, the one forty monks and the other forty nuns. The patriarch was called to reside for a long period at Jerusalem. During his absence a letter, apparently under his own hand and seal, came to the convents, enjoining the monks and nuns to intermarry, which they did. The patriarch, on his return, proved that the letter was not his, and they were convinced of the same, and were persuaded that they had been betrayed into this conduct by the machinations of Satan. From that time they have been so fearful of the designs of Satan, that they tremble to pronounce his name. All the ecclesiastics, the Fugara and the Kowwal, are said to be descended from these unlawful marriages.

The testimony of another bishop was, that hundreds of years since, the three mountains, Tor, Athur and Sinjar were full of convents, with hundreds of monks, as was indeed the case. Tor mountain is still inhabited by Jacobites. The Athur spoken of in Gen. 10: 11, is still shown near Mosul, and history informs us with regard to Sinjar or Singara. The ruins of churches in the Sinjar still have attached to them the names of Scripture or other saints. Now, in documents still existing, he said, in the patriarchal convent near Mardin, are records of the quantity of grain sent, according to the present custom of the churches, from the Christians then existing in Sinjar, to the convents of Tor. The Christians even deny that they ever were Mussulmans, and say that they circumcise themselves only from fear, and that the Fugara priests do not suffer it, when they can help it, for their own order. They know that they adopt Mussulman names also only on the same pretence. The Nestorians say that the respect shown to their ancient patriarch, El Kosh, by no small

* Williams's Dict. Rel.

portion of the Yezidies, is evidence that they had in former times an intimate relation with them.* The people regard them also as destitute of a positive, uniform system of religion, who with very little exertion might be brought to a pure faith.

Reports of the Yezidies. As Gibbon remarks with regard to the Sabians, or Christians of St. John, so we may say in reference to the Yezidies," that it is a slippery task to ascertain the creed of an ignorant people, afraid and ashamed to disclose their secret traditions." There can be no doubt that they are in the habit of claiming for their founders or chief men, that they are descended from the royal family of Ommiades, of which Yezid was one. The regard they show to Christians is not an affectation to gain their favor. Although Niebuhr says, that "they make themselves of the opinion of whatever sect asks them of their religion, but that if fairly convicted of being Yezidies, they will say they are orthodox Mussulmans," it is no less true that no one is deceived by it. Christians and Mussulmans both know the facts, and both regard the latter profession as the hypocritical one. They never, however, call themselves by the name of Yezidies. They regard it at present, whatever may have been its origin, as an epithet of reproach. They but imitate all the pagans of the empire in taking Mohammedan names. As a people they take their names from those of ancient tribes, and from the places where they originated, or are at present found. They admit that they do not all sympathize with each other, or have the same ceremonies. They are obliged to exercise secrecy, because as they cannot pretend that their religion is founded on any of the four sacred books, Mussulmans, from their creed, would be obliged to kill them. One man, who had been much with them, told me that their private name for Mussulmans is Hoseini. Their own name, which happened to have a similarity of sound with that of the caliph Yezid, may be derived from Yezed, meaning, the good God, as the Guebres still use it, for the good principle; or it may be derived from Yezd, which is now the head-quarters, and always has been the chief holy city of the Guebres, or Parsees,-fire-worshippers. We may well sup> pose even that there is an affinity between the name of the city

* J. S. Assemani, Bib. Or. Vat, Vol. III, p. 415. Vol. II. p. 264, † Niebuhr, Voyage dans L. Arabie, Vol. II. 279.

Sherif ed Din Aly, Hist. Timur Bec. Tom, III, p, 81,

and their name for God. It is found also in the compound name of some of the kings of Persia, as Yezdigird (Isdegerdes).*

Results. After a careful survey of the facts here presented, the summary of our conclusions would be, that the Yezidies are a corrupt remnant of the sect of Mani,-Manes, and might be called Manicheans. We regard them as being of the original races who inhabited Assyria, and though largely intermixed with other people, as of the same descent as the clans whom we now call Kurds. Previous to the introduction of Christianity, they were all either worshippers of the sun or of fire. Then, Christianity being introduced made greater progress here than in any part of the Persian empire, and after three hundred years began to be assisted by the arms of the Christian Greek emperors of Constantinople. The Persian emperors having repulsed the Romans, at the instigation of the Magian priests, commenced intolerable persecutions against a spreading population of Christians intermingled with their own sect. At this time the religion of Mani had begun to make much progress, and bishops and people, adopting their views, obtained temporary protection from the fire-worshippers. When the Arab Mussulmans began to overrun Persia, the sword or the Koran being the choice of these idolators, they outwardly embraced Islamism, being protected by mountains from fierce or continual persecution. Since the period of the Saracenic conquests, their mountains have been at times the refuge of various people, as of Arab and Kurdish Mussulmans, whose descendants adopted the religion of those whose country they were inhabiting.

These conclusions may be confirmed and illustrated from well known historical facts. We have already attempted to show that we must regard the Yezidies as of the same race with the Kurds; while we know that the name, Kurd, has been gradually extended so as to cover nearly all those people whom in history we have known by the varying names of Assyrians, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Cardychians, and apostate Jews-all, that is, who are neither Mohammedan, Christian, or Jew. The religion of the court of Persia and of the majority of the people up to the time of the battle of Kadesia, A. D. 636, was that of the Magians following Zoroaster. Christianity, in its churches and bishops, had become an object of persecution with them, as early as the first century. In the persecution of Shapor,

D'Herbelot, Biblioth. Orien. in loc.