WORSHIP OF SATAN

Waipa Post, Volume 52, Issue 3705, 10 January 1936, Page 11

WORSHIP OF SATAN

STRANGE IRAQ SECT.

BLACK SNAKE DEITY. The Yezidis, or Devil-worshippers, who have been bombed by the Iraqi Air Force, are a harmless sect living in the desert on the frontier between Iraq and Syria, writes the Bagdad correspondent of a London contemporary. They have been attacked by troops from Bagdad and bombed from the air for refusal to register for national service in the Arab army, and, being to all intents and purposes defenceless, have been obliged to yield. They are a strange and dwindling sect, worshipping Satan—or rather propitiating him on the grounds that as a malevolent being he can do them most harm in the life to come, whereas God, being benevolent, does not need to be propitiated. TWO PROPHETS. Their two principal prophets are the sacred Peacock and Jesus, and they also venerate a deity in the form of a black snake. Their principal shrines, to the north of the town of Mosul, are all “ adorned ” with this snake. There are in existence about half-a-dozen sacred peacocks, some of which are peripatetic and constitute to their custodians an important source of income as they travel round the country. The Yezidis believe that the reign of Satan has still several thousands of years yet to run, and so there is keen competition and intense intrigue to secure the possession of one of these lucrative itinerant peacocks. The result is that the Yezidis are divided between the supporters of various rival Emirs —the Yezidis have no Shaikhs, for their fear cf the Devil (in Arabic “ Shaitan ”) is such that they will pronounce no words beginning with the sound “ sh.” Nor do they believe in education, and living as they do in the remote desert they pre unlikely ever to play even a small part in the development of Iraq.

The new national defence law is designed to establish national service; the Yezidis have resisted it as being a racial and religious minority who merely wish to be left alone.